Introduction
The Doullens Conference was held in Doullens, France, on 26 March 1918 between French and British military leaders and governmental representatives during World War I. Its purpose was to better co-ordinate their armies' operations on the Western Front in the face of a dramatic advance by the German Army which threatened a breakthrough of their lines during the War's final year. It occurred due to Lord Alfred Milner, a member of the British War Cabinet, being dispatched to France by Prime Minister Lloyd George, on 24 March, to access conditions on the Western Front, and to report back.
Background
On 21 March 1918 the Army Groups of the German Empire launched a massive offensive against the British on the Western Front with the strategic aim of defeating the Allies in the West and winning World War I, before the United States of America, which had recently entered the conflict on the Allies' side, could mass enough troops in France to intervene in the conflict. The German spring offensive (Kaiserschlacht or Kaiser's Battle), started with Operation Michael. The commencement of the German offensive was an astonishing success, with the British Fifth Army being initially routed from its trench systems to the point that there appeared to exist the danger as it fell back en masse of it being overwhelmed, risking a breakthrough of the French and British lines on the Western Front by the Germans. The strategic situation was made more unsure for the Allies by a lack of co-ordination between the Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies on the Western Front, General Philippe Pétain, and his peer British Commander, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. Pétain had previously agreed to send six divisions if the British were attacked; these (and more) had been sent, but when Haig requested an additional 20 divisions to support the threatened British 5th Army, Pétain declined, fearing that the attack was a diversionary tactic for an - as yet - undisclosed attack by the Germans upon the French Army.
It became clear in the crisis that better co-ordination between the Allies was needed to prevent a German breakthrough. For this reason, British War Cabinet Minister Lord Milner travelled to France, he met with Georges Clemenceau on the 25th, and he urged the appointment of General Foch to unite the front. In the afternoon, the Paris group traveled to Compiegne to make the change official. However, the British generals were meeting at Abbeville (75 miles away), and the two sides could not connect. The Allies decided to meet at Dury town hall on the morning of the 26th, but this was changed to Doullens because Field Marshal Haig had already planned a meeting with his subordinate Army Commanders there. There was a concern that the advancing Germans might actually overrun the town of Doullens before the conference was convened, so close to the front and so precipitous being the German assault, but this didn't happen and it was held there despite being in the path of the oncoming German advance.
Doullens Conference
The meeting was held at the Hotel de Ville, its French attendees were General Pétain, French President Raymond Poincaré, Premier Georges Clemenceau, General Ferdinand Foch, General Maxime Weygand, and Minister of Munitions Louis Loucheur. Lord Milner, Field Marshal Haig, and Generals Henry Wilson, Herbert Lawrence, and Archibald Montgomery were the British representatives.
The conference was successful in forming a unified command. It agreed to the creation of an Allied Commander-in-Chief with the power to co-ordinate Allied operations collectively. The members attending the conference believed that General Ferdinand Foch was the most qualified figure for the nature of the role, and placed him in executive charge of co-ordinating the operations of the Allied Armies on the Western Front. One of Foch's remarks at the conference, to give confidence to the British military figures present (who had grave doubts about the willingness of the French to go on with the war) about his qualifications for the role was: "I would fight without a break. I would fight in front of Amiens. I would fight in Amiens. I would fight behind Amiens. I would fight all the time. I would never surrender".
The text of the Doullens Agreement can be found in the UK National Archives, and in The Times (of London) newspaper. A copy of the agreement, written by Prime Minister Clemenceau, can be found here.
Lord Milner's complete notes on the meeting can be found in Prime Minister Clemenceau's autobiography.