The Haig Gallery, Museum of Edinburgh

[George Armstrong Custer]

Those for whom distance prohibits a personal visit may be interested in the photo gallery of Haig exhibits at the Museum of Edinburgh which we have put up here: Haig Gallery

George

[ander11]

Hello George

Many thanks for letting us see those great pictures, living in England I don't really get up to Edinburgh where I was born

Cheer's George and Happy New Year to you

Ian

[Ice Tiger]

Great pictures George & I am pleased to see the last photo demonstrating that they will let anyone in to view the collection.

Andy

[Edit] on a more serious note is there an on line list and description available of the items in the case; photo six?

[Guest]

Thanks for that George, and a Happy New Year to you. Both dummies pretty unconvincing.

Mike

[Ian Riley]

Thanks very much for these. Comment regarding order of knighthood robes posted on site

Ian

[truthergw]

Great series of pics, George.

[George Armstrong Custer]

Thanks to all for your kind comments, and I reciprocate the New Year's greetings. There's a couple of more photos I'll add to the album when I get a moment - we only took them on Friday afternoon. And I know Pete Hart has some to add, too - we found that his phone camera, pressed flat against the display case glass, got better results on some images than the full size digital camera I was using.

Andy, there's not an online list of the Haig collection at the moment, I'm afraid. However we did have a chat with Denise Brace, curator at the museum. The good news is that she and her team are currently at work digitising the antiquated card index of the Haig collection (over 1,000 items), and at the same time checking for any cataloguing errors. This work is being done in anticipation of a boom in interest and enquiries as the Great War centenaries approach. They hope to have completed the digitised catalogue of the Haig collection in a matter of weeks. Whether that will go online will be dependent upon resources, but we will be endeavouring to get a complete listing put up on our Haig FB page once it becomes available.

Mike, you're not wrong about the dummies - though I reckon the one in Haig's uniform looks a damned sight more lifelike than the one doing a teapot impression beside Haig's photo on the staircase.

Ian R - mea culpa. Well spotted, and duly corrected.

George

[hazelclark]

Thankyou George! Like Ian, i was born in Edinburgh but now live elsewhere (Canada) However, I make a point of visiting Edinburgh every time I go home. Now I have somewhere else to visit as well as my annual visit to the National Gallery. Not sure yet about my opinion of Haig though!

Best wishes for 2012

Hazel C.

Those for whom distance prohibits a personal visit may be interested in the photo gallery of Haig exhibits at the Museum of Edinburgh which we have put up here: Haig Gallery

George

[squirrel]

Thanks for posting these George - excellent idea.

[Khaki]

I found the B&W photo of FM Haig's study at Bemersyde more than interesting, I wish I could see the room from other perspectives. Apart from maybe a G98?? and personal effects the room does not reflect the worlds greatest conflict. I would have expected.maybe a Guards Pickelhaube. From what I could see most of the relics related to earlier conflicts. Does anyone know what the room contains today that reminds us of it's famous occupant.

khaki

[George Armstrong Custer]

I've begun an album of pictures which give additional perspectives of Haig's study at Bemersyde, both as it appeared when used by him, and its subsequent appearance when used by his son Dawyck Haig as an artist's studio until the latter's death in June 2009: Haig's study at Bemersyde. Currently Bemersyde has been emptied of much of its contents and is locked up.

George

[Khaki]

Thank you George for this very interesting post and the update on the FM's room, I certainly would enjoy seeing further images of the room as it appeared during his lifetime.

I find that reading about the postwar lives of the 'Great Ones' on both sides provides a more complete dimensional picture of the personality behind the uniform. It's a shame that there are no recordings of his speeches.

khaki

[Ian Riley]

Very grateful for this and for your efforts (and those of your bag-carrying assistant) to record for posterity

Ian

[jacksdad]

Hi George

I came across this diary entry a few years ago at the NZ national archives in Wellington, i read your comment on the cartoon of Haig on your facebook link - i thought this first extract may be interesting to you and your work on Haig.

Alexander Turnbull Library collections

Ref: MSX-7716 - Dale Family Papers.

'Diary 1918 IV'

page 330-331. entry for 21 August 1918.

"In the Middle of the morning a sudden rumour spread rapidly round the countryside that Doug Haig would pass along the road in a few minutes. Evidently some bright boy had telephoned the news ahead. We all made one big rush for the road and by the time we arrived there were thousands of fellows on either side. We took up our position opposite the baths. Shortly after a car was seen coming along the road from the direction of Couins, it carried the black and red pendant of the commander in chief. Soon we could see his stiff, thick figure and the well known features looked out upon us from the righthand window of the car. Everyone stood to attention as the car went slowly along the road while Doug saluted his soldiers continuously. He never smiled but looked solemn. Doubless the responsibility of his great position and continuous fight, not only with the Germans, but with our own politician isenough to make any man look grave."

The next day he records a different view of the war and perhaps a view that he saw a difference between Haig and Higher command. perhaps to the man in the trench Haig was above the blunders and higher command to blame. maybe Haig was seen as a figure head above the reproach of doubt and fault.

They seem to be bivied in a Valley near Couin at the time, next to a mounted regiment of 'Scots Greys' with 'Beautiful dappled grey horses' whom they made great friends with in the days before, the diary entry for the following day records that the 'ragged' remains of the regiment of scots greys returned from the front. "what a lesson the Huns had taught them, But the Hun had taught the British the same lesson at the Somme and at Messine and at other places, but higher command or whoever is responcible still remains unconvinced, but at what expense, at what suffering and useless sacrifice... we could hardly recognise the few stragglers were all that was left out of two regiments... rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat of the machine guns and the mowing down of the horses and men. ...why does higher command send horse soldiers to face modern machine guns and barbed wire?"

i like the kiwi tendancy to shorten names and drop titles: "Doug Haig".

Cheers Roger

[George Armstrong Custer]

Interesting excerpts, Roger, thanks. The first is yet another nail in the coffin of the hoary old myth that the rank and file didn't have a clue who the C-in-C was. The reference to "thousands of fellows" rushing to line the sides of the road to see Haig go by is reminiscent of the Australian Frank Fox's account of the reaction to one of Haig's infrequent visits to the administrative offices of GHQ, which were based at the Ecole Militaire in Montreuil-sur-Mer:

"When 'the Chief' did appear at Montreuil all felt they had the right to desert work for five minutes to go to a window to catch a glimpse of him as he passed from one side of the Ecole Militaire to the other, or stopped in the great courtyard to chat for a moment with one of his officers."

That much of the quoted account seems consistent with and corroborated by independent contemporary evidence of the interest generated amongst all ranks by the appearance of the C-in-C.

But if the second quote which you give has the meaning which your paraphrasing of it seems to give, then I'd say the writer would most certainly have to be including Haig in his criticism of the "higher command." That doesn't quite square, as you note, with the writer's first passage, where he empathises with Haig's great responsibility, hampered by politicians at home whilst contending with his main task of defeating the German army. Without seeing the quotes in their full context, I'm not sure what to make of the apparently contradictory views.

I do think, however, that the writer's references to the 'uselessness' of cavalry betrays a total lack of awareness of the role actually performed by that arm in August 1918. You don't give the diarist's name, do you know what his rank and unit were? Certainly the reference to the 'ragged' remains of the Scots Greys returning from the front and the comment "what a lesson the Hun taught them" doesn't square with anything in the regimental record for 22 -23 August 1918. Neither the OH, nor Badsey or Kenyon reference the Greys suffering any such devastation in action at any time in 1918, let alone August. The OH does, however, reference a typical cavalry action, involving the Greys, of 9 August 1918:

"The 5th Cavalry Brigade (Br.-General N W Haig), sent to the right flank, was unable to make any forward movement from le Quenel until 3.30 pm, when two advanced squadrons of the R. Scots Greys, with three whippets, followed the infantry into Beaufort and beyond."

In other words, all-arms co-operation is the order of the day - not 'useless' charges against 'rat-tat-tat-tat' machine guns as the diarist believes. To stay with the OH for a moment. It records the following for 3rd September 1918 - ie some 11 days after the diarist has them returning from the front as 'ragged remains':

"In the 42nd Division, the 125th Brigade (Br.-General H Fergus), with one troop of the Royal Scots Greys, attacked through the 127th Brigade, and by 9 pm reached its objective, the trench system east of Ytres....."

Beyond this, however, the diary account of the Scot's Grey returning as ragged remnants from the front around 23 August is undermined by the regimental history, written by Charles Grant and Michael Youens, which notes that during the first month of the 'Hundred Days' - ie August to September 1918 - the Greys rarely operated as a unit, but as detachments carrying out an array of functions included scouting, liaison duties and patrolling as part of a co-ordinated all-arms approach. This continued throughout the 'Hundred Days'. For instance, Archibald Montgomery's 'The Story of the Fourth Army' notes for October 18th 1918:

"In spite of the close nature of the country very useful reconnaissance work was done during the day by two squadrons of the Royal Scots Greys, one of which was attached to the 1st and one to the 46th Division."

And for 9th November - two days before the end:

"On the evening of November 8th infantry patrols along the whole army front reported that touch with the enemy's rearguards had been lost. Accordingly, at dawn on the 9th, the cavalry - Royal Scots Greys, 20th Hussars, and 12th Lancers - moved forward and gained touch with them at Sivty and along the Thure. They were supported by infantry, which reached Sains-du-Nord, Semeries, Felleries, Solre-le-Cateau, and Solrinnes."

In short, then, the Kiwi diarist, as quoted, hasn't got a clue about the work of the cavalry in 1918, with his talk of the 'ragged return' of the Greys from the front in August and 'a few stragglers from two regiments'. It didn't happen. It follows, therefore, that his talk of 'higher command' stubbornly refusing to learn the harsh lessons repeatedly taught by the Hun by continuing to send cavalry units like the Greys to be uselessly decimated by 'rat-tat-tat' machine guns is equally nonsense. Ironically, what did decimate the Scots Greys in 1918 was not 'rat-tat-tat' Hun machine guns, but influenza - which broke out and spread like wildfire through the regiment soon after they crossed the Sambre at the start of November. The outbreak rapidly reduced them to one composite company of men healthy enough to fight - but by then the war was over.

Anyway, for those interested, we've finally managed to upload and caption Pete Hart's photos to add to our Haig Gallery at the Museum of Edinburgh feature: Haig Gallery

George