7 - The creation of the Supreme War Council

Summary

Lloyd George's first attempt to deal with Haig and Robertson had failed spectacularly. Fuel for anyone wishing to criticise ‘amateur’ strategists might be found in the reports of the Dardanelles Commission (whose interim report was debated in the House of Commons in March 1917) or the Mesopotamia Commission (set up to investigate the British surrender at Kut), published in May. Nevertheless, Lloyd George had not changed his mind about unity of command under a French general. He told Albert Thomas on 23 June that he would accept a French generalissimo.

The concept of an allied general staff was less threatening and was an idea that had been floated before. Lloyd George had suggested this to Poincaré in 1915; and both Kitchener and Robertson at the War Office had pressed for greater coordination for the 1916 campaign. Esher's efforts in that direction have already been mentioned. In 1917 the general staffs discussed the idea at the May conference when Lloyd George pressed the French to continue the offensive. Nothing came of it, as Robertson anticipated, because an allied staff without an allied commander-in-chief was ‘not a logical organization’. Foch was strongly in favour of Wilson's 1915 ideas about a politico-military ‘Committee or Commission of Six’, and wanted to be the French representative. The need for some better way to manage affairs was becoming pressing.