The Good Soldier

The Good Soldier
Author :
Publisher : Atlantic Books Ltd
Total Pages : 416
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781782394969
ISBN-13 : 1782394966
Rating : 4/5 (69 Downloads)

Synopsis The Good Soldier by : Gary Mead

Posterity has not been kind to Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front for much of the First World War. Haig has frequently been presented as a commander who sent his troops to slaughter in vast numbers at the Somme in 1916 and at Passchendaele the following year. The Good Soldier re-examines Haig's record in these battles and presents his predicament with a fresh eye. More importantly, it re-evaluates Haig himself, exploring the nature of the man, turning to both his early life and army career before 1914, as well as his unstinting work on behalf of ex-servicemen's organizations after 1918. Finally, in this definitive biography, the man emerges from the myth.

The Donkeys

The Donkeys
Author :
Publisher : Random House
Total Pages : 234
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781448104024
ISBN-13 : 1448104025
Rating : 4/5 (24 Downloads)

Synopsis The Donkeys by : Alan Clark

The landmark exposé of incompetent leadership on the Western Front - why the British troops were lions led by donkeys On 26 September 1915, twelve British battalions – a strength of almost 10,000 men – were ordered to attack German positions in France. In the three-and-a-half hours of the battle, they sustained 8,246 casualties. The Germans suffered no casualties at all. Why did the British Army fail so spectacularly? What can be said of the leadership of generals? And most importantly, could it have all been prevented? In The Donkeys, eminent military historian Alan Clark scrutinises the major battles of that fateful year and casts a steady and revealing light on those in High Command - French, Rawlinson, Watson and Haig among them - whose orders resulted in the virtual destruction of the old professional British Army. Clark paints a vivid and convincing picture of how brave soldiers, the lions, were essentially sent to their deaths by incompetent and indifferent officers – the donkeys. ‘An eloquent and painful book... Clark leaves the impression that vanity and stupidity were the main ingredients of the massacres of 1915. He writes searingly and unforgettably’ Evening Standard

Douglas Haig, 1861–1928

Douglas Haig, 1861–1928
Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Total Pages : 389
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781000338980
ISBN-13 : 1000338983
Rating : 4/5 (80 Downloads)

Synopsis Douglas Haig, 1861–1928 by : Gerard J. De Groot

For seventy years Douglas Haig had been portrayed on the one hand as the ‘Butcher of the Somme’ – inept, insensitive and archaic; and on the other as the ‘Saviour of Britain’ – noble, unselfish and heroic. This polarised, strident and ultimately inconclusive argument had resulted in Haig becoming detached from his own persona; he had become a shallow symbol of a past age to be pilloried or praised. The middle ground in the Haig debate had been as barren as No Man’s Land. There should be no mystery about Haig. Certain from a very early age of his own greatness, he preserved every record of his achievements: diaries, letters, official reports etc. The opinions of his contemporaries are likewise readily available. But until this book the material had not been used to construct a complete and accurate picture. Critics and supporters have raided the historical records for evidence of the demi-god or demon and have ignored that which conflicts with their preconceptions. They have likewise raced through his early life in order to get to the war, in the process ignoring the complex process of his development as a soldier. Analyses of Haig’s command have consequently been as shallow as the prevailing images of the man. After eight years of painstaking and detailed research into previously neglected sources, Gerard De Groot gave us a more complete and balanced picture. This book, originally published in 1988, which will appeal both to the general and the specialised reader, is not simply a critique of Haig’s command in the war, but an exploration into his personality. Close attention to his early life and career reveals him as a creature of his society, a man who mirrored both the virtues and the faults of Edwardian Britain. What emerges is an intense, dedicated, but ultimately flawed servant of his country whose ironic fate it was to grow up in one age and to command in another.

Douglas Haig 1861-1928

Douglas Haig 1861-1928
Author :
Publisher : Collins Educational
Total Pages : 464
Release :
ISBN-10 : 0044404050
ISBN-13 : 9780044404057
Rating : 4/5 (50 Downloads)

Synopsis Douglas Haig 1861-1928 by : De Groot

Douglas Haig, the Educated Soldier

Douglas Haig, the Educated Soldier
Author :
Publisher : Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Total Pages : 552
Release :
ISBN-10 : UCAL:B4390277
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (77 Downloads)

Synopsis Douglas Haig, the Educated Soldier by : John Terraine

The history of the Western Front and the First World War is one of battles of attrition against an entrenched enemy, with terrible casualties suffered by both sides in some of the worst fighting ever. In this history the picture has emerged of British generals remote and detached from the reality of the trenches who repeatedly sent their men to die in pointless attacks against the enemy. This book, by the renowned historian of the First World War John Terraine, scrupulously researched and brilliantly written, takes a more objective and accurate approach to the figure of Haig - the supreme commander of the British Army - and to the history of the War.

Haig

Haig
Author :
Publisher : Potomac Books, Inc.
Total Pages : 205
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781612342610
ISBN-13 : 1612342612
Rating : 4/5 (10 Downloads)

Synopsis Haig by : Andrew A. Wiest

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.

Haig's Command

Haig's Command
Author :
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Total Pages : 390
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781844152049
ISBN-13 : 1844152049
Rating : 4/5 (49 Downloads)

Synopsis Haig's Command by : Denis Winter

This book sets out to expose and analyse a major historical fraud. The author's theme is the Western Front in Haig's time - from the Somme to the armistice. Using evidence that the documents from which previous histories have been written are tampered-with and often entirely rewritten versions of the truth - for example, a daily war diary was kept by all units up to GHQ and these were often altered by the Cabinet Office and crucial appendices totally removed. Cabinet war minutes were likewise rewritten, with reference to whole meetings often removed. Records such as Haig's own diary were also tampered with, and Denis Winter even claims to have found documents which the war's official historian thought he had deliberately destroyed in the 1940s.

G.H.Q. (Montreuil-sur-Mer)

G.H.Q. (Montreuil-sur-Mer)
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 398
Release :
ISBN-10 : UOM:39015014206000
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (00 Downloads)

Synopsis G.H.Q. (Montreuil-sur-Mer) by : Frank Fox

The story of life at British General Headquarters, at Montreuil, during the First World War.

The Encyclopedia of Modern War

The Encyclopedia of Modern War
Author :
Publisher : Scarborough House
Total Pages : 262
Release :
ISBN-10 : UOM:39015015872032
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (32 Downloads)

Synopsis The Encyclopedia of Modern War by : Roger Parkinson

Douglas Haig and the First World War

Douglas Haig and the First World War
Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Total Pages : 0
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780521898027
ISBN-13 : 0521898021
Rating : 4/5 (27 Downloads)

Synopsis Douglas Haig and the First World War by : J. P. Harris

Contains primary source material.