Doullens Conference
It occurred due to Lord Alfred Milner, a member of the British War Cabinet, being dispatched to France by Prime Minister Lloyd George, on 24 March, to assess conditions on the Western Front, and to report back.
On 21 March 1918 the Army Groups of the German Empire launched a massive offensive against the British on the Western Front with the strategic aim of defeating the Allies in the West and winning World War I, before the United States of America, which had recently entered the conflict on the Allies' side, could mass enough troops in France to intervene in the conflict.
The strategic situation was made more unsure for the Allies by a lack of co-ordination between the Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies on the Western Front, General Philippe Pétain, and his peer British Commander, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.
For this reason, British War Cabinet Minister Lord Milner travelled to France, he met with Georges Clemenceau on the 25th, and he urged the appointment of General Foch to unite the front.
Lord Milner, Field Marshal Haig, and Generals Henry Wilson, Herbert Lawrence, and Archibald Montgomery were the British representatives.
The members attending the conference believed that General Ferdinand Foch was the most qualified figure for the nature of the role, and placed him in executive charge of co-ordinating the operations of the Allied Armies on the Western Front.
One of Foch's remarks at the conference, to give confidence to the British military figures present (who had grave doubts about the willingness of the French to go on with the war) about his qualifications for the role was: "I would fight without a break.
Also, in his war memoirs, Lloyd George published evidence that says General Haig put forward a retreat order to the Channel Ports on March 25, just a day after his supposed request for Foch.
[16][17] Fortunately, the Doullens decision that appointed General Foch commander of the Western Front nullified any idea of a Dunkirk evacuation in 1918.
Later, in early June and with the French facing apparently catastrophic defeat from the German "Bluecher-Yorck" (Chemin des Dames) Offensive, provisional preparations for an evacuation were begun by Lloyd George,[18] and ended by Lord Milner.
[19] There are other, smaller, controversies about claims made by Lloyd George and General Henry Wilson, and a rumour from French Minister of Munitions Loucher, that two Doullens Agreements were written during the conference.
Clemenceau adds, 'I called Foch, I made him aware of the proposal and I asked him to find the formula necessary to avoid crumpling at Haig and Pétain.'
Even so, the next day: "On
A day earlier, he ha written the following letter to Clemenceau: "The Beauvais conference on April 3rd gave me sufficient powers to lead the Allied War.
The end agreement addressed a commander in chief's (General's Haig, Pétain, Pershing, Albert (Belgium), and Diaz's (Italy)) right to protest an order that he felt threatened his army.
The French and the British were by this late stage of the conflict struggling to meet the numbers for the maintenance of the war, and requested of the American representatives present an escalation of that country's plans for the shipment its troop formations across the North Atlantic Ocean to assist with making up the shortfall.
[34] At this meeting, the allies agreed to modify "The London Agreement" signed by Lord Milner and General Pershing just a week earlier, in order to ramp up the shipment of American troops to France.
Commander's instructions were updated to order him in the time of crisis to advance southward and maintain contact with the French army at all costs.
