by Paul Ham
Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig comes down to us as one of those wintry British commanders who placed duty, victory and loyalty to the king above all else, no matter the cost in lives and human misery. Like a surgeon in the days before anaesthetics, Haig at war was ‘entirely removed … from the agony of the patient’, Churchill would write.31 Haig’s methods have since provoked the wrath of regiments of critics, some of whom tend to portray the British field marshal as a rogue butcher, over whom the War Cabinet had no control. That impression, whose chief architect was Lloyd George, is false. Like Turner’s sea monster, monstrous truths lurk beneath the surface of the water, all-seeing if barely seen. As we shall see, one man alone cannot have borne the weight of responsibility for 1917; rather it was the dysfunctional relationship between Haig and Lloyd George that kindled and fomented the tragedy of Passchendaele.
Current impressions of Haig conjure two extremes: the bungling, blimpish cavalryman, indifferent to the soldiers’ suffering, who sent wave after wave of young men to certain death; and the hard-working ‘educated soldier’, the professional commander, who did his best in dreadful circumstances and felt genuine concern for the men under his command. The second image is the more accurate.
And there is a third, lesser known, dimension to Haig. The field marshal’s implacable calm – his only sign of anxiety in the worst of the fighting was a tendency to stroke his moustache, remarked one general32 – belied an intensity of feeling of which few people outside his family and staff were aware. This ‘inner Haig’ was a man of deep emotion and acute religious feeling. On the eve of an offensive, he would pray quietly to his Presbyterian god and confide in his favourite chaplain. His religious belief was a source of deep consolation, as was his family. At the height of his personal crisis on the Western Front, he would turn for emotional solace to his beloved wife, Doris, to whom he confided in a series of letters; to his loyal sister, Henrietta, who helped his career and to whom he was devoted; and to the spirit of his late mother, Rachel, who died when he was eighteen, the memory of whom he would revere to the end of his days. In a sense, Haig was a ‘woman’s man’, more at ease with female love than with the knockabout company of men.
Douglas Haig was born on 19 June 1861, the eleventh son of John and Rachel Haig (née Veitch), in a large town house on Charlotte Square, in Edinburgh. He was a direct descendant of the Norman knight Pierre de la Hague, who had settled in the Scottish lowlands near Bemersyde in the twelfth century. By the early nineteenth century, the family’s aristocratic pedigree had deteriorated to the merchant class, reflected in the rough brogue and manners of Douglas’s alcoholic father, a wealthy whisky distiller. Such defects were no block to social advancement in Victorian Britain so long as you were rich, and the Haigs were very rich.
Like many families of the lowland Scottish elite, the Haigs felt at least as ‘British’ as they were ‘Scottish’, and were among the stoutest defenders of the Empire. Privately educated, young Douglas wore the trappings of his class a bit too seriously, like a man trying to adapt to an ill-fitting garment. He lacked the ease with which the aristocratic young men of his acquaintance deigned to move in any social milieu, and perhaps this explained his need to distinguish himself, to get on, to succeed. He was suspicious of outsiders (be they Catholics, French or ‘foreigners’) and disdainful of uppity new men like Lloyd George, whom he tended to dismiss as ill-bred opportunists. He felt a genuine affection for the ‘real’ men under his command, such as the ordinary British and colonial troops – he especially admired the Anzacs – although this often went unreciprocated.
Early on, Haig proved himself an exemplary soldier with outstanding promise: in December 1884, he passed out first of 129 Gentleman Cadets at Sandhurst and received the Anson Sword of Honour. He enjoyed hunting and excelled at polo and horseman-ship – a career in the cavalry beckoned. In one marked respect, Haig differed from his fellow graduates: he was a deeply serious young man who considered soldiering a career, not an enjoyable pastime or a sort of ‘blood sport’. He had little of the irreverence of his fellow junior officers. For one thing, he was certainly ‘educated’ in a way most of them were not. His regimental nickname, ‘Doctor’, referred to his unusual attendance at Oxford and the impression he gave as a ‘thinking soldier’.33
Haig certainly thought a lot, and rose through the ranks with a mixture of will, ability and powerful friends. This cannot be dismissed as crude ‘nepotism’: Haig’s friends were smart enough to discern and reward genuine ability. G. F. R. Henderson, a professor of military history at Camberley Staff College at the time of Haig’s attendance (1896–97), rated him as the ‘coming man in the army’ and ‘a future commander in chief’.34 In 1896, Haig co-wrote the ‘Cavalry Drill Manual’ with John French, ‘the tactical bible for cavalry operations’.35 He received a commission with the illustrious 7th Queen’s Own Hussars and served with distinction as the regimental adjutant in India.
His determination to excel as a professional soldier distinguished him from the British military tradition of ‘gentleman amateurs’, who tended to regard too much ‘success’ as a bad thing. Not if you were Douglas Haig. He was an innovative and adaptable commander who would embrace the use of new technology (e.g. the tank, the machine gun, the artillery barrage, aircraft and poison gas) no matter how controversial, belying the popular impression of a buffoonish cavalryman. He studied and learned from history, approving of Napoleon’s ‘wearing down’ war as the prelude to the decisive, pitched battle. He preferred the German Army’s command system of delegating responsibility to junior officers over the British ‘top-down’ approach.36 In recognition of his precocious ability, Lord Kitchener made him inspector general of cavalry in 1903, conferring the rank of general on Haig at the age of 42.
To top off this accomplished résumé, Haig was physically brave, a quality conspicuous by its absence from Lloyd George. During Haig’s first taste of combat at the Battle of Atbara in Egypt in 1898, he galloped onto the field to rescue a wounded Egyptian soldier – a Victoria Cross–winning feat had the Egyptian been British, according to one biographer.37
In 1906, he was recalled to England to serve as Lord Haldane’s right-hand man in reforming the British Army. Between them, they created the BEF, of one cavalry and six infantry divisions, conceived to serve anywhere in the Empire, supported by a home reserve, the Territorial Force (later the Territorial Army). It was the most radical reform of the British Army since the age of Wellington. Knighted for this work, Haig returned to India in 1909 to serve as chief of staff of the Indian Army with the rank of lieutenant general.
As an army commander, in October 1914, Haig co-led the defence of Ypres from repeated German attacks. At Second Ypres, in April 1915, the hideous effects of chlorine gas – then first used in combat, by the Germans – persuaded him of its utility as an offensive weapon, not for its destructive power (gas caused relatively few casualties) but for the sheer panic it spread among the ranks. He felt similarly about ‘liquid fire’, primitive flame-throwers, then also in use for the first time. Haig was nothing if not a great learner, and ruthlessly pragmatic. His determination to win the war silenced any qualms of conscience he might have felt over the use of gas, then banned under the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which explicitly forbade the use of ‘poison or poisoned weapons’. He ordered up great quantities of the stuff for use at Loos and the Somme, insisting that gas factories work ‘night and day’ (his emphasis) to deliver the necessary supplies.38 He studied the evolution of gas technology and was an early adopter of gas shells, in 1916, a great improvement on the wind in sending lethal clouds into enemy trenches.
Haig’s moral outlook was inherently Victorian, circumscribed by his social class and his belief in the superiority of the British race. Honour, chivalry and respect were, for him, the highest personal virtues, sharpened by privilege and a sense of noblesse oblige to the lower orders. This outlook was not suited to a world war, whose polyglot racial and class mix tended to level social dist
inctions. The ordinary soldiers respected him; they did not love him. The ranks called him ‘Duggy’, with little enthusiasm, one wrote: ‘He was too remote – but that was not his fault. The show was too big.’39 The soldiers denied him the affection they felt for more ‘human’ commanders such as Plumer, Birdwood, Byng, Monash and Currie, whom they saw a lot more of. Yet, if Haig lacked the ‘common touch’, he took a genuine interest in the men and their families, and the dead and wounded deeply aggrieved him. He regularly visited the field hospitals.40
As befitted this career soldier, Haig always dedicated himself to the task at hand, because the completion of every task advanced the fulfilment of his orders.41 That is what made this commander tick. He tended to place efficiency (and personal ambition) ahead of loyalty. He would thus abandon his friends, the chief of the Imperial General Staff, ‘Wully’ Robertson, and Lord Derby, the secretary of state for war, when they were no longer useful or hindered his work; he sacked many subordinates, not all of them inept. He justified his pivotal role in the downfall of Sir John French on the grounds that Sir John was wholly responsible for the botched offensive at Loos. In his diary, Haig blamed Sir John’s ‘unreasoning brain’ and ‘ignorance of the nature of the fighting’ for the disaster.42 Yet Haig shared responsibility for Loos and many other costly errors, as Dr John Paul Harris reveals in his masterful study of Haig’s war.43
Haig succeeded French as commander-in-chief of the BEF on 10 December 1915. In accepting the command of the British and Dominion forces on the Western Front, on 28 December 1915, Haig relished his ‘special task’ set by Lord Kitchener: to drive the German armies out of France and Belgium (see full text, Appendix 3).44
Field Marshal Haig now had the power to run the war as he saw fit. His large, liquid eyes and solid frame, his quick step and handsome, reliable face, brought renewed confidence to the British and Dominion armies in France. Moderate in his habits, calm and inscrutable, he ‘tended to speak only when he had something important to say’, observed one biographer. ‘He would not have been the life and soul of a cocktail party, but … one does not have to be a jolly good chap to win wars.’45 He measured every action, however harsh, against his determination to forge an army with the resolution to win. On Wednesday 3 March 1915, for example, ‘I recommended that 3 men of the Loyal North Lancs who had deserted deliberately (one found in Paris) … should be shot. The state of discipline in this battalion is not very satisfactory …’ In the event, the accused were spared.46
In January 1917, Haig, now 55 and recently promoted to field marshal (having served as a corps commander for the past two years), was about to embark on the greatest test of his career. He commanded, for better or worse, the lives of more than a million men. He believed in his bones in the offensive war, of never letting the enemy rest. His bold plans, important meetings and impressive moustache suggested he exerted great control over the war; less often examined is the extent to which the war exerted control over him. And one thing is important to understanding him, in light of what follows: he would always act in accordance with the instructions of his government. Only in this context can we understand the reasoning of a commander who would be held personally responsible for the death or wounding of the best part of a generation.
Haig’s gravest weaknesses, as seen at the Somme, were his failure to intervene to prevent needless slaughter and his inclination to overestimate the physical endurance of his men. He tended to believe in what he wanted to believe (he unquestioningly accepted, for example, his intelligence chief John Charteris’s exaggerated reports of the enemy’s weakness), and he seemed unable to communicate clear, direct orders (a striking exception being his ‘backs to the wall’ order of April 1918) or terminate or amend bad ones. His notorious inarticulacy provoked cruel jokes and anecdotes (that he was at least as fluent in French as in English said little for his French, ran one). Countering these flaws were his ready willingness to learn and adapt to the exigencies of war, and to listen to the advice of others. He delegated to a fault, sometimes failing to rein in errant generals or ideas. A defining trait of his command was his apparent optimism, a ‘mask of command’ that rode out news that might have unhorsed a more self-reflective man.
Whence arose Haig’s iron imperturbability, his reassuring sanguinity? The field marshal’s Christian faith and doting wife had much to do with it: on finding General Gough ‘downhearted’ at Loos, for example, Haig reminded Gough that trust in God alone would deliver victory.47 In this spirit, he urged his chaplains to preach the cause of the war to the men, that ‘we … are fighting for the good of humanity’.48 Unlike the impersonal, pragmatic Anglicans on his staff, Haig drew on a deep well of personal feeling that placed God and his Presbyterian faith at the heart of his decision-making. In his lonely position, carrying an immense burden, Haig understandably sought the consolations of a spiritual authority. He usually read a chapter of the Bible before going to bed and confided weekly in his favourite chaplain, the erudite Reverend George Duncan, in whom he placed a near mystical trust. For a hard-headed commander, Haig could be curiously superstitious: when Duncan considered leaving his service, Haig persuaded him to stay, comparing the chaplain to Aaron who held Moses’ hands aloft to ensure the Israelites were victorious in battle.49
At times, Haig suggested that God had selected him to lead the Allies to victory. ‘All … somehow give me the idea that they think I am “meant to win” by some Superior Power,’ the field marshal confided in a letter to his wife, soon after his promotion.50 At the time, this was not outlandish or bizarre: powerful, proud men of the day often supposed themselves to be the instruments of the Divine. The trouble with this way of thinking was that the thinker could validate any outcome, no matter how disastrous, as the mysterious workings of the Lord. On the eve of the first day of the Somme, 30 June 1916, for example, Haig told Doris that ‘whether or not we are successful lies in the Power above. But I do feel that in my plans I have been helped by a Power that is not my own.’51 Such power deserted the British the next day, at the end of which almost 60,000 men lay dead, wounded or missing. ‘A day of downs and ups!’ was how Haig responded, conceding that ‘the news about 8 am was not altogether good’.52 When he was informed of the casualties of the Somme, he wrote that they ‘cannot be considered severe in view of the numbers engaged, and the length of front attacked’.53
If Haig was ‘not a religious fanatic’, as the Reverend Duncan assures us,54 his faith in Calvinistic predestination seems to have been a dangerous psychological disposition in a man at the head of an army: what scale of sacrifice was necessary to win the war and realise the will of the Lord? How many casualties would justify the ways of God to men? A singular goal animated everything he did and said: the defeat of Germany. In this, he shared something with David Lloyd George: both men were driven by an insatiable desire to win, and to be seen to have won.
That is all they shared. In truth, it is hard to imagine two more different men in command of the British war on the Western Front: Haig, the privately educated Oxford and Sandhurst man, a friend of the King’s, married to Queen Alexandra’s maid of honour, and closely connected with the Conservatives in Cabinet; and Lloyd George, the cottage-bred Welsh lawyer turned Liberal prime minister, with a reputation as a philanderer and no respect for English traditions.
Their relations began to slide in September 1916, when Haig learned to his fury that Lloyd George, then secretary of state for war, had gone behind his back and asked Ferdinand Foch, the French commander-in-chief, for his opinion of British generals and why – if the British had gained no more ground than the French forces – they had suffered such heavy casualties. ‘I would not have believed that a British Minister could have been so ungentlemanly as to go to a foreigner and put such questions …’55 Later that year, their dislike intensified over the cost of the Somme. ‘I have no great opinion of L. G. as a man or a leader,’ Haig wrote to his wife in September 1916.56 In 1917, their relationship would reach new depths of mutual loathing,
poisoning a vital liaison at the heart of power and endangering soldiers’ lives.
3
DEATH BY WATER
Potential famine is the most powerful weapon in the army of the belligerents.
Prime Minister David Lloyd George
We need the most energetic, ruthless methods which can be adopted. For this reason, we need the … U-boat war to start from February 1, 1917.
Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg
By January 1917, the face of European power had changed utterly. Lloyd George had replaced Asquith as British prime minister. A new French Government under Prime Minister Aristide Briand moved at once to replace Marshal Joseph Joffre, commander-in-chief of the French forces: the legend of the Marne had no lives left after Verdun. His successor, General Robert Nivelle, appointed on 12 December 1916, brought forward plans for another huge French offensive.
In Germany, von Falkenhayn’s Verdun ‘strategy’ had lost all credibility – even the muddle-headed Kaiser ceased to believe in it – and in August 1916 the legendary Generalfeldmarschall Paul Hindenburg, hero of Tannenberg, replaced him as chief of the general staff. The ageing Hindenburg was a figurehead; real command continued to be exercised through Erich Ludendorff, general of the infantry. Along with Haig’s December promotion to field marshal, the European powers entered the new year in the hands of hugely ambitious men who would accept nothing less than total victory and the unconditional surrender of their enemies.
