THE ATTACKS ON MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN.
WE are not sure that the attacks in the Press on Mr. Austen Chamberlain have not been the worst in the long series of attacks upon public men. We mean worst in motive and in essence, though of course the inclusion or otherwise of Mr. Chamberlain in the Government does not raise issues of such vital moment as the questions whether Sir William Robertson was to remain Chief of the Staff, whether Sir Douglas Haig was to remain Commander-in-Chief, and whether Lord Jellicoe was to remain at the Admiralty. For this reason the attacks Upon Mr. Chamberlain have not attracted a great deal of attention, and certainly have not won all the contempt they deserve. One despairs of finding fairness or honesty in a certain number of Government newspapers when one observes that the reasons for Mr. Chamberlain's resignation last July are so grossly distorted in order to try to bring discredit on him.
The truth is that nothing did Mr. Chamberlain greater credit in his whole career than his decision to resign last July on a mere point of honour, and out of excessive con- sideration for his colleagues in the Government. He was involved only in the same degree as the other members of the Government in the condemnations of the Mesopotamian Commission. Nevertheless, he resigned for a reason which he very clearly expressed in the following words :— " It is not possible that I, who am named in the Report apart from my colleagues—with whom I acted in common, and whose responsibility is sole and undivided in other matters—where the Commission administers rebuke or censure, should continue as the head of that office in which my conduct has been censured while such conduct might at any moment be called in question by the judicial tribunal to which you are going to refer these matters."
It might have been expected that the attacks upon Mr. Chamberlain would be confined to the organs of Lord Noithcliffe—from which, however, we ought to exclude the Times—but we are sorry to say that the Daily Chronicle allowed itself to speak of. Mr. Chamberlain as having resigned " under a cloud." If there was any cloud, it was a cloud of honour, for our recent experiences of Government have taught us to regard the old-fashioned British scruples in the conduct of statesmen as beyond price, and as being above all valuable in times of war. The Times of Tuesday published a letter from Lord George Hamilton, the Chairman of the Mesopotamian Commission, who, in condemning the attacks, pointed out that Mr. Chamberlain when he resigned had been only a few months in office, that he had not initiated the expedition, and that in sanctioning the advance he acted upon the advice of the military experts. Lord George Hamilton adds :- " Mr. Chamberlain as a witness greatly impressed the Commission by his capacity, breadth of view, and fearless acceptance of resconsi- bility. He left the Commission room a bigger man than ho entered. it. . . . I am glad to think that Mr. Chamberlain's ability. experience, and courage are to bo utilised. '
Lord George Hamilton goes to the heart of the matter when he says that Mr. Chamberlain merely acted on the advice of the military experts. How could he have done otherwise I What would have been said of him if he actually had done otherwise I How shall ,we imagine the vituperation which would have been poured upon him if the first advance upon Baghdad had been cancelled, if it had then been suggested that a glorious gain. to British arms had been stupidly forsworn, and if the Northcliffe Press had been able to point out that Mr. Chamberlain had disregarded military advice ? Of course words would not have been bad enough for the " civilian " who had " interfered with the soldiers." Any one who cares to read Mr. Chamberlain's candid and honourable speech in the House of Commons on July 12th, 1917, will see that he not only asked for expert advice, but asked for it again and again. Nor was he really and ultimately the person responsible. As he said,
The Secretary of State for India, whether the office was held by my predecessor or by myself, acted in relation to the campaign in Mesopotamia as the spokesman and mouthpiece of His Majesty's Government. His Majesty's Government reserved to themselves the right to control the objects and limit the scope of the operations. But the India Office is not organized—no one ever pretended it was organized—to conduct military operations, and it never attempted to do so. Accordingly, the supreme control was exer- cised by the Secretary of State on behalf of and by direction of His Majesty's Government ; the management and the conductof the campaign and of the forces were entrusted to the Government and military authorities in India."
As to the advance on Baghdad, Mr. Chamberlain said :— " The combined General Staffs, naval and military, had advised the Cabinet there should be no difficulty in the operation, but, in common with all the other military authorities concerned, they were of opinion that General Sir John Nixon would be unable to hold Baghdad without reinforcement, and evenif he were given the two divisions instead of the one he asked for, a situation might still conceivably arise in the future at some date in the following year when it would 113 necessary for him to withdraw."
It may be said that Mr. Chamberlain should have pressed for reinforcements for the holding of Baghdad after its capture. But that is exactly what he did. He did press for those reinforcements, though of course the question never arose whether they were necessary or not, as General Townshend's advance on Baghdad broke down at the battle of Ctesiphon. When Mr. Chamberlain's name was mentioned for blame in the Report of the Mesopotamian Commission—that was inevitable, perhaps, because he was the mouthpiece of the Government—it would have been open to him to argue that he could, without offending scruple or the public interest, remain in the Government. He might logically have held that if he were required to resign, the whole Government should also fall with him. To his honour, he took quite a different course ; and now that he returns to the Government, he returns to a ship that is labouring in a heavy sea. He left a ship that was moving swiftly through comparatively smooth waters. It cannot be gratifying to any man to return to a ship in such circumstances to try to help it weather the storm, but that is what Mr. Chamberlain is doing.
In one particular respect we look for valuable results from Mr. Chamberlain's inclusion in the Government. After the solemn and dignified denunciation he delivered of the coin- cidences between Government policy and Press campaigns, those coincidences cannot continue. There have been signs, small but significant; that another Northcliffe Press cam- paign against our Generals is in preparation. In the Daily Mail of Monday Mr. Lovat Fraser, who was the fu an of the most notorious of the previous attacks, wrote as follows :— " Once more the champions of particular generals are raising a great deal of dust. The British public may be counselled to remember that this war is being fought, not to ' boost' generals, but to beat the Germans. Let them look at the military situation to-day, after nearly four years of war, and ask themselves whether they are satisfied. Oermany chose an entirely new set of generals for her new offensive."
The italics are not ours. If the Government have any faults to find with our Generals, let them say so clearly and frankly, and above all let them be the first to say so. Let them not allow virulent Press campaigns to run through all their odious phases, and then gather up and accept the results.
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