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General Haig Study Guide

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General Haig Assessment.

Douglas Haig was a British general during the First World War. He first commissioned into the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars in 1885, and was made a Field Marshall in 1917. He held numerous positions of command, and was the commander of the British Empire’s forces at the Battle of the Somme. The Battle of the Somme was fought from the 1st of July 1916 to the 18th of November the same year, and the tactics used by Haig (such as walking towards the enemy, the war of attrition etc remain very controversial to this day. The Battle of the Somme was fought the relieve the French forces at Verdun by attacking the Germans north of Verdun, therefore forcing Germany to move some of their men away from Verdun and relieving the French. Allied forces won 7 miles of ground, and the British lost 481,842 fighting men.
The different interpretations I will discuss are John Terraine’s, Alan Clarke’s and Lloyd George’s. These views of Haig may have changed over time due to the political affiliation of the historian, the time period that the historian wrote in and general bias.

The first interpretation that I will cover is the one created by military historian John Terraine. Terraine suggested that Haig was an effective battle commander and planner. This interpretation was developed because Terraine was primarily a military historian, and focused on reading Haig’s military dispatches as his sources, which obviously included battle plans and orders only, free from any

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