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Book Overview
Douglas Haig's career is at the center of a debate concerning the nature of the Great War. Traditionalists contend that, like the majority of general from both sides, he was a hidebound relic of a bygone age who could not come to grips with modern war and sent his soldiers "over the top" in futile attacks, with a criminal disregard for the enormous cost in lives. Indeed, under Haig's leadership, the British Expeditionary Force fought its two signature battles of the war at the Somme and Passchendaele, earning him a reputation as a "butcher and bungler." A revisionist school now contends that wartime leaders, including Haig, inaugurated a phenomenal period of innovation, one that laid the foundations for modern warfare. This learning curve led from the killing fields of the Somme to the protoblitzkrieg tactics of the Hundred Days Battles. While the Hundred Days Battles often go unnoticed or unappreciated in the history of World War I, obscured as they were by the failures of earlier campaigns, here modern war came of age. Haig's role in that transformation makes him the central figure of the war on the western front.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:1574886843
ISBN13:9781574886849
Release Date:July 2005
Publisher:Potomac Books
Length:142 Pages
Weight:0.40 lbs.
Dimensions:0.5" x 5.1" x 8.0"
Customer Reviews
1 rating
A Good Introduction
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 17 years ago
Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig is one of the most controversial commanders of the First World War and indeed of all British history. Was he a military genius without the resources that he needed or was a military incompetent of the first order? According to Andrew Wiest, in this short study of Haig's years on the western front, he was more of the former than the latter. Wiest, however, is not offering some kind of sanitized version of history. He realizes and has no problem showing when and where his subject blundered. His coverage is through and his prose is easy to follow. This book makes for a nice introduction on the topic of Sir Douglas. Highly recommended.
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