[This is 6th
in a series describing Scots who had an impact outside their native land]
It is 1 July 1916, exactly 100 years ago tomorrow. A whistle
blows and 100,000 British infantrymen go “over the top” to attack the German
trenches near the Somme, supposedly destroyed by a prolonged artillery barrage
in the preceding days. But the barrage has largely failed; only in the Southern
sector of the German line has the damage been extensive. The British move
towards well dug-in German regiments and they are mowed down by deadly
machine-guns and enemy shellfire. It is “The blackest day in the history of the
British Army” with 19,000 dead and 37,000 seriously wounded. In command of the
British offensive is Scottish-born General Douglas Haig, both a villain and a
hero of that blood-soaked war, which ultimately he did much to win.
 |
| Haig |
 |
| "Over the top" at The Somme |
Douglas Haig
(1861 – 1928) was born in iconic Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, the son of a
wealthy distiller, owner of the famous Scotch whisky brand “Haig”. Educated at
Clifton College, Bristol, Douglas studied at Brasenose College, Oxford, before
going to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Douglas was a keen and adept
horseman, playing polo with enthusiasm all his early life and he naturally became
an elite cavalry officer. He spent some years in India, served under Kitchener
in the Sudan Omdurman Campaign and in the Boer War under Roberts. Self-confident
to a fault, Haig often took a dim view of the military abilities of his
superior officers.
The outbreak of war in 1914 saw Haig commanding one-half of
the British Expeditionary Force under fellow cavalry officer Sir John French.
The British army’s first engagement with the Germans was at Mons in Belgium.
The Germans were checked, but a retreat was necessary to Ypres when the French
on their right flank fell back to the Marne to defend Paris. Ypres was held
against German attack, much credit going to Haig. A summer 1915 offensive at
Loos failed, insufficient artillery, a shortage of shells and slow deployment
of reserves all contributing. Sir John French paid the price being replaced as
Commander in Chief by Haig in December 1915, a position he retained for the
rest of the War.
Haig was viewed as a highly efficient general though also as
a rather aloof disciplinarian. He was a poor public speaker who dominated,
rather than debated, when conferring with his commanders. In common with all
British strategists he only reluctantly came round to the doctrine of
“attrition”, that the enemy would be conquered by weariness and an inability to
replace casualties. Haig had always believed in the cavalryman’s doctrine of
“movement” that a frontal attack would lead to a breakthrough. Haig had a
modern mind: initially slow to value the creeping artillery barrage, he soon
expanded the gunner’s key role: he saw the potential of air power and used it
by 1917: he encouraged the use of tanks from Cambrai onwards; strategically he
appreciated that the War could only be won on the Western Front and opposed
diversion of resources to the Dardanelles, Mesopotamia or Salonika.
The catastrophe of The Somme, fought over 4 months from 1st
July 1916, with 420,000 British casualties, was intended to be a joint
Anglo-French operation but the French were so pressed at horrendous Verdun that
their Somme contribution was minor. The first raw armies of volunteers and
conscripts were deployed – Kitchener’s New Armies. With what emotion we now
look back upon the sacrifices of, for example, the 36th Ulster Division, the
Royal Regiment of Scotland, the “Pal’s Battalions” from so many modest English
towns – like the Accrington Pals, 720 attacked on the first day with 303 dead
and 281 badly wounded! With what sorrow and pride we contemplate the war
memorials in every British town with their long lists of names, far too many
names on those of tiny Scottish villages and the crowded British war cemeteries
of Northern France and Belgium!
 |
| An Unknown Scottish Soldier's gravestone |
 |
| Haig in 1917 |
Haig kept his position, but both the Army and Westminster
were hotbeds of intrigue; Asquith was forced out of the Premiership and
energetic David Lloyd George took the political helm in December 1916. Military
success remained elusive. In summer 1917, the 3rd battle of Ypres
began, better known to Britain as Passchendaele, another failure, ruined by
heavy rain and quagmire-like ground.
 |
| Misery and Mud at Passchendaele 1917 |
Germany was nearing exhaustion but with the collapse of Imperial
Russia she was able to reinforce the Western Front and in early 1918 made her
final thrust. Haig’s armies, strengthened by Canadian and Australasian
divisions and supplemented by the Americans, deflected the blow and redeployed
to Amiens. There the Germans were
sharply defeated and the 100 days Offensive began. Haig’s well-trained soldiers
at last moved forward. Many enemy troops surrendered rather than fight. In a
brilliant campaign coordinated by Generalissimo Foch, the Anglo-French armies
drove the Germans back to their own frontiers. The Kaiser abdicated, a German
republic was proclaimed and the Armistice was signed on 11 November 1918. A
long nightmare had ended.
 |
| British soldiers advance rapidly from Amiens |
In his remaining 10 years, Haig was honoured by a grateful
nation. He was made an Earl and Parliament voted him a grant of £100,000, then
a vast sum. He became a university Chancellor at St Andrews and received many
honours. He devoted the rest of his life to the Haig Fund helping all
ex-servicemen. His funeral in 1928 was almost a state occasion and he was
buried at Dryburgh Abbey, in the Scottish Borders with a simple soldier’s
gravestone.
Later generations were less deferential. The terrible
casualties of the war came to be blamed on the “Brass-hats” of whom Haig was a
prime specimen. Names like “Butcher” Haig were callously bandied about, with
Haig allegedly regarding private soldiers as “cannon-fodder”. Much of this was
entirely unjust – Oh, What a Lovely War!
may be good music-hall, but it is not good history. Similarly the notion of
“Lions led by Donkeys”, propagated by some historians and satirised by the
likes of Blackadder, ignores the fact
that British generals naturally struggled to come to terms with the new
complexities and potential of industrialised war and tried to minimise casualties
in a cruelly attritional conflict.
The men who died are an immortal memory. Douglas Haig made
many errors but deserves honouring for persistence, skill, and determination in
appalling circumstances.
SMD
30.06.2016
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment