War Memoirs of David Lloyd George

[Guest fbdownes]

Hi I picked up 2cd vol of L Georges memoirs 1917-18 for 3 pounds in a charity shop. It looked a little on the dry side but I thought a skim through to see how the politics of the time worked was worth the money. I ended up enthralled with 1918 and have now almost finished 1917. He does really make a strong case for himself with ref to named documents of the time to back his cause that the goverment did provide the men required for the western front. That the generals did lie about the number of men under their command and that Haig was not capaple of commanding the huge army of the time. Although he does credit him with the actions later in 1918 once he was under Foch. He also describes the political scene between the allies which I found very interesting.

Being no expert but having read many books on the Great War and coming down on the side that the generals might have been brave but not to clever I would be interested if any one has read the book and has managed to pick holes in L George's account .

I would think that most ref. libraries would stock the book and I would very recomend that anyone interested in the higher command of the war would find it a very good read. fbdownes

[Jonathan Saunders]

This has been "spoken" about at some length on other threads on this Forum - suggest you enter his name in the search engine and see what comes back for other people's views on DLG's "Memoirs". I hasten to add I havent read them myself.

[armourersergeant]

LG,

Well where to start.

He was a politician, by definition he was canny, worldly, underhand, elequant, believable, mercurial, and so on.

By the time he wrote these pages many years had passed, though Signals (that man above who posted while i wrote )on this forum says he beleives that the 'notes' were prepared a lot earlier, he had time to get his case across and to dam those that foreshadowed him.

Churchill, in WW2, was considered by history to be the man who won the war, yet it is never that easy, to para phrase Allanbrooke said 'we may loose because of him but we can not win without him'.

General Maurice prooved that LG lied and fiddled the figures to suit his position in 1918, for his trouble he was 'hounded' by LG for the rest of his days. This certainly does not come across that way in the memiors yet few nowadays believe that Maurice was wrong in what he said.

I will concead that he wanted to stop the deaths, but his aims for this may have been for the men themselves or it may have been tainted by his wanting to stay in power. This may be a unjust stance to take on the man but once many years ago i considered him a great man. Now i do not.

For the record and to answer one of your questions, I have yet to read the two volumes, they are massive and i tend to use them as reference, good and bad.

regards

Arm.

Edited 6 October , 2004 by armourersergeant

[Greenwoodman]

I've been using Vol 2 as a reference for my thesis and have found him to be childish. It is well worth finding some opposite views to read about the Calais Conference for instance. Spears referred to Lloyd George's methods as those of a gangster.

I particularly dislike the way they've been written, they have something of the playground about them as he attempts to wring every advantage out of his very carefully chosen documents, while denigrating those who did not agree with him. Take the charge levelled against him of retaining reserves in Britain - He says that this was the General Staff's advice, their responsibility, so it was, but Hankey records him as initialling the document as accepting it (therefore his responsibility) before writing "Can't trust Haig with men" on it. So if he accepted their advice as correct in this instance, why does he vilify the GS for their advice in other areas, particularly the Western Front question? Even Hankey reports feeling uncomfortable during the debate on the Maurice figures, knowing that LG had seen the correct figures but conveniently neglected to mention them during his speech.

As Arm says, he was extremely clever but devious, hysterical, odious and he invented spin some 90 years ago. More measured accounts are to be found in Hankey's "The Supreme Command", French's "Strategy of the LLoyd George Coalition", David R. Woodward's "Lloyd George and the Generals" and Guinn's "British Strategy & Politics 1914-1918". Opposite views in Terraine's "Haig", Charteris "Field Marshal Earl Haig". Haven't seen it, but Robertson's "Soldiers and Statesmen" is reputed to be good also.

Arm, thought you were going to say you used them as doorstops!!

[armourersergeant]

Arm, thought you were going to say you used them as doorstops!!

Now thats a good idea, new they would come in some use.

Make sure though when bad mouthing the welshman you do not drop one on your toes, they bloody hurt!

regards

Arm.

[Annette Burgoyne]

I have got one of the volumes of Georges memoirs and after reading the first few pages felt like burning it but did not. One day I'll force myself to read it all

Annette

[Guest fbdownes]

Hi, I started this forum not to castigate anyone in particular but to cross check statements made in various books. The most important for me in this case is the number of fighting soldiers in the spring of 1918. Lloyd George states in his chapter 1XXX The Maurice affair that in Jan 1917 they had 1,253,000 and in Jan 1918 1,298.000 and these figures were given to him by General Maurice in April 1918. Thus saying instead of having less men they had more.

If these figures were incorrect where can I obtain an alternative figure.

I also find it strange that to have a book as stated my forum members and not read it but pass comment difficult to understand. May I suggest that they read the Maurice chapter and if finding untrue statements pass them back to the forum so we can benefit from the knowledge.

I also agree with the the Lord Allenbrook and Churchill comment having read both their war diaries both men indisensable for their time. Perhaps that could be the case for 1914-18.

It seems that people have fixed ideas on who were the bad boys of the Great War be it goverment or generals and hear no argument to the contrary, I like facts, a very difficult commodity to come by after all this time.

I did run a search on Lloyd George on the forum before I started the discussion not much to had at all. Take care fbdownes

[Bernard_Lewis]

I think the late John Grigg had completed several parts of a monumental biography of LG that certainly covered the war years. Not got it but if people are especially interested it should give a balanced view. I seem to recall the reviews praised it so highly that - had it been around in WWI - the RFC might have needed to take evasive action!

[Greenwoodman]

fbdownes

Apologies if my original post upset you, that was not at all intended. My opinion of LG is just that, my opinion, and certainly not more weighty than anyone else's.

The Maurice case is very complex - as LG very cleverly presents it in his Memoirs, and in Parliament at the time, it was all Maurice's fault, 'cos he was a bit miffed at losing his job. Any culpability therefore is deflected on to Maurice, whether deserved or not.

The references quoted below are those I used when I wrote about the Maurice case - plus of course LG Memoirs Vol 2.

Brig.-Gen. John Charteris "Field-Marshal Earl Haig", (London: Cassell & Co., 1929)

Lord Hankey "The Supreme Command 1914-1918 Vol. 2", (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1961)

Winston S. Churchill "The World Crisis 1911-1918 Vol. 2", (London: Odhams Press, 1938)

Major-General Sir Charles E. Callwell "Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: His Life and Diaries, Vol. 2", (London: Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1927)

Keith Jeffery "The Military Correspondence of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson 1918-1922", (London: The Bodley Head, 1985)

Lt. Col. Charles A’Court Repington "The First World War 1914 - 1918, Vol. 2", (London: Constable, 1920)

Stephen Roskill "Hankey: Man of Secrets: Volume 1, 1877 - 1918", (London: Collins, 1970)

David R. Woodward "Lloyd George and the Generals", (Newark: University of Delaware, 1983)

Paul Guinn "British Strategy and Politics 1914 to 1918", (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965)

John Terraine Douglas Haig: The Educated Soldier, (London: Cassell, 2000)

I would also strongly suggest Nancy Maurice (editor) "The Maurice Case : from the Papers of Major General Sir Frederick Maurice". Leo Cooper Ltd, 1972

Perhaps I could just quote from Roskill, Hankey's biographer, from a Hankey (the Cabinet Secretary) diary entry that he (Hankey), generally supportive of LG, chose not to publish in his own book "The Supreme Command".

Roskill comments "... it is noteworthy that in his memoirs he omitted the passage which was most telling about Lloyd George's suppression of awkward facts" p.544

He then goes on to quote from Hankey's diary:-

“Nevertheless I felt all the time that it was not the speech of a man who

tells ‘ the truth; the whole truth; and nothing but the truth’. For example while he had figures from the DMO's Dept. showing that the fighting strength of the army had increased from 1st Jan. 1917 to 1918, he had the Adjutant-General’s figures saying the precise contrary, but was discreetly silent about them. This knowledge embarassed me a little when MPs of all complexions kept coming to the official gallery to ask me what was the 'real truth'". p.545.

[Guest DNH]

One very interesting take on LG's War Memoirs can be found in Prior and Wilson in Passchendaele, The Untold Story.

The longest chapter in LG's WM is the'Campaign of the Mud', in which he roundly attacks the prosecution of the campaign of Third Ypres and accuses Haig and Robertson of keeping information from him. The conclusion is that had LG had access to that info, then he could have taken action to close the campaign and possibly, in extremis, remove Haig and or Robertson. But these two Generals, clearly stupid for running a stupid campaign stupidly (in LG's War Memoirs world at least), were extremely clever at one thing: the cover up. They managed to keep this damning information away from LG, a qualified barrister and experienced politician (ie a man trained to ask the right questions and take no bull). Thus preserving their own hide.

Prior and Wilson however take a very different view, namely that LG and the War Cabinet asked for and examined such information with such infrequency and with so little vigour as to be equally culpable for any of the negative aspects arising from that particular campaign.

My additional thought on that is that only one person (LG) indulged in such a shameless and orchestrated attempt after the war to shift the blame on to anyone else at all...

Haven't read the section on Maurice in the light of any other interpretation of the same events, but should do so. Certainly the index entry on Maurice in LG's War Memoirs is damning, almost as much as that for Haig...

Cheers

[Jock Bruce]

Haven't seen it, but Robertson's "Soldiers and Statesmen" is reputed to be good also.

These are something I want to read.

Hew Strachan says (in 'The Politics of the British Army')

'Robertson's memoirs, which appeardd in two volumes in 1926, have suffered in reputation not simply becasue any autobiographical statement is parti pris. They have also been eclipsed by the denegration of their author in the subsequent and lengthy farrago manufactured by his arch rival Lloyd-George, and confirmed by the phrase-turning and simplistic insights of Basil Liddel Hart. But at the time Robertson's book was commended for its objectivity and freedon from rancour. As distance diminishes subjectivity in analysis of the First World War, and as archives replace memoirs as souce materials, this judgement emerges with fresh endorsement'

Jock

[Guest fbdownes]

Hi I was a little peeved at some of the replies to the forum. As a very cynical pensioner I did not expect L G's memoirs to be spot on, thats why I put the question to the members. I did enjoy the book as it brought to mind the outside influences of the allies on the military side. and I expected specific instances and further reading to come from the forum. But now all is coming together. Many thanks to Greenwood and all. I now have a lot more books to gather and peruse and maybe one day I might come to a conclusion just who might be guilty.

BUT I DOUBT IT. Take care fbdownes

[Charles Fair]

Also check out the collection of essays "The First World War and British Military History" ed Brian Bond, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1991.

LGs memoirs feature heavily in the essays "Frock and Brasshats" by Ian Beckett and "The Reputation of Sir Douglas Haig" by Keith Simpson.

[Guest Simon Bull]

I do not know enough about the specific issues being debated here to voice an opinion. I do certainly know enough general history to establish that Lloyd George was corrupt and dishonest and crafty and adulterous and a philanderer and many other bad things besides.

However, I can forgive him all that and much more because, in my humble opinion, he ushered in the measure which probably did more to ease the lives and bring dignity to ordinary working people than any other measure ever taken in British history (with the possible exception of the introduction of a National Health Service) namely the introduction of old-age pensions. I know from talking to members of my family now long since dead that this was a watershed in the lives of ordinary people. They no longer needed to dread their old-age and work until, quite literally, they could no longer do so.

For that solitary measure (and he did other good things too) Lloyd George is, personally, a hero of mine, despite all his other undoubted defects.

[Old Tom]

I have just finished Lord Hankey's 'The Supreme Command' (suggested by members of the forum, many thanks) and am almost moved to find a copy of Lloyd Georges memoirs to see I might change my mind about him. I had a copy some years ago which went to a charity shop). I am beginning to appreciate the clash between, if I may so put it, the Victorian generals and the Victorian politicians. A subject worth thinking about! They both had their strengths and faults.

Old Tom

[David Filsell]

Lies, damned lies and Lloyd George?