The following official statement is issued: The meetings of the third session of the Supreme War Council were held at Versailles on January 30 and 31 and February 1 and 2. In addition to the members of the Supreme War Council itself, viz, M Clemenceau and M Pichon for France, Mr Lloyd George and Lord Milner for Great Britain, Signor Orlando and Baron Sonnino for Italy, and the military representatives of the Supreme War Council - General Weygand, General Sir R H Wilson, General Cadorna, and General Bliss - there were also present for the greater part of the purely military discussions the French and British Chiefs of the General Staffs, General Foch and General Sir W Robertson, the Italian Minister of War (General Alfieri), and the Commanders-in-Chief on the Western front - General Petain, Field Marshal Sir D Haig, and General Pershing.
Mr A H Frazier, First Secretary of the United States Embassy in Paris, was present during the political discussions.
The Supreme War Council gave the most careful consideration to the recent utterances of the German Chancellor and of the Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, but was unable to find in them any real approximation to the moderate conditions laid down by all the Allied Governments. This conviction was only deepened by the impression made by the contrast between the professed idealistic aims with which the Central Powers entered upon the present negotiations at Brest-Litovsk and their now openly disclosed plans of conquest and spoliation. In the circumstances, the Supreme War Council decided that the only immediate task before them lay in the prosecution, with the utmost vigour and in the closest and most effective cooperation, of the military effort of the Allies until such time as the pressure of that effort shall have brought about in the enemy Governments and peoples a change of temper which would justify the hope of the conclusion of peace on terms which would not involve the abandonment, in face of an aggressive and unrepentant militarism, of all the principles of freedom, justice, and the respect for the law of nations which the Allies are resolved to vindicate.
The decisions taken by the Supreme War Council in pursuance of this conclusion embraced not only the general military policy to be carried out by the Allies in all the principal theatres of war, but more particularly the closer and more effective co-ordination under the Council of all the efforts of the Powers engaged in the struggle against the Central Empires. The functions of the Council itself were enlarged and the principles of unity of policy and action initiated at Rapallo in November last received still further concrete and practical development.
On all these questions a complete agreement was arrived at after the fullest discussion with regard both to the policy to be pursued and to the measures for its execution. The Allies are united in heart and will, not by any hidden designs, but by their open resolve to defend civilization against an unscrupulous and brutal attempt at domination. This unanimity, confirmed by a unanimity no less complete both as regards the military policy to be pursued and as regards the measures needed for its execution, will enable them to meet the violence of the enemy’s onset with firm and quiet confidence, with the utmost energy, and with the knowledge that neither their strength nor their steadfastness can be shaken.
Advertisement
The splendid soldiers of our free democracies have won their place in history by their immeasurable valour. Their magnificent heroism and the no less noble endurance with which our civilian populations are bearing their daily burden of trial and suffering testify to the strength of those principles of freedom which will crown the military success of the Allies with the glory of a great moral triumph.