Douglas Haig (19 June 1861 – 29 January 1928) was a British Field Marshal who was a veteran of the Boer War and World War I.
Biography[]
A statue of Haig in London, 2020
Before World War I, Douglas Haig was a socially well-connected cavalry officer with campaign experience in the Sudan and the Boer War. Given command of a corps in August 1914, he acquitted himself well in the BEFs early battles. At the crisis point in the first Battle of Ypres in November 1914, Haig held firm in the face of a powerful German onslaught. His reward was command of the First Army for the trench battles of Neuve Chapelle and Loos.
Increasingly discontented with the French as commander-in-chief, Haig conspired to replace him, a goal that he achieved in December 1915. Over the course of the following two years, he carried out appallingly costly offensives, especially at the Somme and the third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). Sustained by the belief that he was a "tool in the hands of the Divine Power", he was able to keep going under immense strain.
A Man of Virture[]
Haig believed, against all evidence, that a war-winning breakthrough was always within reach. He continued offensives for far too long, paid too little attention to inhibiting factors such as bad weather - crucial in the mud of Passchendaele - and allowed too little initiative to lower-level commanders. Yet, he had positive virtues. He was a consistently loyal ally to France, resisted political pressure to divert resources away from the Western Front, and was eager to adopt technological innovations, such as the use of tanks.
In the Spring Offensive of 1918, when the Germans drove the British army into retreat, Haig rallied his men. From August 1918, he presided over possibly the greatest string of victories ever achieved by the British Army in the Hundred Days Offensive.