Why have attitudes to Haig changed so much over time? 1940s: Winston Churchill praises Haig for being ‘like a great surgeon’ 1990s: A campaign is launched to get Haig’s name removed from the centre of the poppies sold to raise money. It is successful. 1916: First day of the Battle of the Somme 60,000 British Casualties 1921: Retires from the army after setting up the Royal British Legion 1928: Haig dies. 200,000 soldiers file past his coffin in respect. 1960 & 70s: With the rise of CND and the carnage of the Vietnam War, Haig is once again seen as a butcher. 1914 2008 1950s: Post World War Two, people are more interested in building a new Britain ‘fit for heroes’. 1918 Armistice 1927-1933: Owen’s and Sassoon’s War poems are release and the first anti-First World War books are released; ‘All Quiet on the Western Front ‘ & ‘Goodbye to All That’ . 2008: Douglas Haig and the First World War, published today on the 90th anniversary of the Armistice. Very critical of Haig. 1915 Appointed commander 1930s: Lots of old, injured soldiers on the streets. High unemployment.

What happened to this historian’s views? There as hardly been a finer defensive general… As a great gentleman, also in the widest sense, and as a pattern of noble character, Haig will stand out in the Roll of History, chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, (knight without fear and without reproach )more spotless by far than most of Britain ’s national heroes. Basil Liddell Hart, Reputations (1928) That an officer who had fought so nobly as Lieutenant JA Raws, should, in the last letter before his death, speak of the “murder” of many of his friends “through incompetence, callousness, and personal vanity of those in high authority”, is evidence… of something much amiss in the higher leadership. Basil Liddell Hart, The Real War (1930, page 263)     Liddell Hart’s opinion of Haig continued to fall until, in a diary entry in 1935, he could write: He [Haig] was a man of supreme egoism and utter lack of scruple – who, to his over-weaning ambition, sacrificed hundreds of thousands of men. A man who betrayed even his most devoted assistants as well as the Government which he served. A man who gained his ends by trickery of a kind that was not merely immoral but criminal. Diary note (1935)       

Haig! You’re the family of an ‘Old Soldier’ who has seen action in the trenches and lost a lot of friends in the First World War. Your family are from the 1960s and believe in CND and therefore peace. You are a modern military historian who understands the difficulties of fighting wars and how new the trenches were in warfare. You’re the family of a Second World War Prime Minister. You understand needed his country to focus on successful battles in Britain’s past to encourage people that Britain could win the Second World War. Haig! You’re from post war family who respected the past but your tired of war and want to look forward to prosperity and peace. You’re grandfather and grandmother were writing between the wars as new details of the horrors of the front become public they began to question their own beliefs and the abilities of the generals during WW1. Where do you stand and why?

Books on Haig - the Haig Debate http://www.johndclare.net/wwi3_HaigHistoriography.htm Haig-Debate http://www.gwpda.org/comment/haig-debate.html