In 1918, during the final year of the First World War, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig was Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front. Haig commanded the BEF in the defeat of the Imperial German Army's Spring Offensives, the Allied victory at Amiens in August, and the Hundred Days Offensive, which led to the war-ending armistice in November 1918.Sheffield 2001, p. 21.Sheffield, Gary. Forgotten Victory, p. 263.Hart 2008, p. 2.
Political manoeuvres War Cabinet discussions On 1 January Secretary of State for War Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby told Haig that he saved William Robertson from the sack by threatening resignation. He also hinted to Haig that the government wanted the removal of Launcelot Kiggell ("a tired man") as BEF Chief of Staff, and that General Richard Butler, Haig's preferred choice, was not acceptable.Sheffield & Bourne 2005, p369 Haig had an interview with the King (2 January) to pick up his Field Marshal's baton. Haig appears to have been placing too much faith in recent German peace feelers, now known not have been seriously intended. He told the King that British soldiers (who, in a large conscript army, now included men from "all classes in the nation") needed to be told what they were fighting for. In Haig's view, Britain should keep to her original war aims, the defence of France and liberation of Belgium; he felt "democratising of Germany", about to be publicly reiterated by David Lloyd George as a British aspiration, was likely to destabilise Germany, as the fall of the Tsar in March 1917 had destabilised Russia, and was not "worth the loss of an Englishman".Harris 2008 p421
Haig attended a meeting of the War cabinet (7 January). He claimed to have recommended that the British should keep the initiative and draw in German reserves (to prevent a German attack on the French) by renewing the offensive around Ypres, and that this proposal did not meet with political approval. In fact the logistical infrastructure was not available for a breakout from the Ypres Salient, and there is no mention of his suggestion in the official minutes. The minutes do agree with Haig's account that he warned only of limited German offensives. After the meeting Robertson, who had also been present and who had been concerned that Haig had not got his point across, insisted that Haig submit a paper warning of the danger of a major German offensive. Over lunch (9 January) at 10 Downing Street with Lord Derby and Lloyd George, Haig predicted that the war would end within a year because of the "internal state of Germany" (a broadly accurate prediction). John Charteris' final intelligence report had deduced that Germany was bringing 32 divisions, ten per month, from the moribund Eastern Front, so the most likely time for a German Offensive was in late March (again, a correct prediction). Haig again left the politicians with the impression that he thought the Germans would launch small attacks on the scale of Cambrai.Sheffield 2011, p.259-60Groot 1988, p.355-6Harris 2008 p422-3
Manpower As far back as 18 April 1917 Lloyd George had caused Maurice Hankey to draw up a memo recommending keeping "the War Office short (of men) to compel the soldiers to adopt tactics that will reduce the waste of manpower ... (and force the generals to make) careful substitution of elderly and partially fit men and coloured men ... behind the lines".Mead 2008, p323 A manpower committee under Lloyd George's chairmanship had given the Royal Navy, Royal Flying Corps shipbuilding, food production and timber felling all higher priority than the Army. The War Cabinet allocated (9 January) 100,000 Category A men to the Western Front rather than the 615,000 demanded by the Army. Lloyd George discounted the Army's warnings and wrongly thought the Western Front secure.Harris 2008, p433-4 Between January and March the BEF received 174,379 men, including 32,384 Dominion troops and 7,359 non-combatants. Many of the troops were Category B, i.e. not fully fit for combat, but the extra manpower enabled fitter men to be "combed out" from non-combatant jobs behind the lines.
The BEF's manpower shortage was not solely the fault of the politicians. 120,000 men of the BEF general reserve were kept in Britain to help the economy by spending their wages there. There were too many troops in the Middle East, but this was partly the fault of Robertson who had attempted to prevent action there by submitting inflated estimates of troop requirements. 88,000 BEF men were on leave when the German offensive began. Haig seems to have had little sympathy with the government's political constraints – he was unhappy at their lack of vigour in conscripting organised labour, whilst as late as 29 March, following the first German spring offensive, Haig would press for the extension of conscription to Ireland (not just for military reasons but "for the good of Ireland", and disagreeing with the King).Harris 2008, p433-5 Although there were about 1.5m soldiers under Home Forces Command in the UK at any one time, nearly a third of these were sick or wounded and another third engaged on legitimate work for various branches of the Army. Only around a third were potentially available for service on the Western Front, the majority of these being in training or under nineteen. Eighteen-year-olds had to be sent to France after the German Spring Offensives in 1918.Robertson 1921, p343-4
Haig remonstrated in vain with Derby (10 January) about the promotion of his ally Lt-Gen Hugh Trenchard from command of the RFC (replaced by Maj-Gen John Salmond) to become Chief of Air Staff.Harris 2008 p423-4 On 14 January Haig wrote to his wife, apropos the loss of Trenchard, that Derby was "like the feather pillow, bear(ing) the mark of the last person who sat on him" and remarking that he was known in London as the "genial Judas".Sheffield & Bourne 2005 p372
The War Office ordered (10 January) a reduction in the size of British divisions from 12 infantry battalions to 9 and a reduction in BEF cavalry strength from 5 divisions to 3. 134 infantry battalions were disbanded or amalgamated, and another 7 converted to pioneers. By mid January Haig had 58 infantry divisions, down from 62. Fighting strength was cut by 70,000 – a drop of about 7%. On 13 January Herbert Lawrence (then Head of BEF Intelligence) told Haig that the Germans would not have sufficient superiority "to ensure a decisive victory", although intelligence estimates of German strength were to be sharply increased over coming weeks.Harris 2008, p435
Haig had used the need to send British troops to Italy after Caporetto as an excuse not to take over a section of French line, as had been agreed between the British and French governments in early October, but in January the Supreme War Council at Versailles recommended (SWC Joint Note 12 and Note 14) an extension of the British line to some point between the river Ailette and the Laon-Soissons road. Haig complained to his diary (14 January) that the British government were taking the advice of Henry Wilson and the "Versailles gentlemen (who have no responsibility)" but in practice he was being overruled. There is no evidence that he considered resignation.
Haig survives criticism By now Haig's 1917 offensives were being criticised in the press. Lovat Fraser wrote a highly critical article ("Things Hidden") in Northcliffe's Daily Mail on 21 January. He wrote of the "ridiculous theory of "attrition" ", the "strategy of the Stone Age" and advocated attacks on other fronts. Northcliffe was now an ally of Lloyd George but appears not to have agreed the exact details of the press campaign with the Prime Minister. In Parliament J. C. Wedgwood openly demanded a change of command.Harris 2008 p424Sheffield 2011, p.257Groot 1988, p.358-61
The purge of Haig's staff continued, with the appointment on 22 January of Herbert Lawrence as BEF Chief of Staff, in place of Lt-Gen Launcelot Kiggell. Lawrence was a much stronger character than Kiggell, and having made money in business and having no plans to stay in the Army after the War, was not beholden to Haig – actually in time the two men made a good team.Sheffield 2011, p.258 Haig also lost the Deputy Chief of General Staff, Roland Maxwell (Quartermaster general), the engineer in chief and the director-general of medical services. Even John Terraine admits the changes strengthened the BEF.Wiest 2005, p90Groot 1988, p.359-60
The Cabinet Minister Jan Smuts and the Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey, whom Lloyd George had contemplated appointing to Kiggell's job, were sent on a five-day mission to France coinciding with the Lovat Fraser article. On the first evening they met Haig at GHQ and assured him that Lloyd George had no wish to replace him, although they had in fact been tasked by the Prime Minister on 18 January "to find out who are the rising men" amongst the British generals. Hankey wrote that "the atmosphere of complaisant optimism that formerly pervaded GHQ" was now "conspicuous by its absence", that general opinion was that the American Expeditionary Forces would not be ready for a major offensive before 1920, and that there was open talk, in which Haig participated, of a compromise peace, Haig being worried about the danger of France or Italy collapsing and believing that Britain had already gained more from the war than other powersIt is unclear what Haig meant by this. He may possibly, in J P Harris' view, have been referring to Britain's colonial gains in Africa and the Middle East and risked being left exhausted compared to the US. Hankey also recorded that officers had been angered by the Lovat Fraser article. Over the next few days Hankey and Smuts took discreet soundings among the Army Commanders to see whether any of them were willing to replace Haig – none of them were. The only possibility seemed to be Claud Jacob, General Officer Commanding (GOC) II Corps. Hankey formed the opinion that nobody important amongst the British generals thought a major German attack likely.Groot 1988, p.360Harris 2008 p424-6
The Unionist War Committee (a committee of Conservative backbenchers) passed a resolution on 24 January in support of Haig and Robertson and demanding that the Prime Minister condemn Northcliffe's press campaign against Haig. Charles à Court Repington, now writing for The Morning Post and in a bizarre reversal of allegiances now effectively an ally of the generals – and using information clearly leaked by the War Office – attacked the government over manpower (24 January), complaining that the BEF was only to be given 100,000 Category "A" men. H. H. Asquith (Liberal Leader and Leader of the Opposition), then in France to visit his badly wounded son Arthur, visited Haig (26 January) and assured him that Northcliffe's campaign had backfired, although attacks against Robertson might continue.Harris 2008 p426-7
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