History Help!!?

Question

In WW1 what was the job of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig?

Answer 1

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWhaig.htm

Answer 2

Douglas Haig, the son of John Haig, the head of the successful whisky distilling company, was born in Edinburgh in 1861. After obtaining a degree at Brasenose College, Oxford University he went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. After he completed his training Haig was commissioned into the 7th Hussars.

Haig was sent to India with his regiment in 1886 and while there worked his way through the ranks. Haig experienced active service in the Sudan (1898) and the Boer War (1899-1902), where he served under Major-General Sir John French. Promoted to the rank of colonel, Haig returned to India where he served in a variety of administrative posts under Lord Kitchener. When Haig became major-general he was the youngest officer of that rank in the British Army.

In 1906 Haig took up the important post at the War Office as Director of Military Training. He worked closely with R. B. Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, to establish a general staff and a territorial army. It was also Haig's responsibility to organize a British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to be deployed in time of war.

In 1914 Haig obtained the rank of Lieutenant General and was given command over the 1st Army Corps of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and Belgium. Haig commanded his forces at Mons and was praised for his Ypres campaign in 1914. Later in the same year, Haig was promoted to full general and was given command of the recently enlarged BEF, under the supreme command of General Sir John French.

In December 1915, Haig was appointed commander in chief of the BEF. Haig now become under extreme pressure from the French to produce a diversion from Verdun. The first Battle of the Somme was fought from July to November 1916. In that time Allied forces advanced 12km and suffered 420,000 British and 200,000 French casualties.

In 1918 Haig took charge of the successful British advances on the Western Front which led to an Allied victory later that year. After the war Haig's management of the major campaigns, notably on the Somme in 1916, and at Passchendaele in 1917, was criticized by David Lloyd George, the British prime minister. Some military historians have claimed that Haig tactics were deeply flawed. Others have defended his actions and claimed that his approach was largely determined by French demands for continuous action at that part of the Western Front.

After the war Haig was posted as commander in chief of home forces until his retirement in 1921. Haig, who was granted £100,000 by the British government, devoted the rest of his life to the welfare of ex-servicemen via the Royal British Legion. He was made Earl Haig in 1919 and then Baron Haig of Bemersyde in 1921. Douglas Haig died in 1928.