My question which i ask all WW1 buffs is, '' Was Haig a Donkey''? My personal thoughts are that he is personnally responsible for the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers. After seeing that the head-on assault of well defended trenches were costing the allies so many casualties he never explored other ways of attacking them. Not until around 1917 did we see the rolling barrage or anyting near what the British Army use today, win the firefight with fire and movement. Instead he carried on with the notion of throw lots of men forward and some may get through attitude. If a soldier went to ground he better be dead or wounded and not taking cover to fire back. Those that did were classed as cowards and some were shot for this behaviour. Haig i would class as a war criminal and should of been tried as such. Sniper
Haig was a man who had been trained to fight in the mobile Imperial wars of the Victorian period where cavalry and mobility were essential. The Great War was the first major conflict where trench warfare, associated with machine guns, artillery and barbed wire made cavalry and mobility impossible and Haig had difficulty in coping with these factors. He was indeed out of his depth and incompetent in his role as C in C. This was because of his lack of experience in the new style of fighting that the Great War required and his incapacity to learn quickly. His Intelligence Chief, Charteris, was not only incompetent but over-optimistic, and this influenced Haig in his delusions that the German Army was on the point of collapse during the Somme, 3rd Ypres and Cambrai, encouraging him to continue these battles when they should have been shut. I am not a revisionist and I believe that Haig indeed made far too many mistakes, his optimism caused hundreds and thousands of unnecessary deaths and maiming of his men. A major mistake at 3rd Ypres was Haig's appointment of Gough, instead of Plumer, as the general in command of the first stage of the battle. However Haig was not a Donkey, defining the term as a stupid, uncaring man who used his men as pawns, regardless of whether they lived or died. After the end of the war he refused any reward for his services until he was assured by Lloyd George that the men and officers would be given adequate pensions. Haig was distressed by the casualties (that his tactics and strategy had caused) and he devoted the remainder of his life to their care and the British Legion. A Donkey would not have done that!
Haig was a man who had been trained to fight in the mobile Imperial wars of the Victorian period where cavalry and mobility were essential. The Great War was the first major conflict where trench warfare, associated with machine guns, artillery and barbed wire made cavalry and mobility impossible and Haig had difficulty in coping with these factors. He was indeed out of his depth and incompetent in his role as C in C. This was because of his lack of experience in the new style of fighting that the Great War required and his incapacity to learn quickly. His Intelligence Chief, Charteris, was not only incompetent but over-optimistic, and this influenced Haig in his delusions that the German Army was on the point of collapse during the Somme, 3rd Ypres and Cambrai, encouraging him to continue these battles when they should have been shut. I am not a revisionist and I believe that Haig indeed made far too many mistakes, his optimism caused hundreds and thousands of unnecessary deaths and maiming of his men. A major mistake at 3rd Ypres was Haig's appointment of Gough, instead of Plumer, as the general in command of the first stage of the battle. However Haig was not a Donkey, defining the term as a stupid, uncaring man who used his men as pawns, regardless of whether they lived or died. After the end of the war he refused any reward for his services until he was assured by Lloyd George that the men and officers would be given adequate pensions. Haig was distressed by the casualties (that his tactics and strategy had caused) and he devoted the remainder of his life to their care and the British Legion. A Donkey would not have done that! __________________ Download Software
No matter how long Haig spent doing what he could for the British Legion he would have had to work for eternity to make up for his out of date tactics that caused so many deaths and maimings. Being out of his depth he should of known that he should of resigned after the Somme. In fact he should of been sacked by the Prime Minister before the news went in the papers of the lives he cost not just British families but also Commonwealth families. Towards the end of the war the army did adopt the fire and movement which is still used today which proved to be one of the best moves of the war since they used the rolling barriage in 1917. I don't believe that the whole blame should be laid at his feet by any means, his whole staff should of seen what was going to happen as it had happened so many times in other battles so some of the blame lay at their feet as well. But in the end it was Haigs decisions that caused so many men from the Commonwealth to lose their lives. Sniper
It is difficult to disagree with you that tens of thousands of his men were killed or maimed as the result of Haig's decisions and mistakes. However I was answering your question: "Was Haig a Donkey?" and I gave reasons why I did not think that he was. Whether he was an incompetent general is another story and I believe that he was, certainly up to the end of 1917. When discussing Haig's incompetence, one has to remember that he had been ordered by Kitchener to co-operate closely with the French. That is why he fought at the Somme in the first place; he originally planned to fight at Ypres. Haig had to postpone that particular bloodbath until he had finished the bloodbath of the Somme. Passchendaele was a bloodbath that should not have happened as he had promised the War Policy Commitee that he would close down the battle if he had failed to obtain his objectives in 2 weeks! He was certainly to blame for continuing the battle until November. He had also been advised not to open 3rd Ypres with a heavy artillery bombardment because it would destroy the drainage and cause flooding if it rained. It rained and Haig's artillery turned the battlefield into a sea of mud! A major mistake, however, that Haig committed was to appoint Gough in command at 3rd Ypres instead of Plumer. Gough failed to heed Haig's orders to concentrate on the Observatory Ridge and the Gheluveldt Plateau. It was only when Gough was dismissed in favour of Plumer that the British where able to win any battles. Another mistake was Haig's incurable tendency to continue the battle after it was obvious that its aims could not be reached. Taking the village of Passchendaele was all very well, but it was not the breakthrough to Roullers that Haig intended. To conduct a battle of attrition where the British lost more men than the enemy is hardly good generalship!
But doesn't his bad decision making, his imcompetency, and his lack of being open to new up to date tactics make him a donkey and should of been sacked as C in C straight after the Somme. Yes i do realise that he was ordered to work closely with the French, however the new tactic of fire and movement was talked about as early as 1915 when we followed the Germans and started digging trenches. Your right about Gough and he should never of been allowed to take the lead for the 3rd Ypres What he did after the war really has no bearing on the question. Perhaps i should of put it as 'Was Haig a Donkey General during WW1'.
It all revolves around the definition of "Donkey". The word comes from the descriptions of the British Army as "Lions led by Donkeys" and I am not sure about this applying to Haig. He was a fairly competent Corps Commander and had a good reputation in the Boer War. His problem was that he was out of his depth in the static trench warfare and in this context he was certainly incompetent. He pulled himself together (well nearly) during the Last 100 Days. Lloyd George tried to sack him after Passchendaele but realised that sacking Haig and Robertson would be politically dangerous and might lead to the loss of his government, L-G tried indirect means. He moved against Haig's advisers and Charteris and Kiggell were sacked, correctly, but Haig was inviolate. Incidentally, Haig made no effort to support his friend Robertson. This gives us a clue to Haig's character as he did a "French" on Robertson! (This statement does need qualifying, however, French, an old friend of Haig's was indubitably a paranoic Donkey and deserved to be sacked. Robertson, also Haig's friend, was highly competent and did not deserve to be sacked!)
He was expected to produce gold from chicken feed. Imagine this scene: Germans have the high ground, their trenches are heavily fortified and intricate. You know that your army will not be able to launch an offensive on this scale before 1917. You have limited support from the french, since they are tied down around Verdun. So you ask to postpone the attack until 1917. The french say no, by then Verdun will have fallen and Paris will be open. So you do the only thing you can do; order up any forces that can be spared, call upon as much artillery as possible and ship in ordnance from the USA (assured it all works) in an attempt to destroy the enemy fortifications. This should work by all rights. You know about German trenches, dug-outs are 6-9 ft deep, one main trench system, rear trenches lightly manned NOT priority targets. You then raise the morale of your men by telling them the enemy will be utterly annihilated (which they should be). The battle will comprise of a massive first wave shock attack to mop up any survivors and move to key positions within German held territory (generally a few miles behind the German front line). Reinforcements will then be sent in to bolster the new front line. Cavalry then consolidate ground to protect from counter attack. Seems all well and good. Now we all know what really happened during the battle of the Somme so i don't need to go through that do I? But from what has been said by other people and from here it can bee seen that he was the best man for a dire situation where anyone else would have floundered and cost even more lives.
