Learning from history. Some things don't change.

As we plough onwards very slowly through the turgid mud of  this pandemic it might be helpful to know that we are struggling in ways that men and women always have done through time. There has for ever and a day  been confusion, argument, delay, prevarication and criticism by all who know better in times of crisis. Those in power have not always  indeed hardly ever worked together  in harmony :  factions and divisions have caused dithering and delay. Meanwhile the opposition parties have brought to the situation  politics, self seeking and an eye to a future  when they could be in charge themselves. And when the country  trires of one political party and  allows  a new group of people take charge of the government then  the whole cycle begins again.

I have been reading about the career of David Lloyd George, During the first world war , as it is now known , he was Chancellor of the Exchequer , subsequently Minister of Munitions , then Britain's first and only Welsh   Prime Minister.
At this time of dire emergency , when Britain was very much losing the war ,he  had to battle continuously with cabinet colleagues who were ever ready with a knife to stab him in the back. There was a general reluctance amongst ministers  to take decisions  and a blatant  desire for personal glory on the part of some.  In addition there was   a severe  reluctance to admit mistakes and an inability to learn from past misguided actions.
As an example Lloyd George had to press hard to get agreement on the introduction of conscription.  It was obvious that insufficient numbers of men were enlisting  voluntarily in the armed forces given the rate at which men were dying in battle and being invalided out of service. Yet the cabinet prevaricated on this question  of a  compulsory call up mainly because they worried about its unpopularity  in the country. As they had many times  before and as they would again whenever it suited them , they were putting their own electoral popularity  ahead of the national interests. Conscription was finally introduced in January 1916 after  many months of attempts  by Lloyd George to get it agreed then passed into legislation.

Some incompetence  in areas of governments ,  mismanagement  and unpreparedness  for  crises  have always existed .Sometimes it is the fault of those who took wrong decisions in the past . Lloyd George had to overhaul the manufacturing of munitions in Britain in order  to achieve a consistent supply of armaments for the front. Prior to his taking charge supply had been slow and many items  delivered to the army  were defective with disastrous consequences in battle.

So it is not surprising that at the start of this pandemic we had insufficient  supplies of personal protective equipment  and the  stepping up of production was taking too long so  the supply chain had to be galvanised into action by firm leadership. Items have been defective but now efforts are being made to improve the quality.

In one respect we have moved on from the first world war .We are putting the lives of the population ahead of economic prospects in 2020. In contrast the attitude of some First World War military leaders was , sadly, very different. General Kitchener remarked that he didn't  worry about losing men in battle as he could always replace them. The generals took too long to learn from the failure of their misguided tactics where they  sent men against machine guns with nothing gained in terms of territory or effect on the enemy.

What we must avoid in this current crisis is starting the blame game. There will always be those who say " I told you so." And some people always know a better way of doing things. In the end we have to trust that most of those in charge are working for the greater good and are doing the best they can.

Now we are starting to fully appreciate the doctors , nurses and care workers who are also risking their own lives during this pandemic. The young soldiers who were sent over the top into enemy territory were not always valued by the staff at Headquarters who were themselves out of any danger .

Back in 1916 Lloyd George took the side of the young men who had to lay their lives on the line. General Haig blamed the Welsh soldiers at Mametz wood during the battle of the Somme for not striving hard enough in that engagement . The fact is that they were sent into a wood occupied by Germans entrenched with machine guns.  They fought hard  but inevitably most of them were killed. Lloyd George rightly rebuked Haig and in response commissioned a wonderful painting of the Welsh regiment fighting to the last at Mametz wood. This painting now hangs in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.