MEDDLING AND MUDDLING.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 April 1918, Page 6

MEDDLING AND MUDDLING.

"By the time the war is ended parliamentary meddlers and muddlers irill have:thrown away a million lives" Uuch is the conclusion forced upon the able contributor of .•Passing Notes" to the "Otago WitUiess," a conclusion based upon a striking story, apparently accurate and authentic, which appeared recently in "Collier's Weekly." The story is one of plain unvarnished fact, and may he taken as a convincing reply to the oft-uttered query: Why did vte not win the war in 1917? On the 15th January, that year, at an Allied Council held in London, a grand offensive asainst the Germans was time-tablea. for; April. The British led off in April 6th, taking Vimy Ridge according to plan. A few days later the French followed suit with equal success, nut ny nightfall on the 16th the French armies were no longer under military control, but in a domain purely political. What had happened to cause the momentous change is described by the -writer in "Collier's," Mr. Wythe Williams, the Paris correspondent of the New York Times. "On the morning of April 17th," he says, "were gathered in the village of Savigny over a dozen members of the French Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, Whether General Micheler, who commanded the armies of the reserves allowed them there or whether they came on their own invitation and insisted on remaining on their own authority, I do not know. But I do know that by nightfall, as a result of what they saw for the first time in their lives—a real tattle of blood and steel—they were alliin a mad panic. Throughout the day they had frantically telephoned the Government in Paris that the French armies were being slaughtered, and demanded that the offensive 4ust under way be stopped—and stopped it was. But at this point entered the British Government, -whose Intelligence Department in Paris is unusually efficient. On April 18th came a telegram from Lloyd George to Sir Douglas Haig demanding the reason why the French Government desired to discontinue the offensive, and asking Haig's personal opinion on the matter. Haig replied the following day in a letter that is a masterpiece of logical argument, He urged against the offensive being discontinue d or interfered with. ■ . . . j He closed with a strong appeal that ( the offensive continue unchecked, as vietory was in sight, and the German line would be finally smashed." In consequence of Sir Douglas Haig's strong representations, in which Jhe correctly forecasted many of the misfortunes - that have since befallen the j Allies, the British Government not ■only made energetic remonstrances, lut sent to Paris a delegation—Lloyd George, Lord Robert Cecil, Admiral Jellicoe, and Sir "William Robertson. The French Government gave a promise and then went back on that pro- i mise, and finally stopped the offensive on April 29th. "It is now a matter of definite knowledge,' 5 writes Mr Williams, "that on that day the German general army order was- to prepare immediately for a quick retreat to the line of the Meuse; three German army commanders had been ordered to Berlin; the end of the German invasion of France was at hand." A few days earlier the Berlin press 3iad shown signs of panic, but -when ! the Paris papers of April 18th reached Berlin the Germans, discovering to their amazement that the same sort of panic existed in France, quickly changed their tune. And so the war was protracted, the probability of a speedy victory for the Allies totally nullified, and the needless sacrifice of many thousands of human lives, all through political interferences and influence. "Meddling and muddling," indeed, and meddling and muddling, whieh, but for the subsequent determination, valour, and endurance of IjCktb the British and French troops, might have had consequences even more disastrous.