The Spectator at war: Munitions, men and management

From ‘A National Government‘, The Spectator, 22 May 1915:

We are not going to say anything about the mistakes of the past. They are not merely dead. They are buried. We have got to think only of the future. It is obvious that the construction of a National Government, however ideal in appearance, will be a mockery unless that Government are prepared to face the new situation in a new spirit. Without that we might just as well have gone on with the old Government. The nation will be mocked if things are to go on just as before, and will never forgive the men who have mocked it. Unless the new Cabinet can awaken the nation, or, rather, can utilize the energy of the awakened nation—for it is awake, though its eyes are still dim and its purpose uncertain—and can obtain that national concentration in regard to which there has as yet only been talk but no action, we shall be witnessing nothing better than a solemn political farce. There are three immediate and practical things to be done, and the new National Government will be judged by its ability to accomplish them.

The first essential is the provision at a much more rapid rate than at present of the chief munitions of war, and especially of high-explosive shells. We must have a supply of shell, not equal to what the military pedants bold ought to be sufficient (“provided the supply is not wasted”), but a supply so abundant that if necessary we can fire two shells for every one fired by the enemy. That is not impossible if we bend our minds and our bodies to the task. Nothing will ever persuade us that such an ideal is beyond the industrial and moral capacity of the nation if it is properly roused for the task before it.

Next, and this of course is quite as important, though for the moment not so insistent, is the supply of men. We cannot make sure of winning unless we can keep our armies in the field supplied with trained men and meet the awful wastage of modern war with fresh levies. But there is one way, and only one way, now left us of supplying men in adequate numbers, and that is compulsory service. As we have explained elsewhere, we must muster and array the nation for the great task before it, assigning to each man in the nation, as we are now assigning to each man in the Government, the work which he is best able to perform. Our older men must join and train themselves as Home Guards in order to free more and more men for the war. Our lads must begin their training early, for who knows how long the war may last? Our men of military age (from seventeen to forty) who are medically fit must be called upon either to take their place in the firing line or else in the munitions factory, or to do some other part of the necessary work of the nation. There must be no doubts, or hesitations, or half-measures. The National Government must let the nation know what is required of it. If they do so, we have not the slightest doubt as to the answer. “Tell us what we must do, and tell us before it is too late,” is the demand of the country.

The third thing that the National Government have got to do is to see to it that their war policy is clear, well defined, and involves no wastage of effort. Hitherto there has been little or no co-ordination between our seven campaigns. If a piece of strategy has seemed good per se, it has been adopted with very little thought as to what its effect may be upon schemes already in action. There must be no more of such haphazard work. The only way to avoid this is either by appointing a War Council, not, of course, for the direction of operations in the field, but for the prosecution of the war as a whole, or else by making the Cabinet small enough and coherent enough to speak with a single voice. We expect that the Small Cabinet, or formalized and acknowledged Inner Cabinet, will be the plan adopted. If the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Minister for War, and the First Lord of the Admiralty were to form a Cabinet War Council, there would be far less waste of energy than there is now. The bigger Cabinet could continue to supervise the general administration, but in all matters affecting the war its powers would be delegated to the Cabinet War Council. But, after all, this, important as it is, is machinery. The only thing for the outside public to insist upon is that the nation is arrayed for war, and that every man shall be appointed, or, if you will, compelled, to do what he is best fitted to accomplish.