David Lloyd George access to the Cabinet so as to bypass Kitchener. However, he did succeed in securing the appointment of Sir Eric Geddes to take charge of military railways behind British lines in France, with the honorary rank of major-general. Lloyd George told a journalist, Roy W. Howard, in late September that "the fight must be to a finish – to a knockout", a rejection of President Wilson's offer to mediate. Lloyd George was increasingly frustrated at the limited gains of the Somme Offensive, criticising General Haig to Ferdinand Foch on a visit to the Western Front in September (British casualty ratios
David Lloyd George 1924 by which American banks loaned large sums to Germany, which paid reparations to the Allies, who in turn paid off their war loans to the United States. In 1921 Lloyd George successfully concluded the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement. Despite much effort he was unable to negotiate full diplomatic relations, as the Russians rejected all repayment of Tsarist era debts, and Conservatives in Britain grew exceedingly wary of the communist threat to European stability. Indeed, Henry Wilson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, believed Lloyd George had become "a traitor & a Bolshevist". Lloyd George in 1922 set about to