Gallipoli Failure

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 839, 6 December 1929, Page 9

Gallipoli Failure

DUE TO WAR AT WHITEHALL

Lloyd George’s Revelation

NO CO-ORDINATION AMONG SERVICES

United I*.A.—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, Wednesday. IN the House of Commons Mr. E. L. Burgin, who is Liberal member for Luton, moved a motion calling on the Government to stimulate international action for a comprehensive reduction of armaments. He expressed the opinion that the country’s defences ought to be co-ordinated.

Mr. Lloyd George said he always strongly favoured the co-ordination of defence. No Government had ever sat down to consider the problem of defence as a whole.

“How much we suffered in the Great War,” said Mr. Lloyd George, “because not merely was a war taking place in Flanders and Gallipoli, but a departmental war was going on at Whitehall. That was far and away the greatest problem with which we had to deal.

“It would have been far better from the point of view of efficiency if we had one man in charge instead of the Admiralty and the War Office grabbing for men, even grabbing in strategy. There is no doubt that when the whole story of the Dardanelles is told, it will be found that our failure was largely due to lack of co-ordina-tion. Without blaming anyone in particular, it was pre-eminently a strategical problem, and only to he solved by perfect harmony and coordination between tile forces.

“We could have a far more efficient defensive force at less cost if there were less jealousy among the departments which are fighting each oher. It is something inconceivable that each department should be milking the Treasury, which is fatal from the point of view of economy. “President Hoover, the first official of a great nation, has had the courage to remind us that men under arms throughout the world, including active reserves, are now 10,000,000 above the pre-war total. There are far more powerful weapons of destruction in the world now than before the war.” LEAGUE MARKING TIME Mr. Lloyd George asked what the Government was going to do to force the League Disarmament Commission

to deal with disarmament. The commission had done absolutely nothing. It was a farce at present. The Government, hacked by President Hoover, had power to insist on something being done. “I feel deeply on the subject, as one who had a good deal to do with the manufacture of arms, and who signed the disarmament obligations and the Peace Treaty, which all the Allies have trampled on. You are not going to get peace with millions of armed men. The chariot of peace cannot advance along a road littered with cannon. Y’ou must break up the machinery of hatred, and convert it to the mechanism of peace and progress.” Sir Samuel Hoare, former Air Minister, said Britain had greatly reduced her fighting forces. WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE Mr. Lloyd George: I am glad of the opportunity of admitting that Britain has done more than any other country in this direction. Sir Samuel said the limitations of the air forces should be limited to those used for aggressive purposes. If the question of air armaments were kept separate, they might at first seek an agreement for British, French and Italian parity. Mr. A. V. Alexander, First Lord of the Admiralty, replying to the debate, maintained that no Government had done more to stimulate international feeling on disarmament than the Labour Government. The sacrifice of armaments by one country alone would not solve the problem. The solution would be found when all nations co-operated to reduce armaments to the minimum required to maintain peace.

The motion was agreed to unanimously.