Haig's Post War 'Rewards' ?

[Muerrisch]

The French General Mangin said

WHATEVER YOU DO, YOU LOSE A LOT OF MEN.

[phil andrade]

Mangin....yes, French equivalent of Patton !

I would select Nathan Bedford Forrest's comment " War means fighting, and fighting means killing."

Or we could reduce it to that irritating but profoundly correct adage " You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" .

Haig lacked the gift of the gab. His reputation has suffered as a result.

Phil (PJA)

[PhilB]

I think you will find that about one in eight of the men who served in the UK armed forces died 1914-18.

Phil (PJA)

Would it be reasonable to include in "loss of manhood" those who were sufficiently damaged, mentally or physically, to be no longer fully effective members of society?

[phil andrade]

Would it be reasonable to include in "loss of manhood" those who were sufficiently damaged, mentally or physically, to be no longer fully effective members of society?

Would it be reasonable to include in "loss of manhood" those who were sufficiently damaged, mentally or physically, to be no longer fully effective members of society?

Yes, why not ?

Worse than decimation, then.

And so it went for Britain.

Imagine the French ordeal.

Phil (PJA)

[kenneth505]

How come we never pile on John French during these threads?

[hazelclark]

How come we never pile on John French during these threads?

Probably because he was kicked out, was not hailed as a hero and then reviled as a butcher, then have some historians try to restore his reputation.

Hazel

[SiegeGunner]

Equally, and perhaps even more tellingly, why are none of the Army commanders, Plumer, Rawlinson, Gough, Horne, Byng, similarly reviled? Did they have no role in the formation and execution of Haig's policies and plans?

[Jack Sheldon]

Mick, it is probably lack of awareness of who they were, coupled with barely the haziest notion of what they did or where it occurred. Rawlinson does tend to get rolled in the barrel by clever clogs journalists writing generally ill-considered pieces about the Battle of the Somme, but again it is probably more to do with the fact that they have found out that he was in charge there on 1 Jul 16, than any attempt at genuine analysis of his actions.

Jack

[paulgranger]

Mick, it is probably lack of awareness of who they were, coupled with barely the haziest notion of what they did or where it occurred. Rawlinson does tend to get rolled in the barrel by clever clogs journalists writing generally ill-considered pieces about the Battle of the Somme, but again it is probably more to do with the fact that they have found out that he was in charge there on 1 Jul 16, than any attempt at genuine analysis of his actions.

Jack

The latest example of that was The Independent the other day. You may, of course, be referring to that!

[squirrel]

Equally, and perhaps even more tellingly, why are none of the Army commanders, Plumer, Rawlinson, Gough, Horne, Byng, similarly reviled? Did they have no role in the formation and execution of Haig's policies and plans?

Quite right and as has also been said Loyd George "shifted" the blame on Haig.

[Jack Sheldon]

Paul, you have inspired me to go and look it up. Sounds as though it may be painful reading.

[phil andrade]

Sad to say, Haig - by today's lights - was guilty of an unforgivable sin : he was boring.

As a people, we British are a distracted multitude - we shouldn't put so much store by personality ; but we do.

We like our military heroes to provide us with interesting vignettes of their personal conduct.

" Corporal John " Churchill, with his boudoir adventures and his devious political conduct ; The Iron Duke - " By Gad ! She's grown ugly ! " , or saying, at Salamanca . " That will do !" and throwing a chicken bone over his shoulder as he seizes the moment presented by flawed French deployment.....

Bill Slim, bulldog jawed paternalist ; even Monty, considered by many to be an obnoxious squirt....they reach out and grab the popular imagination.

Casualties ? How about Malplaquet, Badajoz, or even Waterloo itself ? Bloodbaths of the worst kind. Not to mention wastage among the rifle companies in Normandy in 1944.

Haig doesn't get a look in when it comes to personality folklore. Dull as ditchwater. Perhaps a reputation for slow horses and fast women might have helped.

But he was successful, and competent, and - as The Iron Duke might have said - " That is something".

Phil (PJA)

[SiegeGunner]

Quite right and as has also been said Lloyd George "shifted" the blame on Haig.

I wonder, sometimes, whether LG's real reason for not replacing Haig was that he knew that the likes of Robertson or Plumer would not make credible scapegoats.

[Steven Broomfield]

Paul, you have inspired me to go and look it up. Sounds as though it may be painful reading.

I find The Independent normally is.

[Muerrisch]

Please what is this Independent, pray?

[towisuk]

Please what is this Independent, pray?

The Independent is a newspaper that tends to give balanced views on the news, far, far better than the other propaganda rags that the majority tend to read....

regards

Tom

[keithmroberts]

Gents, the Indie was not published in any form during the Great War, being a more recent creation. It is therefore off topic .Can we please either leave this thread to meander to its end, or failing that stick to relevant comment.

Keith Roberts

[nigelcave]

Can we agree:

1. Haig got his financial award and his peerage at the end of the Great War, in 1919; this was in line with previous custom. Bemersyde I think came from public subscription - but whatever. For whatever reason that suited the mores of the age and was pretty uncontroversial at the time - probably it would be fair to say was generally welcomed and accepted as merited.

2. By and large, the wounded, the widowed, the crippled, the fatherless received inadequate (to put it mildly) pensions. On the other hand, this was an improvement from the extremely low base that had been the lot of serviemen in previous conflicts.

3. That was then. By 1945 things had changed considerably for the better - but far from an abundance of financial remuneration/compensation etc.

4. It seems pretty pointless to examine historical events, such as the grant that Haig got, in the light of what we all ernestly hope is a much improved, more equitable system a hundred years later. Why stop with 1919, for example? Boer War awards (and treatment of veterans); army and navy pensions in general; the treatment of the men of the Napoleonic wars - and so it goes on.

[Muerrisch]

OK Keith [but was not the Indy born from the wreck of the Grauniad?]

Back to topic.

I am reading David Owen's The Hidden Perspective: the Military Conversations 1906-1914.

It is a bit turgid [i.e. he does not write like what I write] but apparently [plausibly] the blame for The Great War is to be shared by Earl Grey and some fairly senior [but not DH] generals and colonels in the war office. I quote from the dust-jacket:

Britain, heretofore the balancer of the balance of power, transformed itself into a direct participant in the power politics of the Continent. The decision, taken essentially in secret by military staffs, was all the more fateful because it induced rigidity in two ways. In their strategic planning, France and Russia counted on British support; Germany half-convinced itself of British neutrality ..................... Britain weakened its capacity to induce restraint by being taken for granted by one side even as the other discounted its deterrence.

The logic that follows [this is Grumpy] seems to be that had it not been for the above, Germany does what it did in August, we sit on our hands, we expand the army rapidly, we tell Germany to back off [fail], we impose naval blockade of German ports and shipping, and either wait until it sorts itself out or use the RN to ensure a massive landing or threat of landing via Schleswig or Denmark and make Germany fight on three fronts.

All of which ignores the treaty with Belgium [much like everybody else did].

This scenario avoids above-said decimation, although the RN would certainly lose ships and men, and gets DH off a sharp stick.

So the villains WERE the military after all [the Cabinet and the Prime Minister were kept well in the dark until 1911 by which time any backsliding on the understanding with France would have made them very anti-British].

Edited 31 May , 2014 by Keith Roberts
Comment relating to current affairs deleted

[Muerrisch]

That stunned them into silence .......

[PhilB]

A few names would help! And is it feasible that "some fairly senior [but not DH] generals and colonels in the war office" would have the influence to do this? The "fairly" qualifier indicates that they weren`t the highest ranks.

[phil andrade]

Taken from Wikipedia..........

" Haig was created Earl Haig (with a subsidiary viscountcy and a subsidiary barony)^[224] and received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament and a grant of £100,000 to enable him to live in the style appropriate to a senior peer (he had asked for £250,000).^[225]"

^"he had asked for £250,000"

I don't know if this is true or not, but if it is I would consider it a sign of a man divorced from reality considering the suffering thousands of his troops went through after the war.

regards

Tom

Tom,

Do you feel that Haig should have declined any honours or awards, admitted himself culpable for the suffering and death of unimaginable numbers of people, and insisted on " falling on his sword", so to speak ?

Would that be the action of a man wedded to reality ?

And how many other soldiers, statesman and politicians do you believe should have followed his example ?

This might appear adversarial in tone ; if so, please forgive me.....too many of us are getting touchy in tone of late !

Phil (PJA)

[keithfazzani]

The reference in Wikipaedia (225) takes you to the London Gazette where there is no mention of money at all. So where did the writer of the text in Wikipaedia get this information from. Without a source document it is simply hearsay.

[Muerrisch]

A few names would help! And is it feasible that "some fairly senior [but not DH] generals and colonels in the war office" would have the influence to do this? The "fairly" qualifier indicates that they weren`t the highest ranks.

Major-General Grierson was a leading light on the British side, responding to a French initiative, and the War Office and Grey gradually became sucked in, totally without Cabinet approval ............ the Cabinet was appalled when it found out in 1911.

Not only feasible, it happened, and Owen's book prints huge extracts from the period correspondence.

[PhilB]

Thanks, Grumpy.

On the original question, in his book on Haig, Harris says that "Lady Haig had doubts about Haig`s accepting a large financial grant" and that Lord Murray of Elibank, who had known DH at GHQ, "had taken the extraordinary step of writing to Haig counselling against such an award. Haig had, Murray argued, saved the nation in war. He might be required to save it again in a troubled peace. Murray, however believed that the working classes deeply resented the inequality that grants of this sort represented and, for the sake of maintaining his moral authority and influence, pleaded that Haig should reject it. Haig responded that he had refused to accept any reward until he could be sure that ex-soldiers would be looked after. But 'had no wish to appear to be setting myself up as superior to all the rest, and too superior to accept reward.'"