LLOYD GEORGE AS PREMIER The New War Policy.—There was nothing left for Lloyd George but to accept the call. He attempted to rally all parties behind him. He succeeded with the conservatives and the labour party, and a certain number of liberals. But the bulk of the liberal ex-ministers stood aside and began to form a group known as the Independent Liberal party. Lloyd George was now in sole command of his own war policy. The small war committee which he instantly appointed fully carried out the hopes of its founders. It sat from day to day, and very often twice a day. It practically took the place of the cabinet. Records were kept of its meetings, and Lloyd George formed a small Downing Street secretariat in order to keep in close touch with the various ministries. The result was a general quickening up of war decisions and a more decisive control of the whole machine of government.
During the year 1917 Lloyd George pressed forward his idea of unified command of the Allied armies. He was now com pletely convinced that the war could only be won if the Allies were to face Germany with the same concentrated authority that Germany had established over her own partners. He was faced, however, with a very steady resistance from the high military command.
On Oct. 24, 1917, there occurred an event which finally decided him to force the matter of unified control to a decision. On that day the Austro-German armies under Von Billow broke through the lines of the Italian armies and drove them back to the line of the Tagliamento with the loss of 300,00o men and 2,000 guns. Italy stood for the moment in peril of a defeat equal to that of Serbia and Rumania in the preceding years. Lloyd George was determined that this defeat should not take place. He compelled the Western commands to send an army of infantry and artillery, English and French, under General Plumer through the Mont Cenis tunnel to northern Italy. These reinforcements arrived in the nick of time.
Europe a fresh army of 2,000,000 men released by the collapse of Russia after the Bolshevik revolution of November This gigantic new army created a fresh situation in the West, and the first blow fell on March 21, when 4o German divisions attacked and broke through the British line west of St. Quentin. On the following days the British line withdrew 15 miles, and the mili tary struggle that followed lasted through five tmible months. Lloyd George was indomitable in this supreme crisis and met it by two principal steps. One was the assertion of full unity of control, and the other was the bringing over of the American armies.
President Wilson had not contemplated sending his armies to Europe until they were fully trained. In that case the American armies would be too late. Lloyd George therefore made a defi nite appeal to President Wilson to send all he could immediately, and the President instantly responded by a promise to do so on condition that Great Britain provided the transport. Thus with the combined effort of the American command and the British Navy and Marine no less than 2,000,000 American soldiers were carried across the Atlantic, in spite of the submarines, during the months of April and May 1918. But mere numbers were still useless without unity. Visiting France in the first week of May 1918, Lloyd George held a decisive combined meeting of the military and civil powers, in which, supported by Lord Milner and Clemenceau, he was at last able to persuade the British generals to accept the supreme command of the great French soldier Marshal Foch. During the final months of the War the British armies fought loyally under that command. It was by the com bined attacks of British and French troops, storming the German lines east of Amiens, that the tide was turned on Aug. 8, 1918. Seven great battles were fought after this event, but from August until November the German armies were steadily driven back. Finally, on Nov. 11, came the collapse of the German resistance and the acceptance of armistice terms of defeat by the new German Government. "Germany is doomed," cried Lloyd George, speaking at the Mansion House on Nov. 9, 1918, and he proved a true prophet. The Allies had won the war.