Lloyd Georges' Growing Distrust of Field Marshal Haig

The Most Famous Photo of Haig and Lloyd George in Which
the General Seems to Be Telling the Not-Yet Prime Minister What's What

From Ian Beckett's  The British Army and the First World War

Battered by the Third Battle of Ypres and shocked by the reversal at  Cambrai, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and its commander were under considerable strain by the dawn of 1918. The BEF had played an increasingly large role in the war since the Somme battle of 1916 and had suffered great losses in terms of men and materiel, but nowhere in France or Flanders was there a clear and consistent sign that its sacrifices had weakened the Germans beyond recovery. This lack of evidence created the conditions for the wholesale re-examination of British strategy so desired by Lloyd George and others sceptical that the Western Front offered the potential for decisive victory. Desperate to impose civilian and, more particularly, his own authority over the shape of British strategy, Lloyd George used the lack of success in the battles of Ypres and Cambrai against Haig and Robertson. For Lloyd George, the moment had come to curb the influence of the British Army’s two most important generals in order to ensure a comprehensive reappraisal of Britain’s position and the state of the war. Unfortunately for the BEF, Lloyd George’s review came at a moment when the significance of the Western Front was greater than ever. With Ludendorff determined to wage a final, decisive campaign in the west, the men of the BEF required clarity of thought from their political and military masters. Unused to the concept of the strategic defensive, the BEF needed careful preparation, mental and physical, for the role. It could not afford the luxury of a protracted debate over its mission in France and Flanders. 

Although Haig was aware of Lloyd George’s increasing disquiet over the lack of progress in the Third Ypres campaign, it was the failure of  Cambrai that precipitated the crisis in the relationship between Lloyd George and the Haig-Robertson partnership. Lloyd George was particularly angry at the success of the German counterattack at Cambrai, for it had been claimed that the Germans had no surplus manpower after being severely stretched at Passchendaele. It was compounded by the fact that intelligence reports suggested that the Germans had not yet transferred much in the way of manpower from the Eastern Front. With British civil–military relations now very much strained, Lloyd George hoped to use the Cambrai debacle to oust both Robertson and Haig while at the same time outflanking them by using the new Supreme War Council established at Versailles as an alternative focus for strategic discussion, advice and planning. The Secretary of State for War, Lord Derby, was not willing to play a role in such a move, but he was prepared to remove some of Haig’s General Headquarters (GHQ) staff. As Lloyd George realised that he was unable easily to topple Haig, the option of purging his closest associates at GHQ seemed the best way of curbing his power. Indeed, while Lloyd George canvassed names of potential successors to Haig in January 1918, the South African statesman sitting in the War Cabinet, Jan Smuts, and its secretary, Maurice Hankey, could only suggest Lieutenant-General Claud Jacob of II Corps, although Plumer and Rawlinson were also mentioned.

It was against this background that Byng completed his preliminary report on the Cambrai reverse. He stated that Third Army HQ had been expecting a German counter-attack and put the blame for failure onto his front-line soldiers: ‘I attribute the reason for the local success on the part of the enemy to one cause and one alone, namely – lack of training on the part of junior officers and NCOs and men.’ 

Despite Byng’s reluctance to accept that any of the higher commanders were to blame, over the next three months all three corps commanders involved were removed from their posts (Snow, Woollcombe and Pulteney). For all his many strengths as a commander, Byng’s actions rather tarnish his reputation, as it seems unfair and inaccurate to blame the men under his authority for failures  he and his own staff could have avoided through more effective action. 

But it can be argued that the real problem was at GHQ. Once again, Haig’s intelligence chief, Charteris, had totally misunderstood the strength and intentions of the Germans on this section of the front  and therefore provided no kind of advance warning. He deliberately  suppressed evidence of the arrival of a German division before the battle, apparently so as not to deter Haig from his intention to attack. This failure of interpretation and effective communication was a hallmark of Charteris’ relationship with Haig. Rumours of this unbalanced and inefficient collaboration had spread widely, and it made Charteris vulnerable to a Prime Minister increasingly irate at the perceived weaknesses of GHQ. 

Charteris was duly removed and replaced by Sir Herbert Lawrence, formerly the commander of 66th (East Lancashire) Division. A second high-profile casualty was the Quartermaster-General, Sir Ronald Maxwell, who had long since lost the confidence of those familiar with the BEF’s earlier logistics problems, if not that of Haig. Maxwell’s poor health was used as an excuse to remove him, and Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Travers Clarke replaced him. Other important new appointments were the able Brigadier-General John Dill as Director of Military Operations and Major-General Guy Dawnay as Head of the Staff Duties Section. 

Generals Charteris and Kiggell

The final adjustment was the replacement of Launcelot Kiggell, Haig’s Chief of Staff. Somewhat ironically, Kiggell fell just at the moment when he had become a convert to the methodical, step-by-step battle under the guidance of his colleague, ‘Tavish’ Davidson, Dill’s predecessor as Director of Military Operations at GHQ. This had caused him to doubt Gough’s approach at Third Ypres and make efforts to contain the visions of the Fifth Army commander. However, he had never been particularly robust in his dealings with Haig and by December 1917 was clearly in a state of poor health. Derby warned Haig about Kiggell’s condition, but he seemed reluctant to take this hint. When Haig finally relented, he indicated that he would like to promote Butler, Kiggell’s deputy, but Derby refused to accept this idea doubtless because Butler was regarded as an equally malleable replacement. The need to replace Kiggell then caused further disruption at GHQ, for the newly appointed Lawrence was regarded as thebest man for the job. He therefore left his position as Intelligence Chief to be replaced by Brigadier-General Edgar Cox, who was Deputy Head of Intelligence at the War Office. The extremely capable Cox was to suffer enormous strain during the German spring offensives and drowned while swimming alone off Berck Plage on 26 August 1918. He was replaced in mid-September by Sidney Clive.  

Whether this new staff team was the powerhouse that stabilised the BEF in the crisis moments of the German spring offensive and brought it  to victory during the Hundred Days can be debated, but it certainly fulfilled Lloyd George’s desire to bring greater rigour to Haig’s GHQ relationships. This was particularly true in the case of Sir Herbert Lawrence. Son of a Viceroy of India and a former cavalryman, Lawrence had resigned from the army in 1903 over his lack of promotion and subsequently became a highly successful businessman. He re-joined the army in 1914 and gained a good reputation as a commander before proceeding to GHQ. These attributes gave him the self-confidence to engage with Haig more robustly than his predecessor.