Nelson's history of the war. Vol. XI., The struggle for the Dvina, and the great invasion of Serbia

68 HISTORY OF THE WAR.

in our policy was largely due to the absence of a competent General Staff at home. We had possessed such a Staff, thanks largely to Lord Haldane, in connection with our pre-war army, but the dispatch of the Expeditionary Force carried off that Staff to the front in the West. No attempt had been made to replace it. For fourteen months Lord Kitchener had acted as his own General Staff, an arrangement which was the worst conceivable. It is the business of a General Staff to advise the Cabinet on questions of military policy, and to frame strategic plans. Since we were fighting in Europe in alliance with five Powers, the task was highly complex and laborious. The whole immense theatre of operations had to be brought under view, and the work of not one British force but half a dozen had to be directed. The absence of a General Staff in London meant that the burden of the work fell upon the Secretary of State for War. As the most prominent British soldier, he was the sole

military adviser of the British Cabinet. In addi© tion, he had the tasks of raising and organizing the new armies, and for many months of arranging their munitionment—each more than enough to fill the time of the ablest man. There was the further difficulty that Lord Kitchener’s great career had scarcely fitted him for the direction of a European strategy. He had been engaged all his life in laborious undertakings in extra-European fields, and could not be expected to be closely in touch with all the most recent developments of military science. The arrangement was obviously one which could only end in failure. The Cabinet were uninformed, and there was no machinery to provide them with that

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