ABSTRACT
From July 31st onwards, the battle of Flanders had been in full swing. By mid-August the attack was not going to achieve results commensurate with the effort involved and the losses incurred, and that the moment had come to consider the War Cabinet's decision that in that eventuality the whole matter should be re-examined. The moment seemed to fall back upon the alternative plan for an operation in Italy which the War Cabinet had decided to adopt if the Flanders plan should prove unsuccessful. The Germans had made some kind of a peace approach to the French through Lancken, First Secretary at the Paris Embassy before the war. The War Cabinet decided that Lloyd George should discuss the matter with Painleve. Hankey pointed out that in all the expositions of policy that he had heard him make to the War Cabinet, he had never gathered this view, and that 1919 was to be the year of the decisive attack.
