churchill's strategic conception during the first world war

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Churchill's strategicconception during the FirstWorld WarTuvia Ben‐Moshe a

a Teacher of strategy and military history in theDepartment of International Relations , TheHebrew University of Jerusalem ,Published online: 24 Jan 2008.

To cite this article: Tuvia Ben‐Moshe (1989) Churchill's strategic conceptionduring the First World War, Journal of Strategic Studies, 12:1, 5-21, DOI:10.1080/01402398908437359

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Churchill's Strategic Conceptionduring the First World War

Tuvia Ben-Moshe

At the end of October 1940, Churchill opened an important discussionin the Defence Committee of the War Cabinet at which he was about tooutline his strategic conception and his plans for the future, saying:

The question might be asked, 'How are we to win the war?'This question was frequently posed in the years 1914-1918, butnot even those at the centre of things could have possibly givena reply as late as August of the last year of the war.1

This was indeed an admission, since his memoranda and correspondenceduring the First World War and also his central work on that war, TheWorld Crisis, were all deeply imbued with the feeling that had he beenallowed to act as he wished or had his advice been heeded, the war wouldhave been over sooner and the cost to the Allies would have been lower.This referred not only to the Gallipoli campaign but to the overall strategicconduct of the war. His conviction was strengthened by others: R. Blakeobserved that Churchill's strong personal and political position in the Sec-ond World War was partly due to 'far greater prestige as a military expert,based on the subsequent vindication of his strategical views in World WarI'; and Liddell Hart maintained that in the first war, his '[strategic] visionexcelled that of most of his contemporaries . . .' . Let alone the manydistinguished authorities who had justified the strategic idea that led tothe Dardanelles operations.2 The aim of the present article is to examineChurchill's strategic conception throughout that war without going into theprocess by which decisions were reached and how they were translated intomilitary action. Flawed decision-making and faulty military execution canemasculate a fine strategic conception and bring about failure, but on rareoccasions brilliant execution can make a success of a strategic conceptionnot well-founded in reality or deficient in its internal logic. It would seemthat if one examines Churchill's strategic conception in the war, viewing itas a whole, one may well wonder at the kind of strategy Churchill proposedand the kind of strategist he was. In addition, certain elements and traitsof his approach are not a matter of chance, and they can throw light on thenature of his strategic conception in the Second World War as well.

Churchill's strategic conception during the First World War rested ontwo basic elements: first, he wished to created a strategy that would be

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6 THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES

a synthesis of the 'continental' and the 'maritime-peripheral' schools; thesecond was that Germany must be defeated totally ancf that there mustT>eno compromise peace.

At the beginning of the century, Churchill was a disciple of the 'maritime'school,3 but some years before the war broke out he became a firmsupporter of 'continental commitment'. He was of the opinion that whenwar broke out with Germany, the small regular British Army should be sentto France. From the end of 1911, although he was nominated as First Lordof the Admiralty, he rejected the Admiralty position of employing anexpeditionary force in amphibian operations on the European peripheryrather than dispatching it to France.

In his brilliant memorandum of late 1911 entitled, 'The Military Aspectof the Continental Problem', Churchill anticipated that the power of thedefence in a future war would increase greatly (a conclusion reached byonly a few at that date) and that massive German forces invading throughBelgium (a move foreseen by many at the time)4 would meet with logisticdifficulties as they advanced inside France. In the light of these assumptions,he was of the opinion that in the first stage of the war, France should adopta strategy of flexible defence by a temporary withdrawal of forces from partof her territory, so as to lengthen the German supply lines and increase theeffect of 'friction' factors in order to slow down the German advance. Atthe suitable moment, when adequate reserves had been built up (includingthe British Expeditionary Force) and when the impetus of the German drivehad been slowed down, a decisive counter-attack should be launched. Hecontended that a static defence on the frontiers or a parallel French attackwould only lead to attrition of large French forces and finally to defeat.He sketched out a timetable of how the campaign would develop in theWest, forecasting when the turning-point in the war would be reached if hisstrategic approach were to be adopted.5 The turning-point on the Westernfront did indeed take place at the time he foretold (something that con-tributed enormously to his self-confidence and prestige)6 but not becauseof the fact that the French had adopted the defensive strategic line he hadrecommended. On the contrary, when the German attack developed, theFrench launched a parallel attack towards the Saar into Lorraine accordingto the famous 'Plan 17'.7 His forecast also came true because luck was onhis side . . . .

The basis of this memorandum was his evaluation that France could notstand for long in confronting German military might unless massive Britishland forces were positioned in Western Europe. He viewed the despatch ofan expeditionary force to France as a political step that would constitute animportant moral contribution and as a military step that might perhaps tipthe balance in the decisive opening phase and form the nucleus of a largeBritish Army in Western Europe.8 (Adherents of the 'maritime' school,who opposed despatching an expeditionary force to France and the creationof a large British land army, did not provide a satisfactory answer on howotherwise to ward off the danger of a French collapse.) Churchill believedthat without this British contribution, the balance of power in Europe

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CHURCHILL'S STRATEGIC CONCEPTION 7

would be destroyed: Germany would establish her hegemony over Europeand would threaten Britain's status as a European and a world power. Thiswas the principal reason for his supporting Britain's entering the war at theside of France.9

When the war broke out, Churchill acted energetically to help bringBritain into the war and to secure the immediate despatch of the entireBritish Expeditionary Force to France.10 At the same time, even beforesigns began to emerge of a stalemate on the Western front, he started towork towards the opening of fronts on the European periphery.11 Duringthe rest of 1914 and at the beginning of 1915 there were two large schemesthat he attempted to promote: one was on the northern coast of Germany- the 'Borkum-Baltic scheme', and the other, the plan to force the Straitsof the Dardanelles and establish a Balkan front. However, contrary to thecustomary view, Churchill's preference was for action in the northerntheatre,12 and he himself wrote in the draft of his book, The World Crisis,

Up till the end of the year my mind turned on the whole tointervening on the northern rather than on the southern flank. . . even while the Dardanelles was on I always regarded itas [long] as I was in power only as an interim operation . . . .13

The Baltic scheme had been put forward by a number of people many yearsbefore the war, in particular Admiral Fisher, whom Churchill restored tohis previous post of First Sea Lord of the Admiralty. During the war,Churchill regarded this scheme from a variety of aspects, but at bottomits aim was to secure effective command of the Baltic and to finally landforces, partly Russian, on Germany's Baltic coast, thus creating a threatto Berlin from the north. By executing this move successfully, Churchillalso hoped to bring in the neutrals, Denmark and Holland, alongside theEntente powers.14 At the outset, the 'Borkum plan' was separate, butChurchill combined it with the 'Baltic Scheme'. The island of Borkum,one of the biggest of the Frisian Islands, lay close to the Heligoland Bightand the estuaries of the Jade and Elbe, the German Fleet's main anchorages.Churchill wanted to take Borkum by amphibian assault and set up a basethere for British naval vessels, which would impose a 'close blockade' onthe German Navy and merchant shipping. Before the war, Churchill likeother people assumed that the great sea battle between the German andthe British fleets would be joined right at the beginning. Victory in thisbattle was the fundamental condition for putting the Baltic scheme intoeffect. He was surprised by the German tactic of evading the decisive seaengagement; he was now of the opinion that in addition to the previousobjectives, the capture of Borkum would also force the German High SeasFleet to come out and give battle. In his mind the 'Borkum plan' turnedinto the necessary initial phase of the 'Baltic Scheme'.15

The 'Dardanelles Scheme' had many begetters and the versions differedsomewhat from each other. Churchill saw it as comprising two phases: first,forcing the Dardanelles by old battleships; success in this breakthroughwould enable a small army force to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula, thus

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securing the rear and the supply of the battleships in the Sea of Marmora.These ships would advance to Constantinople and cut the link betweenAsiatic and European Turkey; the menace of their guns would bringdown the already tottering regime in Constantinople and force Turkeyout of the war. Therewith the important connection with Russia would berenewed. In the second phase, which would largely depend on the successof the first, Churchill hoped to establish a wide Balkan front supported byAnglo-French forces.16

As we have said, until the end of 1914, he concentrated his main effortson promoting the 'Borkum Scheme'. At the end of that year, when itbecame clear that a paralysing stalemate had been created on the Westernfront, Churchill found ready listeners, among them Secretary for War EarlKitchener, for his ideas on action on the European periphery. A number offactors led the War Council to decide in favour of the Dardanelles plan andagainst the Borkum-Baltic scheme: (1) The admiralty experts and Fisher aswell opposed the 'Borkum scheme' because they were of the opinion that itwas not feasible;17 and because the German Navy had still to be defeated.(2) Kitchener was of the opinion that the whole 'Borkum-Baltic scheme'was not realistic and refused to deploy trained troops for such operations,either north or south of Europe, in the near future.18 (3) Once stalematedeveloped in the West, a number of key persons in the War Council,such as the Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, Lloyd George, Kitchener,Hankey (Secretary of the War Council) and Fisher too, manifested greatinterest in the Balkan region. (Some of them even presented plans forsuch action.)19 At a certain stage the Russians appeared to be in needof immediate help to ease the pressure exerted on them by the Turks inthe Caucasus; but even without the Russians' problem, Churchill was veryeager to initiate offensive moves on the European periphery just as soonas feasible.20 In fact, his impatience was a factor whose importance shouldnot be underestimated.

In the light of these factors, seeing that the way to the Baltic wasclosed, Churchill removed the last stumbling-block in the path of theBalkan operation: after he secured the not over-enthusiastic accord ofthe Admiralty experts,21 he was able to assure the War Council that navalforces on their own were capable of forcing the Dardanelles and reachingConstantinople.22 Thereby he solved the problem of Kitchener's refusal tosend land forces to the area at once for a combined operation. When theDardanelles plan was decided on by the War Council on 13 January 1915, forChurchill it was simply in the nature of what was available rather than whatwas desirable. But once the decision was taken, he was the prime mover inits implementation, even when others began to lose faith in the project.23

Since this article focuses on Churchill's strategic conception throughoutthe war, it is not the place for a discussion of the complicated process ofdecision-making that led to the Dardanelles-Gallipoli campaign, the causesof its failure and Churchill's responsibility for that failure. What happenedmust be explored in the broader compass of his strategic conception inthe war.

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There is agreement among quite a few researchers that the strategic con-ception behind the Dardanelles plan was reasonable and even brilliant,24

though only few of them accept Churchill's view that the establishing ofa Balkan front 'must have involved the downfall of Austria and Turkeyand the speedy, victorious termination of the war'.25 There were alsoquite a few people, beginning even with the authors of the DardanellesCommission's report, of the opinion that to force the Straits and advance onConstantinople was a possible feat on condition that a combined operationon the Dardanelles and the Gallipoli peninsula had been executed simul-taneously at the beginning.2^ Basically, the plan was sufficiently sound topreclude out-of-hand dismissal of the conception behind it and its operativevalidity. This was not the case, however, as regards the 'Borkum-Balticscheme', which Churchill preferred to the Dardanelles plan. One cannotinvalidate the conception behind this scheme out-of-hand either, but thereis hardly anyone of the opinion that it would have been operatively fea-sible.27 Admiral Roger Keyes, an enthusiastic supporter of the Dardanellesplan, wrote to Churchill, 'The Borkum plan simply wasn't war undermodern conditions'.28 It would seem that if the 'Borkum-Baltic scheme'had been implemented instead of the Dardanelles plan, Churchill wouldnot have found it easy to defend his reputation as a strategist in the way hedid after the Gallipoli failure.

While Churchill was actively promoting the Dardanelles plan and itsexpansion after the failure of the naval breakthrough, he did not for allthat relinquish his view of the importance of the Western theatre. Forhim it was not a tug-of-war between 'Easterners' and 'Westerners' but areciprocal combination of the centre of gravity to be found in the West,'the main theatre' as he called it - where for the time being there wasno practicable and inexpensive way of winning the war - together with amove which, if successful, could turn the Balkan front into the 'decisivetheatre' as he called it. It was no part of his original intention to weakenthe Western front by the transfer of relatively large forces to the East. TheGallipoli campaign, whose losses were not higher than an average offensiveon the Western front in 1916 and 1917, did not prevent exploitation of otheropportunities or undermine prospective strategic plans - there simply wereno such opportunities in the northern theatre or on the Western front. TheGallipoli move was, therefore, as Churchill defined it, 'a legitimate wargamble';29 but when one gambles, one has to know when to stop, especiallyif one is losing. Even after his resignation from the Admiralty in May1915, Churchill advised that the strategic line for 1916 should be absoluteabstention from offensives in the West and continuation of the campaignin Gallipoli. He opposed the evacuation of Gallipoli, an operation effectedwith success at the end of 1915.30 It seems as if his power of strategicjudgment was affected by the hope of salvaging his personal prestige. Atthat moment he began to lose the internal balance of his strategical con-ception from before the war and in its first stage. The balance was notrestored up to the end of the war.

The failure of the Gallipoli campaign put an end to hopes of defeating

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Germany speedily by peripheral operations. Attention was now riveted onFrance, even though there was no sign apparent there of a clear way todefeat Germany other than by a prolonged and costly war of attrition.Naturally, doubts began to be heard in Britain as to the worthwhilenessof continuing the war, and the idea of negotiating a compromise peacebegan floating in the air. Broadly speaking, during the war the Britishpolitical leadership had dismissed that idea. Nevertheless, there weremoments, especially after the US entered the war, in which this possibilitywas discussed in earnest. Lloyd George himself was ready to considera negotiated peace until the middle of 1916.3I Ideas like these, evenshort-lived, did not occur to Churchill. On the contrary, total victory overGermany formed the starting-point that shaped his strategic conception.He was thinking in terms of total war long before people began to thinklike this in Britain. He had called for victory at all costs during the War inSouth Africa, and supported the extreme measures adopted by Kitcheneragainst the Boer civilian population.32 He was already then stressing thenature of modern war which required the complete exploitation of thehuman and material resources of a state in order to achieve victory.33 Hehimself defined his position as an exceptional one relative to the traditionalpositions of the two historic parties in Britain. 'I have always urged fightingwars and other contentions with might and main till overwhelming victory,and then offering the hand of friendship to the vanquished.'34 When heheard that Lloyd George was inclined to negotiate a compromise peace,he was ready to 'part company [with him] forever'.35 He contended: 'Notto win decisively is to have all this misery over again after an uneasy truceand to fight it over again, probably under less favorable circumstances and,perhaps, alone.'36

He also saw the war as an uncompromising conflict of ideologies. Thiswar, he affirmed, was not like wars of the past waged by princedoms inquarrels of succession or on commercial grounds. 'This war has becomea conflict between Christian civilization and scientific babarism, betweennations where peoples own Governments, and nations where the Govern-ments own peoples. . . . The struggle is between right and wrong, and assuch is not capable of any solution which is not absolute.'37 He stressedhow important it was that the victor should be capable of imposing his willon the vanquished.38 Churchill believed that German aggressiveness andmilitary power were the product of what he called 'Prussian militarism',which he wanted to uproot by means of social change to be effected inGermany due to the limitless influence to be wielded by the Allies oncethey secured decisive victory in the war.39 Even when Russia was out ofthe war at the end of 1917, he was not moved to any second thoughtsregarding a compromise peace, as were some ministers in Lloyd George'sGovernment.

Churchill's opposition to a compromise peace was also based on hisevaluation that if the Allied powers stood firm and had sufficient stamina,Germany would be defeated as a result of her inferiority in human andeconomic resources. When rejecting Lord Landsdowne's public proposals,

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the last of them in July 1918, calling for a stop to the war and negotiationswith Germany, he asserted that a distinction should be drawn between thepowerful image presented by Germany and the reality behind it.40

The moment the war-aim is total victory over the antagonist, thenthe strategy and the means to be employed tend to become unlimited.Logically and practically, there has to be a direct connection betweenthe nature of the war-aims and the strategy employed. From the pointof view of the war-aims, there was no difference at all between Churchilland Haig, Robertson and all the other adherents of the 'Western School'.All of them wanted a total victory over Germany. Churchill differed fromthem regarding their operative-strategic line, but this difference of opinionwas less forceful than is usually thought. When Hankey, Secretary of theWar Council, and Lloyd George proposed adopting the 'Eastern Strategy'at the end of 1914 as a way out of the stalemate in the West, their aim wasto garner territorial and political gains to serve as a basis for negotiationsand a compromise peace with Germany.41 But for Churchill, the EasternStrategy was meant to lead to the defeat of Germany, and not to bringBritain to the negotiating table.

When Churchill was obliged to resign from his post as First Lord ofthe Admiralty in May 1915, he was removed gradually from the foci ofpower and influence. Even after he re-entered the government and becameMinister of Munitions in June 1917, he was no longer associated with theconduct of war strategy. His being edged out of a position of power didnot, however, prevent him from continuing to voice firm if not exactlyself-consistent views on the conduct of the war. When he finally leftthe government in November 1915, he said almost prophetically, thoughnot solely, '. . . old wars decided by their episodes rather than by theirtendencies. In this war the tendencies are far more important than theepisodes. Without winning any sensational victories, we may win the war.'The Entente powers' command of the sea, their numerical sureriority, and'the rapid and enormous destruction of German military manhood' wouldbring about a situation where the German infrastructure would collapse,even if the German defence lines remained intact.42

It was about this stage that Churchill began to base his strategy onwearing Germany down. What was in dispute between him and otherBritish decision-makers was the way in which Germany could be worn downeffectively. All through the war he consistently opposed the large-scaleattacks on the Western front initiated by the French, and Kitchener,Robertson and Haig. His opposition did not stem from failure to recognizethe importance of the Western theatre, which in his terminology was alwaysthe 'main theatre' and at different stages also the 'decisive theatre', but hethought that these attacks were made prematurely. In this opinion, theseoffensives were only eroding the Anglo-French forces and delaying theaccumulation of sufficient strength for the decisive blow in the West. InAugust 1916, Churchill wrote a well-argued Memorandum which showed-contrary to the accepted evaluation - that British losses in recent offensiveshad been far larger than those of the Germans.43 At the same time, a

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humane man by nature, he was shaken by what he saw as useless slaughter- especially when his personal prestige was not involved in the matter - andthis too influenced his opposition to these offensives. The main differenceof opinion between Churchill and the British generals centred round thispoint. Haig and Robertson were of the opinion that even if these offensivesdid not produce an immediate decision on the battlefield, they would drawso much German blood that they would finally lead to Germany's 'completeoverthrow'.44

While Churchill had preferred a defensive strategy in the West up tothe moment for the decisive blow in this theatre, he still hoped to revivemanoeuvre and strategic outflanking. At the beginning of 1917 he said inParliament:

The vital part of the problem of man-power is frugality ofits use. . . . Machines save life, machine power is a substitutefor man-power, brains will save blood, manoeuvre is a greatdiluting agent to slaughter and can be made to reduce quantityof slaughter required to effect any particular object. Generallyit is not considered in the simple use of force but in the adroitaugmentation and application of force. A great manoeuvre ofwar, the kind of manoeuvre for which the great generals ofthe past were rendered famous, bears the same relation to theordinary application of force as the pulley or lever in its ordinaryapplication to power. Past commanders won fame by novel andunexpected methods. In the first two years of this war therewere great possibilities of manoeuvres, both geographical andmechanical, and there are still great possibilities.45

Churchill saw manoeuvre with a multi-dimensional vision. It begins on thebattlefield itself, on the enemy's flanks and rear, in military technology,in time, on the psychological plane and through diplomatic means. Thesuccess of one side in getting a state to join its camp is the equivalent ofa victory in a great battle. He did not, however, regard manoeuvre in itsvarious forms as a substitute for the decisive battle or slaughter in war. Hewell knew that a combination of manoeuvre and slaughter is needed for thepurpose of reaching a decision in the field.46 Yet he met with difficultiesin proposing feasible solutions, both as regards methods of attrition and asregards ways of reintroducing the grand manoeuvre into the war.

Right at the beginning of the war, it was clear to him and to others that theblockade would make its influence felt extremely slowly. For operative rea-sons, the blockade was distant to the German coasts, a fact which damagedits effectiveness. Germany's command of the Baltic enabled her to importvital raw materials from Sweden, and neutral Holland offered an air vent forworld trade with Germany. Germany's conquests in the east could provideher with the greater part of the resources she lacked. By the end of 1915,the Germans had conquered Serbia and most of the territory of Galicia,Poland, Lithuania and parts of Belorussia and Latvia. By the autumn of1916, they had also extended their power to Romania. Churchill himself

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held the view that the Germans must prefer a strategy aiming at a decisivevictory over Russia and the economic consolidation of their conquests inthe East along with the defensive in the West. In his opinion, this was whatFalkenhayn should have done in 1916 instead of attacking in Verdun.47

Although the Germans did not adopt this strategic line, they were in factnot far from it. Except Verdun, they refrained from offensives in the Westfrom the failure of the Schlieffen Plan in the end of 1914 until the MarchOffensive in 1918. Though their conquests in the East were only partial,they sufficed to give them a large measure of staying power. To hasten thedefeat of Germany, nothing remained for it but to kill as many Germans aspossible. A conclusion which was already arrived at in the summer of 1915by most of the leading British politicians and soldiers.48 Churchill himselfnoted the need for this, it will be remembered. The question was how thiscould be effected, with the Germans adopting the defensive in the West,when France and Britain, according to Churchill's position, were supposedto refrain from attacking on this front. Churchill was partly aware of theweaknesses of his position. He contended that he did not mean that theAllies should sit with folded arms in the West; they could thin out theirdefensive lines for the purpose of tempting the Germans to attack and thentrap them in a large salient.49 However, this contention was only an insultto the tactical shrewdness revealed by the German military leadership. Asearly as the beginning of 1915, Falkenhayn had warned of this danger(Churchill himself cited Falkenhayn's warning in The World Crisis),50 andit is extremely doubtful whether the French would have been prepared toyield ground even temporarily.

Churchill's answer was not clear either to the question of how grandmanoeuvre against the enemy was to be renewed. He admitted (in TheWorld Crisis) that from the end of 1915 the strategic and political pos-sibilities for manoeuvre on the enemy's periphery were greatly reduced.51

At the beginning of 1917, he stated that the opportunity for action in theBalkans had been missed and that real results in this region could only beachieved by putting in massive forces, but transfer and supply for them werebeyond the shipping capacity available.52

Unfortunately, the problem of shipping in 1917 affected not only theestablishment of fronts on the European periphery, but had turned into amatter of life and death for Britain. From the beginning of 1917 Germany's'unrestricted' submarine warfare raised the rate of sinking to levels suchthat Britain was close to being forced out of the war. If losses had continuedat this rate, it would have been impossible to go on supplying the civilianeconomy in Britain and maintain the large army in France.53 The Germanswere close to achieving this aim but for the last minute introduction of theconvoy system, which brought down the rate of sinking dramatically.

Churchill was not involved in the decision-making process that led tothe operation of the convoy system, but his 1917 proposals for solving theshipping crisis are illuminating.

In his view, the root of the problem was that the Navy was looking fordefensive solutions at a time when it ought to seize the initiative, tie the

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enemy down to defending himself and prevent him from carrying on freelywith his offensive.54

The decision to introduce the convoy system was made at the end ofApril, but the application of the system was held up until the end of July. Atthe beginning of that month, when Churchill returned to the government,he again raised his plan for an attack on the island of Borkum as a meansof solving the submarine problem as well. For him, this scheme had becomea panacea for all the ills of British strategy. (In June 1940 he raised theghost of the project again from the death.)55 There was nothing new in thebasic idea; he believed that the conditions were now ripe for imposing the'close blockade' on Germany that had been dropped before the outbreakof war. An amphibious sally against Borkum and establishing a Britishnaval base there would make it possible to blockade Heligoland. The navalconfrontation would pin down the German submarines in this zone andwould lessen the pressure in the Atlantic considerably. The German Navywould be forced to leave its harbours for the decisive battle. The seizingof Borkum could also serve as a diversion on the northern flank when thegreat offensive was launched in the West once the Americans arrived inFrance; and finally, it would be an intermediate stage towards Holland'sentering the war, the invasion of Schleswig-Holstein and obtaining thecommand of the Baltic. The main part of Churchill's document was devotedto a punctilious examination and solution of the operational problems andthe techniques involved in capturing the island and holding it.56 These solu-tions, however brilliant, could not provide sufficient cover for a strategicplan that the Admiralty experts-Churchill's friend, Admiral Keyes, amongthem -condemned as impractical after examining it anew at the end of 1917.

In spite of his preaching about the importance of learning from navaland military history (convoys had proved efficacious throughout Britain'spast wars),57 he was far from adopting the correct solution.58 This wasnot the last time that his characteristic instinct in favour of the offensiveundermined his strategic judgement.

Some difference of opinion exists as to whether the introduction ofthe convoy system was forced on the Navy by the politicians - sc. LloydGeorge - or whether the Admiralty reached a similar conclusion on its ownaccount once the United States entered the war.59 Churchill, however, hadno doubts about who were the people that saved Britain from defeat; hetook 'the astonishing [fact] that the politicians were right and the Admiraltyauthorities were wrong' as a 'guidance for the future'.a) The whole matterbuttressed his conclusion that '[r]he experts were frequently wrong. Thepoliticians were frequently right.'61

By means of the Borkum plan, Churchill hoped both to solve the subma-rine crisis and also to reintroduce the element of 'grand manoeuvre' into thewar. In that same month of July, he also proposed attacking Alexandretta62

and supported an offensive against Turkey from the direction of Egypt. Ashort while after, at the close of 1917, he opposed reinforcing the MiddleEast theatre, since he feared that the Western theatre would be thereby toomuch weakened. He infered that a big German attack in the West was in

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prospect in 1918.63 The worsening of the situation in Russia and the entryof the US into the war in April 1917 spurred his interest in the Western frontand awakened new hopes. In October he affirmed that the quickest way todecisive victory over Germany was to smash her army on the Western front.He wrote,

It would be a thousand pities to discard this direct and obviousmethod of victory in favour of weaker, more roundabout,protracted and far less decisive strategy, unless we are convincedthat we have not the power to conquer on the Western front

He advised waiting for the Americans to arrive, accumulating sufficientsuperiority in the West and then in 1918 launching a powerful majoroffensive based on tanks.65 Churchill was far from being an 'Easterner' likeLloyd George, who revived the campaign against Turkey and reinforcedthe Salonika front. In March 1918, when the great German offensive wasstorming ahead in the West, Churchill called for exact preparations to bemade for a decisive attack in the West in 1919, to be based on massive useof tanks, planes and gas.66 His ideas resembled those of the '1919 Plan',which fortunately did not have to be carried out. Churchill was critical of theworthiness of the campaign that was to be launched against Turkey in theMiddle East. The forces that were transferred to Allenby from the Westernfront did in fact bring him victory over Turkey, but this victory did not affectthe crucial campaign fought in the West in 1918. Churchill wrote, 'Enoughwas sent East to be a dangerous dispersion, and never at one time enoughto compel a prompt conclusion . . . the clash of the Western and Easternschools produced incoherence and half-measures.'67

This brings us again to the internal problematics of the strategy Churchillpreached in 1916 and from then on. On one side, there was no 'decisivetheatre' at hand beside the 'main theatre' and no fronts could have beenopened on the enemy coasts; on the other hand, the offensive in theWest should not be launched before decisive quantitative superiority wasaccumulated. How then was Germany to be defeated if she did not attackin the West? Russia was slowly collapsing and the resources of the East werefalling into the hands of the Germans, in addition to the French resourcesthey already had at their disposal. In this situation and with this kind ofstrategy, the war could have continued far longer than the four years itlasted. The British and French leadership saw no other way except massiveattacks in the West that would intensify erosion of Germany manpower andhold up a major German attack on Russia.

In The World Crisis Churchill argues that it was not the big offensivesin the West in 1916 and 1917 that brought about the collapse of Germany,but the failure of Ludendorff s great offensive in March 1918 which woredown the German Army. The German losses in that offensive were some700,000 men and the annual quota of German mobilization at that perioddid not exceed 150,000. He maintained that what occurred was a murderouscombination of the blockade which had reached its peak effect with the

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accumulated psychological strain and the grinding of man-power duringthe March offensive. If Ludendorff had not attacked in the West, Germanycould have held out in 1918.68

Churchill was right - British and French losses in their offensives in theWest were larger than the German,69 but the mistake lies in treating the1918 German offensive as an isolated move, since its results were also thefruit of the accumulated previous German losses. Churchill simply refusesto admit the destruction of German manpower that had taken place in thepreceding years: to admit this would have run counter to his oppositionto the large-scale attacks in the West. There is no need for recourse tomathematics in order to conclude that if the annual quotas of Germanmobilization in the years 1915 to 1917 had not been eroded as they were, thegreat gap created by the failure of the 1918 offensive could have been filled.

There is no way of evading the fact that the Allies' great offensives inthe West - despite the folly of their conduct - did make a vital contributionto Germany's collapse. After the war, Churchill himself admitted as muchin private to H.A.L. Fisher by saying that 'economic causes were verysubsidiary in determining German defeat, but that if the English and Frenchhad ceased attacking, Germany, though strong, could not have won'.70

Churchill wanted to have the best of all worlds: to avoid the verycostly direct offensives in the West while preaching a strategy of attritionbased also on killing as many Germans as possible, and calling for a grandmanoeuvre which was not, however, feasible since 1916. In the reality ofthe First World War, it was not possible to practise what he suggested. Hisapproach led to one sole logical conclusion - a compromise peace reachedeven from a position of some inferiority of the Allies; but this had beenbarred by his firm demand for a total victory over Germany. It is a mistaketo think that the offensives in the West went ahead because the politicianslost control of the military and remained spellbound by the Generals'promises that the offensives would win the war. The force of the soldiers'arguments was based in the first place on the fact that the politiciansopposed any compromise peace. From the moment that this was thepoliticians' stand, they lost a pivotal point in their conflict with the militaryover shaping strategy. Churchill contradicted himself to some extent whenhe argued that Germany should have adopted a defensive strategy in theWest in 1918, which would have created convenient conditions enabling herto impose negotiations on her enemies,71 while he himself and many morelike him were firmly against a compromise peace.

Churchill's explanations for Germany's defeat - a strained attempt tomerge objective interpretation with justification for his own strategic view- are illuminating with regard to the inner contradictions of his strategy,in spite of the fact that they were given in retrospect. He claimed that itwas the Germans who brought disaster on themselves because they madethree major strategic blunders. The first was the decision to invade throughBelgium, which led to Britain's entry into the war; the second was thedecision to wage unrestricted submarine warfare at the beginning of 1917,which brought the US into the war; the third, as has been said, was the

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decision to attack in the West in 1918.72 To these three blunders, which henoted in this order, must be added one more which he referred to a numberof times in The World Crisis and in another work - that the Germans shouldhave attacked in the East in 1916 to defeat Russia, take over her economicresources and threaten the British Empire from the north, instead ofattacking at Verdun in the West.73 He was of the opinion that the Germanmilitary leadership had neglected the economic dimensions in its militaryplanning.

Not many are likely to question the strategic blunders listed by Churchill,but these mistakes do not suffice to explain why the German collapseoccurred in 1918 and not a good deal later. Churchill himself affirmedthat the Germans could have imposed negotiations if they had refrainedfrom the 1918 offensive; and as pointed out, the effect on Germany of thefailure of the Ludendorff offensive in 1918 cannot be understood apart fromthe previous Anglo-French offensives in the West. In these explanations,Churchill indirectly revealed the weakness of his own strategic line and thestrength of that of Haig and Robertson, despite its lack of humanity. In themain, and without realizing it, his line was based on the Germans' makingserious mistakes at the highest strategic level. In retrospect, in the light ofthe two world wars, it can indeed be argued that this kind of strategy wasnot unrealistic, but this German weakness could not have been known inthe First World War. As a general rule, strategy cannot be built almostentirely on waiting for the antagonist to make extraordinary errors. Onthe contrary, it must be assumed that the enemy will act with the utmoststrategic insight, and in this event, Churchill would have been completelyat odds with himself. According to his own viewpoint, the correct strategicline for the Germans to adopt would have been to remain on the defensivein the West and expand in the East, and in these circumstances the strategicline he advised in the course of the war - refraining from attacks on theWestern front until decisive superiority was attained - would have playedinto the hands of the Germans.

The immediate cause of the German collapse was described by Churchillthus, '. . . it was only indirectly from the tremendous collisions in theWest that the final blow to German resisting power came'. Precisely, themuch-disputed Balkan theatre

was destined to produce the culminating decision. The strengthof a chain, however ponderous, is that of its weakest link. TheBulgarian link was about to snap, and with it the remainingcohesion of the whole hostile coalition. This event was nothowever induced by local circumstances. It resulted from theconsternation which followed the defeat of the German armiesin France. . . . The reactions were reciprocal: the Germandefeats undermined Bulgarian resistance, and the Bulgariansurrender pulled out the linchpin of the German combination.74

For the purpose of building up substantiation for his own overall strategyin which he sought a harmonious combination of the 'main theatre' and the

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fronts on the European periphery and, in particular, his Balkan conceptionduring the war, he attached far too much weight to Bulgaria's retiring fromthe war as a reason for Germany's final collapse.75 There was no reciprocal,two-way effect of one front on another. Once Russia withdrew from thewar, and if Germany had not attacked in the West, the withdrawal ofBulgaria would have had no impact on the course of the war becauseGermany had sufficient forces at her disposal to measure up to any problemin the East. The Bulgarians dropped their resistance after three years duringwhich the Franco-British forces had sat still helplessly on the Salonikafront, only when the few German forces that had stiffened their lineswere transferred to the West to help stop the gaps that had opened upthere. The period which started from 8 August - the German Army's 'blackday' - to November 1918 during which Bulgaria surrendered, could bedescribed as only a 'dragging anti-climax'.76 Despite his apprehension thatthe war was won in the West, Churchill was nevertheless bewitched byhis own theory of the 'Bulgarian link' and preserved this illusion evenduring the Second World War.77

Throughout the war Churchill sought to crystallize and apply his stra-tegic synthesis of the two schools - the 'continental' and the 'peripheral-maritime'. From before the war and up to the second half of 1915, thestrategic conception was basically sound, particularly since he recognizedthe superior and crucial nature of the Western theatre. However, he wasin trouble and failed when he sought to apply the peripheral dimension ofhis conception (something that recurred in the Second World War). Fromthe end of 1915 to the end of the war, his strategic conception was vitiatedby its inner contradictions. If his main problem had previously been thenature and feasibility of the moves on the European periphery, now inthis period of the war the problem stemmed from the strategic conceptionitself. However, this problematic nature of his strategy focused only aroundfinding a way to be adopted to defeat Germany - Churchill knew how notto lose the war but not how to win it. As to the overall approach in hiswork, The World Crisis, where he argued that had his strategic ideas beencarried out properly, or in full, they would have been proved correct, it canbe affirmed that if the strategy he proposed from the end of 1915 on hadbeen carried out in full, Germany would not have been defeated in 1918;further, the war would probably not have been terminated by a decisiveAllied victory as he had wished, but by a compromise peace.

NOTES

To Professor Norman A. Rose, a mentor and a friend.

The author would like to thank Lynne Rienner Publishers for giving permission to drawmaterial from his forthcoming book, Churchill: Strategy and History, now under preparation;and also acknowledges the support of the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations.

1. Defence committee, 31.10.1940, (40)39 Confidential Annex, CAB 69/8.

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2. The 'might have beens' and 'ifs' are a theme which is repeated tirelessly throughoutthe book. See, for example, Winston S. Churchill (hereafter WSC). The World Crisis1911-1918, 2 vols. (London: Odhams Press, 1938; first published between 1923 and1926), Vol. 1, Ch. 13, and pp.461, 478, 593, 597-9, 632; Vol.2, pp.876, 879-80; see R.Blake in M. Howard (ed.), Soldiers and Governments (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode,1957), pp.49-50; Liddell Hart in A.J.P. Taylor (ed.), Churchill: Four Faces and the Man(London: Allen Lane, 1969), p.201; on the Dardanelles, see below.

3. See, for example, companion volumes of documents to the officials biography of WinstonS. Churchill by R.S. Churchill and M. Gilbert (London: Heinemann, 1967-82), WSC toLady Randolph, 8.12.1896, Vol.1, companion volume (CV), Part 1, pp.707-9. Infra CV1/1; House of Commons, 13.5.1901, CV 2/1, pp.56-68; Daily Mail, 17.6.1901, CV2/1, pp.70-73; Winston Churchill. His Complete Speeches 1897-1963, edited by R.Rhodes James, 8 vols. (NY: Chelsea House Publishers, 1974). Infra SPHS, 27.4.1901,17.1.1903, Vol.1, pp.74-6, 157-60; SPHS, 14.8.1908, 17.7.1909, Vol.2, pp.1082-7,1286-9.

4. See J. Gooch, The Plans of War, The General Staff and British Military Strategy c.1900-1916 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), pp.281-3, 288.

5. WSC, 'Military Aspects of the Continental Problem', in The World Crisis, Vol. 1, pp.42-6.6. See Sir M. Hankey to WSC, 29.1.1936, CV 5/3, pp.26-7; WSC to Sir M. Hankey,

30.1.1936, 31.1.1936, CV 5/3, pp.27-9.7. B.H. Liddell Hart, History of the First World War (London: Pan Books, 1972, first

published in 1930), pp.43-4, 52.8. WSC to Lloyd-George, 31.8.1911, CV 2/2, p. 1119; WSC: Memorandum, Aug. 1911,

CV 2/2, p.1105; WSC, 'Military Aspects of the Continental Problem', op. cit.; A.Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher Era1904-1919, Vols.1-5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961-70), Vol.1, pp.244-5,389-93; WSC to E. Grey and H.H. Asquith, 23.8.1912, CV 2/3, pp. 1638-9; See alsoGooch, op. cit., pp. 292-5; M. Howard, The Continental Commitment (London: Penguin:1974), pp.54-5.

9. WSC to Lloyd-George, 31.8.1911, op. cit.; WSC, The World Crisis. Vol. 1, pp. 160-6; Seealso WSC to G.M. Trevelyan, 3.1.1935, CV 5/2, pp.984-5.

10. See Marder, op. cit., Vol.1, p.357; WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.1, pp.187-9.11. WSC, Memorandum, 19.8.1914, CV 3/1, pp.45-6; WSC to N. Buxton, 31.8.1914, CV

3/1, pp.72-3; WSC to C. Douglas (CIGS) 1.9.1914, CV 3/1, p.75; WSC to RearAdmiral Kerr, 4.9.1914, CV 3/1, pp.83-4.

12. Cf. Marder, op. cit., Vol.2, p.200; R. Rhodes James, Gallipoli (New York: Macmillan,1965), p.31; WSC to Sir J. French, 11.1.1915, CV 3/1, pp.401-2; WSC to Adm.Jellicoe, 11.1.1915, CV 3/1, pp.402-4; Meeting of the War Council, 3.3.1915, CV3/1, pp.610-18.

13. Quoted in R. Prior, Churchill's 'World Crisis' as History (London: Croom Helm, 1983),p.47.

14. WSC, Memorandum, 19.8.1914, op. cit.; WSC to Adm. Jellicoe, 8.10.1914, CV 3/1pp.180-82; WSC to H. Asquith, 29.12.1914, CV 3/1, pp.343-5; Lord Fisher, Memo-randum, Nov. 1914, CV 3/1, pp.284-7.

15. See WSC, Memorandum, 2.12.1914, CV 3/1, pp.291-4; WSC to Lord Fisher, 22.12.1914, CV 3/1, pp.325-6; Meeting of the War Council, 7.1.1915, CV 3/1, pp.384-90;Adm. Jellicoe to WSC, 8.1.1915, CV 3/1, pp.397-8; Marder, op. cit., Vol.2, pp.178-9;WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.1, p.53. WSC to J. Churchill, 26.8.1914, CV 3/1, pp.55-6;WSC to Adm. Jellicoe, 8.10.1914, CV 3/1, pp.180-82; WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.1,p.198; See also Marder, op. cit., Vol.5, pp.304-7, 318-21.

16. In contrast to his plans on the northern periphery, there is not a paper written by Churchillin which he described his Dardanelles-Balkan scheme in full (cf. Hankey, Memorandum,1.3.1915, CV 3/1, pp.593-602). However, see Meetings of the War Council, 13.1.1915,19.2.1915, 24.2.1915, 3.3.1915, CV 3/1, pp.407-11, 527-34, 555-61, 610-18; WSC toLord Kitchener, 18.2.1915, CV 3/1, pp.518-19.

17. Marder, op. cit., Vol.2, pp. 188-9.18. Meeting of the War Council, 25.11.1914, CV 3/1, pp.276-80; Meeting of the War

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Council, 1.12.1914, CV 3/1, pp.290-91; Lord Kitchener to WSC, 2.1.1915, CV 3/1,pp.360-61; Meeting of the War Council, 7.1.1915, CV 3/1, pp.384-90; Meeting of theWar Council, 8.1.1915, CV 3/1, pp.391-6.

19. See M. Hankey, Memorandum, 28.12.1914, CV 3/1, pp.337-43; D. Lloyd George,Memorandum, 31.12.1914, CV 3/1, pp.350-6; Lord Fisher to WSC 3.1.1915, CV3/1, pp.367-8; Meeting of the War Council, 8.1.1915, op. cit.

20. See Sir G. Buchanan to Sir E. Grey, 1.1.1915, CV 3/1, pp.359-60. Before the WarCouncil meeting in which Churchill submitted his plan to force Dardanelles, it was alreadyknown in London on 6 January that the Turks had been defeated by the Russians (seeR. Prior, op. cit., pp.54-5). See also WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.1, p.593 and WSC toLord Kitchener, 4.3.1915, CV 3/1, pp.628-9.

21. See Sir H. Jackson, Memorandum, 5.1.1915, CV 3/1, pp.376-7; A. Marder, op.cit., Vol.2, pp.205-7, 218-25; R. Rhodes James, op. cit. pp.30-31; R. Prior, op. cit.,pp.57-60.

22. Meeting of the War Council, 13.1.1915, CV 3/1, pp.407-11.23. See WSC, The World Crisis, Vol. 1, pp.522-3.24. See, for example, Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1958),

p.364; Brig.-General C.F. Aspinall-Oglander, Gallipoli, History of the Great War,Military Operations (London: Heinemann, 1932), Vol.2, p.479; B. Liddell Hart, 'TheMilitary Strategist', in A.J.P. Taylor (ed.), Churchill, Four Faces and the Man, pp.170-8,and History of the First World War, Ch.5, pp.157-82; E. Wheler Bush, Gallipoli (NewYork: St. Martin's Press, 1975), p.307; B.E. Schmitt and H.C. Vedler, The World inthe Cruicible 1914-1919 (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), pp. 115-17; Among modernresearchers, R. Rhodes James holds the exceptional view that the whole strategicconception was invalid and the naval move was doomed to failure from the start,Gallipoli, p.352.

25. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, p.879; See, for example, R. Rhodes James, Gallipoli,p.353; R. Prior, op. cit., p.109.

26. See WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.1, pp.593, 596-7; Vol.2, p.825; A. Marder, op. cit.,Vol.2, pp.236-7; Aspinall-Oglander, Gallipoli, p.479; Wheler Bush, loc. cit.

27. See Marder, op. cit., Vol.2, pp.194-7; Howard, The Continental Commitment, p.55.28. Sir R. Keyes to WSC, 23.11.1926, CV 5/1, pp.886-7 (Keyes' emphasis).29. House of Commons, 15.11.1915, SPHS, Vol.3, p.2400.30. WSC to H. Asquith, 4.10.1915, CV3I2, pp.1193-6.31. See V.H. Rothwell, British War Aims and Peace Diplomacy 1914-1918 (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1971), pp.36-8, 54-5, 190-97, 284-5, and also Chs.2-5.32. 18.2.1901, 7.10.1901, SPHS, Vol.1, pp.65-6, 105.33. House of Commons, 13.5.1901, 24.2.1903, SPHS, Vol. 1, pp.76-86, 164-75.34. WSC, My Early Life (London: Odhams, 1965; first published in 1930), pp.327-8.35. WSC to C. Churchill, 28.1.1916, CV 3/2, pp.1401-2.36. 5.6.1915, SPHS, Vol.3, pp.2378 ff.; See also 23.6.1916, SPHS, Vol.3, p.2458.37. 4.7.1918, SPHS, Vol.3, pp.2613-16.38. 5.6.1915, SPHS, op. cit.39. See House of Commons, 2.8.1916, SPHS, Vol.3, pp.2476-8; WSC to the Electors of

Dundee, 26.7.1917, CV 4/1, pp. 115-16.40. WSC to G. Ritchie, 3.8.1918, CV 4/1, pp.362-6.41. Hankey, Memorandum, 28.12.1914, op. cit.; D. Lloyd George, Memorandum, 31.12.

1914, op. cit.42. House of Commons, 15.11.1915, SPHS, Vol.3, pp.2402-3, pp.2402-3; See also Lord

Selborne's notion in D. French, 'The Meaning of Attrition, 1914-1916', English HistoricalReview (April 1988), p.398.

43. See WSC, Memorandum, 1.6.1915, CV 3/2, pp.977 ff.; WSC, Memorandum,18.6.1915, CV 3/2, pp.1034-41; House of Commons, 17.5.1916, SPHS, Vol.3,pp.2417-29; WSC, Memorandum, 1.8.1916, CV 3/2, pp.1534-9.

44. Schmitt and Vedler, op. cit., pp.136-7, 177, 180-82; Sir L. Woodward, Great Britainand the War of 1914-1918 (London: Methuen, 1967), pp.148-50, 273-7; D. French, 'TheMeaning of Attrition, 1914-1916', op. cit.; Sir James Edmonds and others. The Official

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History of the War: Military Operations in France and Belgium, 1914-1918 (1922-48),Vol.11, 1917, p.106.

45. House of Commons, 5.3.1917, SPHS, Vol.1, p.2522.46. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.1, p.464.47. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, pp.975-7, 990-91.48. See French, op. cit., especially pp.390-99, 404.49. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, p.971.50. Ibid., Vol.2, pp.984-5.51. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.1, pp.474-5.52. House of Commons, 5.3.1917, SPHS, Vol.3, pp.2515-24.53. Marder, op. cit., Vol.4, p.146.54. WSC, Memorandum, 21.8.1913, CV 2/3, pp.1771-7; House of Commons, 21.2.1917,

SPHS, Vol.3, pp.2505-12; WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, pp.927-9.55. WSC, The Second World War, Vol.2 (Boston, MA; Houghton Mifflin, 1949), pp.243-6.56. WSC, 'Naval War Policy 1917', 7.7.1917, CV 4/1, pp.77-99.57. See WSC, Memorandum, 28.10.1911, CV 2/2, pp.1303-12; A. Marder, op. cit., Vol.4,

pp. 116-19, 135, 160-65.58. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, pp.1234-6.59. See A.J.P. Taylor, English History 1914-1945 (Harmondsworth: Penguin: 1977),

pp.122-4; S. Roskill, The Strategy of Sea Power (London: Collins, 1962), pp.130-31;Schmitt and Vedler, op. cit., pp.240-241; Marder, op. cit., Vol.4, Ch.6.

60. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, p. 1237; WSC, Thoughts and Adventures (London:Macmillan, 1943; first published in 1929), pp. 107-8.

61. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, p.915.62. Hankey. Diary, 22.7.1917, CV 4/1, p. 108.63. WSC to Lloyd George, 19.1.1918, CV 4/1, pp.233-4; WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2,

pp. 1256-8.64. WSC to War Cabinet, 21.10.1917, in The World Crisis, Vol.2, p.1179.65. Ibid., pp.1179-84; L. Amery, Diary, 10.5.1917, CV 4/1, p.60.66. WSC, 'Munition Programe, 1919', The World Crisis, Vol.2, pp.1265-74; WSC, Memo-

randum, 22.6.1918, CV 4/1, pp.328-34.67. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, pp.1210-11.68. Ibid., Vol.2, pp.968-70.69. See Prior, op. cit.,Ch.12.70. H.A.L. Fisher, Diary, 3.3.1920, CV 4/2, p. 1044.71. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, p . l l l l .72. Ibid.73. See WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, pp.975-7, 985-91; WSC, The Eastern Front (London:

Butterworth, 1931), pp.327-30.74. WSC, The World Crisis, Vol.2, pp.982, 1396.75. Ibid., Vol.2, p.925.76. See C. Barnett, The Swordbearers: Studies in Supreme Command in the First World War

(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), Ch.4 especially pp.384-91; see also B. Pitt, 1918, TheLast Act (London: The Reprint Society, 1962).

77. Minutes of Meeting, TRIDENT, 12.5.1943, CAB 80/70.

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churchill's strategic conception during the first world war

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