Talk:Supreme War Council

Allied Supreme Council
Did the Supreme War Council officially replace its name by the term "Allied Supreme Council"? It was used e.g. on July 19, 1919 in an New York Times article. 130.83.23.163 (talk) 13:57, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I found a reference from February 1920 (a correspondence from the Military Representative on the Supreme War Council to the U.S. Secretary of State) that suggests the name was not changed. The correspondence is an official report did not include "Allied Supreme Council." I believe that this would support that the name was not officially changed. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1914-20v02/d147 21:30, 17 October 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jurisdicta (talk • contribs)

Time & Dates of the Supreme War Council Meetings
This will one day be cleared up by the minutes kept by Maurice Hankey, when transcripts of the Allied meetings are available online. Until then, the start dates of these secret meetings vary from source to source. This is what I have:

The January 1918 SWC meeting appears to have commenced on January 29th at 2:30pm, per Douglas Haig. Link. The last meeting was held Feb 2nd at 10:30am. Link, bottom left

The May 1918 SWC meeting officially started May 1st at 2pm, but unofficially began on April 27th with a high level conference in Abbeville. The English returned to England on the 28th, and crossed back to France on May 1st. Link

The June 1918 SWC met at Versailles on the 1st. The British held a preliminary meeting at 10:30am, a second meeting took place to discuss American troop deployments near the Swiss border, and a 2:30pm meeting was held in PM Clemenceau's office about British troop losses due to enlistments ending by September. At 4:45pm, the larger 'formal' meeting scheduled for 3pm took place, one to appoint a Supreme Commander to the Mediterranean theater.

Lord Milner (talk) 20:06, 16 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Ho ho! Just been reading about the deployment of US troops to Alsace - I thought it was an error at first, but it turns out that some US divisions were indeed parked in the Vosges for a bit, before being redeployed for the St Mihiel Offensive. The proposed Mediterranean Supreme Command to which you refer (French in favour, Italians against) was naval not military - Jellicoe was pencilled in for the job, but it never happened. As for ground troops, Foch was given Doullens-style powers to coordinate the Italian front but not Beauvais-style command powers. Don't think he was ever given command authority over the Italian Front, but I'm happy to be corrected. He had quasi-authority over the Salonika Front by virtue of his job as Chief of the French General Staff, a post which he notionally retained throughout 1918 (Salonika had reported to Joffre in 1916, but never to Nivelle or Petain; North Africa was always completely separate). Paulturtle (talk) 23:34, 20 February 2023 (UTC) The Americans threatened a feint attack at Belfort to draw German reserves (about 5 divisions) away from their St Mihiel Offensive in September, so they must have kept some troops down there.Paulturtle (talk) 23:02, 21 February 2023 (UTC)