WAR SECRETS.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 December 1921, Page 5

WAR SECRETS.

WORK OF KITCHENER. REMARKABLE FORECAST. PERILS OF GALLIPOLI. By Telegraph.—Press Assn,—Copyright. Received Dec. 30, 9.15 a.m. London, Dec. 29. Mr. H. H. Asquith contributes a further instalment in appreciation of Lord Kitchener to Pearson’s Magazine. It includes a remarkable forecast of the course of the war. Mr. Asquith says: “In January, 1916, I asked Kitchener if he could give for myself alone his forecast of the future of the war, and I jotted down, an outline, which reads: “January 4: We must begin our French push not later than April. While it goes on in April and May the Russians will hold the Germans in the east. When we are making way in June the Russians will begin a great offensive. The Germans in August will ask our peace terms, which we will reject as impossible. The Germans, in September and October, will be pushed in on both sides, and November will see peace on our terms.” Mr. Asquith continues: “This was falsified by events, but I venture to think it shows remarkable military prescience.. In view of Brussiloff’s offensive in June, ’Ad the Allies’ campaign on the Somme in December, the Gefmans made overtures for peace.” Replying to Lord Esher’s references to the evacuation of the Dardanelles, Mr. Asquith says: “The double evacuation carried out on Lord Kitchener’s advice was one of the most skilful and most successful operations of the war. The only occasion on which I ever saw signs of his, even for a moment, giving way was when we considered the evacuation of the Dardanelles. He told me he hardly slept the night before, as he imagined he saw boatload after Hat-load of our gallant soldiers sunk no their way to the ships by Turkish gunfire. This was remarkable, as he never countenanced pessimistic forecasts put forward by high authorities of the enormous losses the evacuation would cause.”

Mr. Asquith adds: “I always believed that if Kitchener had arrived in Petrograd early in June the whole course of history might have been changed. When he said good-bye during the evening Lord Kitchener was in the highest spirits, and described with gusto and humor some friendly passages-at-arms with hecklers in the House of Commons. He left the room gay, elastic, alert and sanguine—the strongest contrast conceivable to the bewildered, buffeted.' senile figure of Lord Esher’s imaginings.”—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.