Arizona republican., 1917-11-20
ASQUISH TALKS OF INTER ALLIED WAR
 COUNCILS WORK

dence and serenity and assured that he would triumph over it.
 MT Lloyd George regaled the good people of Paris" he added, with ir- relevant rhetoric"
 Mr Asquith doubted whether any allied council would have interfered with the successful offenses in the west in favor of more attractive ad- ventures elsewhere and concluded:
 we have no reason to be ashamed of our contribution to the war. We -have kept the seas free. We have eX- banded our army into seventy divisions and we have placed our arsenals and credit at the disposal of our allies and so we will go on to the end.''
 Premier Lloyd George, in replying said that far more important than any, thing he had said in Paris was to de- eide whether greater unity of control was needed and whether they were taking the right course to secure it. He reaffirmed that the allies had suf fered by lack of coordination and that any criticism he had directed against the past was not directed against any staff or any commander in this or any other country. He had merely used certain illustrations where lack of CO., ordination among the allies had brought disaster without any blame l being attached to mmander or staff. | It had been said that this was an attempt on the part of the civilians to | interfere with the soldiers, but an in- ter-allied council had been suggested | by Field Marshal Lord Kitchener and
 in June, 1917, a scheme for a central
 authority was brought forward at a
 sitting of the chiefs of staff. at which
 Great Britain, France and Italy were
 represented. He was utterly. opposed
 to the appointment of a generalissimo
 It would not work, and would produce
 friction.
 So far as he could gauge American
 public opinion. America would have preferred a council with executive
 authority. but there were reasons why he thought it undesirable to set up a council with full executive authority unless the allies were absolutely driven , to it by the failure of the present , scheme.
 \ The first advantage of the present , scheme was that information at the . disposal of one of the allied staffs would be at the disposal of this central
 council. Nominally that was so at pres- I ent but only nominally. It was there fore, an essential part of this scheme I that it should be permanent and that the council should sit day by day CO., ordinating the plans of the general , staffs for all the fronts. MT. Asquith z had asked him about the Italian front and what Cadorna had said. He re- piled:
 Tt is very difficult to give answers
 to these questions. 1 am not sure that l can answer the question as to what f Cadorna said. There is a good deal to
 be said about what Cadorna said and what he thought. We were not re- sponsible for the Italian front. We knew, or believed, or suspected a good
 deal. The Italian government knew something about it.
 But General Sir William Robertson
 (chief of imperial staff at army head = quarters) could not go on pressing
 things in respect to another nations
 conduct of it's operations. If there had
 been a central council at Versailles
 General Robertson could have pressed
 his consideration through represent
 atives of the government and forced
 consideration for them"
 Showing that the Italian front was
 important to the French front, thu
 premier pointed out that the Britisf l and French, when the disaster came had to rush troops there and asked: Docs not that affect our front?" "Of course it does" he declared, an(
 continued:
 'Well, we have come to the conclu
 sion that the machinery of Jason of t ficers and occasional meetings o e chiefs of staff are utterly inadequat l. and inefficient for the purpose of SC z, curing real coordination. You mus r. have permanent body constantl o watching these things, advising upol l. them and reporting upon them to tn t. government, whether our front, tn l. French front or the Russian front i d most concerned"
 = The premier said he could assur
 MT. Asquith that representation of tn h navy was no afterthought.
 e It was essential that all information Il regarding naval operations should no = be known to these military advisers = That was a different thing to the es Il tablishment of a naval council and [,