Douglas Haig and the First World War. J.P. Harris. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
“In some ways it was like the debate of a group of savages as to how to extract a screw from a piece of wood. Accustomed only to nails, they had made one effort to pull out the screw by main force, and now that it had failed they were devising methods of applying more force still, of obtaining more efficient pincers, of using levers and fulcrums so that more men could bring their strength to bear. They could hardly be blamed for not guessing that by rotating the screw it would come out after the exertion of far less effort; it would be a notion so different from anything they had ever encountered that they would laugh at the man who suggested it.”
—C.S. Forrester, The General[1]
C.S. Forrester’s fictional description of flawed British generalship in the First World War epitomizes the widespread sentiment that the British Army had been lions led by donkeys to their needless slaughter. To many, Sir Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force from 1915 to 1918, represents the chief butcher and bungler. After Haig’s death in 1928, his rivals—chiefly the former Prime Minister Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, a future Prime Minister, and military theorist B.H. Liddell-Hart—shaped and advanced this narrative.[2] However, in the 1960s, several British historians began to push back against these views.[3] Some even went so far as to claim that Haig represented a “clear-eyed architect of victory.”[4] J.P. Harris’ Douglas Haig and the First World War represents an antidote to both of these narrative extremes. Harris, a historian and senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, carefully avoids these caricatures. Instead, Harris levels well-researched critiques of Haig’s operational and strategic leadership while simultaneously addressing inaccuracies in the prevailing historical narratives around Haig’s influence on the tactical adaptation of the British Expeditionary Force and his relationship with emerging technology.
Harris argues that, by the standards of the era, Haig adequately, but imperfectly, adapted to the core tactical dilemmas posed by trench warfare. Although Haig’s tactical influence as a corps, army, and theater commander is difficult to fully assess, Harris sees Haig’s interventions in the British Expeditionary Force’s tactical methodology as generally positive. Following the failure of the infamous 1st of July 1916 attacks on the Somme, Haig oversaw significant organizational and doctrinal changes that bore fruit in subsequent phases of the war. For example, the British Expeditionary Force’s Training Directorate, established in January 1917, developed an array of training schools, inspection programs, and doctrinal pamphlets. As Paddy Griffith, another British scholar of the era, notes; a hastily expanded British Expeditionary Force needed such programs to absorb and disseminate key lessons of modern combined-arms warfare.[5] Consequently, by the end of 1917, Haig’s British Expeditionary Force had largely mastered the tactical art of the combined arms set-piece attack.
The embrace and integration of new technologies played a key role in this approach. Contrary to the post-war claims of Churchill and others, Haig was no technophobe.[6] Harris credibly demonstrates how Haig enthusiastically incorporated new technology throughout his career.[7] As a corps commander during the 1912 force-on-force exercises in England, Haig relied heavily on his Royal Flying Corps detachment of seven airplanes to conduct reconnaissance.[8] Harris argues that, as a theater commander, Haig was “very open to technological innovation.” Haig’s British Expeditionary Force, he continues, “was highly experimental and innovative…and pushed the available military technology to its limit.”[9]
Tank at the Battle of the Somme (BBC)
Haig’s comfort with technology and technical experts such as aviators or meteorologists contrasted with what Harris calls his lack of “productive discourse with equals and subordinates within what he regarded as his own area of professional expertise.”[10] Haig was a notoriously “limited conversationalist.”[11] Harris explains how Haig instructed his aide-de-camp to “raise topics of known interest to him” should conversation flag during dinners at his headquarters.[12] Haig’s utter inability to engage in open, candid, and professional dialogue with his subordinates, allies, and political superiors often amplified operational shortcomings into genuine strategic crises.
Haig struggled to balance his strategic duties as the senior British commander in France with his operational role as the leader and coordinator of multiple armies in the field.[13] Unlike the French and Germans, the British Expeditionary Force did not field army group headquarters to synchronize the operational actions of multiple field armies. Consequently, Haig struggled to effectively orchestrate the actions of the British Expeditionary Force’s five armies in the field during both the planning and execution of major operations.
Through effective use of official correspondence and personal diaries, Harris documents how Haig’s personal influence on the planning of major operations led to serious failures in the field. Haig often demanded unrealistic territorial goals be achieved on the first day of an attack and disapproved of the methodical, step-by-step, operational approach favored by many of his most successful corps and army commanders, such as General Sir Henry Rawlinson. “D.H. won’t like this, but I am sure it is right,” Rawlinson scribbled to his operations chief after submitting the 4th Army plan for the second phase of the 1916 Somme offensive. Haig, indeed, did not like it. Haig wrote to Rawlinson that “greater boldness should be shown at the outset…so use tanks boldly, press success, demoralize the enemy and try to capture his guns.”[14] Haig’s flawed insistence on breakthrough attacks led to deleterious adjustments to plans developed by subordinate army commanders who, during the 1915-1917 period, favored methodical break-in approaches to the challenges of trench warfare.
Harris’ assessment of Haig’s abilities as a theater commander is unsparing but fair. At times, Haig displayed a keen sense of political astuteness. However, Harris fairly assigns Haig responsibility for the collapse of British civil-military relations in the winter of 1917 and his toxic relationship with Lloyd George as Prime Minister. Haig also frequently misjudged strategic situations and the role of the British Expeditionary Force within the larger strategic context of the war. In 1916 and 1917, for example, Haig pressed offensive operations well beyond the limited purpose envisioned by his French allies and political superiors, with grave and unnecessary loss of life, long after events eclipsed their original strategic rationale.[15]
The book’s structure expertly highlights Haig’s shortcomings and makes clear the extent and limits of his personal command influence. Each campaign is neatly broken down into planning, execution, and assessment sections. This format, augmented by wonderfully detailed operational maps, gives the reader a finger-tip feel for both the choices made by Haig whilst planning for major operations and the immense difficulty of command during the conduct of those operations. Fitting Harris’ position at Sandhurst, this organization provides detailed case studies well suited for exploration at a professional military institution.
Generals French, Joffre and Haig at the Front (right to left order), 1915 (Wikimedia)
While Douglas Haig and the First World War is ideal for professional military education, it falls short as a holistic biography. At his best, Harris introduces marvelous anecdotes, including one about Haig failing the entrance examination for the staff college and subsequently registering an official, and ultimately unsuccessful, request for an exception, citing an abnormally difficult “maths section.”[16] However, such personal perspectives of Haig are rare. Military vernacular of artillery registration techniques and shell-to-trench length ratios drowns out the author’s occasional attempts to humanize his subject. Much like the taciturn Haig, this coldly professional style leaves much to be desired for the curious reader.
These limitations notwithstanding, Douglas Haig and the First World War is a serious and effective contribution towards the study of one of the most important figures in British military history. Harris successfully dismantles flawed popular narratives concerning Haig’s generalship while avoiding the clientelism and nationalism that color some other historical reassessments. The Haig that emerges is neither butcher nor genius, but instead a diligent but aloof professional struggling to rise to the immense challenges posed by high command.
Sam Wilkins is a U.S. Army officer and M.A. candidate in Strategic Studies and International Economics at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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Header Image: A silhouetted file of men of the 8th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment going up to the line near Frezenberg. (Ernest Brooks/Imperial War Museum/Wikimedia)
Notes:
[1] See Cecil Scott Forrester, The General (London: William Collins, 2015), 211-212. Haig’s reputation remained relatively high throughout the decade following the conclusion of hostilities in 1918. However, Haig’s death in 1928 and the onset of global economic depression led to reexamination of his role. Of note, C.S. Forrester wrote The General in 1934. This period represented the height of the peace movement and anti-war attitudes in Britain. See also George W. Egerton, "The Lloyd George ‘War Memoirs’: A Study in the Politics of Memory." The Journal of Modern History 60, no. 1 (1988): 55-94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1880406.
[2] Lloyd George’s war memoirs painted Haig as a military incompetent who wasted precious British manpower that could have been used to greater effect in other theatres. Meanwhile, B.H. Liddell-Hart criticized the “direct approach” of Haig argued that the entire Western Front represented a wasteful endeavor that failed to leverage Britain’s unique history and abilities as a naval power. Winston Churchill’s The World Crisis, published in 1931, incorrectly criticized Haig for failing to integrate and employ the new technological innovations of the era. See Lloyd George, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, (London: Odhams Press, 1938), Winston Churchill, The World Crisis (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1931), and Liddel-Hart, B.H., Strategy: Second Revised Edition (New York: First Meridian Printing, 1991).
[3] This “revisionist” movement began with the works of the prominent historian and Haig defender John Terraine in the early 1960s. See John Terraine, The Educated Soldier (London: Hutchison, 1963). While broad academic opinion around the improved capability of the 1917-1918 B.E.F began to shift in the 1980s with the works of Shelford Bidwell, Dominick Graham, Tim Travors, and Paddy Griffith, consensus around Haig’s role in this improved performance has proved illusory. See Shelford Bidwell and Dominick Graham, Firepower: British Army Weapons and Theories of War 1904-1945 (London: Allen and Unwin) 1982 and Tim Travers, The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front, and the Emergence of Modern Warfare 1900-1918 (London: Allen and Unwin) 1987. For an excellent overview of the fiercely contested historiography over Haig’s competence see J. Bourne, “Haig and the Historians”. In B. Bond and N. Cave Haig: A Reappraisal 70 Years On (Barnsley: Leo Cooper) 1999, 1-15.
[4] Walter Reid advances a more nuanced version of Terraine’s argument in Architect of Victory. While the British Expeditionary Force undoubtedly improved its performance from 1916 to the 100 days campaign in 1918, modern historians remain divided on Haig’s personal role in this improved performance. See Walter Reid, Architect of Victory, (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2006).
[5] Paddy Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army’s Art of Attack, 1916-1918 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
[6] This line of criticism is now largely dismissed by historians. For more, see Dave Zabecki, The Generals’ War: Operational Level Command on the Western Front in 1918 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2018), 58.
[7] Haig originally learned about the tank in a memorandum from Winston Churchill on the subject, who arrived under Haig’s command as a battalion commander after resigning as Lord of the Admiralty following the Dardanelles disaster. Haig was “much taken with the tank idea.” Haig was disappointed that tanks would not be available in time for the initial assault along the Somme in the summer of 1916. As they became available, Haig pushed his reluctant subordinates to integrate the ungainly 28-ton Mark I tank into their assaults in the fall of 1916. Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World War, 76.
[8] In a preview of his later obsession with new technologies, Haig over-relied on information from aerial reconnaissance during the 1912 maneuvers. Harris notes that Haig proved “reluctant to make any offensive move without good information as to the whereabouts of the enemy.” Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World War, 51.
[9] Ibid., 2.
[10] Ibid., 198.
[11] Ibid., 196.
[12] Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World War, 196.
[13] Ibid., 198.
[14] Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World War, 261.
[15] Even Haig’s staunchest supporters struggle to justify the bloody continuation of the 1916 and 1917 offensives. However, they do note that by 1918, Haig proved more willing to cancel operations after their initial purpose had been achieved. For example, after the successful operations by Amiens on 8 August 1918, where the British Expeditionary Force advanced six miles in three days but failed to achieve a breakthrough, Haig cancelled continuation of the offensive in order to prepare more deliberate future blows. See Griffith, Battle Tactics of the Western Front, 93.
[16] Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World War, 14. Haig subsequently gained admission for a separate class at Camberley. He proved a diligent if mediocre student.