Supreme War Council
[2] The council served as a second source of advice for civilian leadership, a forum for preliminary discussions of potential armistice terms, later for peace treaty settlement conditions, and it was succeeded by the Conference of Ambassadors in 1920.
British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had grave concerns regarding the strategy of Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Sir Douglas Haig, the Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, in response to the Allied losses at the Somme and Flanders.
Japan and Russia were not to be included, and the Italians and French, worried that Salonika (and with it the only chance of liberating Serbia) might be evacuated, wanted issues confined to the Western Front.
The United States, which was "an Associated Power" of the Allies, was not involved with the political structure, but sent a Permanent Military Representative, General Tasker H.
[4] General Wilson and his staff conducted numerous research projects into offensives against Turkey, culminating in "Joint Note# 12".
The four heads of state represented were Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando, and Colonel Edward House (for President Woodrow Wilson).
Lloyd George, whose main goal was to thwart Robertson and possibly prompted by the notes Henry Wilson (a rival of Robertson) was passing him across the table, blocked a suggestion by Foch (French Chief of Staff) that the proposed Allied General Reserve be controlled by the national Chiefs of Staff.
With a massive attack from Germany thought to be imminent, Lloyd George decided that it was too late to replace Haig and follow through with the plan.
[28] Prime Minister Clemenceau made another attempt at establishing unity of command but was rebuffed by Lloyd George, who said Foch's appointment to the Executive War Board had been a "great concession".
General Henri Mordacq, Clemenceau's aide, said Britain only turned for unity of command at the last minute when her armies were about to be thrown into the sea.
[29] The Allied Reserve eventually slipped from the agenda as the Commanders-in-Chief, Haig and Pétain, refused to hand over sufficient troops.
After April 1918 all Allied troops on the Western Front were placed under the command of the Grand Quartier général des armées alliées [fr] (GQGA), a multi-national general staff.
[40] Because of this, instructions were reinforced on 21 June 1918 to order Field Marshal Haig to retreat south and link up with the French.
[41] Remarkably, twenty two years later, Lord Gort faced the same exact predicament when the Germans invaded France and the armored spearheads of the Wehrmacht advanced rapidly toward the Channel Ports.
[47][48] The British, French and Italian Prime Ministers signed a letter to President Wilson that said, "there is a great danger of the war being lost ... owing to the allied reserves being exhausted before those of the enemy", and that the United States would have to raise 100 divisions, requiring the call up of 300,000 conscripts a month, to raise an army of 4 million men.
[49][50] General Pershing also cabled Washington D.C., saying, "It should be most fully realized at home that the time has come for us to take up the brunt of the war and that France and England are not going to be able to keep their armies at present strength very much longer.
In his memoirs, Pershing says about raising the army, "In its execution as a whole, the achievement stands out as a lasting monument to our War Department, marred only by the lack of foresight that made it necessary to send over untrained men and units in precipitate haste.
At the meeting, amidst concerns that—following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk three months earlier—the Germans were about to requisition the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Lloyd George proposed the creation of a new post of Allied Supreme Naval Commander in the Mediterranean, suggesting Admiral Jellicoe ('Silent Jack'), former commander of the British Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland, for the position.
[54] The seventh SWC Conference, held at Versailles, was attended by British Dominion Prime Ministers from Canada, Australia, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and South Africa.
[57] The British received news that Germany, Austria and Turkey had informed the US Government that they were ready to negotiate peace on the basis of President Wilson's Fourteen Points, The eighth, and longest SWC Conference took place in Versailles.
In the event, the negotiations soon became simply between the United Kingdom and a bolshevised centrosoyuz, leading to the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement.
