BLITZ: Why The British Hate Douglas Haig
Many historians have great things to say of Haig's skills as a general, so what did he get so wrong that the whole island hates him?
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Why the British Hate Douglas Haig
General Douglas Haig took command of the British Expeditionary Force during World War I in December 1915, a year after each force had opted for the trenches over open-field warfare.
At the beginning of the war, Haig had a good reputation as a General, and his colleagues held him in high esteem. Winston Churchill said of Haig:
The esteem of his military colleagues found a healthy counterpart in his own self-confidence….He was as sure of himself at the head of the British army as a country gentleman on the soil which his ancestors had trod for generations and to whose cultivation he had devoted his life.
Historian John Keegan refers to Haig as an "efficient soldier" and "superior to [General] French" (the previous British Expeditionary Force commander) in his book The First World War.
Despite a 1915 artillery shell crisis, a steep turn-of-the-century technological learning curve, unprecedented casualty counts, and supply issues galore, Haig won the war. Which begs the question; he won the war, and his colleagues admired him, so why do the British hate him?
From what I've read, there are two reasons:
#1 Stubbornness
Haig was uniquely stubborn. With our 20/20 hindsight, his stubbornness looks unintelligent. He clung to his love for the cavalry to the end. Even when it was clear horses were no match against new weaponry (pretty much as soon as the war started), he still insisted on their use in his offenses.
Historians accuse Haig of adhering to a 19th-century "breakthrough" warfare philosophy. He imagined victory with visions of his men on horses charging through open fields to assault enemy positions and the Germans eventually scattering in retreat. He dreamt of browbeating German lines into submission and surrounding them with infantry and cavalry. He didn't seem to understand warfare had fundamentally changed, and those dreams were next to impossible. Because of an underdeveloped appreciation of new and advanced technology such as artillery and machine guns, he couldn't get it through his head that horses and men were doomed in no-mans land.
He also prolonged certain offenses way longer than was useful, specifically the Somme and Passchendaele, leading to some insane casualty counts.
Which brings me to the second reason the British hate Haig.
#2 Callousness
When planning his 1916 and 1917 offenses (the Somme and Passchendaele), Haig had no bright ideas other than to wear down the Germans. Historian Paul Fussell writes in The Great War and Modern Memory, “In a situation demanding the military equivalent of wit and invention…Haig had none.”
Haig's approach included throwing as many men at the problem as possible and hopefully getting lucky with a breakthrough/flanking opportunity or attriting the Germans into surrender. This strategy is directly responsible for two of the bloodiest battles for England of the war: The Somme and Passchendaele.
The Somme
The FIRST DAY of the Battle of the Somme (launched July 1st, 1916) saw 57,000 British Casualties, the bloodiest day of the war for Britain. When British Soldiers leaped from their trenches and crossed no-mans land, they were met by heavy gunfire from German soldiers who were supposed to be hiding from a creeping bombardment. Unfortunately for the British, their artillery outran the infantry, giving Germans time to re-man their battle positions and fire on British Troops.
The 7-day preliminary bombardment also failed to do its job. Planners expected heavy shelling to cut German barbed wire and destroy other defenses like dugouts. Neither happened. About 30% of the 1.5 million shells fired during the bombardment were duds and/or were the wrong type of munition. Many shells were shrapnel shells and thus useless in destroying dugouts and barbed wire. The Somme drug on for 5 grueling months before Haig finally called off the offensive. In the end, the British suffered 420,000 casualties. For their troubles, they gained 7 miles of tactically useless ground with no breakthrough.
Passchendaele
A year later, Haig had still not abandoned his dream of a breakthrough. His plan for Passchendaele (July 31st, 1917) concluded with the British pushing through German lines. While less bloody than The Somme, the Battle of Passchendaele is a harrowing tale of its own. The British suffered 300,000 casualties and they inflicted 260,000. It lasted over 100 days. These numbers are significantly lower than the Somme, but because of factors like weather and terrain conditions, Passchendaele was uniquely horrifying.
Three major battles had previously taken place in the Ypres region (an area including Passchendaele). The land was in ruins. 3 years of shelling had churned the soil into a cratered plain. On the afternoon of h-hour, it began to rain. The heavy downpour transformed the barren land into a muddy swamp scattered with what can be described as sinkholes. The heavy rain continued for 3 weeks, and the ground did not begin to dry until early September. Troops on both sides lived in the mud for nearly 2 months.
During the offensive, the battlefields were scattered with shell holes head-deep with mud. Horses and men drowned in these treacherous vats of soup, accidentally stepping in at night or being thrown in unconscious by a shell blast. Because of heavy packs of gear, troops likely sunk like bricks to the bottom, never to resurface.
In 1918, to add massive insult to injury, Haig made the decision to relinquish the ground gained during Passchendaele. Troops abandoned their positions without any fight whatsoever.
Haig and his staff's poor planning and stubbornness during both the Somme and Passchendaele likely led to hundreds of thousands of needless casualties. Yet, Haig did not seem to feel responsible or even bothered by the outcomes.
John Keegan writes of his impression of Haig:
The successful generals of the First World War, those who did not crack outright or decline gradually into pessimism were a hard lot, as they had to be with the casualty figures accumulating on their desks. Some, nevertheless, managed to combine toughness of mind with some striking human characteristic: Joffre, imperturbability; Hindenburg, gravity; Foch, fire; Kemal, certainty. Haig, in whose public manner and private diaries no concern for human suffering was or is discernible, compensated for his aloofness with nothing whatsoever of the common touch.
Keegan is essentially saying that other generals, while tough and sometimes ruthless, still managed to show some humanity and that they cared about the men under their command. Haig, according to Keegan, did not. Keegan writes in other publications of his disdain of Haig for similar reasons.
Many Britains share Keegan's impression. They view Haig as a cold, heartless general who didn't care about his soldiers, i.e. their ancestors. They believe he needlessly and carelessly sacrificed British troops to the war machine.
How could they not hate him?