ABSTRACT
The Haig mediation had kept diplomats and politicians busy during April. Meanwhile the military had to prepare for war, with a growing probability that it might actually happen. Many in the Task Force may have departed in the firm expectation that they would soon be home, as the fleet reversed course to the cheer of a diplomatic triumph. The expectation soon dimmed and planning was carried forward in earnest. The political imperatives behind the early despatch of the Task Force had taken account of military imperatives only to the extent that it was to take the maximum feasible load, but the precise form those imperatives might take remained hazy, and indeed had not been fully clarified by the time that the Haig mediation collapsed.
