Product Description

Douglas Haig's popular image is an unenviable one. For the last fifty years he has invariably been seen as a callous butcher, fighting battles at the Somme and Passchendaele without intelligence or imagination and unconcerned by his losses. The reputation is undeserved and at odds with the historical record. In fact, Haig masterminded a Britishled victory over a continental opponent on a scale that has never been matched before or since. Whereas Wellington commanded forces at Waterloo in which the British were only a minority, in the final stages of the war, Haig controlled a vast British Army, which had grown from a mere six divisions to sixty over the course of the war. The British Army in France in 1918 compromised nearly three million men - only a third less than the population of London, then the largest city in Europe.

Contrary to myth, Haig was not a cavalry-obsessed, blinkered conservative, as satirized in Oh! What a Lovely War and Blackadder Goes Forth. Fascinated by technology, he pressed for the use of tanks, enthusiastically embraced air power, and encouraged the use of new techniques involving artillery and machine-guns. Above all, he presided over a change in infantry tactics from almost total reliance on the rifle towards all-arms, multi-weapons techniques that formed the basis of British army tactics until the 1970s.

Prior re-evaluations of Haig's achievements have largely been limited to monographs and specialist writings. Walter Reid has written the first biography of Haig that takes into account modern military scholarship, giving a more rounded picture of the private man than has previously been available. What emerges is a picture of a comprehensible human being, not necessarily particularly likeable, but honorably ambitious, able and intelligent, and the man more than any other responsible for delivering victory in 1918.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1298108 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 496 pages

Review
'A biography that is not just academically credible but which is also a very good read. I shall be very surprised if it does not sell.' - Gordon Corrigan, Military Historian and Broadcaster 'Walter Reid's account of one of the most controversial figures in modern British history is both fair and just, two achievements that have eluded many writers on Douglas Haig. He has the historian's eye, which can see the significance of the apparently inconsequential.' - John Bourne, University of Birmingham

About the Author
Walter Reid was educated at Oxford University, where he read history, and Edinburgh University. He is based in the west of Scotland, but spends part of the year in France. His earlier book, To Arras 1917, is in part a poignant memoir of a young officer who died of wounds sustained in the Battle of Arras, in part an exploration of the influences that formed him and so many others for service and death on the Western Front.

Customer Reviews

Image and Reality of Sir Douglas Haig
If we know of Douglas Haig at all, it is that he was the idiot that butchered a million soldiers of the British Empire in World War I. Haigs' blunders are well documented for us, from "Oh, What a Lovely War" to Black Adder to BBC documentaries. Everyone knows he was a blustering fool. Except, according to Walter Reid, the professional historians of the last few decades. Among them there is a consensus that he was an intelligent, effective general who more than any other in the First World War was responsible for the victory.

So, how to explain this difference between the popular image and the scholarly image, and which is the true image? That is what the book sets out to do, and does it quite well. It details what Haig actually did and accomplished based on reseach of the last few decades. It describes the change in his popular image from a post war hero in Britain up to the 1950's to a poster child of the evils of militarism in the 1960's to the present. From a man who had the largest non-royal funeral until Churchill's to one whose portrait in his old school was vandalized.

It covers his entire life, but of course concentrates on his role in World War I. It is not a fawning look. Haig had attributes but also flaws, and the book details both. He was not a Marlborough or Wellington. He made mistakes and men died unnecessarily because of them. But, in the end it is argued that it was the British army that was primarily responsible for the wearing down and final collapse of the German army. Haig created this instrument of victory and lead it. It could have been done better, but with the possible exceptions of Allenby or Plumer, not by anyone else that was available.

Overall, the book makes an interesting case for Haig.