154 AWARDED FOR VALOUR
opinion, would then appeal to the country, and might possibly emerge as
a dictator.’^9 Haig, however, held the king’s confidence.
Haig also held a greater degree of the confidence of the general public
than Lloyd George. Both official communiques and newspaper coverage of
the war tended to build up the case of the soldiers in the public mind, a
situation that allowed Asquith and other opposition leaders to use the slogan
‘hands off the generals’ as an effective tool.^10 The new prime minister stood
at the head of a shaky political coalition and had created a lot of opponents
during his rise to power.^11 The Conservative Party was still a minority and all
the Liberal leadership except Churchill had refused office in Lloyd George’s
coalition. Almost half of the Liberal members in the Commons had indicated
they would support the new government, but how long could they resist the
pull of their leadership? Lloyd George had to depend on the support of the
Conservative Party, and the elder statesmen of that party stood foursquare
behind Haig.^12
Lloyd George thus could not simply replace Haig or even realistically
limit his discretionary powers without eroding his political position in the
process.^13 At the same time he could not garner any effective support for
shifting the focus of the war to another theater.^14 He tried to subordinate
Haig to the French High Command early in 1917, hoping to tie down the
commander he considered a loose cannon. The field marshal managed to
place so many conditions on the arrangement as to emerge with even more
autonomy; in essence, he partially served two masters and could play them
against each other to his own advantage. Ultimately, he managed to gain the
primacy of British General Headquarters in planning any joint operations
with the French.^15
This gave Haig the opportunity to vindicate his military policies and
management of the war effort, and the process had a profound effect on
the character of the Victoria Cross. He was pledged to support the French
1917 Spring Offensive under Robert Nivelle, but the actual planning and
conduct of the British contribution to the operation remained the province
of GHQ.^16 The genesis of the first British offensive of 1917 was thus a
diversion on a grand scale to prevent German reinforcement of the Chemin
des Dames when Nivelle’s attack there commenced. Thus began the Battle
of Arras.^17
For a diversion it was a major production, involving General Sir Edmund
Allenby’s Third Army, assisted on the left by the Canadian Corps of General
Henry Horne’s First Army and elements of Sir Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army
on the right. The main body was to thrust at Cambrai to the southeast while
the Canadians stormed Vimy Ridge to secure the left flank of the assault. If all
lily
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