Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig

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Douglas Haig

Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig (born June 19, 1861 in Edinburgh , † January 29, 1928 in London ) was a British field marshal and during the First World War from 1915 to 1918 Commander- in -Chief on the Western Front .

His diary from the time of the First World War was declared World Document Heritage by UNESCO in 2015 .

Life

Haig, who comes from the well-known whiskey distiller family, the youngest son of John Haig , grew up in Edinburgh, attended Clifton College in Bristol, Brasenose College at the University of Oxford and from 1884 to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst . He took up his service with the “7. Queen's Own Hussars ”, which subsequently led him to India, to Sudan as a participant in the Omdurman campaign and to southern Africa as a participant in the Boer War . In 1903 Haig went to India again, this time with the rank of colonel and "inspector of the general cavalry". He was promoted to major general and returned to Britain in 1906 to take over the leadership of the War Department's training division. From 1912 to 1914 he commanded the Aldershot Command .

Haig with his army commanders and other officers on the day of the armistice

Haig served the entire World War on the Western Front , first as commanding general of the 1st Corps , when he fought off the German offensive in the First Battle of Ypres . In early 1915, Haig was given command of the newly formed 1st British Army . In December of this year he succeeded John French as Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force BEF ( English " British Expeditionary Force " ).
In the battles on the Somme in 1916, at Arras and in the Third Battle of Flanders (1917) and in the last year of the war, Haig led the BEF. On January 1, 1917, he was appointed field marshal. While the French allies and the British government assumed that Germany would collapse in 1919 or 1920 at the earliest, Haig was convinced in the summer of 1918 that this point would be reached in the current year. So he prevailed above all against Ferdinand Foch and achieved that the Allied offensive in August 1918 was not designed as a selective, but as a broad-based operation that forced the Germans to negotiate an armistice.

Haig is still controversial today. He is accused of having caused enormous and unnecessary losses through too conservative troop leadership while largely ignoring advances in military technology. He is also accused of having misjudged the effectiveness of individual weapon systems: As a trained cavalryman , he was convinced that enemy machine gun positions could best be eliminated by dashing, frontal cavalry attacks, especially since a bullet "can hardly stop a horse", and therefore frequently gave orders Frontal attacks by both cavalry and infantry. For a long time he underestimated the efficiency of modern defensive weapons. For questionably little success he accepted high losses of his troops. After the British Army suffered the highest losses in its history on the first two days of the 1916 Summer Battle, he was nicknamed "Butcher of the Somme". Prime Minister David Lloyd George only gave consent for the Third Battle of Flanders , which was also very costly , after Haig put pressure on him.

Only when the tactical balance shifted in favor of the offensive with the appearance of the first practicable tanks did Haig's strategy prove to be successful. The American historian Paul Fussell described him as a stubborn character with no sense of self-criticism or innovation because of his work in World War I. He went so far as to say that Haig had established the critical attitude of many intellectuals towards military and political leaders through his example.

Douglas Haig circa 1920. Portrait study by John Singer Sargent for General Officers of World War I .

After the war, Haig was raised to the hereditary nobility on September 29, 1919 by conferring the titles Earl Haig , Viscount Dawick and Baron Haig and thereby became a member of the House of Lords . In 1921 he received the Bemersyde House property as a gift from the state. In 1922 he became Chancellor of the University of St Andrews . After his death, he was buried on the grounds of the abandoned Dryburgh Abbey .

Marriage and offspring

From July 11, 1905, he was married to the Hon. Dorothy Maud Vivian, daughter of Hussey Vivian, 3rd Baron Vivian . He had four children with her:

In 1928 his son George inherited him as 2nd Earl Haig. His daughter Alexandra is the mother of the British historian James Howard-Johnston . His cousin Sybil Haig was the mother of suffragette Margaret Mackworth, 2nd Viscountess Rhondda .

Quote

  • " A dour scotsman and the dullest dog I ever had the happiness to meet. “(Eng:“ A grumpy Scot and the biggest bore I've ever had the pleasure to meet ”) - Field Marshal Lord Chetwode on Haig.

literature

  • John Terraine: Haig. The Educated Soldier. Hutchinson, London 1963.
  • Philip Warner: Field Marshal Earl Haig. Bodley Head, London 1991.

Web links

Commons : Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Autograph First World War Diary of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, 1914-1919. UNESCO Memory of the World, accessed August 31, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Adam Hochschild: The Great War. The fall of old Europe in the First World War 1914-1918 . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2013. ISBN 978-3-608-94695-6 . P. 265ff.
  3. ^ Paul Fussell: The Great War and Modern Memory. University Press, Oxford 1975, p. 12.
predecessor Office successor
John French Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force
1915–1919 		John Asser
( GOC of British Forces in France and Flanders)
New title created Earl Haig
1919-1928 		George Haig
personal data
SURNAME Haig, Douglas, 1st Earl Haig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Haig, Douglas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Field Marshal
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1861
PLACE OF BIRTH Edinburgh
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 1928
Place of death London