Editing David Lloyd George (section)

==== Supreme War Council ====
The Italians suffered a disastrous defeat at [[Battle of Caporetto|Caporetto]], requiring British and French reinforcements to be sent. Lloyd George said he "wanted to take advantage of Caporetto to gain "control of the War".{{sfn|Woodward|1998|p=191}} The [[Supreme War Council]] was inaugurated at the [[Rapallo Conference]] (6–7 November 1917). Lloyd George then gave a controversial speech in Paris (12 November) at which he criticised the high casualties of recent Allied "victories" (a word which he used with an element of sarcasm). These events led to an angry Commons debate (19 November), which Lloyd George survived.{{sfn|Woodward|1998|pp=192–194}}

In reply to Robertson's 19 November memo, which warned (correctly) that the Germans would use the opportunity of [[Treaty of Brest Litovsk|Russia's departure from the war]] to attack in 1918 before the Americans were present in strength, Lloyd George wrote (wrongly) that the Germans would not attack and would fail if they did. That autumn he declared that he was willing "to risk his whole political reputation" to avoid a repetition of the Somme or Passchendaele.{{sfn|Woodward|1998|pp=173–174, 178}}

In December 1917 Lloyd George remarked to [[C. P. Scott]] that: "If people really knew, the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course, they don't know, and can't know."<ref name="Glover2012">{{cite book |last=Glover |first=Jonathan |title=Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, Second Edition |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-6kOKpuWEiQC&pg=PA167 |url-status=live |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |date=11 September 2012 |access-date=18 January 2018 |page=167 |isbn=978-0-300-18640-6|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731142915/https://books.google.com/books?id=-6kOKpuWEiQC&pg=PA167 |archive-date=31 July 2020}}</ref>