present position I daresay I could find half a dozen different ways of rapidly winning this war. Being in the position I am and knowing what I know I find it not so easy...". He advised Hankey (31 October 1916) that further high casualties would be needed to defeat Germany's reserves. The War Committee met (3 November 1916) without Robertson, so Lloyd George could, in Hankey's words "air his views freely unhampered by the presence of that old dragon Robertson". He complained that the Allies had not achieved any definite success, that the Germans had recovered the initiative, had conquered most of Romania, had increased her forces in the East (after increased mobilisation the German Army had increased in size from 169 ½ divisions on 1 June to 197 divisions (of which 70 were in the East, up from 47 ½ on 1 June)) and still had 4 million men in reserve. On this occasion Asquith backed him and the committee's conclusion, which was neither printed nor circulated, was that "The offensive on the Somme, if continued next year, was not likely to lead to decisive results, and that the losses might make too heavy a drain on our resources having regard to the results to be anticipated." It was agreed to consider offensives in other theatres. The ministers again (7 November) discussed, after Robertson had left the room, the plan to send Robertson to a conference in Russia (all except possibly McKenna were in favour) and a further inter-Allied conference to upstage the forthcoming conference of generals at Chantilly. Robertson rejected the idea as "the Kitchener dodge" and was angry at the discussion behind his back and, concerned that Lloyd George wanted to "play hanky panky", refused to go. Robertson wanted industrial conscription, national service for men up the age of 55, and 900,000 new army recruits, similar to the new German Hindenburg Programme. He was concerned at the Asquith Coalition's lack of firm leadership, once likening the Cabinet to "a committee of lunatics", and although he avoided taking sides in party politics he urged the creation of a small War Committee which would simply give orders to the departmental ministers, and was concerned (letter to Hankey, 9 November) that ministers might be tempted to make peace or else to reduce Britain's Western Front commitment. Robertson gave an abusive response to the Lansdowne Memorandum (13 November 1916) (calling those