Did Douglas Haig Fail in World War One?
Was Haig to Blame for the UK's Failings in WW1?
How far was Haig responsible for the failings of the British war effort on the Western Front in 1916 and 1917?
In the years after World War 1, Sir Douglas Haig was revered as national hero by both the British general public and by war veterans who fought under his command. More recently, Haig has been described as a “stubborn donkey” by critics such as John Laffin. In the media, in popular television programmes such as Blackadder, he is portrayed as a fool with little regard for human life. Today, the most common observation by the public is that Haig was a poor commander who is accountable for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers during the war.
The Battle of the Somme
Perhaps the most famous instance of Haig’s supposed failure during World War 1 is the Battle of the Somme in July 1916. During the offensive, 420,000 British soldiers were killed along with 200,000 French troops. A number of Haig’s decisions can be blamed as contributions to the huge casualty count. Some of the soldiers were carrying up to 120 pounds of equipment which slowed the infantry down and made them easy targets for the German machine gunners. The British ran rehearsals for the attack on the first day which were unrealistic so the soldiers were not sufficiently prepared for the attack.
Even after the huge losses that his army suffered on the first day, the stubborn Haig did not pull off the attack. The battle carried on for 140 days and huge casualties were sustained by both sides. Haig was very reliant on the preliminary artillery attack which he thought would do almost all the leg work, allowing the infantry to simply walk over to the German trenches and occupy them. However, the bombardment was unsuccessful, due to strong defences which the German’s sheltered in during the artillery attack and his men were slaughtered as they walked over to the German front line.
However, there are numerous factors which Haig had no control over which contributed to the huge casualty count. The German army had strict orders not to retreat, and if they were pushed back from their trenches, to launch an aggressive counter-attack immediately. British intelligence did not tell Haig how well built the German defences were, so Haig presumed that his planned artillery bombardment would be successful. The shells that the artillery were provided with were not effective against the dugouts, and did not shred the barbed wire as planned because they were not the correct type of shell. Due to the French defeat at Verdun, the Haig had to rapidly alter his plans because the French could only play a secondary role. General Rawlinson, the man whom Haig put in charge of the infantry element of the attack, ordered the troops to walk across no man’s land which meant the German soldiers did not even have to aim to kill the British troops.
Passchendale
Similarly to the Somme, Haig was blamed for the British defeat at the Battles of Passchendale and Arras in 1917. However, Haig was not in control of his troops for the assault on Arras after Lloyd-George put the BEF under French control.
Regarding Passchendale, in Spring 1917, Haig was getting continued intelligence reports that the morale of the German army was low and they were almost at breaking point, especially after the Allied victory at Messines. On 31 July 1917, after a heavy artillery barrage, the infantry attack. Contradictory to Haig’s understanding, the Germans were waiting for them in armoured pill boxes which were protected by metre-thick concrete and 250,000 British troops were dead at the end. This was a massive blow for the British war effort, and Haig took a lot of the blame from Lloyd- George.
Haig’s reliance on intelligence led him to put a lot of faith in his advisors which led to the problems at Passchendale.
On 20 November 1917, Haig experimented with the latest battle technology, the tank, against the German army who were entrenched at Cambrai.
The tank was a brand new weapon and had not been used in conflict before. Haig used all 381 tanks that were available at the time and the initial attack against the German trenches was a great success. But, the tanks then out ran the accompanying infantry allowing the Germans to counterattack.
Haig, although sometimes portrayed as a technophobe, was an enthusiastic supporter of new technology such as tanks and planes. Haig was willing to adapt to new technologies which became available and tried to implement them in his battle plans, to varying success. In hindsight, Haig should have waited until the tank had been better tested and effective tactics devised for the tank. The tank crews were not experts and they did not know how to work with the infantry that they were working with.
Was Haig to Blame?
Sir Douglas Haig did play a part in the failings on the Western Front during World War One. He was often unwilling to change battle plans and inflexible to adapt to changes in the battle. At the Battle of the Somme, he refused to pull back, even though he was sustaining huge casualties each day. At the Battle of Cambrai, he was too enthusiastic to use new technologies even though they were not totally battle ready.
Nonetheless, throughout the campaign, a lot of faults occurred which Haig had no control over. On more than one occasion, the intelligence corps gave Haig false information which led him to make poor decisions. At both the Somme, and Passchendale, Haig was not told about the strength of the German army’s defences which made the expensive artillery bombardments ineffective.
Douglas Haig
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