London conference on aid to Italy

On 4 September 1917 the British and French conferred in London on how to help the Italians, who for two weeks had been fighting the Eleventh Battle on the Isonzo and had taken the Bainsizza plateau and Monte Santo. It was not a great conference of politicians. From Paris came the chief of the French General Staff, General Ferdinand Foch, sent by the French war committee on a single matter: he wanted British consent to the immediate transfer to Italy of a hundred heavy guns from the French First Army, which was fighting in Flanders alongside the British. Since that army was operating as part of the British offensive, and Haig himself wrote of these guns as being “withdrawn from my command”, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General William Robertson, summoned Field Marshal Douglas Haig from France.

An opportunity on the Isonzo

The matter had come back after a break of several weeks. Since the beginning of the year the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, had been arguing that Austria-Hungary was the weakest link of the Central Powers and that Allied heavy artillery would allow the Italians to crush it. At the London conference of 7–8 August the Allies instructed the staffs to examine where more heavy guns could be found for an Italian offensive, but Robertson and Foch ruled at the time that none could be sent before mid-September. On 17 August Robertson wrote to General Luigi Cadorna that as long as the offensive in Flanders continued, the British could spare neither guns nor men.

The successes on the Isonzo changed the mood. The head of the British military mission at Italian headquarters, General Charles Delmé-Radcliffe, reported on the demoralisation of the Austro-Hungarian troops, and Cadorna warned that he was running out of ammunition for his heavy guns. On 27 August Lloyd George, who was then resting outside London, wrote to Robertson and to Andrew Bonar Law that guns and ammunition must be sent to Italy at once “to turn the Austrian retreat into a rout”, and that no one would forgive the Allies for wasting such an opportunity. In a postscript he added that if the armies from the North Sea to the Adriatic had a single command, there would be no doubt about what to do. Robertson regarded breaking off the offensive in Flanders for the sake of Italy as a strategic mistake. The French proved more willing to help, and it was Foch who now came for consent.

The meetings of 4 September

At ten in the morning, in Robertson’s office at the War Office, Foch met Robertson, Haig and the head of the operations branch of Haig’s staff, General John Davidson. According to Haig’s diary, Foch argued that the political effect of a victory in Italy would be greater than in Flanders, and that the French guns would in any case have nothing to do there for the next month. Haig disagreed: the batteries of General François Anthoine’s First Army were covering the British left flank and supporting the Belgians by engaging the German artillery. Foch, as an irritated Haig wrote, “kept on arguing in the same way”. It is worth noting, however, that in a note for this meeting Foch called the battle in Flanders “indispensable”, because it tied down the Germans and prevented them from sending reinforcements to the Isonzo.

At three in the afternoon the War Cabinet considered the matter at Downing Street. Haig showed on maps where the French guns stood and what they were for, and argued that the decisive point was now in Flanders, so that removing even a single gun from there would be unwise. Lloyd George very much wanted the guns to go to Italy. According to Haig, General Jan Smuts and Edward Carson were against, and Lord Robert Cecil, representing the Foreign Office, dissociated himself from the Prime Minister’s proposal. In the end it was decided that Haig himself would decide: the Cabinet wished the guns to be sent, provided he could spare them. After the meeting Lloyd George told Haig privately that Italy must be helped, because the French were trying to take the place of the British in Italian sympathies. The French must not be given cause to say that they had wanted to send a hundred guns and the British had not let them go. Haig promised to review the state of the artillery along the whole battle front and to give up 50 guns if possible. The Prime Minister also mentioned to him that there was virtually no government in Paris, and that Russia would most probably no longer be able to help the Allies. At four o’clock Foch met Haig once more, and the two agreed on a meeting with General Philippe Pétain at Amiens.

What came of it

The meeting at Amiens took place on 7 September. Haig agreed to give up about a hundred guns from the French First Army on condition that Pétain replaced them with others before the next attack in Flanders, and Pétain, who had a newly formed heavy artillery reserve, agreed at once. Haig noted that as a result he might have to give up the attack on Lens by the British First Army planned for the autumn. Lloyd George thanked him by telegram on behalf of the Cabinet. The figures given in the literature differ somewhat. Some historians write of a hundred guns, half of which came from the French army in Flanders, while Cadorna himself mentioned 102 French guns that were on their way to Italy.

The help came too late. The Italian offensive stalled on Monte San Gabriele, and on 18 September Cadorna, fearing an Austro-German blow after the collapse of Russia, decided to go over to the defensive, and a few days later informed the Allies. The French and British took the view that the guns had been sent for an attack, not for defence, and decided to withdraw them together with the batteries that had been in Italy since the spring. Lloyd George felt this as a bitter disappointment, and Robertson afterwards reminded him more than once of how sending guns to Cadorna had ended. A few weeks later, after the defeat at Caporetto, the Allies had to send Italy not guns but whole divisions.