Was Douglas haig a bad leader?

Answer 1

This came from one of our resources called the Military History Companion. I think they described Douglas Haig well. He was not bad but rather a warrior in the wrong war with old ideals.

Being of little imagination and even less flexibility, Haig could not have been expected to undergo a radical transformation during WW I, no matter how unique the challenges. He thought that the problems of the war seemed simple, it was merely a matter of applying 'old principles to present conditions'. When stalemate quickly ensued, he still sought a breakthrough so that the cavalry could be deployed.

When he was appointed C-in-C of the BEF in December 1915, he was certain of his worthiness for the assignment and confident that he alone knew the right way to victory. This self-assurance led to an extraordinary serenity, reinforced by his religious faith. 'I know quite well that I am being used as a tool in the hands of the Divine Power, ' he wrote in 1916. 'So I am easy in my mind and ready to do my best whatever happens.' A man divinely directed did not seek the advice of mere mortals. Haig's subordinates were mostly sycophants carefully picked for their willingness to provide him reassurance and moral support. He kept close to his side a Church of Scotland padre, the Reverend George Duncan, who inadvertently reinforced his sense of divine inspiration. His intelligence officer, Brig Gen John Charteris, interpreted his function as being to gather data which would demonstrate that Haig's battles were a success. Haig consequently believed, from as early as the autumn of 1916, that the Germans were on the verge of collapse, and therefore susceptible to a knockout blow.

Haig has often been condemned for fighting a sterile war of attrition. His name will for ever be synonymous with the carnage and futility of the battle-of-the-sommeand third Ypres offensives. Yet he never accepted that this was a war of attrition. Nor should he be blamed for the fact that British soldiers spent four inconclusive years in the trenches of Flanders and northern France. Technology, not Haig, forced men into the trenches. His mistakes arose because he failed to realize that movement in this war was impossible. He tried to turn a siege contest into a mobile war.

Though he had very little effect upon the shape of the war, he nevertheless managed to impose his character upon it. The third Ypres offensive, in particular, was an expression of his personal ambitions: his wish to achieve a wholly British victory which he would not have to share with the despised French, his desire to embarrass PM David david-lloyd-georgewho had earlier humiliated him, and his need to prove that the days of the cavalry had not passed. There is no doubt that men died needlessly because Haig pursued these ambitions. But this was not a war in which victory could ever have come cheaply.

Though Haig was the architect of victory, there were serious flaws in his design. He was undoubtedly the best commander available, but this reveals as much about the British army as it does about Haig. But issues of competence and culpability never bothered Haig. The serenity which he enjoyed on the western front was retained until his death in 1928. 'We lament too much over death, ' he once wrote. 'We should regard it as a welcome change to another room.'

Haig answered his country's call and accomplished what he had been trained to do. In the Victorian age that would have made him a hero. But during his lifetime standards changed. When Britain became a people at war instead of simply an army at war, there was a corresponding shift in the definition of victory. It was no longer enough just to win. Costs and consequences became important. It was Haig's ironic fate that he was shaped by the ideals of one age and judged according to the very different standards of another.

Bibliography

• DeGroot, Gerard, Douglas Haig, 1861-1928 (London, 1988).
• Terraine, John, Douglas Haig: Educated Soldier (London, 1963).
• Winter, Denis, Haig's Command: A Reassessment (London, 1991)

--- Gerard J. DeGroot