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WAR MEMOIRS OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE: 1916-1917--Little, Brown ($4).

At the back of David Lloyd George's mind there are heroes and villains, and he speaks his mind. Canny Welshman, he bided his time until most of his enemies had spoken theirs. This third (but not last) volume of his War Memoirs, like the first and second, is both a rebuttal and an attack. His worst enemies never doubted he was able, but Lloyd George still has the point, of view of an unreconstructed pre-War statesman. He still believes the Allies won the War. He still believes in "victory." His defense of his own conduct as War Prime Minister of England is detailed but lucid; he writes trenchantly, aggressively, persuasively, in thoughts of one syllable. His book, when completed, will fit more neatly than most into the statesmen's monument to the Unknown Soldier.

Most of his story is concerned with his excitingly sensible struggles against the traditional, noble boobery of muddled old England. Now that it is safely over, he admits it was a close shave. "Reckless and unintelligent handling brought us almost to the rim of catastrophe ... we were saved largely by the incredible folly of our foes." The thing that nearly got England down, says Lloyd George, was the submarine campaign. He implies that if the Admiralty had had their way, by June, 1917, England, and consequently the Allies, would have been spurlos versenkt. The Admiralty wanted more destroyers, or an Act of God, or both; Lloyd George wanted the convoy system. Eventually he got his way, and the Allied cause was made safe for Versailles.

When Lloyd George became Prime Minister, in 1916, military plans for the next year had already been mapped out. In spite of the frightful failure of the Somme offensive, they called for further massed attacks on the German Western Front. Lloyd George strenuously opposed the plan, favored a surprise attack on the Italian front. Overruled as a bumptious layman, he says, he proceeded to do everything he could to make the 1917 offensives (Chemin des Dame:, Passchendaele) a howling success. Though he is hurt that "the whole responsibility for the Nivelle offensive" should be fastened on him, he admits he was enthusiastic about it once he had put his shoulder to the wheel. "Had the Nivelle plan been carried out in its integrity, I still believe it would have been an immense success." He talks darkly of delays, hints at spies, treachery.

Lloyd George takes no credit for bringing the U. S. into the War, takes the simple and satisfying view that Germany, by her unrestricted submarine campaign, brought it on herself. But his digs at Wilson promise livelier ones to come in further volumes. Lloyd George's view is that Wilson hoped never to engage the U. S. in actual fighting, thought a declaration of war might be enough to frighten Germany into surrender.

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