July) it would be "throwing away thousands of lives in knocking our heads against a brick wall". He tried to get Sir John "in a better state of mind & not so ridiculously optimistic about a state of German collapse", although he told a conference in July that he and Sir John French "looked out above all things for optimists". Robertson also advised (5 August) that Russia, then being driven out of Poland, might make peace without a wholehearted British commitment. Robertson complained to Wilson (29 July) that French "chopped & changed every day & was quite hopeless" and (12 August) was "very sick with Sir J., he cannot manage him nor influence him"; Wilson noted that relations between French and Robertson were breaking down, and suspected (correctly) that Robertson was blackening French's reputation by sending home documents which French had refused to read or sign. He wrote a memo to French (3 or 5 August) arguing that the volunteer New Armies should be committed to the Western Front, an idea to which Kitchener was only reluctantly coming round. French refused to read it, explaining that he was "fully acquainted with the situation", so Robertson sent it to the King's adviser Wigram anyway. Robertson was made a Grand Officer of the French Legion of Honour on 10 September 1915 and acted as Commander-in-Chief BEF when French was sick in September. Promotion to CIGS Robertson later wrote in his memoirs that he was not close to Kitchener, having only ever served with him in South Africa. With Asquith's Coalition Government in danger of breaking up over conscription (which Robertson supported), he blamed Kitchener for the excessive influence which civilians like Churchill and Haldane had come to exert over strategy, allowing ad hoc campaigns to develop in Sinai, Mesopotamia and Salonika, and not asking the General Staff (whose chief James Wolfe-Murray was intimidated by Kitchener) to study the feasibility of any of these campaigns. Robertson had urged the King's adviser Stamfordham (probably June or July 1915) that a stronger General Staff was needed in London, otherwise "disaster" would ensue. By October 1915 Robertson had come to support greater coordination of plans with the French and was in increasingly close touch with Charles Callwell, who had been recalled from retirement to become Director of Military Operations. When the King toured the front (24 October) Haig told him that Robertson should go home and