Talk:Maurice Debate

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Military history: British / European / World War I Start‑class

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Detail[edit]

At some point somebody, which may well end up being me, ought to get to the bottom of the actual figures presented by Lloyd George back in April, who insisted that "they caught me telling the truth for once" or words to that effect. There were various sets of figures kicking around, and the government, not just Lloyd George, had long since lost confidence in the figures produced both from GHQ and the War Office, which seemed to mutate according to whether the generals wanted more men or not. That will mean spending an evening or two digesting some very complex material - Grigg covers it in detail - and making it intelligible to the general reader, which I don't mind doing but I'm busy with other stuff at the moment.

All this is of course tied up in the unedifiying story of British civil-military relations of that era - it was put about by the generals and their apologists (and, in fairness, a few other people like Churchill as well) that Lloyd George had "hoarded" soldiers in the UK to turn Haig's tap off. That is a quarter truth at best: the government had made a major policy decision in summer 1917 that, after the Somme, they could no longer give the generals all the men they wanted but instead had to push men into shipping, shipbuilding, agriculture, etc to prepare for a longer war and for a gradual winding-down of the BEF as the USA took up the baton (in the event, the war would end before this could actually happen). As far as there being too many able-bodied soldiers (there were plenty who were too young or barely fit for front line combat) in the UK at the start of 1918, this was actually more to do with Robertson, who had privately lost confidence in Haig over Third Ypres but kept his views from the government, and even Haig himself who allowed far too many men to go on leave in March as he underestimated just how bad the German onslaught was going to be. But anyway, more on this one of these days.Paulturtle (talk) 13:03, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My past involvement with this article has only been concerned with the debate and how the parties split in the division lobby. If I were to contribute further, it would be to go into detail of the consequencies of how individual MPs voted.

The issue of the conflict between politicians and the military with regard to numbers of soldiers being made available I think is an important one. If this issue is not tackled sufficiently in any other article, perhaps this article is as good a place as any. Graemp (talk) 15:03, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Got there in the end.Paulturtle (talk) 18:11, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. David Woodward's classic "Lloyd George and the Generals" has the figures in detail, and quite a few other details as well. Another weekend's work looms, one of these days ... Paulturtle (talk) 23:42, 28 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]