The urgency of the meeting was underpinned by Germany's Spring Offensive on the Western Front, which opened a gap 50 miles wide and 50 miles deep in the line, forcing the British Expeditionary Force to reel back, and retreat orders from both French and British army commanders to protect their armies.
"On the return trip from the Doullens Conference to Paris, Clemenceau's military aide General Henri Mordacq thought the note looked weak.
After Lord Milner returned from the Doullens Conference and reported to the War Cabinet, the Prime Minister asked Churchill, on March 28, to go to France as his personal liaison to General Foch.
Prime Minister Clemenceau also asked Winston to help draft a letter to President Woodrow Wilson to request 120,000 US infantry troops for each of the next four months.
[8] Later, when Prime Minister Clemenceau was convinced that General Foch's powers should be strengthened further, Mordacq explained why to Churchill, who "listened to me with close attention, but did not reply to my suggestions.
He played an important role for the French in orchestrating the Beauvais Conference, when at midnight on April 1, he sent the following fictitious telegram to Lloyd George: "Clemenceau wants you, if you can, to come here at once.
There has been a serious misunderstanding between the three commanders, Foch, Haig, Rawlinson about the responsibility for the front at the junction of the armies...To-day Clemenceau has personally adjusted some of the difficulties, but he now asks me to remind you of your promise to come and appeals to you to do so.
The Beauvais Conference lasted a full hour and a half (from 3:00pm to 4:30pm), with the English rejecting all French proposals to strengthen Foch's hand.
[15] The new text at Beauvais read: "General Foch is charged by the British, French and American governments with the task of coordinating the action of the Allied armies on the western front.
General Foch wrote the following letter to Prime Minister Clemenceau: "The Beauvais Conference on April 3rd gave me sufficient powers to lead the Allied War.
[19] On the matter of a unified command, on November 17, 1917, Prime Minister Lloyd George went before The House of Commons and said he was "utterly opposed to that suggestion", due to historical differences between the two countries.
[20][21] Further, Lloyd George opposed it at the third Supreme War Council meeting held in Versailles on 1-2 February 1918, by saying, "From the point of view of home politics..never..would he be able to suggest such a proposition, either to Parliament or to the public."