[Footnote: Captain Peter S. Wright, Assistant
Secretary of the Supreme War Council, _At the Supreme War
Council,_ is well worth careful reading on secrecy and unity of
command, even though in respect to the allied leaders he wages a
passionate polemic.]
Thus Foch and Sir Henry Wilson, who foresaw the impending disaster to
Cough's army, as a consequence of the divided and scattered reserves,
nevertheless kept their opinions well within a small circle, knowing
that even the risk of a smashing defeat was less certainly
destructive, than would have been an excited debate in the newspapers.
For what matters most under the kind of tension which prevailed in
March, 1918, is less the rightness of a particular move than the
unbroken expectation as to the source of command. Had Foch "gone to
the people" he might have won the debate, but long before he could
have won it, the armies which he was to command would have dissolved.
For the spectacle of a row on Olympus is diverting and destructive.
But so also is a conspiracy of silence. Says Captain Wright: "It is in
the High Command and not in the line, that the art of camouflage is
most practiced, and reaches to highest flights. All chiefs everywhere
are now kept painted, by the busy work of numberless publicists, so as
to be mistaken for Napoleons--at a distance....It becomes almost
impossible to displace these Napoleons, whatever their incompetence,
because of the enormous public support created by hiding or glossing
failure, and exaggerating or inventing success.
Pages:
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251