Haig's Command: 2earl Haig and the Background to the First World War

by Denis Winter

Book Overview

This book sets out to expose and analyze a major historical fraud. The author's theme is the Western Front in Haig's time - from the Somme to the armistice. Using evidence that the documents from... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670802255
• ISBN13: 9780670802258
• Release Date: September 1991
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 362 Pages
• Weight: 1.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

exelent book

the best book written on Haig command. gives good info on the men heading the BEF.

An excellent book with only a couple of errors

As a New Zealander I went into this book with some trepidation as I had grown up on a steady diet of how the British generals had sacrificed dominion troops with reckless abandon and as such names like Haig, Hunter-Weston and Hamilton live on in a kind of collective infamy in the New Zealand psyche. It was when Denis Winter was exposed to the official Australian history of WWI (as a visiting university fellow) that as a historian Winter began to question the British version of events - what followed was a an excellent re-examination of Haig as a General, commander, writer and in a certain sense as a de facto politician. The central theme of the book is that almost all the British cabinet minutes, personal memoirs, official histories, dispatches, unit histories and all similar material were sanitized prior to publication and in many instances post publication - which is where the most glaring contradictions' occur between the Australian and British histories. The primary reason for this incredibly broad literary conspiracy argues Winter is many fold - however the protection of personal reputations, especially those from the 'Old Army' with a view towards further political/military advancement seems the most prominent and believable. The old maxim that generals are always preparing to fight the last war is shown to be abundantly clear in Winter's work. The 1909 Field Service Regulations come under close scrutiny and show that Haig and his fellow chateau generals had learnt nothing from instructive conflicts such as the 'Boer War' only a decade earlier. Probably the most damning part was the deconstruction of the 'Haig Myth', which shows the Haig was nothing more than a well-connected, political schemer who never missed an opportunity to feather his own nest and exaggerate his own accomplishments; such as when he graduated the Sandhurst Academy supposedly, as the Haig Myth claims, at the top of his class, which if true means he would have been commissioned into a prestigious regiment such as the Life Guards...instead he was commissioned into the 7th Lancers (which is ranked low in order of prestige in the British Army!) This is but one small example of Haig's self-serving careerism. The book covers in detail the battles of attrition between 1916 - 18. Winter shows how the 1909 Field Service Regulations were primarily guilty for having battalion after battalion of British and Dominion troops advance across no-man's land in regimented lines, only to be slaughtered in their thousands, leading to such tragic outcomes like 57,000 casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme (3rd Battle of Ypres). This chapter is followed by an examination of 1918 as a year of mobility, in which Haig is clearly shown to be inept in mastering the tenets of maneuver warfare, despite maintaining massive reserves of cavalry for the always expected breakthrough. The next chapter, `Falsifying the Record' is the most important. It lays bare Haig's deceptio

Critical, Revealing Analysis of WWI's Most Polarizing Personality

With this book Denis Winter seems to have launched a near-quixotic quest to get the real facts regarding Haig's command. One of the most important conclusions reached is that almost all the official histories, cabinet minutes, unit reports, and similar works have been very carefully vetted and 'cleaned up' before being published. Not even individual memoirs can be relied on as the gov't often had carrots and sticks in hand to deal with more independent-minded veterans. Winter suggests a broad, self-serving conspiracy by those at the top to preserve their reputations and to save the public the additional grief of learning that their sons/husbands/fathers may have died incidentally due to bureaucratic incompetence, amateurish leadership, or the sheer indifference of chateau generals. Winter deconstructs the official mythology regarding Haig and exposes him to be a well-connected careerist interested more in being field marshal than in pursuing the effective and successful leadership of his troops. This isn't so surprising or unusual in that most democracies at least initially heavily rely on political appointees in times of mass mobilization (American Civil War, Pershing, Smuts, etc.). However, Haig seems to have devoted much of his WWI energies intriguing for the top job and writing daily diary entries (apparently meant for later public consumption). How is it that so many leading British figures found time not only to keep copious, detailed diaries but also to manage an entire war? The book is divided into the following major sections: Haig's Credentials, The Attrition Battles of 1916-1917, The Attrition Period, 1918: A Year of Mobility, and Falsifying the Record. 'Haig's Credentials' examines how Haig's top-level connections with Esher and the king eventually unseated French and placed Haig securely in power for the remainder of the war. 'The Attrition Battles' critically analyzes Haig's refusal to stop a battle once it became obvious it would not succeed (usually the first 48 hours). 'The Attrition Period' looks at the Commonwealth armies under his command and his heavy reliance on Canadians and ANZACs. '1918' discusses Haig's poor preparations to meet the expected German spring offensives and his near panic, followed by placing supreme allied command into Foch's hands. 'Falsifying the Record' then goes into particular detail involving the cover-ups and manipulations of Haig's memoirs - apparently three different versions of them. Denis Winter's analysis is highly critical, but he does give Haig some due credit for correctly anticipating the time and place of the German attack. But for the most part, Winter shows Haig in the likely true light, that of an aspiring careerist officer struggling to learn the military side of his trade and often scapegoating others for his own failures, e.g. Charteris, and selectively releasing self-serving diary excerpts. All in all a very insightful book about Haig that I recommend to any serious s

poignant, credible and sad

Confirming generally accepted shortcomings among an outclassed 'officer class' at the end of an era of British dominance in trade and power, Winter brings home the reasons for the decline and the terrible price paid by the common soldier for the towering incompetence of Haig and his ilk. Haig was it seems in many ways an exemplar for the expertise vaccuum at the very top of the British army. Just as in consecutive Afghanistan campaigns and the Boer war, where soldiers were compelled to march to their slaughter in highly visible red uniforms, Haig seemed not to be able to grasp the reality of modern warfare, such as the fortified machine gun, while the Germans patiently mowed down a generation of young Englishmen with methodical precision. Heartbreaking and compelling reading, and though emotionally charged, Winter brings us a detailed work of scholarship.

Haigs Command - An Alternative View

Douglas Haig was not the only general to re-write history in order to exalt himself in the eyes of posterity. Montgomery was another such general albeit in a much milder form than Haig.Haig was promoted beyond his capability using his undoubted connections. The battle of Loos where British infantry advanced in rows in the face of German machine guns and in which 8000 were killed within the first few hours was the first example of command stupidity. However, Haig then went on to repeat the debacle time and time again. The Somme, for example, where 20,000 were killed on the first day. Enormous casualties for little or no gain with Haig seemingly unable to grasp the fact that men against fortified positions, machine guns, artillery and mile after mile of barbed wire were simply unable to advance more than a few yards before being stopped in their tracks.This volume by Winter presents another side to the official view of Haig and also, it must be said, of the British establishment who aided and abetted Haigs efforts to falsify history. Haig was damned by the country and the establishment after the war and rightly so. An excellent read.