GENERAL DOUGLAS HAIG -HERO OR HORROR???
His involvement in the bloodiest battles of WWI.
So, in class right now we’re discussing the topic of WWI and we’re kind of focusing on the battles themselves. Of course, when looking at battles we also have to consider military leaders and one such leader was Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force. He’s particularly famous for the role he played in staging the Battle of the Somme and the Third Battle of Ypres (or Passchendaele, whatever you like to call it). But when I say famous, I don’t necessarily mean it in a good way. In my opinion, Sir Douglas Haig is certainly among the worst generals that have ever lived. Partly because of the heavy losses that resulted from his battle plans and partly because of his absolute inability to adapt to modern warfare. The decisions that he took concerning his men absolutely appal me and his resolutely stubborn attitude makes me want to rip my hair out. Maybe I’m exaggerating a little (just a little), but I still think it’s pretty clear that Douglas Haig made some HUGE mistakes in his lifetime. Or at least it’ll be clear once you’ve read the following.
BATTLE OF THE SOMME
In the Battle of the Somme, dear Douglas Haig sent 110,000 British infantry-men into battle on the morning of July 1, 1916 (the first day of the Somme campaign), resulting in 60,000 casualties (nearly 20,000 of which were deaths) without any of the set objectives being achieved. This occurred after the British and French had suddenly stopped bombarding the Germans after five continuous days of artillery barrage (way to let the Germans know what to expect). Despite this heavy casualty rate, Haig decided to continue the offensive, resulting in over 400,000 casualties (actually 600,000 if you count French losses too) over the next four months. He just kept sending in infantry in a frontal attack in the hopes that they would break a hole in the German lines so his cavalry could finally storm in and save the day. Needless to say, the offensive was only stopped because of the onset of winter weather. And in that entire time, the British had only managed to advance about a dozen kilometers. Haig’s inability to alter his military strategy and his insistence on simply sending wave after wave of men (in tidy ranks at a slow pace) to attack proved how unimaginative he was and how the blood of hundreds of thousands of men was on his hands.
“IN A SITUATION DEMANDING THE MILITARY EQUIVALENT OF WIT AND INVENTION…HAIG HAD NONE” — Paul Fussell
Therefore, I definitely see Haig as an inadequate commander who didn’t consider the endless deaths of his men a reason to rethink his battle strategies and make them more effective and less costly.
THE HORSE VS. THE MACHINE GUN. REALLY HAIG?
Haig also had an unfortunate obsession with horses that left his battle strategies on par with those of a century before his time. He even said that the machine gun was an overrated weapon — especially against the horse — and he didn’t find value in airplanes and tanks. Evidently, mounted soldiers turned out to be extremely vulnerable and obsolete in WWI and Haig’s inability to adapt to the current situation further proved that he was a horrible military commander. I read an interesting comment in an article about General Douglas Haig that said generals are always fighting the last war, mainly because they’ve obviously had no personal experience with the next war (The Worst General by Geoffrey Norman, June 2007). What really frustrates me though is that Haig’s idiotic preference for cavalry, his inefficient battle plans and his undying confidence in himself continued well after the start of WWI, despite the fact that he could see the consequences of his actions kicking in. I guess some people just never change.
“I BELIEVE THAT THE VALUE OF THE HORSE AND THE OPPORTUNITY FOR THE HORSE IN THE FUTURE ARE LIKELY TO BE AS GREAT AS EVER. AEROPLANES AND TANKS ARE ONLY ACCESSORIES TO THE MEN AND THE HORSE”. — Sir Douglas Haig
THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES (PASSCHENDAELE)
Some critics say that General Haig pushed the offensive at the Somme so that his men kept on attacking even when the ground gained was useless by any military measure. By the end of the Battle of the Somme, British government officials had learned a lesson (and a valuable one at that). However, Haig had not; he wanted to start another similar offensive except on a much larger scale. And on even worse terrain than before (in other words tank warfare was out of the question). Despite some opposition from politicians back in Britain, Haig eventually got permission to start the Third Battle of Ypres or Passchendaele. His unreasonable persistence resulted in the death of yet another 250,000 British soldiers and this battle almost lost the war for the Allies. He wore the troops out through so much pointless, tactless fighting that when the Germans launched an offensive in spring of 1918, they very nearly succeeded in demolishing the Allied forces. Considering Haig’s undeniable “pigheadedness”, and his ability to blindly send hundreds of thousands of men to their deaths, I definitely consider him not only a failed military commander but also an immoral person.
“ON THE SOMME, [HAIG] HAD SENT THE FLOWER OF BRITISH YOUTH TO DEATH OR MUTILATION; AT PASSCHENDAELE HE HAD TIPPED THE SURVIVORS IN A SLOUGH OF DESPOND.” — John Keegan, military historian
WHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT HAIG THE HAG?
Well, despite the fact that our dear friend General Haig caused hundreds of thousands of people to die in battle, he’s still a pretty important person who’s worth knowing about. The battles that he “strategized” and put into play were extremely inconclusive because of the few gains and the high losses for the Allies. Thus, Haig’s inconclusive battles had to be fought again in the Second World War. After these wars, it became obvious that Britain had suffered terribly and was no longer an imperial power; national optimism was dying. This was very significant since it meant that the balance of power in Europe and in the world (considering Britain had had so many colonies) would no longer be the same again. New superpowers (e.g. the USA) took its place, defining the 20th century and leaving Britain in the shadows. Canada also suffered as it no longer had as strong and powerful of a mother country backing it up economically, politically, and militarily. And it can be argued that, in a way, all of this stemmed from the foolish, inefficient battle tactics of the great General Douglas Haig. I think that military historian John Keegan put it very nicely. He described the Battle of the Somme as being “the greatest tragedy…of national military history” that “marked the end of an age of vital optimism in British life that has never been recovered”.
“HE [HAIG] WAS A MAN OF SUPREME EGOISM AND UTTER LACK OF SCRUPLE — WHO, TO HIS OVERWEENING AMBITION, SACRIFICED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF MEN. A MAN WHO BETRAYED EVEN HIS MOST DEVOTED ASSISTANTS AS WELL AS THE GOVERNMENT WHICH HE SERVED. A MAN WHO GAINED HIS ENDS BY TRICKERY OF A KIND THAT WAS NOT MERELY IMMORAL BUT CRIMINAL.” B.H. Liddell-Hart, distinguished military historian, fought on Western front
GENERAL HAIG’S IQ…
So my opinion on how horrible General Haig was is pretty concrete. However, I recently watched a Ted Talk called “Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents’”. In it, Jack Flynn (a researcher in cognitive history) discusses the intelligence of people in the 1900s in comparison to the intelligence of people today. He mentions that people in the 1900s would’ve scored, on average, about a 70 on our IQ tests; in other words, they would be (nearly) mentally retarded. Now, I’m not implying that General Haig was mentally retarded (although you never know…). What I’m simply saying is that, based on James Flynn’s research, people of the past had a hard time deducing the hypothetical and taking it seriously. They also had a hard time applying logic to abstractions, or hypothetical situations. In other words, General Haig not very capable of imagining and understanding what could be. He was unable to analyze scenarios that he had not had previous direct experience with. He was only able to develop battle tactics involving infantry and cavalry because he had never engaged in modern warfare before. His cognitive abilities didn’t allow him to envision whether or not tanks, machine guns, and other modern weapons would be more effective. He wasn’t able to put himself in a hypothetical situation involving modern warfare and compare it to methods used in previous battles. Of course, this is all just my reasoning for his inexcusable behaviour. What confuses me though is that once they were in the thick of WWI and he had witnessed modern warfare (thus, it had become a concrete idea to him), why did he stick to the old ways? No idea. Maybe he was actually mentally retarded.
Written: Saturday, October 12th, 2013
