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when they do meet, will be able to get down to hard tacks without any beating about the bush and unnecessary exploration of each other's views.
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10. The question is what is the best machinery to provide for this preliminary ventilation of any subject which must ultimately require consideration by the two High Commands. One method is that on each occasion the Chiefs of Staff would delegate suitable representatives to meet the other side and talk the matter over. One would imagine that in ordinary circumstances these representatives would normally be their Assistant Chiefs of Staff or Directors of Plans. This practice could doubtless have been carried out during the time we have been collaborating with the French, but it has certain disadvantages. The chief one is that the very people whom the Chiefs of Staff would wish to select, i.e. representatives fully in the picture on all facets of Allied co-operation, would be those who were busiest in their own Departments, Secondly, they would not necessarily already know the opposite numbers with whom they were to discuss the question. is a psychological disadvantage.
This
11. The alternative is to have in being an organisation to carry out this particular exploratory work, i.e. an Allied Military Committee. There is no doubt that if the Representatives on this Committee are of sufficient standing to be in the confidence of their respective Chiefs of Staff, and provided they are consistently and regularly kept in touch with everything to do with higher strategical thought, they can best carry out the preliminary discussion. To make it effective, however, they must be trusted not to commit their respective Chiefs of Staff, and they must be in the closest touch with the General Staff; of which, in fact, they should preferably be a part.
12. It was always the conception that the Allied Military Committee as at present organised would meet these
requirements. One can conclude from the factors set out in para. 6 that this conception was not fulfilled completely,, primarily because:-
(1)
(ii)
The organisation was not trusted or
understood;
The British Representatives did not possess
the necessary standing vis-à-vis the Chiefs of Staff and the General Staffs.
As regards (i), the terms of reference and precise functions of the Allied Military Committee must be agreed between the two High Commands, and then promulgated thoroughly, it being made clear that the British side of the Committee is an integral part of the General Staff organisation and the proper machine through which military subjects on the high plane receive preliminary Allied consideration with a view to exploring the respective views of the allies on any particular subject.
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