He presided over both the best and worst days of the war for the British Army, earning him praise as the ‘man who won the war’ as well as the nickname ‘Butcher Haig’. Unsurprisingly, his legacy has been somewhat mixed as a result.

However, Haig had a long and distinguished military career prior to World War One, and he continued to campaign for ex-servicemen long after he had retired. Here are 10 facts about Douglas ‘Butcher’ Haig.

1. He had a privileged upbringing

Born in Edinburgh, the son of a whisky baron and gentry, Haig had a thorough education. He studied in Scotland, Clifton College in Bristol and later at Brasenose College, Oxford.

At Oxford, Haig showed sporting prowess and was a member of the infamous Bullingdon Club. He decided to train as a British Army officer at the military academy, Sandhurst, following his final exams. He passed – placing first in the order of merit – and was commissioned as a lieutenant into the 7th Hussars in February 1885.

2. He travelled a lot in his early years as an officer

In his early years as an officer, Haig was stationed in India. He eventually earned a promotion to captain before returning to England.

In 1898, he was hand-picked to join Lord Kitchener in a campaign in the Mahdist War in Sudan: Haig was required to join the Egyptian Army (a formality) in order to serve.

He saw plenty of action and commanded a squadron of his own, launching several important attacks and offensives. Haig was, at least in part, there to report on Kitchener, who he had plenty of criticism for. He was promoted to the position of brevet major on his return to England in 1898.

Photograph of the young Douglas Haig as an officer with the 7th Hussars.

Image Credit: National Library of Scotland / Public Domain

3. He served in the Second Boer War

The Second Boer War erupted in 1899 after diamonds and gold were found on Boer land in South Africa. It has become known as one of the most destructive wars fought by the British: the brutal conflict saw the implementation of scorched earth policies and the introduction of internment camps (also referred to as concentration camps) with extremely high mortality rates.

Haig escaped the town of Ladysmith on the last train before it was besieged by the Boers, and went on to command a cavalry brigade, and later an all-arms force and column. As per the norms of the time, he burned farmsteads as part of a scorched earth policy and rounded up Boer women and children to send to British-run concentration camps.

His service saw him showered in praise, earning him several mentions in despatches, an appointment to the role of Companion of the Order of the Bath and a promotion to the role of lieutenant colonel. Haig’s time in the Boer War, which involved plenty of guerrilla warfare,  led him to hold the belief that cavalry was more important than artillery: a belief which, when acted upon during World War One, would cost the lives of thousands of soldier.

4. His strengths lay in organisation and administration

In 1906, Haig was appointed Director of Military Training on the General Staff at Britain’s War Office: one of his colleagues described him as having a “first-rate general staff mind”. Having served in the Boer War, Haig was all too aware of Britain’s lack of a modern, healthy army.

He helped create a reformed, more professional, smaller army. It wasn’t the army Britain would need if it were required to fight a continental war (like that on the Western Front), but there was no pressing reason why that would be necessary at that point: the rumblings of the conflict that would become World War One were still far away.

He also helped create a new Territorial Force comprised of older ex-servicemen, 300,000 which could be drawn on in times of need. Haig also helped create an Expeditionary Force of 120,000 men, prioritising cavalry over infantry.

5. He became commander of the British Expeditionary Force in December 1915

Haig began World War One as a general and was one of those who believed the fighting would last weeks or months rather than years. He helped achieve a notable victory at the First Battle of Ypres and after another year of successful service and leadership, he was made Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (the 6 divisions of the British Army sent to the Western Front).

Haig hoped that in his new role, he would be able to oversee a more professional and efficient management of the war. He began by launching major offensives, most famously at the Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917).

6. Despite heavy losses, he helped bring an ultimate British victory

Haig’s offensives were undoubtedly bloody and brutal: millions of soldiers died on the Western Front, and many deem Haig’s directives to have caused an excessive and unnecessary loss of life.

Whilst the number of casualties (around 1 million soldiers fighting for the British Empire died) sustained on the Western Front was, and remains, unthinkably horrific, it proved a tough lesson for generals, including Haig, in the kind of tactics and warfare they would need to defeat the Germans: particularly with regards to the use of tanks, aircraft and creeping barrages.

7. Haig promoted the formation of the Army Dental Corps

Dentistry had originally belonged to a sub-section of medicine within the army, and there was virtually no specialised dental treatment available for soldiers: civilian dentists were sometimes contracted to help.

Haig reportedly suffered from severe toothache in the early years of World War One and was forced to summon a dentist from Paris to help. As a result, he ensured the army hired several dentists within months, and by 1918 they employed over 800 dentists. In 1921, the Army Dental Corps was formed as its own military division, separate from the general medical corps.

8. After the war, he spent his time improving the welfare of ex-servicemen

Haig was made an Earl in 1919. With the title, he was granted £100,000 to enable him to live in a way appropriate to a senior peer. He retired from service in 1922 and then devoted much of his time to highlighting the plight of ex-servicemen on a public platform and doing his best to ensure they were looked after. 

It was on his initiative that the Haig Fund and Haig Homes were set up, initiatives which provided financial assistance and adequate housing for ex-servicemen. Both organisations long outlasted Haig and helped thousands of ex-servicemen.

King George V and Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, photographed together in 1919.

9. At his funeral he was dubbed ‘the man who won the war’

In the years following the war Haig was widely remembered as the leader of the victorious British Army, and his reputation was golden. When he died of a heart attack in 1928, Haig was awarded a state funeral and American General John Pershing dubbed him the ‘man who won the war’.

10. He later became known as the ‘butcher of the Somme’

Haig’s actions and legacy were quickly reassessed following his death. Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and David Lloyd-George both criticised his willingness to send men into the face of enemy fire, acknowledging that Haig’s ‘tactics’ led to an excessive loss of life and weakened the Allies, hence the nickname the ‘butcher of the Somme‘.

Many also criticised his personal qualities, believing him to be egotistical, out of touch with the realities of modern warfare and not intellectually up to the task in front of him.

There have been some attempts to rehabilitate Haig in more recent years as some have acknowledged that high casualties were a feature of early 20th-century warfare, and Haig’s forces nonetheless played an important role in the Allied victory.

1. The Lancashire Fusiliers’ trench before the Battle of Albert

Lasting 2 weeks, the Battle of Albert was the first military engagement of the Somme, and witnessed some of worst casualties of the entire war.

2. Graffiti from soldiers waiting to attack at the Somme

In the hollowed out caverns below the battlefield, soldiers waiting to be sent above ground etched their names and messages into the walls.

3. Vickers machine gun crew wearing gas masks near Ovillers

The Vickers machine gun was employed by the British army throughout the First World War, and was based on the designs of the 19th-century Maxim gun. It required a team of 6-8 men to operate, with one acting as the gunner, another feeding in the ammunition, and the rest needed to carry all of the equipment.

4. Pals battalion troops from the East Yorkshire Regiment marching to the trenches near Doullen

At the start of the war, men were encouraged to sign up in Pals battalions, where they could volunteer to fight alongside their friends, neighbours, and colleagues. Many of these battalions served for the first time at the Somme, with tragically heavy casualties.

The 10th (Service) Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment, pictured here, spent the evening before the first day of the Somme cutting through British barbed wire to pave the way for their attack in the morning. Known as the Hull Pals, this battalion and 3 others like it would fight again at Oppy Wood in 1917.

The huge losses suffered by the Pals brigades at the Somme saw them largely disbanded in later years however, when conscription was introduced to breach the gap caused by waning morale.

5. Newfoundland Memorial Park on the Somme Battlefield

The Newfoundland Regiment fought their first major engagement on the Somme’s first day in July 1916. In just 20 minutes 80% of their force were killed or wounded, and out of 780 men only 68 were fit for duty the next day.

6. British Gunners watching German prisoners pass by following the Battle of Guillemont

The Battle of Guillemont took place from 3-6 September 1916, and saw the British at last secure the village of Guillemont after repeated attempts in earlier months. They then went on to take Leuze Wood, dubbed ‘Lousy Wood’ by the British soldiers, with the French also securing a number of villages in the area.

7. Danger Tree site and replica, Beaumont-Hamel Battlefield

The Danger Tree began its life amongst a cluster of trees located around halfway through No Man’s Land, and had been used by the Newfoundland Regiment as a landmark in the days before the Somme began.

During the fighting, German and British bombardment soon stripped it of its leaves, leaving only the bare trunk remaining. It continued to be used as a landmark by the Newfoundland Regiment however, with the Germans soon identifying it as a target. It then became a deadly spot for Allied troops to linger, affording it the nickname ‘Danger Tree’.

Today a replica remains at the site, with the scars of the battlefield evident in the surrounding area.

8. An early model British Mark I ‘male’ tank near Thiepval

Likely in reserve for the oncoming Battle of Thiepval Ridge on 26 September, this Mark I tank shows the early stages of British tank design. In later models, the ‘grenade shield’ atop the tank and the steering tail behind it would be removed.

9. Stretcher bearers at the Battle of Thiepval Ridge

Taking place in September, the Battle of Thiepval Ridge was a large offensive with mixed results for both sides. During the fighting, Britain experimented with new techniques in gas warfare, machine-gun bombardment, and tank-infantry co-operation.

10. Thiepval Memorial, France

At the end of the Somme, thousands of British and Commonwealth troops remained missing. Today, over 72,000 are commemorated at Thiepval Memorial, where each of their names are carved into the stone panels of the monument.

Britain’s entry into the war came on 4 August after the guarantee of Belgian sovereignty was broken by Germany. Many people were optimistic about the war and patriotic crowds gathered in major cities.

2. Signing up

The British army was not big enough for continental warfare – Britain had long relied on a large navy and small army to oversee the Empire. Lord Kitchener called for 200,000 men to sign up for the British army in the 1st month of the war – early optimism saw that some 300,000 men enlisted.

3. Retreat from Belgium

While early optimism remained for much of 1914, the British Expeditionary Force was forced to retreat from Mons in August. However, when they regrouped at The Marne French forces with the supporting BEF outmaneuvered the Germans. Trench warfare began.

4. British Pals battalion

‘The Grimsby Rifles’ pal battalion – formed in September 1914. Some ‘pals battalions’ were so closely knit that they charged £5 for entry. Shortages of uniforms and small arms often meant that recruits went through training without the proper kit.

5. Bermondsey boys

Lads from the Grenadier Guards, showing their proud roots.

6. Young guns

The 1/7th Battalion King’s Liverpool photographed in Herne Bay, with a noticeable amount of young faces. Many British volunteers lied about their age to join up, but their eagerness to fight would be dampened by catastrophe.

7. Artillery

Artillery was a major factor in the war effort. 1914-15 German statistics estimated that 49 casualties were caused by artillery to every 22 by infantry, by 1916-18 this was at 85 by artillery for every 6 by infantry. 1.5 million shells were fired before the assault at the battle of The Somme.

8. Over the top

The Somme was the British army’s first major offensive of the war, initiated to relieve the immense pressure on the French forces at Verdun. It began on 1 July 1916.

9. The Somme Offensive

1 July, the first day of The Somme offensive remains the blackest day in the history of the British army – there were 57,740 casualties, with 19,240 dead. More died on that day than in the first three months of the war.

10. On the march

British Tommies looking optimistic whilst on the march at The Somme.

11. Jolly good luck

A British soldier with a head wound. Prior to the Battle of the Somme he wouldn’t have been so lucky – the army was not issued with steel helmets until then.

12. Machine gun corps

Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig claimed the machine gun was ‘a much over rated weapon.’ Learn more about him and whether he is the most hated man in modern British history on the History Hit podcast.Listen Now.

Initially the full potential of the machine gun was not appreciated by the British military – Field Marshall Haig even called it a ‘much over rated weapon’ – and the number of guns per battalion was limited to just 2. However, by 1915 their potential was beginning to be realised, and the Machine Gun Corps was formed in October. By July 1918 numbers of deployed machine guns had increased greatly – to 36 per battalion.

13. Trench scenes

The Somme soon turned into a bloody stalemate where British gains were quickly retaken. Here a man guards a trench at Albert-Bapaume road at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, surrounded by sleeping comrades. The men are from A Company, 11th Battalion, The Cheshire Regiment

14. Rations

The British Tommy was by and large the best fed warrior on the front. Aside from a short episode in 1915 when Britain was left with 3 days of supplies, the army did not suffer from shortages that affected other nations.

15. Royal Irish Rifles

Weary looking infantry of the Royal Irish Rifles during the Battle of the Somme.

16. Passchendaele

The major offensive of 1917 took place at Passchendaele (Ypres salient) between July – November. Stiff German resistance and unusually wet weather hampered the British advance. Casualty figures are disputed, but some 100,000 British men are likely to have been killed in the battle.

17. Solemnity

There are numerous pictures of silhouetted British Tommies – this image taken by Ernest Brooks during the Battle of Broodseinde (Passchendaele – October 1917), showing a group of soldiers of the 8th East Yorkshire Regiment moving up to the front, is one of the most iconic.

18. Trench conditions

With an unusually wet Autumn in 1917, conditions at Passchendaele worsened rapidly. Battlefields were carved up into seas of mud by artillery fire, while trenches often flooded – giving rise to the notorious ‘trench foot’.

19. Menin Road

The shattered landscape around the city of Ypres after months of heavy bombardment and torrential rain. Here Australian gunners walk a duckboard track in Château Wood near Hooge, 29 October 1917.

20. German Spring Offensive – 1918

In March 1918, having gained 50 divisions from the Eastern Front, the Germans launched Kaiserslacht – a massive offensive in a last effort to win the war before American manpower arrived in Europe. The Allies suffered nearly a million casualties (some 420,000 British) but the gains made by Germany were wrecked by supply problems. The attack petered out by mid-July, and the war turned in favour of the Allies.

21. Gassed

Troops from the British 55th Division in line for treatment after being gassed on 10 April 1918. An estimated 9% of British troops were affected by gas attacks and 3% were casualties. While gas rarely killed its victims instantly, it had horrific maiming capabilities and was outlawed after the war.

22. The Black Day for the German Army

The Allies launched the 100 Days Offensive on 8 August, beginning with the Battle of Amiens. While tanks had been used in combat since 1916, they were most successful here, with over 500 used in operations. The battle marked the end of trench warfare with 30,000 German losses on the opening day.

23. Saint Quentin

Another key victory came at St Quentin Canal, beginning on 29 September 1918. British, Australian and American forces attacked the Hindenburg Line, with the British 46th Division crossing the St Quentin Canal and seizing the Riqueval Bridge. 4,200 Germans surrendered.

24. A very British victory

Men of the 46th Division congregating on the banks of the Saint Quentin Canal for an address by Brigadier General J V Campbell. By this point the British were the major fighting force on the Western Front – a reverse the their earlier support role to the French army. They were also backed up by many fresh but inexperienced American soldiers.

25. Late casualties

Despite the rapidity of the Allied advance into the Autumn, there were still enormous casualties. Poet Wilfred Owen was one of the unlucky ones, losing his life just one week before the armistice.

26. Armistice

A jubilant crowd gathered to celebrate news of the armistice at Buckingham Palace on 11.11.1918 – after more than four years of fighting at a loss of some 800,000 British lives.

There was a service in Westminster Abbey, followed by the coffin being carried to Edinburgh, where it lay in the High Kirk of St Giles. The queue to see the coffin stretched for at least a mile, despite horrendous weather conditions.

Field-marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Kt, Gcb, Gcvo, Kcie, Commander-in-chief, France, From 15 December 1915. Painted at General Headquarters, 30 May 1917. Credit:  IWM (Art.IWM ART 324) / Public Domain.

This legacy quickly became tarnished. David Lloyd George’s war memoirs quickly undermined Haig’s standing, and British generals during World War One became increasingly vilified in popular culture.

The famous stereotype is that of ‘lions led by donkeys’, the donkeys being the uncaring, incompetent generals, responsible for thousands of their mens deaths through sheer callousness.

There have been famous portrayals in recent years by Blackadder, with Stephen Fry playing the part of General Melchett, an incompetent commander in charge of Blackadder’s regiment.

In a fit of characteristic buffoonery, General Melchett retorts, against opposition to his plan to send the men into No Man’s Land aimlessly to die, that:

…doing precisely what we have done 18 times before is exactly the last thing they’ll expect us to do this time.

Separating myth from reality

As with all historical myths, fragments of truth lie sown within a larger distortion of events. One myth suggests that the generals were so out of touch as to have no idea as what was actually happening on the frontline. For instance, General Melchett’s headquarters are located in a French Chateau 35 kilometres away from the trenches.

But that a majority of generals were out of touch is completely implausible in reality.

The generals knew exactly what was happening on the battlefields, but they were under pressure to produce results. With limited avenues for manoeuvre on the Western Front, there were few lines of attack that did not involve an assault directly across No Man’s Land.

Perhaps the best evidence that the generals had a good understanding of the pain and suffering their soldiers were going through is the death of the generals themselves.

Of the 1,252 British generals, 146 were wounded or taken prisoner, 78 were killed in action, and 2 were ordered the Victoria Cross for valour.

German soldiers of the 11th Reserve Hussar Regiment fighting from a trench, on the Western Front, 1916. Credit: Bundesarchiv, Bild 136-B0560 / Tellgmann, Oscar / CC-BY-SA.

Mistakes from high command

This is not to suggest that generals were blameless. They did opt for tactical choices that jeopardised the lives of their men needlessly, and continued to do so throughout the war.

For instance, German general Erich von Falkenhayn created a plan to “bleed the French white” at Verdun. While Verdun had comparatively little strategic importance, Falkenhayn thought that the war could be won by exhausting French resources and manpower.

He committed thousands of German and French lives to what amounted to an extended bloodbath, in an attempt to win the war by attrition.

At the Battle of Aubers Ridge, on 9 May 1915, the British were massacred trying to attack the Germans quickly.

This was an attack based on poor intelligence – the British commanders thought that the Germans had withdrawn many more troops to Russia than they actually had – and over 11,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded.

The scale of the deaths was so great that it brought about a complete rethink of the way that the British army conducted battles.

Again, at Gallipoli, generals caused heavy loss of life through tactical errors. General Sir Frederick Stopford was put in command, despite a lack of experience in the battlefields of World War One.

The landing was initially successful, securing the beachhead and catching the Turkish army by surprise.

However, Stopford ordered his men to consolidate their position on the beachhead instead of pressing the advantage, and allowed the Turks to reinforce their defences and inflict heavy casualties.

Dressing station at Gallipoli during WW1, 1915. Credit: Wellcome Library /CC BY 4.0.

These flaws were not exclusive to British army generals. The German army trained its officers with an assumption that once trained they would know intuitively how to respond to situations on the ground, which today is known as Auftragstaktik, or mission-type tactics. This made the already difficult task of coordinating movements over large frontiers even harder.

In the early advances of 1914 on the eastern front, General Hermann von François disregarded orders from Berlin not to attack the Russians and moved in when an opportunity presented itself.

This led to the battle of Gunbinnen, where the Germans were badly defeated and lost east Prussia. The panicked Chief of Staff, Helmuth von Moltke, withdrew men from the Western Front to send eastward, thereby weakening the planned western offensive.

The Austrian army fighting under General Oskar Potiorek in Serbia was given little guidance on matters such as infantry artillery coordination.

Their limited grasp of practical warfare came at a serious cost when the Serbians defeated them in a surprise night attack at the Battle of Cer causing Potiorek and his forces to withdraw from Serbia.

The futility of war

The main reason that World War One battle lines rarely changed was not the incompetence of generals, but the impotence of offence in the face of determined defence. While it was possible to capture the frontline trenches, it was difficult to press any advantage.

Heavy casualties were often unavoidable in any offensive. The primary issue was that offensive troops moved at around 1-2 miles per hour, whereas defenders were able to use railway networks to move at around 25 miles per hour. In the same length of time, defenders could reinforce twenty times as fast as any offensive units could.

Communication also meant that the defenders had another edge in the conflict. The field commanders had little way of finding out which units had been successful in any push, and thus didn’t know where to send troops to support any breaches in the defensive line.

Defending commanders could use telephone lines to summon troops to the breach, while attackers had no way of doing the same thing. The smallest ‘trench radio’ required 6 men to carry it, and was thus completely impractical in No Man’s Land.

The way that war was conducted and approached from a tactical and a strategic standpoint went through a series of important changes between 1914 and 1918.

Most armies began the war using outdated tactical ideas, and progressively changed them as new technologies and new ideas showed their worth.

Most of these approaches caused heavy casualties, and there was little manoeuvrability in this regard for generals. General Mangin, a French commander, remarked that ‘whatever you do, you lose a lot of men’.

Top image credit: Vladimir Tkalčić.

The plan

The offensive on the Somme was initially conceived as part of a wider strategy to wear down the German Army by attacking it on all fronts in 1916. The French took the lead in planning the offensive on the Western Front and Haig played second fiddle to commander-in-chief Joseph Joffre.

The Somme was not Haig’s favoured battleground. He would have preferred to launch an attack in Flanders, where the terrain was better and the objectives of greater strategic value.

By the summer of 1916, the German attack at Verdun had left the French unable to commit forces on the scale they had envisioned. The result was an under-resourced attack in an unfavourable location of little to no strategic value.

The first day

It is well-known that, by the end of the first day of fighting on the Somme, few objectives had been secured while 19,000 British soldiers were dead. The scale of loss suffered in the first attacks can be attributed to the failure of the Allied artillery to neutralise German defences.

Like the British Army at large, the artillery was on a steep learning curve. Many of the shells fired during the week-long preparatory bombardment were duds. Of those that did explode, too many were shrapnel shells rather than high explosive, which made little impression on barbed wire and reinforced dug outs.

A large shell dump on the Somme.

Haig had been convinced of the efficacy of the preparatory bombardment and believed Allied forces would face little to no resistance as they crossed No Man’s Land.

The problem of scale

In 1914, Britain went to war with a small professional army. By 1916, the British Expeditionary Force in France numbered two million. This rapid expansion in scale caused major structural challenges for Haig, whose staff had no experience of commanding such large forces.

Not only were the armies bigger, but so were the fronts. The Battle of the Somme took place over a front stretching 15 miles.

Communication

Proponents of the “lions led by donkeys” argument point to the fact that senior commanders tended to be stationed a distance away from the front lines, while the humble soldier slogged it out in the trenches.

British soldiers transport a wounded colleague on a wheeled stretcher during the Battle of the Somme.

But there was good reason for this. The length of the front meant commanders needed to be a further away to get a complete picture of what was happening. However, communications technology was not yet up to the task of keeping commanders updated about the rapidly changing situation at the front. As a result, at the Somme, Haig often made decisions based on out-of-date information.

Where Haig is undoubtedly guilty, is in his decision to continue the offensive into November 1916. By October, poor weather and continuous artillery bombardment had created a hellish environment for both the Allies and the Germans. Yet Haig prolonged this hell for no real strategic or tactical purpose.

Was it worth it?

Over the course of the battle, about one million men were killed, wounded or captured. Haig maintained that the battle achieved the goal of eroding the German Army and its will to fight. But attrition swallowed up Allied manpower and material just as quickly as it did the Germans’.

The scale of the Allied offensive on the Somme had nevertheless come as a shock to the Germans. It was clear that victory on the Western Front was nowhere in sight and planners feared that German industry would not be able to keep up with demand.

In 1917, the Germans carried out a planned retreat to the Hindenburg Line, a line of fortifications that could be defended with fewer men. It may have looked like a victory for the Allies but the reality was quite different, as subsequent operations against the line in 1917 would show.

Haig has been nicknamed “The Butcher of the Somme”. But the idea that he wilfully and knowingly sent tens of thousands of Allied soldiers to their deaths is overly simplistic and fails to acknowledge the severe challenges facing a commander in charge of an inexperienced mass army, on a scale unlike anything seen before.