User:Lord Milner/sandbox/Who United Western Front During World War I

• Comment: This is well sourced, but it's not clear what the article is on. Article titles are not phrased as questions. This draft has a huge amount of detail that's not needed (why does the reader need to know that Georges Clemenceau walked to a town hall at precisely 12:07?), and it jumps around between completely unrelated topics (there's a section on Allied troop movements, and then several paragraphs on Winston Churchill?)
  I'm sorry to say this, but this draft will need to be completely rewritten to become encyclopedic. — Ingenuity (talk • contribs) 02:12, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

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Allied Leadership

Lloyd George, Lord Milner and Clemenceau

"Le Temps", 20 April 1918, Lord Milner's statement, translated

Doullens Town Hall courtyard

In England, the War Cabinet was briefed on the reality of the war in the early evening of March 23rd (from 4pm to 6pm). When the meeting was over, Lord Alfred Milner returned home, and after "a late tea" (8:00pm), he received a telephone call from the Prime Minister, asking him to "Run over to France in order to report to the Cabinet personally on the position of affairs there." That evening, he wrote to his friend, Violet Cecil, and confided that a great disaster had occurred, saying "the force of the blow was beyond all precedent, even in this war, and beyond expectation." The next day, the 24th, Milner arrived in Boulogne, France at 6:30pm, where he was picked up and driven by Colonel Leo Amery to General Haig's house at Beaurepaire, near Montreuil (GHQ). Here Milner received a briefing from General Wake, before arriving at the Villa Romaine (General Rawlinson's hotel) in Versailles, at 2:30am. Awake at 8am, he received a fuller briefing from the two generals before motoring to Paris for a 10am meeting with Prime Minister Clemenceau. The Prime Minister and Lord Milner were instant friends the moment they met in January 1917, when Clemenceau famously said to President Poincaré, "He is an old friend of mine. We admired and loved the same woman. That's an indissoluble bond" (Clemenceau was a long term friend of the Cecil family). This friendship was vitally important (see "Le Temps" news story at right). At the meeting, both men agreed that something must be done to bring reinforcements to the front. It was also agreed that a united command was needed, and Clemenceau recommended General Petain. Lord Milner disagreed, saying he would only agree to General Ferdinand Foch. Due to their friendship, Clemenceau agreed. He then asked Lord Milner to be ready to travel to Compiègne, French Army Headquarters (GQG), sometime after 2:00pm. After leaving Clemenceau's office, Milner met his aide, Amery, and said he had impressed upon Clemenceau that he would not feel justified in entrusting the unified control of the two armies to Pétain: for that Foch would be necessary. He added, "I hope I was right; you and Henry have always told me Foch is the only big soldier". Amery adds that the mission to Compiègne was to finalize what Clemenceau and Milner had agreed to. At 11:00am, Clemenceau met with his war council in Paris, where it was decided that he and President Poincare would travel to Compiègne for a 5pm meeting with General Petain. Petain was notified and Milner was called at 2pm. At 3:00pm, Clemenceau's convoy left Paris and arrived at Petain's chateau at 4:45pm, only to find that General's Wilson and Haig had telephoned that they couldn't make it. A meeting was held nonetheless, it lasted until 7pm, and it was decided that all parties would meet the next day at Dury town hall. When Lord Milner arrived at the Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles at 9pm, General Haig had called and left a message saying he had a meeting scheduled with his army commanders at Doullens (town hall) the next morning, and he asked if it was possible to change the Dury meeting to Doullens. Lord Milner says this was arranged by telephone with Paris.

Henry Wilson & Ferdinand Foch

General Henry Wilson, the head of the British Army, received a telephone call from Ferdinand Foch at dinnertime on March 24th. Foch asked him to come over to France, to which he agreed, arriving on the morning of the 25th. Wilson met up with General Haig, and he called Paris to invite Clemenceau and Foch to a meeting at Abbeville at 4pm, totally unaware of the larger conference scheduled at Petain's headquarters. Both General's Foch and Weygand were at the Paris train station at noon, about to depart for Abbeville, when Foch received a message arrived from Prime Minister Clemenceau that he was needed at Petain's headquarters that afternoon. However, Foch allowed Weygand, his chief of staff, to go on in his specially outfitted train to Abbeville, to see what that meeting was about. When Weygand arrived in Abbeville, he told General's Wilson and Haig that Prime Minister Clemenceau, Foch, and Milner were on their way to Compiègne. General Wilson then gave an important message to General Weygand, from Prime Minister Lloyd George, to remind the French that "A defeat of the English army would be that of the whole Entente." General Haig then showed General Weygand a retreat order for the B.E.F. to the English Channel. Knowing its significance, Weygand asked for a handwritten copy. Equally significant, Haig's boss, General Wilson, said nothing. When the Abbeville meeting was over, Weygand wrote, "(I) arrived in Paris at 9:45pm, I went to the military cabinet of the President of the Council (Prime Minister Clemenceau), where I hand delivered General Mordacq a copy of Marshal Haig's note, calling his attention to the seriousness of the English decision." Then, 10:15pm, Weygand visited General Foch. The two discussed the situation, with Foch adding about the Compiègn meeting, "They looked like they wanted to do something for me." In his memoirs, Weygand added, "The absence of the English leaders had put off any decision until the next day." Colonel Herbillon, the military liaison to President Poincare, confirms this. The next morning, as they started off for Doullens, Weygand asked Foch, "In the event (you) were 'charged with something', would (you) accept?" Foch replied, "Certainly. And you, what will you do?" Weygand answered, "General, if you still want me, I will leave Versailles and follow you." Foch answered, "Good." After a period of meditation, Foch added, "Perhaps they will come back to the iron grey team" (referring to the color of the French army uniform in 1916, when Foch last held command on the Western Front). This must have provoked some laughter, as Foch was relieved of command in 1916 due to too many casualties, and sent to Italy.

Wilson, Milner and Doullens

The night of the 25th, General Wilson returned from Abbeville to Versailles at 9:00pm, wanting to speak to Lord Milner. The retreat order must have weighed heavily on Milner's mind, but to avoid embarrassing the English army all he said is "I had some conversation with Wilson, who reported what had passed between him and Haig." Milner also said, "Everybody..agreed..the object of the Germans was to push hard for Amiens..(then) direct an attack..north-west against the English and..south-west against the French..to widen the breach between them. Our object must be by all means in our power to keep touch with the French and fill up the gap.. The greatest promptitude in bringing up reserves and complete cooperation between the armies was necessary." Also present at the meeting were Henry Rawlinson and Leo Amery. The following morning at 8:00am, Lord Milner and Henry Wilson left together for Doullens. Of this Milner said, "On the way we discussed very earnestly the problem before us and the best way of pulling things together, which Wilson strongly thought could only be attained by putting the supreme direction virtually in the hands of Foch." They arrived at Doullens Town Hall 12:05pm. As soon as Lord Milner stepped out of his car, he was approached by Prime Minister Clemenceau who said General Haig announced he would be withdrawing from Amiens and pulling back to the Channel ports. Milner said this had to be a misunderstanding, and he asked for a few minutes to speak to Haig and his Army Commanders. Clemenceau agreed, and added, "Do not forget that today will be a date in history!" As he walked up the steps to Doullens Town Hall at 12:07pm, Clemenceau told Louis Loucheur that Milner clearly seen the gravity of the situation.

When Lord Milner arrived back in Versailles the night before, he found a message waiting from General Haig. Haig requested that the Conference the next morning be moved from Dury to Doullens (just south of Amiens) and set for 12pm, not 11am, as he had already scheduled an Army Commanders meeting there. This was arranged by telephone.

Although Milner says the French were informed of Doullens meeting, scheduled at noon the next day, the time change never reached Prime Minister Clemenceau. As a result, the French motorcade on the morning of March 26th arrived at Doullens at 11am, an hour early. Prime Minister Clemenceau motored there with General Mordacq, and President Poincare drove with two aides. They stopped for a few minutes in Amiens, where Poincare learned that General Haig was going to withdraw to the north. When they arrived at Doullens at 11am, Prime Minister Clemenceau approached General Haig and asked him, "Do you want peace (defeat) today or victory tomorrow?" Haig replied that he would fight again, but he was overwhelmed and unable to hold if the French do not support him. Haig then asked President Poincare if it would be appropriate to hold his military meeting first. Poincare and Clemenceau agreed to this, and the French waited outside of Doullens town hall in a crisp, cold morning. They were soon joined by the mayor of Doullens and his deputy, who were both concerned about the war. Clemenceau then told President Poincare that General Petain has given orders to withdraw the French Army from the Front to cover Paris, while the English were to retreat to the north.General Foch, who was listening in, confirmed the French retreat to the two leaders, and he gave President Poincare a copy of the orders. In front of all four he said, "The President of the Council (Prime Minister Clemenceau) has only been concerned about matters of the war for a short time (Clemenceau had been Prime Minister for only four months), he had accepted Petain's point of view, but I did not. I gave Monsieur Clemenceau a note to let him know my opinion. Common sense dictates that when the enemy wants to open a hole, you don't widen it. You close it or you try to close it. We have just got to try...and the rest will be easy." Clemenceau then took President Poincare aside and said, "Petain is annoying <with his> pessimism. Imagine, he told me, 'The Germans will beat the English in the open country, after which they will beat us too.' Should a general speak or even think like this?" When the four men came back together, a rejuvenated Foch added, "We should draw up minutes of the meeting that will be held..to fix responsibilities," to which Clemenceau quickly snapped, "We're here to take it. I take mine willingly. The day is decisive. Keep note of deliberations? For who, Clio? She will know how to do without paper. No, no, no minutes!"

The Doullens Conference

The Stained Glass at Doullens Town Hall, commemorating the Doullens Conference

"Le Temps" newspaper, March 31, 1918, Announcing Foch's appointment as head of the allied armies (with internet translation)

The Original Doullens Agreement, with signatures

Inside town hall, Lord Milner spoke to his army generals for about 10 minutes. The first thing he did was to clear up any misunderstanding about a retreat. General Haig told Lord Milner that Amiens must be held, and all he intended to say was that he would be outflanked on his right if the French did not come up and give him help (duplicitous, see map #2). Milner then spoke privately with Haig, explaining what was proposed for General Foch, and Haig responded by saying he welcomed the idea of working with him.

At 12:20pm, the main conference started. Opening remarks were made by the leader of the host nation, President Poincaré, who then yielded the floor to Prime Minister Clemenceau. Clemenceau, who ran the war for the French, tackled the important issues. First, General Haig agreed to save Amiens. Second, General Haig's retreat order was cleared up again, and it was agreed that Haig should run risks in his northern sector to bring more reinforcements to bear in his south. Third, when asked to explain what measures he had taken, General Petain said he was bringing up 24 divisions, the first 6 or 9 were already engaged, and he that he had not hesitated to comb the centre and eastern sections of his Front to meet the danger. However, he was very conservative about the length of time it would take to bring all the forces to bear, and he mentioned that the British Fifth Army was broken. General Haig interrupted to say that the Fifth Army was bent, but not broken. This prompted General Petain to say, "Alas, it no longer exists, it is broken". He then compared it to the Italian rout at the battle of Caporetto. To this, General Wilson (CIGS) rose with a sharp rebuke, which Milner ascribed as, "an interjection which almost amounted to a protest". General Haig answered he would like nothing more, "than to do as much (as Petain), but unhappily he did not have a single soldier in reserve and that in England itself there remained very few men capable of entering the battle line immediately." "There were none available in England, or so few..." This was a surprise to many, because of rumors that Lloyd George had a million soldiers waiting in England that he refused to give to General Haig because they would be wasted in battle. In fact, there was only one division of class B (unfit and overweight) soldiers left, and they were coming over. After a period of silence, General Petain said, "It is evident that everything possible must be done to defend Amiens." It was at this point that General Foch rose to say these historic words (that were borrowed by Winston Churchill on June 4, 1940, in his "We shall fight on the beaches" speech): "I would fight without a break. I would fight in front of Amiens. I would fight in Amiens. I would fight behind Amiens. I would fight all the time. I would never surrender." This prompted General Haig to say, "If General Foch would consent to give me his advice, I will gladly follow it". At that moment, Lord Milner asked for a word alone with Prime Minister Clemenceau. They walked to a corner of the room, and Lord Milner said, "The British generals accept command of General Foch". Clemenceau answered, "Is this a proposal from the government?", to which Lord Milner replied, "The British government, I guarantee, will ratify what we have decided. Do we agree?" The Prime Minister said, "We agree...We just need to find a formula that leads to susceptibilities. I’m going to see Foch...Wait for me…". Clemenceau says, "I called Foch, I made him aware of the proposal and I asked him to find the formula necessary to avoid crumpling at Haig and Petain." Foch, after half a minute or so of reflection, said to me: "Here is what one could write: By decision of the Governments of Great Britain and France, General Foch is responsible for coordinating, on the Western Front, the operations of the French and British armies whose commanders-in-chief Marshal Haig and General Petain, will have to give him all the information useful for the establishment of this coordination". I approved of this formula, <and> Foch scribbled it down…” It was Milner's idea which was supported by Clemenceau at the Doullens Conference and it was this which was adopted. Foch's promotion was announced to the public in England in "The Morning Post" newspaper on March 30, 1918, and a day later in France.

On March 28th, General Pershing visited General Foch. In the presence of Prime Minister Clemenceau, General's Foch & Petain, and Louis Loucher, he declared, "I come to tell you that the American people would hold it a great honour if our troops were engaged in the present battle. I ask you this in my name and in theirs. At this moment there is nothing to be thought of but combat. Infantry, artillery, aviation - all that we have is yours. Use them as you will. There are more to come - as many more as shall be needed. I am here solely to say to you that the American people will be proud to be engaged in the greatest and most glorious battle in history."

The Doullens Conference is celebrated by the townspeople every March 26th, and is galvanized on the painting of the stained glass window at Doullens Town Hall (see right). History has almost forgotten this moment, when the Allies came within a hair's breath of losing the war.

The defeat of the Allies was certain if General's Pétain and Haig acted on the retreat orders they issued on March 24th and 25th. Reserves, which should have been present and decisive at the start of the battle, but which order was ignored by both generals and Prime Minister Clemenceau, were in the completely wrong place. For General Haig, the size of the B.E.F. in 1918 was three times larger than that of 1940, and being "thrown into the sea" meant either a fight at the beaches and mass surrender, or suicide (his orders were quite clear, he was not allowed to surrender). For the French, the outcome would not have been much different, given these new conditions and General Pétain's unwillingness to take the lead.

Upon his return to England, Lord Milner reported back to the war cabinet the next day, March 27th, and submitted a memorandum of his trip. He received official thanks from his war cabinet colleagues (see cabinet minutes), but due to secrecy surrounding the war and subsequent delays with the release of public records documents, his feat went unrecognized. In April 1918, Lord Milner was appointed by Lloyd George as Secretary of State for War, and on June 28, 1919 he was a signatory to The Treaty of Versailles.

In 1958, author John Evelyn Wrench wrote, "On the iron gates at the Town Hall of Doullens are two unobtrusive tablets, one written in French and one in English. The inscription on the latter reads:

 In this Town Hall, on the 26 of March 1918, the Allies entrusted General Foch with the Supreme Command on the Western Front.  This decision saved France and the liberty of the world."

Lord Milner's "Memo to the War Cabinet" was published in 1921, (immediately upon his retirement from government in The Telegraph newspaper on February 7th & 8th, The New York Times on March 13th, the magazine, The New Statesman on April 23rd, the French journal Collection of Foreign Documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on May 14th), in 1925 (upon his death in The Times), in 1930 (in Georges Clemenceau's autobiography), and in 1933 (in the french book, La Conférence De Doullens written by authors Paul Carpentier and Paul Rudet), but it did not receive widespread support due to the conclusion of the war and the public's attention being turned to more mundane matters.

Critics

Lord Milner's War Cabinet Memorandum, pgs ii & iii

Gabriel Malleterre: In the March 25, 1922 issue of L'Illustrated, Malleterre critique's Lord Milner's memo, warning "against the tendency... in the drafting of the Memorandum, sparing British pride after the failure of the 5th Army on Amiens", and he said Lord Milner was unduly critical of General Petain. Overall, he says, "It is indeed most interesting. Lord Milner was undoubtedly one of the most convinced and active architects of this unique command, which was then, it can be said, a measure of public safety. He took part in the Conferences of Compiègne and Doullens, and, as an eye and ear witness, he is indisputable."

General Malleterre is referring to both the retirement of the Fifth Army, the Abbeville Meeting set up by the English Generals on March 25th, Lord Milner's lack of criticism of either, and possibly deflecting criticism onto General Petain. Malleterre was unaware that the decision to select Foch was made the previous day, in Paris, when Lord Milner met with Georges Clemenceau, and both men were mission driven to get the job done. Also, Milner's memorandum was secret, meant to be shown to the War Cabinet only, not the general public. Only the clamor for credit caused him to release it. On the example to the right, General Wilson had just returned from a meeting, at Abbeville, where General Haig handed a retreat order to the sea to General Weygand. Wilson was silent on this. Lord Milner smoothed this over in his memorandum (area highlighted). Just what he mean by "some conversation"? He may have been referring to a passage in a book written by his friend, Emily Hobhouse. During the Boer War, Hobhouse took up the cause of civilian refugees in concentration camps, and Alfred helped her get access to the camps. When the two first met, coincidentally, on a ship returning to England, she wrote, "I had some conversation" with Lord Milner over receiving access to the camps. Follow up paragraphs make it clear that "some conversation" meant "very a long talk". Criticism of Petain also appears misplaced, because questions about a higher number of divisions available for transfer that day, compared to the day before, occurred because General Pershing released his divisions to the General Petain at 11:00pm the night before. Last, it is well known that the War Cabinet was looking for a replacement for General Haig as far back as January 1918. However, no one was qualified. The conduct of both generals at Abbeville was cause for both to be immediately fired. How was that remotely possible at this time? Similar to Prime Minister Lloyd George having to bear the cross of allowing General Haig to stay on after he defied orders and teamed up with General Petain and Prime Minister Clemenceau to kill the general reserve (discovered March 15th), Lord Milner had to bear his cross too, with General Wilson, at such a crucial time, by looking the other way.

The People Who Took Credit For "Winning the War"

David Lloyd George

Shortly after the armistice of November 11th, Lloyd George called for national elections. During the campaign, Marshal Foch visited the Prime Minister, and he was asked to sign a picture, mentioned Lloyd George's part in instituting the single command. Foch complied, and in August 1919 he followed it up with a letter that thanked Lloyd George for his decision. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister was hailed by the press as "The Man Who Won the War", and he won the election by a landslide. In his memoirs about the war, released in 1936, Lloyd George says he had a long talk with Lord Milner before he left on his fateful trip to France on March 24, 1918. He even told Lord Riddell, whose house he was loaned at Walton Heath, that the house will become historic. "The unified command was settled at Walton between General Wilson, Haig, Milner and myself." However, we know there was near panic in the War Cabinet on the late afternoon of March 23rd, and Lord Milner's March 27th memo says the Prime Minister "asked me to run over to France and report personally to the Cabinet on the position of affairs there." Lord Milner had a telephone installed at his home, Sturry Court, and evidence shows that he was "rung up" by Lloyd George.

A Falling Out

Lord Milner had a severe falling out with Lloyd George during the 1918 election.

Douglas Haig

Douglas Haig's war diary entry of March 25, 1918

With a simple entry on his diary, which was reviewed by the King,f General Haig wrote that after the Dury Conference of 11pm on March 24th, his Chief of Staff, General Lawrence, send a telegraph to London, asking Lord Milner and General Wilson be come over and appoint a general, like General Foch, to lead the Western Front (the entry on the right shows Haig's original written version; years later a typed version appeared, which the footnote addresses). In the next paragraph, Haig discusses his retreat order for the B.E.F. (omitting the beginning and ending of the order). He certainly can't take credit for both. A second problem arises with Lord Derby, who is in Haig's chain of command and whose name should be substituted for Lord Milner's. Milner replaced Derby three weeks later, but none of this was known at the end of March. Third, besides King George, only Haig's wife and two authors were allowed access to the diaries until 1961. Last, although it's hard to pinpoint what General Haig said in public and in private on the matter, he wrote a letter to Marshal Foch on September 29, 1919 that said:

    "Like others of my fellow citizens. I read with great interest, and I very much appreciated the letter you recently sent to our Prime Minister. However, there is a passage which I think should give rise to a remark and which I wish to rectify immediately in the interest of historical accuracy. I am sure you would certainly like to know the real facts.
    You state in your letter that "on the initiative" of Mr. Lloyd George you were appointed Generalissimo of the Allied Armies. I claim this honor for myself and for the following reasons:
    Immediately after my meeting in Dury with General Pétain around 11 o'clock in the evening, March 24 1918, and following certain instructions that he was then about to give to the command of the French forces concentrating on Montdidier, enjoining them to retreat in the direction of the Southwest (this to cover Paris) I telegraphed the Imperial Chief of Staff in London to come immediately to France, so that a Supreme Command for the entire Western Front would be appointed as soon as possible.
    Lord Milner and General Wilson arrived on the 25th and it was then decided that to prevent the separation of the French and British armies. It was essential that you were immediately appointed Commander-in Chief.  Personally, I insisted on it."

To Foch's credit, he did not know who authorized his appointment, but he knew it was the English. He told General Weygand the decision was probably made at the highest level, by the Prime Minister. Then came the Haig letter. However, in his autobiography published in 1931, he credited Lord Milner for the decision.

Next, there is the issue of money. General Haig received a £100,000 pound gift from the King for his services during the war, and this is largely seen as proof that he was the man who saved the day. However, England traditionally gives grants to soldiers after a successful war, and at the close of World War I, nineteen generals and admirals were rewarded. Names were chosen by the Prime Minister, forwarded to the King for approval, and sent to Parliament for a vote. Also, these grants, by law, were put into trusts, to benefit younger generations, so the soldiers themselves never received a benefit (see external link: Parliament Minutes, "Proposed Grants By Parliament", 5 August 1919).

Last, General Haig's despatches, covering the date of Foch's appointment, were sent to his superior, Lord Milner, in October 1918. They make no mention of an early morning telegram sent to London on the morning of March 25th. For that period, it says, "The Governments of France and Great Britain decided to place the supreme control of the operations of the French and British forces in France and Belgium in the hands of General Foch, who accordingly assumed control."

Aftermath

UK War Cabinet Minutes, March 26 & 27, 1918

Immediately upon his appointment, General Foch issued orders to his subordinate generals not to give up an inch. Over the next week, he personally visited them to assure their cooperation and unity at the Front. His is a story of what one man is capable of achieving. The threat at the Front continued until early July, when, acting against the wishes of both the French and British Prime Ministers, Ferdinand Foch orchestrated a counteroffensive. Although slow at first, the tide on the Western Front began to turn, and with the help of American servicemen who were now arriving in France at the rate of 250,000 a month, the Allied gains turned into a German rout, until the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918.

References

• Mott, Bentley, The Memoirs of Marshall Foch, London: Heinemann, 1931
• Lloyd George, David, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, Vol V, Boston: Little Brown, 1936
• UK National Archives (World War I section)
• Wright, Peter, At The Supreme War Council, New York & London: Putnam, 1921
• Liddell-Hart, B.H., Foch: The Man of Orleans, Boston: Little Brown, 1931
• Weygand, Maxime, "Memoires, Vol I", Paris: Flammarion, 1953
• Huddleston, Sisley, Poincare: A Biographical Portrait, Boston: Little Brown, 1924
• Loucheur, Louis, "Carnets Secrets", Brussels: Brepols, 1962
• Reid, Walter, "Five Days From Defeat", Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2017
• Edmonds, Sir James E, History of the Great War, Vol VIII, Military Operations, the March Offensive, 1918, London: MacMillan, 1935
• Smythe, Donald, "Pershing, General of the Armies", Bloomington: Indiana University, 1986
• The New Statesman, Special Supplement, "The Establishment of 'Unity of Command'", Vol. XVII, No. 419, 23 April 1921
• United Empire, The Journal of the Royal Empire Society, "Lord Milner and the Unified Command", Vol. XX, London: Isaac Pitman, 1929
• Clemenceau, Georges, Grandeur and Misery of Victory, London: George Haarp, 1930
• Thompson, J.C., "Forgotten Patriot", Cranbury, NJ: Rosemont, 2007
• Dallas, Gregor, "At the Heart of a Tiger: Clemenceau and his World, 1841-1929", New York: Carroll & Graf, 1993
• Callwell, MG C.E., Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, His Life and Diaries, Vol II, London: Cassell, 1927
• Amery, Leopold, My Political Life, Volume Two, London: Hutchinson, 1953
• Herbillon, Emile, "Souvenirs D'un Officer De Liaison Pendant La Guerre Mondiale, Vol II", Paris: Tallendier, 1930
• L'Illustration Magazine, "Le Commandament Unique", 86th Edition, 24 March 1928
• Poincaré, Raymond, "In the Service of France, Volume X: Victory and Armistice", Paris: Plon, 1933
• L'Illustration Magazine, "La Conférence De Doullens", 80th Edition, 25 March 1922
• Carpentier, Paul and Rudent, Paul, "La Conférencedone de Doullens", Paris: Pedone, 1933
• Mordacq, Henri, "Unity of Command, How it was Achieved", Paris: Tallandier, 1929
• Neillands, Robin, The Great War Generals on the Western Front, 1914-1918, London: Magpie, 1999
• Marshall, S.L.A. World War I, Boston: Houghton, 1964
• Terrail, Gabriel, The Unique Command, Paris: Literary & Artistic Co., 1920 (translated from french)
• Laughlin, Clara E., Foch the Man, New York: Fleming, 1918
• "Le Temps" French newspaper archives online, Link
• Lloyd George, David, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, Vol VI, Boston: Little Brown, February 1937
• Marshall-Cornwall, Sir James, “Foch as Military Commander”, New York: Crane, Russak, 1972
• Hansard, Parliament Archives (internet source): Link
• Gilbert, Martin, Winston S. Churchill, Vol, IV, Companion Part 1, January 1917-June 1919, London: Heinemann, 1977
• Gilbert, Martin, Winston S. Churchill, Vol. IV, 'The Stricken World', 1917-1922, London: Heinemann, 1975
• Cooper, Duff, Haig, The Second Volume, London: Faber & Faber, 1936
• Wrench, John. Evelyn, Alfred Lord Milner, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1958
• James, Robert Rhodes (1974). "Winston S. Churchill, His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963". Vol. VII. New York: Chelsea.
• Roskill, Stephen, Hankey, Man of Secrets, Volume I, (1877-1918), London: Collins, 1970
• Owen, Frank, Tempestuous Journey, Lloyd George His Life and Times, London: Hutchinson, 1955

Further Reading

• Hobhouse, Emily, The Brunt of the War and Where it Fell, London: Methuen, 1902
• Harris, J.P., Douglas Haig and the First World War, London: Cambridge, 2008
• Gollin, Alfred, Proconsul in Politics, London: Blond, 1964
• Marlowe, John, Milner: Apostle of Empire, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1976

External Links

• Parliament Minutes, Link