Looking Back: Churchill on the Roots of the Nivelle Offensive and Passchendaele

Editor's Note:  This discussion of the 1917 campaign was written 22 years afterward by Churchill.

Lloyd George with Haig and Joffre, Western Front, 1916

By the Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill, P.C., M.P 

At the beginning of 1917 two tremendous events dominated and transformed all the conditions of the Great War, Russia fell out, and the United States came in. In these days I had constant access to the Prime Minister [Lloyd George] and never ceased, by personal intercourse and by speech in secret session, to dissuade him and the Government from a renewal on a great scale of the kind of offensive which had been so constant in 1916. The means for a successful offensive in 1917 did not exist, The preponderant Allied forces were not sufficient for a decisive success on the Western Front. The artillery was not numerous enough to enable several great attacks to be mounted at once, thus enabling the element of surprise to play its part. The tanks, which were to play a decisive part in 1918, had only appeared in small numbers, and their use was not comprehended either by the British or French High Command. On the other hand enormous additions to the Allied artillery were in operation and a great construction of tanks was on the way. Finally the arrival of the American armies—numbered by the million—was confidently expected for the campaign of 1918.

It seemed therefore wise to mark time on the Western Front during 1917 and, while keeping the enemy in a constant slate of apprehension, not to run the risks and incur the losses of gigantic offensives. It is not easy to adopt such a policy but it was certainly the right one,

Mr. Lloyd George and several of his colleagues held this general view of preventing vain slaughters on the Western Front before the arrival of the American armies, and he looked for an operation in the Italian theatre which might be fruitful, which would fill in the time, and which would definitely be minor. When these proposals were pulled to pieces by the military experts, intent upon their own plans, he found himself much cast down. At this moment when he was returning from Italy, he was joined by General Nivelle, who with his extraordinary, overpowering confidence, and personal address argued that an offensive on the Western Front was easy and should be successful.

Nivelle particularly insisted that it should be made with French troops, the British being only supplementary. Undoubtedly he captivated the Prime Minister and as this was to be in the main a French enterprise, it was not easy to see how British Ministers could take sides against him. In all the circumstances, and as the new French Commander-in-Chief was resolved, it seemed right to give him all possible support. To that extent the British War Cabinet undoubtedly became the advocates of General Nivelle’s plan. They certainly would never have approved such a plan if it had not been presented to them so vigorously by an ally. It would have been better if they had resisted more strongly beforehand, but once a decision has been taken in war, it becomes a duty, especially among those who like it least, to give it every possible chance.

Generals are not always right, and politicians are not always timid and weak. On many occasions during the War the military men were proved to be wrong, and the strategy of statesmen proved to be right.

Source: Introduction to Prelude to Victory by Brigadier General E.L. Spears, 1939