SECRET OF THE WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1922, Page 5

SECRET OF THE WAR.

HAIG AND THE FRENCH. MORE REVELATIONS. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright London, Nov. 29. Two volumes entitled ‘’Sir Douglas Haig,” by Mr. G. A. B. Dewar, editor of the Nineteenth Century and Lieut.Colonel John H. Boraston, have been given wide attention by the London Press. Colonel Repington. in the Daily Telegraph, points out the frankly controversial character of the work. Mr. Dewar lays about him with a whip •composed of barbed wire and scorpions and does not let anyone off, least of all Mr. Lloyd George. Colonel Repington summarises the many questions dealing with the political errors of war-time statesmen, which the pablic should expect Mr. Lloyd George to answer on the first passible occasion. . Thus: Why the War Cabinet, early in 1917, accepted General Nivelle’s crack-brained plan of campaign and subordinated Sir Douglas Haig to Genera] Nivelle? Is it a fact that the French prediction of the German attack in March, 1917, was wrong as to place, date and time? On the other hand, was British headquarters correct? Did the War Cabinet send Sir Douglas Haig a warning and discouraging telegram in August. 1918, after he, and not Marshal Foch. had planned the final offensive in which the Australasian troops figured in the Somme area, and which Ludendorff admitted was Germany’s day of doom? Were Sir Douglas Haig’s references to the shortage of men deleted from his dispatches, even after the war, in order to shield the War Cabinet from criticism? Colonel Repington likewise controvert’s Colonel Boraston’s vigorous attack on the French command because the French “at no time were able to make good the full responsibility they assumed during the German offensive of March. 1918.” Mr. Sidebotham, in the Daily Chronicle, says Mr. Dewar points out that the actual plans of the. final victories of the war were not Marshal Foch’s, but British. After the victory of August 8 Foch wanted Haig to attack Roye. but Haig insisted in attacking further north and the brilliant British victory at Bapaume followed. There were other instances in which the British were right and the French wrong. It is useful to have some corrective to the disparagement of the British army, of which many French writers are guilty, hut it is not the right way to correct it by running dowh the work of the French. Mr. Sidebotham also justifies the Mar Cabinet’s telegram to Sir Douglas Haig, declaring that the victories between August and November were almost as costly as the defeats between March and June, 1918.