Douglas Haig commanded the British army on the western front from
the winter of 1 9 1 5- 1 9 1 6 to the close of the war. He is the most controversial
of the prominent military commanders of World War I, and the debate over
his leadership continues to rage. Haig first became the target of vigorous
criticism for his leadership of the failed offensive on the Somme in July
1916. Critics have leveled equally negative judgments about the way Haig
conducted the campaign in Flanders the following year. That 1917 offensive,
known for its most bloody and futile encounter with the enemy at
Passchendaele, was marked by hideous casualties and impossible fighting
conditions in the fall rains and mud.
Nonetheless, in the different conditions of 1918, a different Haig
emerged. Or, better said, Haig's talents and attitudes appeared to better
advantage. He kept his head and maintained the cohesion of his army in the
face of the German offensives, then directed the British army in the final
set of offensives that brought the war to a close. He played a key role in
getting the Allied commander-in-chief, Ferdinand Foch, to make an all-out
effort to win the war in 1918.
Douglas Haig was bom in Edinburgh on June 19, 1861. The son of a
family that had prospered in the distillery business, he entered the army as
a cadet at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in 1884. He received his
commission the following year. His early career, in which he was marked
by superiors for his unusual energy and professional zeal, took place within
the ranks of the cavalry. Shortly after he graduated from the Staff College
in 1 898, his professional life took a crucial turn: he became chief staff officer
to General John French, commander of the British cavalry force in the Boer
War. Haig made a name for himself as both a staff officer and a field
commander in South Africa. He became a major general in 1904 and
reached his initial wartime rank of lieutenant general in 1911. His rise to
eminence in the army had come partly through his connections to Britain's
royal family, and he remained a confidant of King George V during the years
of fighting in France.
With the outbreak of World War I, Haig led the I Corps of the British
Expeditionary Force to France. He distinguished himself initially at the First
Battle of Ypres in October and November, holding the crucial portion of the
Allied front adjacent to the English Channel against ferocious German
attacks. As a reward, he got command of one of the two Brifish field armies
forming in France at the start of 1915. He conducted offensives at Neuve
Chapelle in March, then at Loos in September. Mismanagement of the
Battle of Loos by General French led to his removal as commander of the
British Expeditionary Force. In mid-December, Haig took over.
During 1916, Haig's lasting reputation as an unimaginative, callous
commander took shape. It contains several elements: his willingness to
accept immense casualties; his conviction that the enemy was close to the
limit of its resources; and his expectation of a breakthrough into open
country that would end the war by destroying the German army.
Haig's divisions, composed entirely of volunteers, started the British role
in the 1916 campaign with an attack on the Somme on July 1 . His defenders
are quick to point out that the British general bowed to his French colleague.
General Joseph Joffre, attacking earlier than Haig wished, and in a sector
Joffre had selected. Moreover, they note. Allied public opinion would not
have tolerated a passive strategy for the western front despite the strength
of the German defenses.
Nonetheless, the first day was a disaster without precedent in military
history: Haig lost 60,000 men, one-third of them fatalities. The British bombardment
had failed to cripple German defenses, and enemy machine gunners
mowed down the inexperienced soldiers General Sir Henry Rawlinson,
Haig's subordinate, sent out in close formation. Haig continued the fruitless
offensive into the autumn, losing perhaps 400,000 men in all. But Haig's
defenders note that the Germans also suffered from this bloody attrition.
In 1917 Haig once again took the offensive, this time in Flanders, on a
sector of his choosing. Overcoming the opposition of Prime Minister David
Lloyd George, who feared another pointless bloodletting, Haig conducted
the Third Battle of Ypres over a period of four months. It is better known
as the Passchendaele campaign, named after the small village around which
much of the fighting centered.
As the attack began, the French armies were crippled by mutiny, and the
Allies needed to distract German attention from the French sectors ofthe front.
Moreover, Haig had high hopes; continued pressure on the Germans might
even bring about their total collapse. But the British advance across watersoaked
terrain saw Haig's men bogged down in the mud much of the time.
Once again, Haig barely pushed forward, while young Britons died by the
hundreds of thousands. Thus, Haig met the German onslaught in March 1918
in the shadow of Lloyd George's distrust. If the British prime minister had
felt more politically secure, he would likely have replaced Haig by then. Some
historians believe he deliberately avoided sending reinforcements to Haig in
order to restrain the British commander from further offensives.
In contrast to the panicky French commander-in-chief, Philippe Petain,
Haig kept his composure during the dangerous German offensives Luden
dorff launched from late March to mid-July. He accepted the need for an
Allied supreme commander to control Petain. And he held tenaciously even
after Ludendorff had begun to break through British defenses in the crucial
sector around Amiens. Then, in August 1918, he directed an offensive at
Amiens that precipitated the long German retreat that ended with the
Armistice. Later that month, he helped persuade Foch that the war was
winnable in 1918 if the Germans had to face a series of coordinated
offensives all over the western front.
Haig retired from the army in 1921, spending the remainder of his life
as the commander of the British Legion, the nation's veterans' organization.
He died on January 30, 1928, in London.
World History
