What do you think of Douglas Haig? Does he deserve the title

Virtually all world War 1 generals deserve the nickname. Mofos were using tactics that had nothing to do with reality, and millions died as a result

>>2047838
t. never read a nonfiction book about WW1

>>2047950
I also played BF1

>>2047808
Not in a war that had Luigi Cadorna in it.

Really, Haig doesn't deserve to be remembered by history at all.

>>2047808
He was a good general, literally the only reason he's remembered poorly (By pop-historians, not actual academics) is that Lloyd George waited until Haig died and then used him as a scapegoat to put all of his own failings on.

>>2048456
Luigi "Break the line or its court-martial time" Cadorna
Luigi "To Vienna or bust or bust or bust" Cadorna
Luigi "12th times the charm!" Cadorna

>>2048456
>Really, Haig doesn't deserve to be remembered by history at all.
What a stupid fucking post.

>>2048456
Haig was quite incompetent desu

>>2048594
>Haig was quite incompetent

What gives you that idea? Haig's conduct of the western front was sound. There were no colossal blunders under his generalship like Nivelle's ill-conceived offenses. He just ran into the same problems that every army had that made decisive breakthroughs impossible.

>>2047838
>I know nothing of the historical reality of the war.

>>2047808

Haig, and GHQ, were not great. For reasonably large parts of the war they were unable to give a solid direction to the fighting. Especially in the 100 Days, Haig did little other than watch the offensives unfold. He didn't really take an active role in shaping British policy. This is perhaps the most important criticism of his command.

Other than this, not a terrible commander by WWI standards.

>>2047808
The motherfucker Should have been executed for incompetance

>>2048812
very low standards. you should add.

>>2049066

Not really fair. It was a difficult, bloody war. No one looked great in hindsight, doesn't mean they were horrible men.

Where are so many posters getting the idea that Haig was "incompetent"? As far as I know that isn't how historians recognize him.

>>2049190
>No one looked great in hindsight
Lettow-Vorbeck did.

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>>2049190

Seriously. No one had ever fought a war like it, and everyone in the generalship had "a really good idea of how wars are fought." Except that almost every single facet of war had been revolutionized by the development of new technologies! hell, the British Navy had radios that their captains didn't want to use, because they were more familiar with the flag system!

>>2047950
>t. never read a nonfiction book about WW1
>t. XYZ

I don't get this meme. What does it mean? What's 't.'?

>>2050007
lurk more. shits pretty simple to intuit

>>2050007
t. anon who needs to lurk the fuck more

>>2047808

He killed probably more Albions and Frogs with his incompetence than the Germans did, so he's good in my book

>>2049890

It's how he's portrayed in Blackadder.

>>2047808
>anglo generals

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>>2047808
>he legitimately thought that tanks would never replace cavalry
clinical retard
Only Allied general worth his salt were Petain and Joffree

>>2050007
Pff what a newfag, i bet he doesnt even own a fingerbox.

Haig > Zukhov for meme potential?

>>2051591
totally, let´s begin

> "Numbers are an abstraction" - Douglas Haig

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>I must unite the British Empire under Flanders Fields
-Douglas Haig

>>2050315
>forgetting based Currie

>>2047808
> "Yes I know about machine guns but we shouldn´t duck. It makes us look bad"
Douglas Haig

>>2049890
Propaganda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mufPyc1L3hc

"How bad could something called mustard gas be?"
Douglas Haig

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>>2048456

>>2047808
>The idea that a war can be won by standing on the defensive and waiting for the enemy to attack is a dangerous fallacy, which owes its inception to the desire to evade the price of victory.

He was a good man who wanted to remove the Germ at all costs. Sadly, some people don't know how to appreciate this.

>>2051677
>Svetozar Borojevic
What a lad

Haig was considered a pretty good general at the time. Some considered him the man who won the war due to the way he induced the late German collapse.
He got turned into a scapegoat by politicians running scared of Communism after the war. Much easier to blame the deaths on incompetent generals than point out how silly nationalist imperialism is

>>2051612
Currie was above average. Competent, hard working, and willing to stand up for his men yes, but much of his success is due to the efficiency of the staff of the Canadian Corps, not his own genius.

>>2048766
Lmao this fucking kid thinks Haig did a good job Jesus Christ.

Haig was an idiot, so we're all the generals. They knew it was pure murder, why do you think so many destroyed their memoirs.

>>2049910
>What is the American civil war
>What is the Russo Japanese war
>What is the Franco Prussian war

"Mustard gas you say? Give the men some pretzels! It will be delicious!"

- Douglas Haig

>>2051718
None of those were anything like WWI

>>2051817
Idiot kill yourself

>>2051849
They weren't

>>2051855
Literally keep digging yourself into that hole retard.

>>2051712
I'm curious to know what misinformed tripe you're parroting.

>>2051915
I'm not curious to know what revisionist nonsense you're using to justify poor command and leadership

>>2051975
Haig was lauded as a hero at the end of WW1 so wouldn't that mean the severe critics like you are the revisionists?

>>2051988
Only of your familiarity with the literature terminates in 1920

>>2051993
So you're accusing me of revisioning the revisionists?

>>2052003
No I'm accusing you of being a dumb nigger who doesn't know anything

>>2052015
You never did tell me where you got the idea that Haig was incompetent from. In all the books I've read about WW1 he's described typically as unimaginative, sometimes heartless, but adequate to the job.

>>2052039
Name one of those books.

>>2051817
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Port_Arthur

This was literally a proto-WW1 battle

>>2052045
John Keegan The First World War

>>2052061
Wow shocking choice there anon. Good thing you picked a book that isn't a study of Haig or of his command.

>>2052069
Like all the ones that you've read?

>>2052070
Yes.

>>2052070
Nah son, don't you be spurning dat legitimate criticism, you take that criticism.

Other guy, you oughta post one book for rookie here.

new faggot, try this:

http://www.military-history.org/books/haig-master-of-the-field-by-maj-gen-sir-john-davidson.htm

Now you learn to take legitimate criticism now, y'hear?

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>>2050315
>No mention of Franchet d'Esperey, Gallieni nor Lyautey

>>2050007
T. Is how Finnish people sign there post, so its mocking the poster

>>2051710
He could look at a section of enemy line, say what forces he needed to break it, and then predict the resulting casualties to within two dozen men. If that doesn't make you numinous I don't know what you want.

muh lions led by lambs


When will it die?

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>>2052267

>>2052203

He wasn't the only general who was able to appreciate the casualties it would take to achieve an objective (and you overstate the accuracy of his claims of you are talking about Passchendaele). Any examination of Currie's leadership needs to take into account the notable missteps of his career. He was not immune to the learning curve, he and his staff just incorporated the lessons learned by the British and ANZAC's very efficiently.

An argument can also be made for the Canadian Corps have way more firepower than a comparably sized British force. This undoubtedly contributed to their battlefield success, and consequently Currie's military reputation.

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>>2052347

The only British commanders of seniority that were actually decent were Allenby and Plumer. There were quite a few officers of lesser grades that stood out, but not sure if they were up to fielding that kind of manpower. Outside of India, British generals weren't used to wielding armies over the size of 100,000. Hence, why they had to painstakingly learn the kind of staffwork and structure for the millions of Britons fielded in WWI.

Personally, I think the British should've swallowed their pride and allowed Currie and Monash to take command of British troops. At least with those 2, you KNEW you're efforts would actually result in something and the commanders wouldn't carelessly throw your lives away.

But as bad as senior British commanders, the French were plagued with even worse. That itself is the real tragedy of WWI.

>>2052372
Actually plummer was a fool who burned his memoirs.

French commanders were generally more effective than their British counterparts.

>>2052267
When you realize it was true. The assholes in charge learned nothing from the US Civil War or the Russo-Japanese War. An entrenched enemy that's well-supplied and determined would wreck havoc on the attacker. And the fact that advances in artillery as well as the introduction of the machine gun makes this point even more succinct.

A fucking Polish banker accurately predicted much of the Western Front in 1870. I mean, I can understand generals in 1914 and even the beginning of 1915 to not fathom how things have changed, but the fact that they kept on throwing away hundreds of thousands of men in useless offensives is unforgivable. Insanity is when you do the same thing over and over and over again while expecting a different result. I mean, making a mistake is not a problem, failure to correct it is.

>>2049910

They had wireless, not radio. Spoken voice radio transmission post dates the war. Wireless is more like morse code transmitted without telegraph wires.

>>2050315

Read more about Haig and GHQ. There were a lot of technologies with their own theorists competing for Haig's favour. He just happened to favour the cavalry, it does not make the man clinically retarded you twat.

>>2052394
I am pretty sure they tried different things, barrages, bombings from plane, tanks etc.I think you're an ignorant fool.

>>2047808
No, it falls short.

>>2052372
What about Smith Dorrien?

>>2052419
>implying I'm not an avid reader of WWI
I'm well-aware that the tech revolution confounded a lot of generals to the point where they had to do trial-and-error. Like I said, 1914 and 1915 is somewhat understandable for the bloodshed, but 1916 and 1917 was a waste of human life.

Personally, I think the biggest fuck-up of all time was Gallipoli. Both the army AND naval commanders fucked up royally. If they had pushed on and showed a little more initiative, the Dardanelles would've been opened and Russia would have an outlet to the greater world again.

>>2052432
Idiot. Gough and Rawlinson and all these clowns were just Haig's buddies from India and south Africa. After sir John French's move to home defence Lord Kitchener should have assumed supreme command as his supporters favoured. This would have kept Haig out of the system and kept the war focused on the flanks rather than the retard Western front

>>2052394
Why would they learn anything from wars in far away shitholes?

>>2051861

In large part they weren't. Elements were present sure, but not the specific circumstances of the war, specifically the Western Front.

To suggest otherwise is foolish.

>>2052432
John French was incredibly petty with him. Smith-Dorrien was not a bad commander when you compare him to some of the others. Not great, but certainly competent.

>>2052436
>Implying turkey would have given up.

They wouldn't gave.

>>2052394
>they kept on throwing away hundreds of thousands of men in useless offensives

As opposed to what? "Useful offensives" against the same fortified earthworks that stretched the entire length of the Western front? The problems presented by trench warfare weren't solved by some tactical development. They were solved by technological advances, the tank & the field radio. It wasn't a deficiency in generalship that lead to a war of attrition.

>>2052444
No you're wrong you stupid fuck. The circumstances were nearly identical.

>>2052059

Without another decade of technological advances which yet increased the power of the defensive.

Port Arthur is also misleading because the Japanese won. Sure it was horrible, but hey they won. It was totally rational to make the conclusions that the European generals did from the example of Port Arthur.

>>2052360

Read it, also read a lot more than that. Your point?

the butcher of his own men, sure

>>2052394
>>2052458

>>2052460
It's pretty obvious that's where your information is coming from thanks for confirming

>>2051607
That one works on so many levels.

>>2052458
Yah totally rational: ie, it is militarily acceptable to kill tens of thousands of your forces to gain strategic positions.

Literally no different than Sevastopol in 1854

>>2052458
I wonder if somebody could've recreated trenchworks like Petersburg and issued paint-rounds to the men's rifles? And even create shrapnel shells that are full of paint-balls. The soldiers are equipped with helmets and goggles while they charge the emplacements? Because that would've opened up eyes if someone had the foresight to initiate a training program like this in 1910 for example.

>>2052455

No they weren't or else we would have had a repeat of the Western Front, which manifestly did not happen in any of those wars.

Yes, elements of the problem were manifesting as early as 1864, but you do not see trench warfare in its WWI form in any of those wars, nor do you see the solutions to trench warfare expressed in them.

Stop trolling and actually make an argument other than ad hominem's.

>>2052469

Travers is a good military historian, he makes solid conclusions. There are other very good historians of the BEF in WWI.

>>2052485
This is just "muh unprecedented circumstances learning curve" argument which as you all can clearly see can only be substantiated if you pretend the 19th century didn't happen.

>>2052480

Do you misunderstand the point of a military operation?

The military method is spending lives to obtain a political objective. How many lives you spend to obtain that objective depends on what your nation is willing to support, but in many cases there is no recourse other than to spend lives.

You may disagree with the methods, but that doesn't make them irrational.

>>2052394
They TRIED new things. They didn't work. They knew the tech to change all that was in the works, but wouldn't be ready for a few more years, so they did LITERALLY the only thing they could.

No one in the past was truly stupider than you, who has 20x20 hindsight. They did the best they could with what they had. If something looks like insanity to you, perhaps you should recall that those men couldn't see the fucking future and learn how shitheaded their plans would look to history.

You think people in the US Civil War ENJOYED lining up and firing volleys at ten paces? Did they ENJOY rushing trenches in the Somme? Did those poor fuckers ENJOY holding back plate-armored knights with fucking sticks once upon a time? Fuck no! But it was the most sensible thing to do considering the technology at hand, in all cases.

Gain some perspective.

>>2052491
There's quite a bit of wars that get overlooked in the 19th century. Like the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War. The Siege of Plevna was another bookmark in how much things changed since Napoleon's era.

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>>2052485

>>2052503
An intelligent man learns from his mistakes; a wise man learns from another's. All those men that suffered and died in the ACW could've been a lesson for generals post-1865 to 1914. Surely some young officer between the Civil War and WWI realized that doctrine couldn't catch up to weapons advances.

You don't just learn what interests you from past battles, you also examine the full facet of its impact. Everyone learned partial lessons from the ACW and later conflicts.

>>2052491

I'm not pretending these previous wars didn't happen. To us, we can divine which lessons were important in light of what we know happened in the Great War. But this is a bullshit historical methodology.

You need to understand the situation of the men in 1914. The lessons of those wars were not immediately apparent. Hell for all they knew, it was eminently possible for infantry to attack through artillery and machine guns. The fucking Japanese did it at Port Arthur.

Never mind all of the things that radically changed in the mere decade since that war.

>>2052500
Well apparently the army method is driving against fortified positions fruitlessly and at enormous cost for some dirt in flanders. I'm not sure that's what Clausewitz intended by political objectives

>>2052485
Actually the creeping barrage was utilized in the Russo-Japanese War.

https://books.google.com/books?id=NDDAAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=rawlinson+japanese+creeping&source=bl&ots=cau1a3qbWJ&sig=vA7pjv4XLW2xElTZ7uMyimDpj3A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj08sWk8uDQAhVrJcAKHV0qAwoQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=rawlinson%20japanese%20creeping&f=false

https://books.google.com/books?id=tNikAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA143&lpg=PA143&dq=rawlinson+japanese+artillery&source=bl&ots=u5n8UtHMqu&sig=f1j1Gy_WsxHm4KzJg9OY8BbP3ns&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjLk8SW8uDQAhVIAcAKHYC6D_oQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=rawlinson%20japanese%20artillery&f=false

>>2052515
You keep acting like the pre war learning isn't to blame for the carnage, as though it was acceptable because it was widely known that huge casualties would result.

In other words, the generals literally knew it was a slaughter and did it any way.

>>2052512

You don't think the BEF was a nimble learning machine in the later years of WW1? Because I will tell you it absolutely fucking was.

Condemning others for not learning what you have been informed of by hindsight is the height of arrogance.

>>2052534
ANZAC yes, Canada corps yes, French yes, BEF... Well, better than the Americans but that's about it.

Lmao nimble. Sure demonstrated that when they almost lost to the operation Michael despite having had 4 years to learn defence in depth.

>>2052526

I'd love a transcript of the 1908 staff conference personally.

It is still only one element of the solution, as important as it was.

>>2052542
>ANZAC yes, Canada corps yes,
It amazes me how the young lions of the British Empire produced its finest soldiers. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand had nowhere near the population of Britain and Ireland yet they produced god-tier troops.

>>2052557

Plenty of British units were god-tier too. 9th Scottish is the most famous.

>>2052542

You can not understand the ANZAC's and Canadians in isolation from the BEF. They literally were subordinate to GHQ and part of the learning machine that was the BEF.

Thanks for proving my point for me though.

>>2052560
Indeed they were, but on a national-level, the settler colonies fielded some of the finest men for the Allies. They're extolled in many if not most WWI literature. Even the Germans knew they were in a rough time if they faced the Canadians, Aussies, and/or Kiwis.

>>2052563
Except they literally were not, the Canadians corps case in point

>>2052532

They thought they could keep it to a limited slaughter in a short war. Not that radical an idea if you examine most 19th century wars. The ACW was the outlier in that regard.

>>2052570

A lot of the virtue of the settlers is a myth though. Fully half of the men who made up the Canadian Corps were born in Britain. That is not meaningfully "Canadian" in any sense of the word.

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>>2051677
>That filename

>>2052577

Oh please. The Canadian Corp used British weapons, British tactics, British organization (mostly), and was fucking commanded by British officers until mid-1917. Even after that British staff officers made up the bulk of the higher leadership. They were not separate in any meaningful sense. The Canadian Corps fought the battles that Haig and GHQ planned without question.

Tell me how they were substantially different from any other corps. They weren't, they were a totally integrated component of the BEF.

>>2052608

http://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/history/life-at-the-front/military-structure/the-canadian-expeditionary-force/

>>2052614

Not an argument. That page presents at best an incredibly simplistic and outdated view of the historical literature on the subject.

>>2052614

Comparatively, some British divisions cycled through many corps without any real decrease in their combat efficiency or learning ability.

The stability of the Canadian Corps is only decisive if you consider it in isolation from the wider BEF, which you should not do as I have been arguing.

>dude the generals should have known the solutions to trench warfare even though the technology to solve that problem wasn't invented yet lmao

>>2048580
obviously as the British commander in one of the most important wars in history his role has to be recorded.

But if he hadn't had the blind luck to be the right age to reach a senior position in the British army just at the beginning of the war, he would barely have been recorded as a historical footnote.

If he'd been ten years older he'd have retired with barely a passing reference in the history books, and if he'd been ten years younger he'd never have been given command of the British forces over the more talented men who ended up being his subordinates in the actual war.

The fact that the war broke out when it did might mean that we have to remember him, but quite clearly what he deserves is to be quietly forgotten.

>>2052682

Have a (You) for a thoughtful and measured post.

I don't buy that he deserves to be forgotten, no one really deserves that. But would we lose an amazing character from history if Haig had not been the commander? No not really.

>>2048766
>>2049890
>Haig wasn't incompetent

Yeah, no. It's all very well to recognise that Haig wasn't the blithering idiot, or the callous butcher, that popular culture has sometimes made him out to be. But he had that most terrible combination of attributes for a general: he was a man of great ambitions and mediocre ability. In a way he was a slightly more understated version of Enver Pasha. He set his troops ambitious objectives, which he reached without giving any thought to the actual conditions on the ground.

And the end of the day, Haig just wasn't terribly bright. He knew soldiering, but he wasn't really accustomed to abstract thought. He actually failed the entrance exam for the Staff College when he was a junior officer due to his inability to pass the compulsory mathematics paper, and had to use his social connections to get in. It wasn't that he didn't try to learn or wasn't open to new ideas - to his credit he saw the potential of tanks, for example. He just wasn't an original thinker - he would never come up with an idea like tanks on his own, it had to be brought to him. He might have made a decent junior commander, capable of carrying out a superior's orders competently, but he didn't have the depth of thinking needed in the overall director of British strategy.

And when he learned, he often learned the wrong lessons. Early in the war he saw the Germans halt attacks when British forces were vulnerable, and concluded from this that lack of willingness to push an action was a fatal mistake. Thereafter he kept throwing men at objectives long after the effort had clearly become futile, managing to delude himself that the enemy were on the verge of breaking and that only a little more pressure was needed. He realised the importance of artillery, then made the mistake of assuming that the sheer weight of artillery he concentrated on the Somme would simply blast the Germans aside.

>>2051988
>Haig was lauded as a hero at the end of WW1

because the Allies won so obviously they jerked off their commanders massively

>>2052347
Thank you for the fascinating and coherent response, anon. You seem more knowledgeable about the topic than I do.

>>2055089

Although I have spent some time thinking about these things, I know that I have touched only a very tiny fraction of the literature on WWI. It is, arguably, the most fascinating war in human history.