French aid to British after 21 March 1918 PART 2

   This PART 2 lists briefly the significant events leading up to the Michael offensive and then expands major events of the battle.

• 31 July 1917 to 7 December 1917  3^rd Battle of Ypres.

Result.  The idea of breaking through to the coast at Ostend, 25 miles away, to capture German submarine and destroyer bases, was never remotely possible.  The total gain was 5.2 miles in 130 days.  The total casualties were 373,000.

   The Cabinet, appalled by the losses on the Somme, had only given permission for the Ypres offensive when Haig promised to stop it if there was no early success (Ref. 3).  Of course, with a man of his temperament, he was never going to concede that any attack he made was not a success!  The promise was therefore a trap which the Ministers failed to see, though probably not a deliberate one.

   When the results of the offensive were known, not believing Haig’s claim to have inflicted larger losses on the enemy and worn down their reserves (they had been able to secure the Caporetto success (see below) and mount the Cambrai counter-attack (see below)), Prime Minister Lloyd George would not provide the drafts for which Haig applied, lest they be used for another costly offensive.  Haig did indeed plan a further offensive until eventually he realised that the Germans were going to attack him (Ref. 2).

• 8 October 1917  Haig’s agreement with Pétain to extend British front line to Barisis (Ref. 3).

Comment.  The French had been pressing for the British to take over more than their current 100 miles. This would be a 25 mile extension to just beyond the R. Oise.  When Georges Clemenceau was appointed French Prime Minister on 15 November 1917, (superseding Painlevé), he was not satisfied and wished the British to add another 30 miles.  The SWC (see below) proposed a compromise of plus 15 miles.  Haig threatened to resign if this was ordered.  Finally, on 2 February 1918 the SWC accepted the original Haig-Pétain extension agreement and this took place.  The French had considered this a quiet zone and had not made much effort to entrench it.  Therefore the occupying 5^th Army had much work to do, not all done by 21 March 1918.

• 24 October 1917 to 19 November 1917  Battle of Caporetto.

Result.  Shattering German + Austrian defeat of Italians.  Gain of 70 miles East of Venice and 270,000 POW taken.

• 4 to 7 November 1917  Conference at Rapallo of British (Lloyd George), French (Painlevé) and Italian (Orlando) statesmen as a consequence of Caporetto (Ref.3).

Result.  Formation of a political Supreme War Council (SWC) with permanent Military Representatives based at Versailles.

• 7 November 1917 (Old Russian dating style October 25).  Lenin’s Bolsheviks seized control of the Russian government.  They displaced the Socialists who had made the original Revolution in March (February old style).  Germany had caused that Revolution by inflicting a series of smashing defeats on the Russian army without ever attempting a deep penetration into the country (avoiding the mistakes of Charles XII of Sweden and Napoleon).  The Bolshevik takeover was directly assisted by Germany by providing Lenin with a pass and a train from exile in Switzerland to a ship to Sweden and thence via Finland to Petrograd.

Result.  Russia immediately ceased fighting Germany.  Actually, the Eastern situation was already such that the Germans had begun to transfer forces to the West in August 1917.  See the chart below.  (37^th month = August 1917).  Only men under 35 were transferred (Ref. 10).

   The Bolsheviks were eventually forced to sign the Treaty of Brest Litovsk on 3 March 1918 which imposed exceptionally harsh terms.  This Treaty showed clearly what the Western allies would have faced if they had been defeated by the new German attacks.

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• August 1917 – March 1918  The German build-up in the West.

   The Allies were well-informed about the transfer of troops, guns and supplies from the East. All the railway lines ran through occupied Belgium and Northern France with many friendly eyes to observe and report via neutral Holland what the trains were carrying.  The Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) provided them with drawings showing what particular assemblies of wagons/coaches carried what type of unit.  There were casualties to these brave people (Ref. 11).

• 19 November 1917 to 7 December 1917:  Battle of Cambrai. 

Result.  Complete breakthrough of Siegfried Stellung (British called it the “Hindenburg Line”).  Massed tanks on good going, without preliminary bombardment, gained 5.4 miles on 1st day.  Without infantry reserves, used up at Ypres, the advance got no further.  From 3 March a German counter-attack, using novel infiltration tactics, regained much of lost ground.  A GHQ inquiry blamed the troops and missed the new tactics.

• 29 January 1918:  Wilson’s war game at Versailles (Ref. 6).  General Henry Wilson was the British soldier in the SWC set-up at Versailles.  He organised this game to demonstrate the need for a General Reserve on the Western front.  Sources differ as to whether the outcome was or was not a correct prediction about time and place of the first German attack.

Result. Haig (‘tho present), ostentatiously disregarded its advice in any case (Ref. 6).  The need for a General Reserve was accepted by the SWC

• 6 February 1918  Supreme War Council Military Representatives specify General Reserve.

Comment.  The growing German reinforcement of the Western front and Wilson’s war game had led the SWC to the plan to assemble a General Reserve able to aid any place where this extra strength might attack.  The Military Representatives made this specific as 30 divisions of infantry (the signatories of the document were:-  Foch for France; Wilson for Britain, shortly to supersede Robertson as Chief of the Imperial General Staff; Bliss for the USA and Cadorna for Italy).  The intent was to include :-  10 British; 13 French and 7 Italian divisions (Ref.3).  Had it been formed, General Ferdinand Foch would have commanded it.

   Of the three armies the French was best placed to provide the troops.  After the failure of the Nivelle offensive by 9 May 1917 there was an outbreak of widespread mutiny in the French army.  This was suppressed by Petain (newly appointed as C-in-C) but only limited operations of attack and defence were carried out for the rest of 1917.  The general French policy was to wait until US troops arrived in France in force, which could not be until mid-1918.  Therefore, in February 1918 Pétain had 36 divisions in reserve, well-rested.  Haig’s men were at a low ebb after being put through the mill at Ypres.  The Italians had scarcely recovered from Caporetto.

   By the end of 1917 all 3 armies had cut the infantry in their divisions from 12 Battalions to 9, but, except for some ossified minds which only counted rifles, the addition during the war in support by vast numbers of Lewis light and Vickers heavy machine guns and portable Stoke’s mortars, plus tanks plus an enormous mass of artillery up to 12’’ calibre, to say nothing of the air squadrons, much more than made up the fighting power.

Result.   In various ways both Haig and Pétain (who had the support of Clemenceau) managed to scupper the General Reserve plan.  IT WAS NOT FORMED. Neither gave up control of any of their divisions.  The proposed command by Foch was a factor in the resistance.  He was then generally regarded as “past it”.  It was his pre-war insistence on attacking tactics which had led to the enormous French losses in the 1914 battle of the frontiers (in which both his son and son-in-law died).  He was unsuccessful in 1915 offensives.  As a devout Catholic, he was disliked by the anti-clerical Clemenceau.  At one Allied meeting at this time, when he voiced an unwelcome opinion, he was abruptly told by the French Prime Minister “Taisez vous” (“Shut up”) (Ref.3).

• 22 February 1918  Haig and Pétain plan for mutual support in case of attack (Ref.1).

If the Germans attacked the British front and Haig applied for help, Pétain was to supply 6 divisions by the 4^th day.  A similar reinforcement to the French would apply if Pétain asked for it.  These movements were allegedly worked out in complete detail.

Comment.  When Winston Churchill (then Minister for Munitions) visited Haig on 19 March 1918 he tried to persuade Haig to accept the General Reserve plan, with its obvious advantage if the British were attacked first, as seemed particularly likely.  Haig obstinately said he preferred his agreement with Pétain (Ref. 4).

• Pre-21 March 1918  Ref. 3 asserts that on the date of the German attack there were 88,000 men on leave from the BEF in France.  It appears that all these men were on “recreational” leave, not convalescent leave, because Ref. 10 states that they were recalled after the attack began. The figure is a grave charge against Haig, who complained constantly of lack of drafts, in allowing leave when there was the certainty of an attack in March.

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• Pre-21 March 1918 British dispositions (Refs. 3 and 5).

Army	Front Miles	Total Divisions including Reserves	Mileage per Division	Guns	Guns
				in Brigades	Very Heavy Batteries
2nd	23	14	1.64	34	25
1st	33	16	2.06	29	15
3rd	27	15	1.80	Not given	Not given
5th	42	14 + 3 Cavalry (1/3rd of Infantry strength)
		Equivalent 15	2.80	46	15

Comment.  The 5^th Army, who had just taken over a weakly entrenched 25 miles, was therefore expected to hold their front with a Divisional density only 64% of the neighbouring 3^rd.  Gough was apparently told by Haig he could if pressed withdraw to the line of the Somme provided that the bridgehead at Peronne was held (Ref. 10).    It is stated in Ref.7 that the British were still keeping 2/3rds of their men within range of much of the enemy artillery.  This was contrasted with the latest policy of the Germans in defence keeping 2/3rds out of range of the attacking guns.

Thursday 21March 1918.  Start of Michael Offensive; Zero Hour 4.40AM.

   The forces engaged initially were (Ref. 5):-

British	German
Divisions	Divisions
	1st Wave	2nd Wave	3rd Wave	Total
3rd Army
Front 10	15	8	8	31
Reserve 5
5th Army
Front 11	22	12	8	42
Reserve 4 (Equivalent)
Totals
21 + 9 = 30	37	20	16	73

   After a 5 hours “hurricane” bombardment by 4,000 field and 2600 heavy guns plus 3,500 mortars (Ref. 12), with much gas, specially-trained stosstruppen, armed with new automatic rifles, light MGs, light mortars and flame-throwers, began to infiltrate the 5^th Army defences.  They were much aided by a thick fog which baffled the machine gun fire of the redoubts (which by now had replaced the old trench lines).  Presumably there was insufficient ammunition to permit steady fire on fixed lines.  The 3^rd Army repulsed the attack over half its front but gave ground on the Northern half.   Follow-up waves, which had moved forward at the same time as the leading troops, used conventional tactics (there were a few own-design plus captured British tanks) and took heavy casualties while mopping-up the by-passed defences.  However, the infiltrators were meanwhile gaining ground up to and beyond the British gun lines.

[From here this note concentrates on the misfortunes of the 5^th Army, since it was that area of operations which received the French aid.  Ref.14 alleges that retreats by the 3^rd Army forced otherwise un-necessary retreats by the 5^th.  This point is not considered here.]

Result.  The attack on the 5^th Army had gained 3.4 miles by nightfall, had taken 7,000 POW (Ref. 1) and over-run many guns.  It was the second worst day of the British army in the war (the 1^st day of the Somme being the worst) (Ref. 13).

   Haig, not knowing the facts, was pleased that the Germans had attacked and so provided the opportunity to inflict heavy losses on them (letters to his wife).  But the troops had not been trained in the tactics of withdrawal and they suffered because of that*.

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*The artillery did have a doctrine for retreat if an enemy infantry attack was nearing a gun line.  One weapon in a battery was designated the “Sacrifice gun” to remain in position to fire point-blank to gain time to allow the other guns to be hauled back (personal advice from the son of a WW1 gunner).  This implied that the isolated gun crew would also sacrifice their lives, because attacking troops would not give quarter to those who fired up to the last moment.  Some crews may not have been prepared to do that.

Friday 22 March 1918  Day 2

   At 2 AM British GHQ phoned the French to ask them to begin the Haig-Petain reinforcement plan (Ref.1).  Fig.2 in PART 1 shows how Pétain responded more generously than that on this and subsequent days.  This also included help in the air, needed because the Germans had achieved a local air superiority of nearly 1,100 aircraft to under 600 (Ref. 7).

Result.  This day the Germans increased their gain to 4.7 miles.  They had now taken around 500 guns (Ref. 12).  Haig was still unconcerned, apparently because he was not taking in the reports available at GHQ.

Saturday 23rd March 1918 Day 3.  The Germans reach the River Somme at Bethencourt* in the evening.

   This was an advance totalling 13.4 miles since the start of the attack.

Result. During the day Haig at last realised the seriousness of the situation.  He arranged to meet Pétain at a new advanced HQ at Dury (about 3 miles South of Amiens) at 4 PM (Ref. 10).  Having been told of the help already being sent, he asked for 20 more divisions to be placed near Amiens but Pétain could not provide this.  He was being influenced by a German deception campaign, including sophisticated false radio traffic, that an attack would be launched in Champagne on 26^th March (Ref. 1).

   A very significant decision was taken by the two C-in-Cs at this meeting, that Pétain would take over 5^th Army troops still South and East of Peronne at 23.00 on the following day, 24^th.  They were to be part of a new “Groupe des Armèes de Rèserve” (GAR) under General Fayolle with the French 3^rd (reinforcing the British) and 1^st armies,

*Bethencourt had been important in British history in 1415 as one of the two causeways by which Henry V’s army had crossed the Somme Northwards in his retreat to Calais on 19 October 1415, 6 days before the battle of Agincourt.

Evening 23 March 1918.  The British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, asks Viscount Milner (a Member without Portfolio in his War Cabinet and one of his most trusted advisers), to go over to France to discover the situation.

 Sunday 24 March 1918.  Day 4. The Germans cross the Somme on the 5^th Army front (which comes under Fayolle in the evening) and gain 6 miles against the 3^rd Army.

  Milner arrives at Boulogne at 18.30, is picked up by Leo Amery (a liaison from the Cabinet to the Versailles group which reported to the SWC).  He is driven to GHQ at Montreuil but Haig is away visiting his army COs, so is taken on to Versailles to meet Rawlinson (who had taken over from Wilson as the British member of the Versailles military group when the former was appointed CIGS on 19 February).  Rawlinson was not able to tell him much.

Evening 24 March 1918.  Wilson sets off for France after GHQ request.

Night 24 March 1918.  Haig and Pétain meet again at Dury at 23.000.

Present.  Haig, Lawrence (Chief of GHQ staff since Kiggell was sacked after 3rd Ypres), Clive (British liaison at Pétain’s GHQ) and Pétain.  Clive translated, as the other two British were not fluent French speakers.  There is no French record.

  Haig according to his manuscript diary (MSSD) reiterated his request for a large French force to be placed near Abbeville (on the R. Somme 25 miles North-West of Amiens).  The MSSD records that Pétain reiterated that he expected to be attacked in Champagne, but he would give Fayolle all the troops available.  Fig. 2 shows that 10 divisions had by then arrived.

   Haig’s typescript diary (TSD) adds to the MSSD that Pétain “had directed in the event of the German advance being pressed still further to fall back South-Westwards towards Beauvais in order to cover Paris”.  Clive’s diary does not record such a significant statement (Ref.1).  When Haig repeated it publicly post-War (December 1920) and Pétain saw this for the first time, he then told Haig that no such order had been given.  There is no French record of such an order.

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   However, the TSD continues by stating that Haig returned to his HQ at Beaurepaire (near Montreuil) and at 3am on the 25^th had Lawrence send a telegram to the CIGS and Milner* asking them to come over and insist that “Foch or some other determined general who would fight” be put in supreme command.

   The snag is no such telegram could be found in the receipts record of the War Office by the Official Historian (Edmonds), nor was it included in the various papers attached to Haig’s TSD! (Ref. 1).  To prevent other historians from detecting the omission Edmonds ensured the receipts record would be closed until 1969.

   Of course, the TSD was casting the gravest possible slur on Pétain as a general who would not fight, which the MSSD had not done.

   How Haig produced his account of a telegram of which no trace exists is something which only a psychiatrist could have explained if he had had the opportunity to interview him at the time.  If it was sent, but somehow got lost at both ends of transmission, it had no effect on the subsequent action anyway, because both Milner and Wilson were already en route.

*Haig reported to the CIGS militarily and his political chief was the Secretary of State for War, who was Lord Derby.  Milner did not take Derby’s place until Lloyd George got rid of the latter to be Ambassador to France on 18 April.  The conclusion is that Haig amended his diary (the TSD) after that date and forgot that Milner was not his chief on 25 March, i.e. it is not a record of 24^th March at all.

   Pétain left the Dury meeting with an opposite impression of Haig’s intentions – that he might retire Northwards (Ref. 1).  Nevertheless, he continued to send reinforcements (see Fig.2).

Monday 25 March 1918.  Day 5.  The Germans gain 5 ½ miles against the 5^th Army but only ½ mile from the 3^rd.

 Afternoon 25 March 1918.  At 16.00 Haig went to Abbeville with the intention of meeting Foch.  This did not happen, so Haig gave Weygand, effectively Chief of Staff to Foch, a letter to pass on.  This letter is given in full in Appendix 1.  While asking once again for a further 20 divisions (“at least”) to be concentrated immediately “astride the Somme west of Amiens” i.e. over 30 miles from the original French boundary with the British – a more or less impossible request – he then added:-“ the English Army, which must fight its way slowly back covering the Channel ports”  (author’s colouring).

   This put into writing the very thing which Pétain had feared after the meeting the previous night, although he probably did not see the letter.

Early evening 25 March 1918.  At 17.00 a meeting was held at Petain’s GHQ at Compiegne,

              Present.  Poincaré (President of the French Republic), Clemenceau, Foch (still only the principal military man of the Versailles group), Pétain, Loucheur (French Minister of Munitions) and Milner (who had Lloyd George’s authorisation to seek a supreme commander for the Allied armies.

   During this meeting Pétain said to Clemenceau privately:-

“Les Allemands battront les Anglais en rase campagne; aprés ĉa ils nous battront aussi”.  [“The Germans will beat the English in open country; after that, they will beat us too”] (Refs.3 & 10)

..En rase campagne in French military language implied a disgraceful surrender. This démarche had been caused by Haig’s attitude in the late-night meeting at Dury on the 24^th.  Clemenceau, hitherto a Pétain supporter, was horrified by it and any chance of his pushing for Pétain to become Supreme Commander was gone.

   The meeting decided effectively to press Haig to accept Foch’s coordination of the French and British actions.  To this end a meeting was requested with Haig the following day

Tuesday 26 March 1918.  During this 6^th day of battle the Germans advanced further;- 7 miles on the 5^th Army front; 9 miles on that of the 3^rd Army.

   As Haig had already arranged to meet his three army commanders (Horne, Plumer and Byng -excluding Gough because he was already under the orders of Fayolle) at Doullens town hall (about 16 miles North of Amiens) in the morning, the allied meeting was set to follow at that place also, shortly before midday.

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  Clemenceau, who had clearly been shown the Haig letter of the 25^th by Foch, tackled Milner as he arrived before the Conference with its purport of the British falling back on the Channel ports.  Milner then spoke to Haig who said he had been misunderstood (Ref. 3).  That was accepted, although the letter was perfectly clear – but presumably Milner was not shown a copy.

Present.  For the French:-  Poincarè (who presided), Clemenceau, Foch, Pétain, Weygand, Loucheur;

                  For the British:-  Milner, Haig, Wilson, Lawrence, Montgomery*(GHQ staff).

*No relation to Bernard Law Montgomery.

Result of the Conference at Doullens.  The text agreed and signed by Clemenceau and Milner was:-

“General Foch is charged by the British and French governments with the coordination of the action of the allied armies on the Western Front.  He will arrange to this effect with the generals-in-chief who are invited to supply him with all the necessary information.”

Foch said (translated):- “It is a hard task you offer me now: a compromised situation, a crumbling front, an adverse battle in full progress.  Nevertheless, I accept” (Ref. 4).

   [This formula very quickly – and not surprisingly in view of the word “invited” – turned out to be inadequate.  At a further conference at Beauvais on 3^rd April Foch was given authority to issue strategic orders.]

   In both of his diaries Haig wrote the following insulting reference to Pétain:-

              “…Pétain had a terrible look.  He had the appearance of a commander who was in a funk and has lost his nerve” (Ref. 1)

Comment.  Readers are invited to consider this, and the earlier TSD slur about Pétain being unwilling to fight, with the facts:-

• That there is no documentary evidence that The Haig Telegram of 25^th March 1918 was ever sent;
• That there is documentary evidence of The Haig Letter of 25^th March 198 (see Appendix 1);
• Pétain’s démarche to Clemenceau of 25^th March;
• That nevertheless Pétain continued to send reinforcements to Haig (see Fig.2);
• That it was Haig’s front which was being caved in (see Fig.1);

and decide for themselves which C-in-C lost his nerve on the 25^th or whether a relative %age of alarm should be assigned between the two.  Neither man was at his best.

Wednesday 27 March 1918.  Day 7.  German advance that day:- 7.5 miles on the 5^th Army front;  2.7 miles in front of the 3^rd Army

Thursday-Saturday 28-30 March 1918.  Days 8-10. No further German advances on either the 5^th or 3^rd Army fronts.

Sunday 31 March 1918.  Day 11.  No advance before the 3rd;  1.2 miles on the 5th front to 1.5 miles beyond Montdidier.

Monday-Friday 1-5 April 1918.  Days 12-16.  2.8 miles advance on the 3rd front, to 0.8 miles short of Villers Bretonneux – 11 miles short of Amiens.

   Fig. 1 of PART 1 illustrates the gradual slowing-down of the German offensive as the Anglo-French line stiffened with the arrival of fresh troops, while they had to pull forward their guns and supplies over the old devastated Somme battlefield in much of the front.

   The main result of the decision at Doullens was that Foch’s absolute determination not to allow Amiens to be taken stiffened up the resolve of both C-in-Cs – and it was not lost.

   Ludendorff closed down the battle on the 5^th April.

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Various complaints about French aid

Arrived ill-equipped

   Churchill in Ref. 4 followed the general Haig line by writing, after recording that 6 French divisions were in line by the afternoon of the 24^th March:-

              “…though two of them had no artillery and none of them had ‘cookers’ or more than fifty rounds of rifle ammunition per man”.

Comment.  At first glance this looks like ungrateful nit-picking.  Then it is realised that it is proof that, rather than being tardy, the French came as soon as they could with what they could carry.  They did not wait to ‘draw up their tail’.  As to their guns, Ref. 1 records that the artillery of the 125ieme infantry division was in position by 15.00 on the 22^nd and, in all, 48 regiments of artillery were moved by road.

Not seriously engaged up to the 28^th

  Churchill, again following the Haig line, wrote:-

“At no time up till the end of the 28^th, when both the first and second crises of the battle were over….none of these” [French divisions] “were seriously engaged”.

Comment.  The answer to this lies in the casualties suffered by the French, compared to those of the 3^rd and 5^th British Armies.  The author has attempted to make this comparison in Appendix 3.  The basis has to be in relation to “Division-Days” engaged.   This shows that the French had at least as many casualties per Division-Day as the average of the two British Armies.  Not “seriously engaged” is a slur.

How Haig’s attitude affected Pétain

   In the author’s opinion, when Pétain discovered post-War the attitude which Haig had taken after the 25th March 1918, it caused him to become anti-British.   This had a serious effect when Anglo-French relations came under strain again in 1940 during a renewed German attack on the democracies.

American aid

   The French especially had trusted in American aid coming to the rescue in 1918. Appendix 4 shows how this built up.

Why did Haig loathe Lloyd George?

   British affairs in 1917 – 1918 were hampered by the relations between the Prime Minister and the C-in-C.  Appendix 2 gives some reasons for this.  This also gives notes on Lloyd George’s relations with Robertson, the CIGS who preceded Wilson.

Derek S. Taulbut  19 August 2021

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References

Continuing from PART 1.

3.  WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LlOYD GEORGE  Odhams  1936.

4.  THE WORLD CRISIS 1911 – 1918  W. S. Churchill  Odhams ed.  1949.

5.  HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR  B.H. Liddell Hart  Book Club ed.  1970.

6.  SIR FREDERICK SYKES AND THE AIR REVOLUTION  E. Ash  Routledge  1999.

7.  OPERATIONAL ART AND THE 1918 GERMAN OFFENSIVE  D. Zabecki  Cranfield University  PhD Thesis 2009.

8.  MILITARY OPERATIONS: FRANCE AND BELGIUM 1918 Vol. 2  J. Edmonds  Macmillan  1937.

9.  1918. THE YEAR OF VICTORIES  M. Evans  Arcturus 2002.

10.  FIVE DAYS FROM DEFEAT  W. Reid  Berlinn  2017.

Comment.  A particularly interesting book, because the author had written 9 years previously a laudatory  biography of Haig but later decided on closer examination of the facts surrounding 21 March 1918 that “He certainly wobbled” and then rewrote his diary to cover that up.

11.  THE SECRET HISTORY OF MI6  K. Jeffery  Penguin  2010.

12.  Kaiserschlacht 1918  R. Gray  Osprey  1991.

13.  www.cwgc.org.

14.  TURNING POINTS IN HISTORY  Earl of Birkenhead (F.E.Smith)  Hutchinson  1930.

                      Comment.  Published posthumously before final corrections.  Relevant chapter is entitled “The Triumph of the Fifth Army”.  This provocative title and the author’s attempted justification of it must have owed much to his particular relation to Gough in the Ulster crisis of 1914 (the “Curragh Mutiny”).

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Appendix 1

Haig’s letter to Weygand, Chief of Staff to Foch

From Ref. 3

   It is not known how Lloyd George obtained a copy of this letter.  The Official Historian did not publish it.  He only referred to Haig wanting a large French force “North of the Somme” (not West) and did not mention the critical words about his army “…which must fight its way slowly back covering the Channel ports” (Ref. 1).

   The two French divisions mentioned in the letter were the 36^th Corps, which did move on the 25^th and which came into action East of Amiens on the 30^th (Ref 1).

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Appendix 2

Why did Haig loathe Lloyd George?

   Apart from their official disagreements over forces to be made available, for what purposes and their command, there is no doubt that Haig loathed Lloyd George personally and this affected what he reported to him, what he promised him and the extent to which he did or did not carry out those promises. His private diaries, later published, refer to him variously as “a funk”; “a thorough impostor”; “a cur”.

   This emotional reaction had many roots, which are suggested below in tabular form.

	Haig	Lloyd George
Origin	Wealthy family	Poor family
National characteristics	‘Dour’ Scot	‘Mercurial’ Welshman
Fluency	Inarticulate	Persuasive speaker
Profession	Regular soldier (Cavalry)	Civilian politician
Politics	Almost certainly Conservative	Radical Liberal
Career	Steady progress through the officer corps, strongly assisted by links with Royalty (he married a Court lady). Last battle experience, 12 years pre-WW1, fighting Afrikaner amateurs.	Opposed Boer War. As Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced new taxes on the wealthy classes. Supported Home Rule for Ireland (which led to the ‘Curragh Mutiny’ involving Gough, a friend of Haig, in March 1914).
Churchmanship	Church of Scotland	Chapel (nominally)

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Appendix 3

Specific casualty rates after 21 March 1918

To make a fair comparison of casualties between the forces involved in the 16 days battle from 21 March 1918 to 5 April 1918 they need to be related to the “Division-Days” for each.  A very rough attempt has been made here to provide that specific data.

ARMY	Losses	minus POW thousands =	Casualties	Divisions	Days	Division-Days DD	C/DD
3rd	79	1/4 x 77	60	10 + 5 = 15	16	240	250
5th	91	3/4 x 77	33	11 + 6 = 17	16	272	121
French	77	17	60	23	16 x 3/4	276	217

Sources      3^rd and 5^th Army losses:  Official History Ref. 8.   French: Ref. 9.  Both include POW.

                   POW: Ref.9

                   British POW apportioned arbitrarily by author, since no analysis was available.

                   The French DD recognises the units coming into action progressively as shown on Fig. 2.

   Recognising that the POW split between 3^rd and 5^th Armies is arguable, the average for specific casualties is 186 per Division-Day, to compare with the French 217.

   As stated, the figures are only a rough cut at the truth, but show very clearly that the innuendo constructed from Haig’s amended diary that the French did not fight strongly is not correct.

Regarding POW

   Many POW would have been captured when wounded and unable to continue to fight.  In a retreat, if not walking-wounded, they might be left behind.  Some must have died in captivity.

Appendix 4

US Forces in France