Douglas Haig`s Birthday

[PhilB]

As was suggested in the Auspicious Day thread, today is Douglas Haig`s birthday.

"I could not have done what he has. I knew he was the only man to command the army. I might have had the command myself but I knew he was the better man." Robertson to Esher.

"He was no genius but he was certainly no dunce either" Both quotes from "Lloyd George and the Generals" By David Woodward, p76.

[squirrel]

RIP Lord Haig - Those two quotes about sum him up IMHO.

[George Armstrong Custer]

Here's to Sir Douglas - co-architect with Haldane (who was born a few doors down from Haig Towers in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square) of the army reforms and, in his own right, the final Victory of 1918.

[truthergw]

There were many self proclaimed military geniuses on the side he defeated. I suspect he was clever enough to never let being a genius get in the way of what he had to do. He won the war and outsmarted a political genius who swept all before him, from before the war untill well after it. A Prime Minister who could and did defy the king and the high command but could not get the better of the Field Marshal. If that is not genius, I do not know what is. And so good at it that people thought he was nothing special. The hallmark of true genius I believe. His tragedy was to be outlived by the politician, now himself yesterday's man and who sought to justify his mishandling of the war in 1918 by demeaning and traducing the memories and reputations of the Generals he had let down.

[squirrel]

George and Tom,

agree with both of you on this.