Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig (19 June 1861 – 29 January 1928) led the British Expeditionary Force during World War I. His reputation remains controversial, and his competency during the war is still the subject of academic debate.
Although a popular commander during the immediate post-war years, with his funeral becoming a day of national mourning, Haig also became an object of criticism for his leadership of the BEF on the Western Front. He was criticised by politicians such as Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George, and by influential historians such as Basil Liddell Hart. Some regard him as representing the very concept of class-based incompetent commanders, stating that he was unable to grasp modern tactics and technologies,Field Marshal Douglas Haig would have let Germany win, biography says and criticism of Haig is sometimes hard to disentangle from criticisms of the war itself. However, many veterans praised Haig's leadershipDavidson, Sir J. Major General, Haig Master of the Field, p. 137 (1953, 2010 edn) and since the 1980s some historians have argued that the public hatredHart 2008, p. 2 in which Haig's name had come to be held failed to recognise the adoption of new tactics and technologies by forces under his command,Todman, D. The Great War: Myth and Memory, (London, 2005), p. 73-120. or the important role played by the British forces in the Allied victory of 1918,Sheffield 2002, p. 21, 263 and that the high casualties suffered were a function of the tactical and strategic realities of the time.Corrigan 2002, p. 298-30, p406-10.
Reputation Post-war opinion After the war, Haig was praised by the American General of the Armies John J. Pershing, the wartime commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, who remarked that Haig was "the man who won the war."Gordon Corrigan, Mud, Blood and Poppycock, p. 204. He was also publicly lauded as the leader of a victorious army. His funeral in 1928 was a huge state occasion.
However, after his death, Haig—and the generation of British generals he was deemed to represent—came under increasing criticism. Some of these critiques were directed at what was said to be his excessive focus on the Western Front (aligning with the "westerner" rather than "easterner" school of thought), while others targeted his alleged poor decision-making and resistance to innovation, which led to excessive casualties among British troops under his command. Many of Haig's critics were younger officers who had served in the First World War.
Arthur Conan Doyle (six volumes, 1916–20) and John Buchan (four volumes, 1921–22) published histories of the war that were largely supportive of Haig and the "westerner" perspective.Bond 2002, p. 41-2
Haig's own case Haig appeared as himself in the films Under Four Flags (1918) and Remembrance (1927).
In his "Final Despatch" of 21 March 1919, Haig sought to shape the terms of the debate and preempt criticism. According to historian Gary Sheffield, Haig argued that the war on the Western Front had been "a single continuous campaign," made lengthy and costly by the time needed to train a large British force and the absence of flanking opportunities. Haig contended that offensives were necessary because "a purely defensive attitude can never bring about a successful decision," and acknowledged that while casualties were heavy, they were "no larger than were to be expected." He further asserted that "the victories of the summer and autumn of 1918 (were) directly dependent upon the two years of stubborn fighting that preceded them." Sheffield writes that Haig's argument was "fundamentally correct" and that "much of (Haig's case) has withstood nearly nine decades of criticism," though he also notes an element of rationalization, as evidence, including Haig's diary, suggests that Haig had hoped to achieve decisive victory at various times during the Somme and Third Ypres campaigns.Sheffield 2011, p.363-4, 369
Haig was reportedly offered £100,000 for his memoirs but declined to write any. It has been suggested that he may have been influenced by the uproar caused by "1914", the tendentious memoirs of Field Marshal French, his predecessor as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF.Sheffield 2011, p.363 However, he privately ensured that his point of view reached the public in response to criticisms from Lloyd George and others. In August 1919, Haig wrote to John St Loe Strachey, editor of The Spectator, in response to a speech by Lloyd George. Haig argued that 1917 was "the most critical period of the war... it was only the continuous attacks of the British Army" which saved the Allies. Haig supported Boraston & Dewar's early 1920s work, which claimed that his critics knew as much about military operations as they did about "the Basque language." These critics included Lovat Fraser, who wrote the article "Where Haig Went Wrong – Vast and Useless Waste of Life in the Great War" in the Sunday Pictorial (3 Dec 1922).Sheffield 2011, p.364
Churchill Several bestselling memoirs by politicians were highly critical of Haig. Winston Churchill's The World Crisis was written during Haig's lifetime (six volumes, 1923–29). Written in what Brian Bond describes as a "majestic prose style" and using documents not available to the public until the 1960s, the work sold well enough to fund the completion of Churchill's house at Chartwell. Churchill was an "Easterner" and spent much of the book defending his own attack on the Dardanelles.Bond 2002, p. 43 He wrote that Haig was "the first officer of the British army" in experience and ability, and "he had no rivals," which helped his strength of character in holding his vast responsibilities, but that nobody was equal to the immense challenges of the war.Churchill 1938, p.946-7
In the chapter "The Blood Test," Churchill, building on arguments he had submitted to the Cabinet in the summer of 1916, argued that Allied losses exceeded German losses on the Western Front (not the view of GHQ at the time but generally accepted now), and that the campaigns of 1916 were "a welter of slaughter" that weakened the Allied lead over the Germans. He claimed that at the Battle of the Somme, "no strategical advantages of any kind had been gained" apart from relieving pressure on Verdun, although he admitted the effect of losses on German morale and combat effectiveness. In his 1937 essays Great Contemporaries, Churchill later likened Haig to a surgeon who had to act dispassionately for the long-term good of the patient, no matter how messy the short-term means. In another passage of The World Crisis, he wrote that massed tank attacks as at Cambrai could have been used as an alternative to blocking enemy machine-gun fire with "the breasts of brave men."Churchill 1938, p.1220 This view is now regarded as unrealistic.Philpott 2009, p.600
Churchill estimated the casualties of the Third Ypres ("a sombre experiment that had failed disastrously") at over 400,000,Churchill 1938, p.959 quoting Ferdinand Foch's warning of the folly of taking on "Boche & Boue" (Germans and mud) simultaneously. He argued that the soldiers "took all they required from Britain. They wore down alike the manhood and the guns of the British Army almost to destruction. They did so in the face of the plainest warnings and arguments which they could not answer." Churchill was if anything more critical of Robertson, quoting the latter's letter to Haig of 27 September 1917, where Robertson wrote that with Russia dropping out of the war he was advising the Government that there should be further attacks at Ypres out of instinct rather than for any belief that Haig could win,Churchill 1938, p.1213 and writing that Robertson "was an outstanding military personality. His vision as a strategist was not profound... he had no ideas of his own, but a sensible judgement negative in bias."Churchill 1938, p.1261
Haig sent Churchill extracts from his diaries and commented on drafts, to which Churchill was willing to make amendments. He told Haig (20 November 1926) that he was "a convinced and outspoken opponent to our offensive policy at Loos, on the Somme and at Passchendaele." Although Haig thought Churchill's views on the Somme and Third Ypres "most mischievous," he was willing to accept criticism for his command record but claimed that the decisions he took in August and September 1918 were responsible for the war ending in November.Sheffield 2011, p.365-6
However, Churchill also wrote that although the Allied offensives up until August 1918 had been "as hopeless as they were disastrous," and men of fifty had already been called up due to the manpower shortage, "Haig and Foch were vindicated in the end," and that the Hundred Days "will excite the wonder of future generations."Churchill 1938, p.1374-5 Churchill (23 November 1926) admitted to Beaverbrook, who thought him too willing to praise Haig,Reid 2006, p. 499 that "subsequent study of the war has led me to think a good deal better of Haig than I did at the time. It is absolutely certain there was no one who could have taken his place."
Lloyd George Lloyd George pulled fewer punches in his War Memoirs, published in 1933–36 when Haig was deceased and Lloyd George was no longer likely to return to power. Historian Brian Bond writes that this work "did the most damage to the generals." Lloyd George criticized their "narrow, selfish and unimaginative strategy ... ghastly butchery ... vain and insane offensives" which, he argued, brought the Allies "almost to the rim of catastrophe ... saved largely by the incredible folly of our foes." He accused Haig of premature use of tanks although he accepted that there was "no conspicuous officer better qualified for higher command."Bond 2002, p. 46 In Chapter 89, Lloyd George scorned the recently published extracts from Haig's diaries, which he claimed were "carefully edited" by Haig's Official Biographer Duff Cooper. He described Haig as "intellectually and temperamentally unequal to his task" and "second-rate" compared to Foch, though he conceded that Haig was "above the average for his profession—perhaps more in industry than intelligence." He attributed his distrust of Haig's capacity to fill his "immense role" to Haig's lack of a clear grasp even of the Western Front (likening him to "the blind King of Bohemia at Crecy"), let alone the needs of other fronts, and his inability, given his preference for being surrounded by courteous "gentlemen", to select good advisers. He also criticised Haig for lacking the personal magnetism of a great commander, for his intrigues against his predecessor Sir John French, and his willingness to scapegoat Hubert Gough for the defeat of March 1918 (although he had actually defended him, and the alternative would probably have been Haig's own dismissal), and his claims to have subsequently accepted the appointment of Foch as Allied Generalissimo, a move to which Lloyd George claimed Haig in fact to have been opposed. On another occasion he is said to have described Haig as "brilliant—to the top of his boots". Lloyd George's biographer John Grigg (2002) suggested that Lloyd George's vitriolic tone may have stemmed from a guilty conscience for not having intervened to stop the Passchendaele Offensive. John Terraine found a "faint stirring of consciousness" in the "shrill venom" with which Lloyd George sought to "exculpate himself" after destroying trust between politicians and soldiers through the Nivelle Affair, making it impossible for Robertson to raise his concerns about the Third Ypres Offensive with the Prime Minister. Terraine called the memoirs "a document as shabby as his behaviour at Calais."Terraine 1977, p. 341.