Why Is Haig Important

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Douglas Haig, the eleventh child of John Haig, the head of the successful whisky distilling company, was born in Edinburgh on 19th June 1861. Haig was sent to Clifton College in 1875 and entered Brasenose College five years later. At Oxford University he led an active sporting and social life but left without taking a degree. Haig went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst in 1884. His biographer,Trevor Wilson, has argued: "There he devoted himself to his work, developed a reputation for being aloof and taciturn, passed out first in his year, and was awarded the Anson memorial sword. He also made good progress as a horseman and polo player (he had played polo at Oxford), both important attributes for a cavalry officer." In 1885 Haig…show more content…
(e) Bombardment of rest billets by night. (f) Intermittent smoke discharges by day, accompanied by shrapnel fire on the enemy's front defences with a view to inflicting loss. (g) Raids by night, of the strength of a company and upwards, on an extensive scale, into the enemy's front system of defences. These to be prepared by intense artillery and trench-mortar bombardments. (2) Sir Douglas Haig explained the importance of using heavy artillery at the Battle of the Somme in his book Dispatches, that was published after the war. The enemy's position to be attacked was of a very formidable character, situated on a high, undulating tract of ground. The first and second systems each consisted of several lines of deep trenches, well provided with bomb-proof shelters and with numerous communication trenches connecting them. The front of the trenches in each system was protected by wire entanglements, many of them in two belts forty yards broad, built of iron stakes, interlaced with barbed-wire, often almost as thick as a man's finger. Defences of this nature could only be attacked with the prospect of success after careful artillery…show more content…
Heading the formidable list were Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and Admiral Sir David Beatty. For doing the jobs for which they were paid, each received a tax-free golden handshake of £100,000 (a colossal sum then), an earldom and, I believe, an estate to go with it. Many thousands of pounds went to leaders lower down the scale. Sir Julian Byng picked up a trifle of £30,000 and was made a viscount. If any reader should ask, "What did the demobbed Tommy think about all this?" I can only say, "Well, what do you think?'" (9) Philip Gibbs watched the preparation for the major offensive at the Somme in July, 1916. Before dawn, in the darkness, I stood with a mass of cavalry opposite Fricourt. Haig as a cavalry man was obsessed with the idea that he would break the German line and send the cavalry through. It was a fantastic hope, ridiculed by the German High Command in their report on the Battles of the Somme which afterwards we
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