George swept aside traditional procedures with the result that, in the great battles of 1916, the British army was able to mount the gigantic artillery barrages which were held to be essential prerequisites to the breakthrough. But the breakthrough was not achieved and Lloyd George became convinced that the main war effort should be transferred away from the deadlock of the Western Front to other theatres, such as Salonika. This brought him into conflict with the military authorities. When, however. Kitchener was drowned in 1916, Asquith chose Lloyd George to succeed him as Secretary of State for War. From this vantage point, Lloyd George skilfully marshalled the disquiet about Asquith as a war leader. In December 1916 he displaced Asquith as PM.
In the nation’s perception, he was a great war leader but 1917 proved to hold even greater disasters in store than 1916, and Lloyd George failed to exert a decisive grip upon the situation. Haig maintained that the Western Front was the decisive theatre and Lloyd George felt strong enough, not to dismiss him, but only to intrigue against him. Moreover, if the war was to be fought to a conclusion, there was no viable alternative to the western strategy, especially after the collapse of Russia in 1917.
In 1922 Lloyd George resigned and never returned to office. ANF.
Local Defence Volunteers (LDV)
See HOME GUARD.
Local Forces Militia, NLF. The
Local guerrilla or popular forces of the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam were one of three categories of troops nominally under nlf command during the Vietnam War. The Dan quan du kick, or civilian guerrillas, were subdivided into secret, self-defence or combat groups, depending on place and function, and operated under the jurisdiction of village Communist Party organs. Ideally each hamlet had a squad and each village a platoon for use in night raids, intelligence gathering and mobilization into the main forces. Estimates of their number were notoriously unreliable. The capacious definition used by the communists led them to count 320,000 people in guerrilla and local militia forces in the South in 1966, while US estimates in 1967 varied between 156,000 and 244,000. WST. See also people’s liberation ARMED FORCE.
Local Self-Defence Forces Militia, DRV. The armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam comprised main, regional and local self-defence categories. The latter, part-time militia, provided local security and labour to support the regular army. At the height of the Vietnam War about 10 per cent of the DRv’s 20 million people (196970) were enrolled in local selfdefence units, although in the area just north of the demilitarized zone this proportion reached as high as 42 percent. Hanoi credited local self-defence forces with snaring American planes in “networks” of small-arms fire, but their contribution to road maintenance and public order probably was more valuable to the war effort. WST.
Locarno Pacts. In October 1925 an international conference was convened at Locarno in Switzerland. The delegates negotiated a series of treaties that would remove potential causes of friction between states and promote collective security. Germany, France and Britain were the main initiators while other signatories included Belgium, Italy, Poland and
. Czechoslovakia.
Lockwood, Vice Adm Charles Andrews, Jr (1890-1967). US. As Commander Submarines Pacific (ComSubPac) at Pearl Harbor from January 1943, Lockwood correctly indentified the mechanical faults in the Mark xiv torpedo that had plagued US submariners and went on to direct the most successful submarine offensive of all time. US submarines sank 174 Japanese warships (c494,000 tons) and, 877 transports and merchantmen (c3,500,000 tons): more than half the total Japanese tonnage lost. Lockwood’s boats also performed vital reconnaissance, raiding and aircrew-rescue missions.
Loc Ninh, Battle of (1967). The town of Loc Ninh, located 81 miles (130km) north of Saigon, South Vietnam, was defended in 1967 by three Civilian Irregular Defence Group companies and one company of Regional forces. The 9th Division of the People’s Liberation Armed Force (plaf) attacked the town on October 29 but withdrew on November 7 after Army of the Republic (arvn) and American troops reinforced the defenders. The US Command believed this and similar attacks on isolated outposts marked a shift by the communists to conventional big unit tactics, but the purpose was to draw American and arvn forces out of the cities in preparation for the Tet offensive. WST.
Lodge, Ambassador Henry Cabot (1902-85). US. President Kennedy sought bipartisan support for his Vietnam policy by appointing Republican Lodge Ambassador to South Vietnam in June 1963. Lodge believed President Ngo Dinh Diem was the chief obstacle to successful prosecution of the war and urged Kennedy to support the coup that ended in Diem’s assassination. He resigned in May 1964, continued to advise President Johnson on the war, and returned as ambassador in July
1965. During his second tour he intervened in the conflict between Premier Nguyen Cao Ky and antigovernment Buddhists and attempted to unify Saigon’s squabbling military leaders. Lodge left Vietnam in May 1967, served on Johnson’s Senior Advisory Group on the war in March 1968, and accepted appointment as chief negotiator to the Paris peace conference in January 1969. Finding the latter futile, he resigned in October 1969. WST.
Loerzer, Gen Bruno (1891— 1960). Gen. Loerzer, a close friend of Goring, commanded Jagdstaffel 26 and Jadgeschwader Nr. 3 on the Western Front in 1917—18. Credited with 4 victories, he became Germany’s ninth highest-scoring fighter pilot of World War I. After serving as President of the Deutsche Luftsportverband (German Air Sports League) and as Reich Air Sport Leader in the 1930s, Loerzer commanded Fliegerkorps II in the French campaign and the Battle of Britain in 1940 and subsequently in the Mediterranean. In 1944— 45 he was Chief of the Luftwaffe’s Personnel Office.
World History
