From the British viewpoint of the Western Front in the Great War, indubitably one of the most controversial of the leading participants was General, later, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (hereafter DH).
Inevitably, many different appraisals have been written about his performance, personality, successes and failures with many myths created in the process.
Below are listed some of the more common disputatious facts concerning DH's command:
DH was the only Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front in the Great War
Not so, there we two. The C-in-C who took the BEF to Belgium in August 1914 was Field Marshal Sir John Denton Pinkstone French. DH commanded I Corps, BEF, from August 1914 to December 1914 when he took command of the First Army, BEF from French. In December 1915 DH replaced French as C-in-C, BEF and held this post without interruption until 1919 when he took over command of all British Home Forces.
DH received preferential advancement, both socially and professionally, due to his connections with the British Royal Family
Almost certainly. DH was married to the former maid-of-honour - the Hon. Dorothy Crespigny - to the British Queen (Mary) and as such had close relations with the monarch - King George V - as well as many of his advisers and ministers. On occasion, during his assignment on the Western Front, he had private audiences with the King and sent him private and secret dispatches. DH is generally considered to have been instrumental in Field Marshal French's dismissal from his C-in-C BEF post in December 1915.
DH gave preference in promotion to cavalrymen
Although DH was a dedicated cavalryman, there is no evidence that he allowed this to unduly prejudice his selection and promotion of subordinates. Or that he gave their cavalry units undue prominence: by late 1916 the number of cavalrymen in the BEF had dropped to around 3% of the BEF's total manpower. As for the BEF staff officers, only 15% were cavalrymen.
DH shunned innovation and new tactics
In the later stages of the war, DH's insight into the value of aircraft and tanks in close support of the infantry was one of the key factors that led to the successes of the British Army in the battles of the Final Hundred Days.
However, in one of his less profound moments DH did say in 1915 that 'the machine gun is a much overrated weapon'. So doubts about his complete of ease with some of the new technologies of war would appear to have some solid foundation.
DH gave disproportional resources to the cavalry
Whilst clearly frustrated that the cavalry could not produce his much vaunted 'breakthrough to the coast' during his various offensives, DH did not unduly insist on their deployment and acceded to the dismounting of many of the cavalry units to fill a dual role as infantrymen.
DH mismanaged the 1916 Somme Offensive to the extent that it became a waste of men and resources
There is general agreement amongst military historians that DH was too loyal to those of his staff officers who failed to match the requirements of the Western Front battlefield and its fast changing technological innovations. And it is true that these personal inadequacies led to serious operational failures; particularly so in the First Battle of the Somme.
That said, DH's last minute modification to General Henry Rawlinson's Fourth Army Plan for the First Battle of the Somme in July 1916, whereby it was extended to cover a wider frontage and depth, certainly over-complicated the deployment of the troops and may well have seriously compromised them in obtaining their objectives. Moreover, the loss of 60,000 soldiers in a single day on 1 July 1916 (almost 20,000 killed) was an unprecedented disaster for the British Army. Also, DH's lack of wisdom in continuing the Somme campaign until November 1916, for very modest gains and a further 300,000 casualties, is surely indicative of poor military management by any standards.
However, it is not always appreciated that DH was often under extreme pressure from his Allies to conform to their plans and their needs. For this reason many of his major decisions were forced upon him against his better judgement: a particular case in point being his subordination to the French commander General Robert Georges Nivelle before and during his (Nivelle's) disastrous Chemin des Dames Offensive in 1917.
DH was the author of the unsuccessful preparatory barrage and the fatally slow walking and linear advance on the first day of the Somme Offensive
There is no contention that the finer detail of the tactics used in the first day of the Somme were those of General Sir Henry Rawlinson, commander of Fourth Army, BEF, and his subordinates. The conflict in strategy arose from Rawlinson's advocacy for a tactic of 'bite and hold' (a small series of limited attacks and consolidation) and DH's wish for an all out 'breakthrough' on the widest possible front into the hinterland and beyond and, hopefully, to the Holy Grail of the Channel Ports. The compromise worked out between Rawlinson and DH suited neither objective. The big 'if' proved to be how effective the British preliminary artillery bombardment would be against the layered German defences. Rawlinson gambled it would be very effective, and insisted it would permit a virtually unopposed linear 'walk over' by the British infantry. Most of the British commanders were convinced of this and, consequently, the majority of the British troops were instructed to walk slowly in proper ranked formation, at a spacing of five paces, into the waiting machine guns and there met annihilation. The few British commanders, and the French, who contrarily instructed their troops to use the more traditional 'fire and movement' tactic of piece-meal advance, were generally more successful in both the extent of their advance and the limitation of their casualties.
DH was an inept commander who never had any significant victories
DH's handling of his troops in the early days on the Western Front is usually considered to have been competent enough. His record, from the time he took over command of the BEF in December 1915 to the conclusion of the German 1918 Spring Offensive, is generally viewed as far from optimal. And it is this period where he comes under the greatest approbation. However, from the Amiens Offensive in August 1918 to the Armistice in November 1918, DH, in excellent collaboration with the Allied Supreme Commander, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, co-ordinated the British Army in a stunning series of victories in what became to be known as the battles of the Final Hundred Days. These battles reduced the German Army to a state of military collapse and ended the war on the Western Front.
DH was largely unknown to his men
Even before the Great War, the days were long gone when the Commander-in- Chief accompanied his men onto the field of battle itself, mounted on a horse so all could see him; à la Napoleon or Wellington. And today's PR-conscious commanders were some way in the future. Never the less, most of the BEF would have known DH was their commander, but by no means all: even today, some British people say they don't know the name of their Prime Minister! Some of DH's troops would have seen him during his rare outings to the Front for unit inspections or parades, gallantry award ceremonies or just driving by in his staff car. A few may have heard him speak, but very few indeed would have met him personally. Only the literate could have read about him in the newspapers (British newspapers were often quite readily available on the Front) but a considerable minority could not read.
The picture of the Commander in Chief sitting resplendent in his fine uniform in his map cluttered chateau behind-the-lines - as depicted in the TV series Blackadder Goes to War - is certainly an impression that is conjured up in the minds of many of the present generation. Whilst this TV portrayal of a DH-like C-in-C was intended as a humorous caricature, the impartial viewer does see that there is the essence of truth in it. And those few BEF veterans who survived to see it, would have surely agreed.
DH was considered by his troops as a 'Butcher' and 'Bungler'
As early as March 1915, during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, DH was on record as requiring his troops to persevere 'regardless of cost' .
Later, DH's attitude, like that of the German Commander, General Erich von Falkenhayn, was to aim for 'attrition' (in DH's words 'wearing out') or 'bleeding the enemy white'. Not forgetting his frequent call to 'attack at costs'. Certainly, this strategy became generally known and documented. Also, of course, there was DH's 'Backs to wall' speech to the troops of the BEF in March 1918 at a critical moment in the German Spring Offensive. Accordingly, the BEF had no illusions as to where they stood as regards their commander's views as to their dispensability. Or, even perhaps, in their blackest moments, their ill-fated role as 'cannon fodder'. However, seen in the light of the social standards of the time, such a laissez-faire attitude to the acceptability of casualties by both the leaders and the led was by no means unusual. Some British commanders - eg Lieutenant General Aylmer Weston-Hunter, commander of Fourth Army's VII Corps on the Somme - had even more fearsome reputations for their callousness concerning casualties, and yet they still enjoyed a long career.
It is often forgotten just how much independent power senior officers had over their Corps and Armies on the Western Front. One teetotal British Army commander even unilaterally forebade the issue of Service Rum to his men for the duration without any protest from the higher echelons, who surely must have realised the morale factor it represented.
So, perhaps, DH became to be most denigrated by the British and Empire troops for his willingness to continue taking casualties when all advice and evidence indicated that such a level of casualties could not be justified by the progress achieved, or likely to be achieved. Graphic examples being the later stages of First Battle of the Somme in 1916 and Third Ypres (also known as Passchendaele) in 1917. Not to mention his lack of recognition the of terrible conditions under which his troops were often asked to fight; as witnessed by the alleged shocked remarks of DH's Intelligence Chief, Brigadier John Charteris, after seeing the horrendous conditions of the battlefield after Passchendaele in 1917.
Finally, DH can surely be faulted for not realising the enormous burden that the 'fatigue [additional duties] culture' in the BEF imposed on the fighting soldier. It both wore the men down physically and adversely affected their morale by the almost constant calls on them, 24 hours in the day, as 'navvies' and literal beasts of burden, even when they were supposedly in rest areas or training for new operations and tactics. Of course, all the armies on the Western Front faced this problem of manpower. But the Germans, and particularly the French, used simple technology and engineering to eliminate a lot of the more back breaking labour at, and behind, The Front. An example being the French mechanical trench digging machines from 1916 onwards. A more personally aware commander would have realised the deleterious affect that this imposition of additional and continual fatigue duty had on his troops, and would have striven hard to achieve its reduction to an absolute minimum. Obviously, either DH wasn't aware, or chose to ignore the problem.
DH was shunned and despised by his men after the Great War
Upon his retirement in 1921, DH was given a Baronetcy to add to his Earldom (1919) and, despite his whisky distilling family's considerable wealth, was awarded a large sum - £100,000 = £2,000,000 today - by the British Government.
The newly formed (1921) British Legion (now Royal British Legion) voted him - with some dissent - as its first President.
Until his death in London in 1928, aged 66, DH continued to serve on various Great War ex-servicemen's welfare committees and charities such as The Haig Fund and The Haig Homes. His relatives certainly believed that the strain so incurred was instrumental in his relatively early death.
At DH's state funeral more than 30,000 military veterans followed the cortege to his final resting place at Dryberg Abbey near Alnwick, Northumberland, England. It was said to be the largest assemblage of British subjects at such a public event up to that date. That so many of his former soldiers made the effort to travel to this isolated place is quite extraordinary. One can only wonder how many would have turned out if the ceremony had taken place in one of the more densely populated area of the country.
Accordingly, one can say with some certainty that DH's reputation amongst his Great War veterans was as varied as their war experiences under his command.
It was under DH's command that the majority of the British Expeditionary Force was killed in action on the Western Front
This is certainly correct. During DH's 'watch' as C-in-C of the BEF for 35 of the 51 months of active service on the Western Front, there were in excess of 1.5 million British wounded and 0.5 million dead against the total for the whole 51 months of 2.1 million British wounded and 0.6 million dead.
The outcome of the war on the Western Front was decided in 1918 by the arrival of General Pershing and the Americans
The participation of the American Expeditionary Force on the Western Front battlefield was delayed by its long drawn out field-training period. This was insisted upon by its American commander, General John Joseph Pershing, (with the support of the President and the Government of the USA), who also demanded the retention of the AEF as a single integral force under direct American command, i. General Pershing.
Pershing and his vanguard arrived in France in June 1917. Five AEF divisions were put at the disposal of the Allied Supreme Commander, General Ferdinand Foch, (but not fully deployed) in March 1918 to meet the crisis caused by the German Spring Offensive.
Only in the battles of last four months of the Great War did significant numbers of American troops participate in the fighting in a major role.
The total AEF casualties on the Western Front numbered 230,000, of which 52,000 were killed; about the same as the combined Australian and New Zealand casualties in this theatre of war.
The threatened, and actual, arrival of increasingly large numbers of AEF troops on the Western Front was certainly a factor in the decision that precipitated the German High Command into launching the 1918 Spring Offensive. The failure of the German Spring Offensive to obtain a war winning 'breakthrough' effectively broke the spirit of the much of the German Army and that of the German people.
However, it was the American commander General John Joseph Pershing himself who said, after the Armistice, that 'Haig was the man who won the [Great] War'.
DH was the 'donkey' that led the British 'lions'
There is no evidence that this term was ever used in the Great War in this context. It appears to have been first used in an earlier war with regard to the Russian Army and was somehow resurrected in the 1960's and translated to the Western Front, the British Army in general, and DH in particular.
Prime Minister David Lloyd George wished to sack DH in 1917
Apart from a long-term mutual dislike of one-another, almost from the outset of the war, Lloyd George and DH were in two different camps. Lloyd George favoured more emphasis in the East (particularly Salonika) - ie was an Easterner - and DH strongly supported maximum concentration of effort on the Western Front - ie a Westerner.
In turn Minister of War and Prime Minister, Lloyd George had observed the enormous British losses on the Somme in 1916, and Ypres in 1916/17, with increasing concern. He developed an increasing distrust of Haig's strategy and tactics. This led to a growing unwillingness to provide troop reinforcements for the BEF on the Western Front. In his post-war memoirs, Lloyd-George states that he debated replacing DH in 1917, but could not find any suitable candidate: one must assume his mention of the Australian General John Monash as a possibility to have been kite-flying of the highest order.
In the later stages of the war, DH's ready agreement to a subordinate role to the Supreme Allied Commander, French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, brought about a reconciliation of sorts with Lloyd George. He (Lloyd George) and his Cabinet began to release the large numbers of troops that were required for the final victorious British campaign on the Western Front.
Post-Great War debates amongst military historians as to who could have replaced DH in 1917/18 usually came to an inconclusive end due to the difficulty in finding a consensus for a better candidate.
Conclusion
There is no evidence of a consensus about the reputation of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. By some he is greatly admired as a Commander-in-Chief bringing about victory in very difficult circumstances whilst having been neither particularly well served by the British politicians of the day, nor, frequently, by his Allied Commanders. Others are equally dismissive considering him to something of a dilettante aristocrat, overly favoured by royal patronage, and with scant concern, or care, for the troops under his command.
No doubt, DH's notoriously poor communication skills and deliberate remoteness, allied with the privations imposed on his troops by the ill-understood evolution of the stalemate of four years of increasingly technological trench-war, made it difficult for him to come to some kind of rapport with his huge army.
Consequently, officers and men alike of the BEF have tended to judge him by their personal experience of war: many were so traumatised they could never come to terms with it and lived under its shadow for the rest of their lives. Not to forget those who lived on with their war-disabilities and those who mourned.
For the dispassionate observers who did not go through this ordeal on a personal basis, they found, and find, it easier to come to more rational conclusions. In recent years, most informed commentators tend to find in favour of DH, given the circumstances of his command. And there, surely, it rests: each informed observer must decide for him/herself.
