The Road to a Revisionist Damascus

[Greenwoodman]

Its pretty difficult to stay out of the Haig debate, particularly when you see something outrageous in a post (for or against). In my own case I believe I have every book written about Haig, and a number of the articles. I've even read a good number of them, and other books pertaining to the subject. I've been fortunate to study his diaries in the National Library of Scotland. And they've informed my opinion about him.

In another thread, since closed, one of our number wrote "So, what is it that decides this unchanging and apparently unchangeable gut attitude, good or bad, towards friend Haig?" I have to say that from my own experience attitudes do change among some.

Again, from personal experience when I was a young man and completely unknowledgeable about the Great War, mine was an attitude of "Donkeys and Lions, and as for that bounder Haig..............". When my interest in the Great War was finally awakened by my search for my Grandad's army career, my reading expanded.

The first thing that gave me pause for thought was the plain fact that Haig led the army that won the war. Can't get away from it, whatever is said about his conduct of the Somme, of Passchendaele, of early battles, he led the army to victory on the Western Front. In spite of vehement political opposition, he led the army to victory on the Western Front.

The second thing that is seemingly obvious but is often discounted by those interested, is that there is no comparable evidence that another man, any other man, would have carried out the duties of CinC with less casualties than Haig did. Army and Corps commanders names, and foreign commanders names have been put forward, but trying to compare their records and talents in completely different appointments set against Haig's appointment is trying to compare chalk and cheese - they are just not the same and therefore provide no comparable evidence that another man would have been more successful than Haig. And this totally undermines those who argue that there were better men for the job. With the benefit of hindsight these protagonists believe that they can discern that there were. The arch-schemer Lloyd George sent his minions out to discover one on the Western Front, and they were unable to find one of sufficient standing to appoint in Haig's place. If Lloyd George with his political wiles was unable to do so, what chance do modern-day "I know better"s have?

And with these two revelations my whole attitude to Haig changed. My attitude to him is changing still. I am somewhere between the two extremes, acknowledging that he carried out his task, but that there were a huge number of casualties on the Western Front. I see too the arguments that with the benefit of hindsight lives could have been saved. They could have been saved with the benefit of foresight too - but not everyone is blessed with it. Do I vacillate? No, I don't think so. Each book I read sways my judgement, sometimes a little, sometimes more than that. I am not disappointed when I have to revise my opinion downward, neither do I exult when I find a compelling argument to revise the opinion upward. But unchanging and unchangeable - I think not.

I perceive too that many of those who lean toward the revisionist point of view started out with the ingrained theory that Haig was a butcher. And they changed too. And those seeking enlightenment when they join the forum, very often you can perceive a change in what they write. So who among us with a viewpoint on Haig is "unchanging and unchangeable"? I would venture to suggest that those who espouse the "Lions and Donkeys" theory may well be. They come to their belief in a number of ways - preconceived ideas (like mine originally), the Class Warrior syndrome, Winter's (w)right and Terraine's a Twerp, the war poets got it right. But they cleave to their beliefs like grim death. There's some fear mixed in there too. For if they were to deviate even a little from the path of the Donkey, they too would become R..........s!

[Steven Broomfield]

Well said, sir. I too started as a believer in the donkeys, but I decided I wasn't really seeing the big picture, so I not only read a lot of books, I managed to read them with an open mind. There have been a few quite acrimonious threads recently on this Forum about Haig, which appear to be directed towards retraining us 'revisionists' into the correct way.

Haig was a man like all of us: some good, some bad, some indifferent. But he shouldred the huge responsibility of commanding the largest group of Armies we have ever fielded, learnt on the job with a more-or-less non-professional army, which, by the end, was espousing a set of doctrines today's soldier would recognise.

And if even the archetypal politician, Lloyd George couldn't find anyone to replace him with, and could only attack him in a post-war set of self-serving memoirs, well, why should we reinvent the wheel 90 years on?

[George Armstrong Custer]

A very thoughtful analysis, if I may say so, Richard, and one with which I concur entirely. I'd only add an observation on the current use of 'Revisionist'. This is applied, usually with an explicit or implied derogatory connotation, by Haig's detractors to those historians who, increasingly over the past quarter century, have expanded and improved upon the pioneering groundwork done by Terraine. I'd argue however that, far from being 'revisionist,' this more positive view of Haig's achievement in the Great War is merely a return towards the way he was viewed by the majority of his countrymen when victory was achieved in 1918, and in the following decade up until his death.

The true 'Revisionists' then, were those who held virtually unchallenged sway over the public imagination in the interregnum between Haig's death and the appearance of Terraine's work. These were a disparate body, beginning with Lloyd George, and continued through the pacifist movements of the '30's whose tone was set by the published war poets of the late '20's/early 30's, and reaching a peak during the 1950's and 60's through such diverse media as the works of a Marxist school of historians including AJP Taylor and Taylor's scurrilous and unpleasantly extreme-right-wing former student Alan Clark, as well as the play OWALW by the radically left wing theatre company of Joan Littlewood (followed by the more famous film version). From Lloyd George on, then, what I would call the 'revisionists' of Haig's wartime reputation have used it as a focus to promote political agendas of their own at his expense. Only in the past 20-odd years have professional academic historians begun to restore the balance, aided by the greater understanding brought about by new research during that period into the internecine political power brokering (from both domestic and Allied sources) and logistical issues, as well as the - unevenly paced - evolution of technical and tactical elements which faced the single man at the helm of such a hugely and unprecedentedly complex enterprise as the BEF in France between 1915-1918.

So what I'd call the 'revisionists' are those who denied or diminished the achievement of Haig after his death, and whose view reached its apogee during the middle years of last century - but the legacy of which is still indelibly stuck in the minds of much of an unenquiring public and media.

ciao,

GAC

[Greenwoodman]

I debated in my own mind whether to add a third reason for my "Damascus". That is the report of the number of his former men who turned out wherever he went, and particularly for his funeral. If their opinion was for him, and they served alongside those who died, I find it difficult to lend credence to the the "Lions and Donkeys" theory.

[Muerrisch]

I wonder how long this consensus, to which I subscribe, can be maintained on this thread?

Still, it can always be closed!

[George Armstrong Custer]

I wonder how long this consensus, to which I subscribe, can be maintained on this thread?

Still, it can always be closed!

[Neil Mackenzie]

Richard.

I too am of the 'sitting on the fence' tendancy when it comes to Haig. I am not a great fan but I think the incredible complexities of handling an army of that size meant that mistakes were inevitable. The fact that the German army was also a good one is, I think, generally ignored by many.

There were no overall commanders in the armies of the other nations who did any better in limiting casualties - and several did a lot worse.

Haig appears to have been a rather dour individual - certainly not of the 'I want us to be mates' school of man management but that was hardly the style in those days anyway.

I cannot believe that anyone who has been around the cemteries of France and Flanders really buys in fully to The Lions led by Donkeys theory - the graves of Battalion commanders and upwards put paid to that lie.

Neil

[Kate Wills]

an open mind

This is the key.

Oh, that all personal prejudices and preconceptions could be abandoned at the classroom door.

[Andrew Hesketh]

Still, it can always be closed!

Let's hope that it does not become necessary.

[George Armstrong Custer]

I debated in my own mind whether to add a third reason for my "Damascus". That is the report of the number of his former men who turned out wherever he went, and particularly for his funeral. If their opinion was for him, and they served alongside those who died, I find it difficult to lend credence to the the "Lions and Donkeys" theory.

Yes, the huge turnout at Haig's death was such that it was remarked upon by many observers. In addition, in the years after 1918 and until his death in 1928, he travelled all over the country inaugurating new war memorials. The Haig papers in Edinburgh contain a total of 73 speeches made on these occasions from 1920 to 1925 alone. Each of these inaugurations was a major local public event, attracting considerable crowds and press attention. Many in these crowds were ex-servicemen, or the grieving families of the dead servicemen commemorated on the memorial Haig was inaugurating. Tellingly, there was no boycot of these ceremonies or catcalls from the crowd because those most affected deemed it inappropriate that Haig was invited to unveil these memorials to their former comrades or loved ones. And he continued to be invited by local communities to carry out this task until his death. This is why I say that the true 'revisionists' were those who sought to portray Haig as a 'butcher' - most stridently in the middle years of last century - and that the current academic assessment of Haig's wartime achievement is more in line with the way he was regarded by the British public during the war and for over a decade after it.

ciao,

GAC

[stevem49]

As an ex-serviceman I disliked the majority if not all the officers I met. My view coloured by the muppets I had to serve under. I therefore was happy to believe that Haig and his ilk were indeed Donkeys. I then undertook to read widely on the subject and also study personal accounts from the 'great unwashed' who served under him. The majority of these saw him as a man who like them was imperfect. He made his mistakes but in the final analysis won the war.

Possibly if the Easterners such as Churchill had not interferred he may have won it earlier - but that is another argument to be had a some date

I also used to think that Churchill was a 'god' but the more I read the more I think he was a muppet.

stevem

[truthergw]

Greenwoodman, as Oscar Wilde said, " I wish I had said that". I would add only two items. One , I conversed with, worked alongside and listened to WW1 veterans. I cannot remember any that singled him out as a butcher or a bungler. They were not at all slow to criticise officers of all ranks and most were bitter at the deaths and the maiming but most put that down to the war. Their hatred and contempt were for the politicians who had led the country to war. Secondly, and a point which is touched on by another contributor. The idea that Haig or the rest of the senior command were Butchers and Bunglers is long dead. It was never seriously entertained by military historians. That argument is dead and gone and the quest for understanding has moved on. We should be looking at more productive areas of enquiry. The long running and fascinating thread on the fighting in 1917 ought to be the template for furure discussion. I am going to cheat and add a third point. It ought not to require pointing out but I fear it does. This is a Forum for discussion. You get up, say what you wish to say, I follow and so on. We share our knowledge and offer our opinions. If I disagree with your opinion so much the worse for me. I ought not to try to batter down all opinion bar mine. I am vouchsafed no more certainty than any other Pal. We are all entitled to share our opinion, none of us is entitled to try to force it on another.

[Alan Tucker]

reaching a peak during the 1950's and 60's through such diverse media as the works of a Marxist school of historians including AJP Taylor and Taylor's scurrilous and unpleasantly extreme-right-wing former student Alan Clark,

This was a decent post apart from this bit. A.J.P.Taylor a Marxist historian. Are you having a laugh! I don't think you can blame A.J.P.Taylor for Alan Clark either!

[Muerrisch]

still near enough a consensus. I expect it is because DH is not named in the title, which might in any case contain words too difficult for some.

[auchonvillerssomme]

I'm not entirely sure that being in the presence of veterans allows for determination of how effective a commander is, there are veterans of many conflicts on this site and I would guess that any 2 of them would have a difference of opinion about their particular war or what constututes a good commander.

Mick

[George Armstrong Custer]

QUOTE (Alan Tucker @ Feb 10 2008, 04:44 PM)

This was a decent post apart from this bit. A.J.P.Taylor a Marxist historian. Are you having a laugh! I don't think you can blame A.J.P.Taylor for Alan Clark either![/b]

This was a decent post apart from this bit. A.J.P.Taylor a Marxist historian. Are you having a laugh! I don't think you can blame A.J.P.Taylor for Alan Clark either!

Not having a laugh at all, Alan, Taylor's Marxist politics and long denial of the true nature of the Sovet Union is extensively documented. As an example, this is from a Guardian review of Taylor's most recent biographer, Chris Wrigley, in 2006:

There was also politics. Wrigley is excellent at tracing the ideological evolution of Taylor from his late Victorian liberal inheritance to doctrinaire Marxist to Labour party supporter and CND activist. At every stage, Taylor adopted the relevant party line with communist-like rigour. So much so that when his friend Malcolm Muggeridge reported in 1933 on the true state of Soviet Russia, Taylor responded: "I really would like to say what terrible grief and pain your late articles about Russia cause your friends, but then what's the good? We all have to do pretty unpleasant things to raise money ..."

As to Alan Clark, no I didn't 'blame' Taylor for Clark. How could I? Whilst Taylor admired Stalin, Clark was an admirer of Hitler! (Clark was also a lot of other things as well, which we can't go into here!) What I implied, in relation to Haig, however, was that as Taylor was Clark's tutor it is not unreasonable to suppose that their similar published views on Haig were imparted from tutor to student. Then, too, both Taylor and Clark's works were connected to Joan Greenwood, who produced Oh What a Lovely War.

ciao,

GAC

[johnreed]

History was written 1914-1918, why do people try to rewrite it 90 years on.

John

[Chris_Baker]

An interesting thread. When I first began to become interested in the Great War - in adult life - I too was of the lions/donkeys/butchers/bunglers school. I do not know how I had formed that opinion. I was taught nothing at all about 1914-1918 at school and had read very little about it (I had read much more on WW2 at that stage). So what was it? It can only have been from newspapers, TVs, radio. There was no other influence on me. One of the things I recollect was seeing, probably at Remembrance Sundays, TV images of the war cemeteries. Got to be bad, that, surely?

But as my interest developed I read a great deal more, started looking at primary sources and also visited France and Flanders a lot. I got involved with the Western Front Association and was lucky enough to hear some great speakers and meet some of the great historians. I spent time with John Terraine, Corelli Barnett, John Bourne and others. My mind changed completely.

But now I find myself beginning to question some aspects of the "learning curve" and of the performance of some of the British politicians and military leaders. I have said before that I recently completed my MA in British First World War history and my dissertation was on the Supreme War Council. Many of the staff that was assembled there (by Henry Wilson) were extremely bright, capable people: two examples being Hereward Wake and Leo Amery. They challenged the status quo and formulated an entirely different concept of how the war should be conducted - and in reading their papers, reports and correspondence, I guess some of it has rubbed off onto me. Haig was largely resistant to their thinking as indeed was Petain. Foch grasped it.

I'm also doing quite a lot of work on the "Hundred Days" campaign right now and I have to say that while it was a crushing defeat of the German army there is enough to keep me intrigued and puzzled as to whether it could have been done any better. I hope to write a few papers on it over the next year or two.

[truthergw]

Since I was the only poster to mention having conversed with veterans, I assume you are referring to my post. I did not accredit the men I talked with with any views on the efficiency of the commanders, I said that they blamed the deaths and injuries suffered by their friends and themselves on having been in a war. They took it for granted that when men go to war, they will be killed and maimed. I trust that that is an opinion that all people share whether they are veterans of a conflict or not. To enlarge on their attitude, they thought that officers put the success of an action above the human cost. To quote one of them, " They all wanted to be f***ing heroes and thought that us poor ba**rds should be the same". " He ( An officer) was a dangerous bas***d , desperate for a medal". I have cleaned up the language a bit, there is no benefit to be gained from repetition. They saw the war from their own very limited perspective. Most of the time they had very little idea of what was going on outside their own very limited area. That is why I am always loathe to trust anecdotal evidence. Politically, however, these men were nobody's fools. They had fought through one war, survived another and lived through a very hard time for working men like them, in between. They had no doubt in their minds as to who was to blame for the wars that they had to fight and it was not the soldiers.

[David Filsell]

Sound thread this, lacking in the customary Haig vituperation and spleen. Just how welcome is that? - and not just because I agree with so much that has been said. I too moved into the pro camp largely as a result of my own reading and research into the man. The comments on revisionism seem sound to me too. It is, I think, re-revisionism. Certainly John Laffin, with whom I debated Haig, always struck me as far less learned than I had expected - but he was above all a extremely prolific professional author who knew which way his bread was buttered and was writing in a time when donkyism was King. Clarke has always seemed to me to be, amongst other far less pleasant things, a mere contraversialist who knew how to sell books. I don't get the feeling that either did much original or deep research on Haig. With the amount of research into virtually all aspects of the war in recent years it seems essential to remain open minded. Bearing in mind the rider about veterans, I too never met one who had less than a (varying) degree of respect for the 'Field Marshal'. Above all, one fact remains that, in John Terraine's words Haig "beat the main enemy on the main battlefield" in WWI - the only other British commanders to achieve that were Marlborough and Wellington. For information I believe another new biography of Haig is in course of publication by Johm Harris, which, one military historian for whom I have great respect, says is excellent. The debate will of course continue, but along with debates about Bishop, the performance of individual divisions and much else, its one that I firmly stay out of. To many numpties out there, and dammned rude numpties at that!

Regards

Davd

[shinglma]

It would be more accurate to call AJP Taylor a socialist historian rather than a Marxist one and even that is stretching things a little. Together with many Labour supporters of the period he wanted closer ties with Soviet Russia but he was fiercely critical of Stalinism many years earlier than the British Marxist historians with which you compare his.

I can think of no aspects of his philosophy of history which coincide with any element of Marxist historiography. There is no evidence that he believed in dialectical materialism, class struggle or economic determinism; all of which may be found in the writings of the British Marxist historians, Hobsbawm, Thompson and Hill. On the contrary his work on German history was based on the Germanophobic view that Nazism was the inevitable culmination of German social and cultural tradition - hardly a Marxist position.

It would be more accurate to see Taylor as an individualist, tilting at orthodoxies (as he saw them). I'm not a fan of his work, much of which seems to me to be controversially populist for the sake of it. It's said that he wished to popularise history amongst the general public but its always seemed to me he was more keen on popularising Alan Taylor than anything else.

Mike S

[Al Parsons]

I also used to think that Churchill was a 'god' but the more I read the more I think he was a muppet.

stevem

In WW2, he was a God, if a slightly flawed one.

In The Great War, muppet works for me. I really do think that his weaknesses outweighed his strengths. IMHO of course.

[auchonvillerssomme]

History was written 1914-1918, why do people try to rewrite it 90 years on.

John

seconded

Mick

[salesie]

I too sit in the middle when it comes to Haig - but I've never been a member of the ee-aw brigade, even as a schoolboy in the 1950's/60's I reasoned that we won so they couldn't be complete donkeys.

However, I'm on record in this forum as being just as uneasy with the devout "revisionists" (sorry about the tag, but it's stuck and won't be changed now) as I am with the ee-aw brigade. In my opinion, the extreme wings of both these "religions" paint false images. The ee-aw's see Haig as the devil himself but the "revisionist faithful" see him as "God", the man who won the war.

I think we all know, by heart, the detailed ee-aw arguments, so I'll briefly expand on my unease with the "devout revisionist" position:

1) Military operations on the Western Front, though vitally important, were not by themselves war-winning. Consequently, Haig was not the sole architect of victory - but one of the team.

2) Virtually ignoring the extremely important naval contribution paints a false image of how the war was won - because here lies another architect in the team. Just a quick thought as to what would have happened without the naval campaign soon shows how the BEF would have had a very different war.

3) Completely ignoring the propaganda/subversion campaign conducted by British Military Intelligence (its like never seen before or since) misses yet another in the team. Bit harder to criticise for missing this one, though - seeing as most intelligence work is secret by definition - but the evidence is there if inclined to look.

4) By regarding the politicians simply as incompetents who interfered with "God's" work misses the importance of the chief architect, especially in a democracy; they're the ones who kept the whole thing running, not just the Western Front - and despite my dislike of saying so, they're the ones, despite their apparent flaws (just as Haig had flaws), who made it possible for Britain to wage total-war and to eventually win the bloody thing.

Cheers-salesie.

[George Armstrong Custer]

However, I'm on record in this forum as being just as uneasy with the devout "revisionists" (sorry about the tag, but it's stuck and won't be changed now) as I am with the ee-aw brigade. In my opinion, the extreme wings of both these "religions" paint false images. The ee-aw's see Haig as the devil himself but the "revisionist faithful" see him as "God", the man who won the war.

Hi Salesie,

Interesting post. Anti-Haig polemicists - particularly those at the tail end of that historiographical phase, such as John Laffin and Dennis Winter - certainly often exhibit a degree of personal venom towards their target which might fairly provoke the supposition that they saw Haig as 'the devil incarnate.' I have to say though that I can't personally see a case for there being a polemic opposite to the writers of the 'Donkeys' school which can fairly be portrayed as going so far as to see Haig as 'God.' To be honest, I can't think of a single book which might reasonably be claimed to portray Haig in such hagiographic terms as to warrant that description. Terraine is often described by those who detest Haig and all he stood for as an attempt to raise Haig to the sainthood, but realistically I seriously doubt those who resort to such hyperbole have actually read Terraine through. He is certainly not uncritical of Haig. Maybe I'm missing something and you can point me to writers who might fairly be described of following a 'religion' which sees Haig as infallably God-like?

ciao,

GAC