en fitted out with
the weapons. Mr. Lloyd George's statement, made a week before, that it
takes eight or nine months to turn out a machine-gun from the time
that the requisite new machinery is ordered, was ignored.

This brings us to the question of heavy ordnance and of high-explosive
ammunition for field-guns, and in this connection it is necessary to
refer to the violent attacks made upon the War Office in respect to
the supply of munitions, which find place in Lord French's "_1914_."
The Field-Marshal has not minced matters in his references to this
subject. He says of Mr. Lloyd George's work that it "was done in the
face of a dead weight of senseless but powerful opposition, all of
which he had to undermine and overcome." He speaks of the "apathy of a
Government which had brought the Empire to the brink of disaster,"
although his attitude towards the head of that Government hardly
betrays this. He devotes his last chapter to "making known some of the
efforts" that he "made to awaken both the Government and the public
from the apathy which meant certain defeat." His book appeared in the
summer of 1919, three and a half years after he had returned from
France, three and a half years which had given him ample time to
examine at home into the justice of views which he had formed during
critical months when confronting the enemy. His attitude relieves one
of many scruples that might have otherwise been entertained when
discussing the statement which he has made.

"_1914_," possibly unintentionally, leaves it to be inferred in
respect to heavy howitzers and similar ordnance, that the question of
supplying artillery of that type was first raised by Lord French
himself during the Battle of the Aisne. For the absence of any such
pieces from the Expeditionary Force when it started, no one, in my
opinion, was more responsible than the Field-Marshal. Plenty of
gunner officers were advocates of the employment of such ordnance in
the field, although none probably fully realized the importance of the
matter; but what evidence is there of encouragement from the
Inspector-General of the Forces of 1907-12 and C.I.G.S. of 1912-14,
who had been controlling the manoevres of the regular army for the
half-dozen years preceding August 1914? The question was taken up
within the War Office three or four weeks before the commencement of
the Battle of the Aisne--as soon, in fact, as the effect of the German
heavy howitzers against Liege and