ABSTRACT

Churchill also took up with characteristic energy, the author's idea of providing special equipment to force the German lines. On January 5th he wrote a letter to the Prime Minister developing his ideas on the subject. Asquith himself laid this letter before Kitchener and urged him to prosecute research. The influence of the general shaping of opinion on the mind of Kitchener is revealed in the letter which he sent to French on January 2, 1915. The strongest men in the War Council Lloyd George, Churchill and Kitchener had all, in one form or another committed themselves to a fairly definite view that it was not of much use to continue slogging at the Western Front and that the possibilities of other theatres ought to be explored. On the stalemate on the Western Front Lloyd George suggested that to attempt to force the carefully prepared German lines would end in failure and appalling waste of life.