From ‘Mr Lloyd George’s Speech‘, The Spectator, 26 June 1915:
Though we are short of practically all the munitions of war, our most immediate needs are high-explosive shells and machine guns. Till the shortage here is made up we cannot show that activity which, we must never forget, is the essential element in all military operations, the sine qua non which, if it does not exist, must in the end mean defeat. But though in this war we cannot have activity without a great many more shells and a great many more machine guns than we have got at present, it by no means follows, as our pessimists would lead us to believe, that all is lost, or, if not quite all, that the danger is overwhelming.
Though it is a capital error in war to go slow or to stand permanently on the defensive, or, in fact, not to be always ready and willing to take every opportunity to push and press your opponent as far as he can be pushed and pressed—to give him no rest by day or night, and to wear him out by a perpetual offensive—it is always possible in any war to go easy for a month or two, or even for three or four months, and meanwhile to make preparations for that policy of attack which is the inspiring genius of war. No doubt the pause while you are getting ready to attack is most likely to be used by the enemy for his supreme effort. When he realizes that you are waiting for more munitions, and therefore at a disadvantage, it becomes with him a case of “Now or never!” But though this is an evil, and a very serious evil, it does not follow that the enemy’s effort will be successful, or that you will be unable to stave off his attacks while you are setting your own house in order. Certainly it is not so in the present case.
It is very unfortunate that, owing to our shortage of munitions, we cannot be as active as we should like to be, or as we ought to be, but for all that we shall he able to hold our own in Flanders, and render adequately that co-operation and assistance which we owe to our French allies. After all, our shortage in shell and machine guns, though dangerous, is only comparative. The public must not suppose that when we talk of being short of shell we have literally nothing to put into our guns. That would be a complete error. We have by no means used up our supplies of shell or come down to the bottom of the locker. There is plenty in it for all essential needs.
When we say we are short it merely means that we cannot use shell in that royal, openhanded, unlimited manner in which we ought to be able to use it when the troops are going forward in a great attack along, say, thirty miles of front. To put the matter in yet another way. The relative position as regards shell and machine guns is not worse now, but very much better, than when last October the Germans hurled themselves against our line in the effort to get through to Calais. Not only was there a shortage of shell and machine guns, but also of men. What the Germans could not accomplish in the autumn they are not going to accomplish now, even if they were able to disengage, which they will not be able to do, a million men from the eastern front.
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