FRENCH’S BOOK

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10286, 22 May 1919, Page 5

FRENCH’S BOOK

CRITICISM 01= KITCHENER CONTINUED EXPLANATION OF EARLY CRITICAL POSITION IN THE NORTH. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright Australian and N.Z. Cable Association. (Received May 21, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, May 13. Lord French, in the “Daily Telegraph,” has further criticisms of Lord Kitchener in connection with Lord French’s efforts to effect a speedy move north when the fall of Antwerp was imminent. He says : —“Lord Kitchener did not make things easy for me. He was keenly desirous to influence the course of operations. His telegrams quickly followed one another, cadi containing directions regarding the local situation, of wli|icii ho could know little. For instance, ho told me he was communicating with General Joffre and tho French Government. 1 was unaware of what was passing between them. At tho same time he was urging me to make wha t I kuew'_ to be impracticable suggestions to -Joffre. 1 must repudiate any responsibility for what happened in the north in^ the first tun days of October. Lord Kitchener explicitly told mq that the British were not under niy command, ‘and will not for the present be considered part of your force.’ ” “I certainly would have made dlffesont dispositions ■qf 'these troops,” says Lord French, “and -regret that. I must record my deliberate opinion that the best which could have been, done throughout the critical situation was not done owing entirely to Lord Kitchener’s endeavour to unite in himself tho distinct roles of Cabinet Minister and Colufflaudor-in-Chief.” Lord French quotes a telegram wherein he even, demanded to know whether General Rawlinson regarded himself as under his order.

Lord French proceeds:—“When Antwerp was threatened, Lord Kitchener, not known to me, arranged for General Joffro to send one of two French territorial divisions to act with the marines. It is perfectly clear that the operations for tho relief of Antwerp, which should never have been directed from London, actually had no influence on the fate of Antwerp, which could equally as well have been protected by the Belgian retreat from safer and more effective directions, and might have saved Lille, by landing, on October 10th, 1914, at Calais or Boulogne, deploying six or seven days later in tho valley of the Lys, and might also have saved Ostend, and oven Zcebrugge.”