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By Root 1847 0

The War Office telegram that awaited him on his return to GHQ could not have come at a worse moment. It ordered him peremptorily to release twenty thousand rounds of ammunition from his meagre reserve for immediate dispatch to Gallipoli. It was the last straw, and although the telegram had added that the shells would be replaced ‘in a few days’ French was seething with indignation and only too willing to seize the chance to publicise his grievances by unburdening them to Repington. Six days later the explosion erupted in The Times and the shock waves travelled the length and breadth of the country. The story pulled no punches and, as Sir John French intended, the message came through stark and clear: ‘British soldiers died last week on Aubers Ridge because the British Army is short of shells.’

Lord Kitchener was furious. Mr Asquith was equally put out by the unconventional means chosen by the Commander-in-Chief to appeal direct to the public above the head of the Government. And it was not the first time. Towards the end of March, in the disappointing aftermath of Neuve Chapelle, French had complained of shortage of ammunition in two interviews to journalists which had caused considerable anxiety in the Cabinet and in the country as a whole. Lord Kitchener had categorically denied that it was true. Of course there were difficulties, but they would be resolved in time, and meanwhile, he reassured Asquith, the supply of shells was quite adequate for present requirements. The Prime Minister could hardly doubt the word of this distinguished soldier who was his own Secretary of State for War and he was easily convinced. Only three weeks earlier in a public speech at Newcastle he had set out to quash the rumours and convince the country that the stories were untrue and that all was well. Now he had been made to look a fool, and it was difficult not to lay the blame squarely at Kitchener’s door.

Lord Kitchener was not a dishonourable man but he was not above misleading, and perhaps not above hinting that the Commander-in-Chief might be making much of the lack of ammunition in order to distract attention from his own tactical failures. With every appearance of righteous indignation he denied that Sir John French had ever informed the War Office that he was unable to undertake offensive operations for lack of munitions. Even if this was true in a literal sense, it took no account of French’s many pleas and complaints. Nor did it take account of the fact that his plans and expectations for offensive operations were based on estimates of supplies which had been promised by the War Office and that the promises had not been kept. But Kitchener stood his ground. In his opinion supplies were adequate and the expenditure of shells was extravagant. Asquith was in no position to challenge him: he had no other first-hand information to enable him to form an independent judgement. While all diplomatic papers and communications received by the Foreign Office were copied, as a matter of course, for the Prime Minister, on the pretext of secrecy no communications of any kind were passed on by the Admiralty or the War Office, or even exchanged between themselves as interested parties.

Three weeks after his Newcastle speech, in which he had denied in all good faith that there was a shell shortage, and two days before the story broke in The Times, information had come into Asquith’s hands. Even before the bombshell exploded – and he had purposely asked Repington to delay publication for a day or so – the Commander-in-Chief sent two trusted members of his senior staff to London. They carried three copies of a secret memorandum in which Sir John French clearly and concisely set out the situation and stressed its gravity. They also carried copies of all correspondence and communications which had passed between GHQ and the War Office over the previous months, and were instructed to show this evidence to Lloyd George, and also to two leading members of the Opposition, Bonar Law and Arthur Balfour.

The difficulties had many strands, but the major problem