Haig

[PhilB]

Last night on UK History there was a programme on Lloyd George and the Great War. It was fairly balanced on LlG, but all the comments on Haig`s intellect, from a variety of sources, were negative. (Brilliant to the top of his boots, unequal to the task etc).

Now, it`s no good posing the question "Haig as CinC - good or bad?". That produces the same entrenched opinions (pardon pun). Can we establish, however, the answer to the simpler question - was he (by the standards to be expected of a commander) dim? Plenty of evidence to support a positive answer but how much evidence to the opposite? Phil B

[Tim Birch]

So far as I can tell from reading about him he was far from dim. Not an academic, but certainly of average if not above average intellect. If I recall correctly he did very well at the Staff College.

He found it difficult to communicate which to an observer may have come across as a form of stupidity, and this was an obvious difficulty for a C-in-C, but it is unlikely that anyone of low intelligence would have got very far on the promotion ladder of the pre-war Regular Army with or without influential friends.

Tim

[Chris_Baker]

I have always found it difficult to understand why on the one hand Haig could be so eloquent in the written word, and so poor in verbal communication. "Wully" Robertson was bit like that too, although his rise from a working class background may have not helped when he eventually moved in the highest circles. Can any pals with knowledge of human learning and communications offer any explanation?

[enoch beard]

ghost writers?

[Chris_Baker]

But wouldn't he have had to communicate verbally with a ghost writer...

[pgardiner1418]

Dear Chris

On the question of written v spoken communication, I once worked with a Poet with whom it was almost impossible to hold a conversation, he stuttered and was shy to the point of painful but his written word was amazing. The main point about writting is for the main part it is a private thing, no distractions.

[paul guthrie]

Is anything known about how much he read? I have never known a smart person who did not read.

[chris.wight]

I remember reading somewhere that Haig was more articulate speaking French than English. Any truth to that?

[PhilB]

But wouldn't he have had to communicate verbally with a ghost writer...

No! ESP! Phil B

PS where`s the best place I could go to read an original, unghosted piece of Haig writing?

[John_Hartley]

I have always found it difficult to understand why on the one hand Haig could be so eloquent in the written word, and so poor in verbal communication.

Perhaps just different thought processes at work. The written word can be thought over, written, reconsidered and revised unlike the spoken word which once is spoken is finished.

(On reflection perhaps not "thought over" but "considered").

It's those folk who can effectively speak to those they need to speak to that are to be admired.

Also worth remembering that the average reading age in the UK is about that of a 12 year old (something like the writing style of the Daily Express/Mail). The Sun manages to write in a style that an 8 year old should be able to understand, whilst the broadsheets need the abilities of your average 16 year old. Always worth running the "reading age" facility in Word if you want a good crack at being understood (a facility not available to previous generations, perhaps explaining the somewhat tortuous English that we WW1 afficiandos often read in the histories.

John

(by the way, I followed my own advice - the above comes out at school Grade 9 - which I think is 13 year olds)

[mcderms]

Haig was definitely not im but has suffered at the hands of armchair critics and ersatz intellectuals since the 1920s. A big reason for many peoples view of Haig (and by association all WW1 senior officers) is that he spent the war at loggerheads with Lloyd George - windbag, opportunist, self publicist and would-be military strategist. Imagine how badly the war would have turned out if he'd manage to replace Haig with on of his puppets?

[enoch beard]

just imagine how many lives could have been saved!

[Chris_Baker]

How would not winning the war in 1918 have saved lives? Maybe I'm being dim here.

[HarryBettsMCDCM]

I think that if one justs casts around this Forum you will see & be able to read & enjoy many examples of eloquence in the written word,speaking as one who is often terrified of the thought of personal communication I can quite understand that it could be easy to be a prolific and eloquent writer,yet collapse as a quivering Jelly if faced with having to express my point on a one to one basis & consequently come across as dour,reserved & uncommunicative,something to do with having ones confidence shaken as a Schoolboy,by overbearing Secondary School Teachers{I was alright up til then!!}

[DirtyDick]

I have also read that Haig did rather well with what was asked of him as a cadet and subaltern; although what was asked of him at that age might well not in itself make for a great strategist several decades later.

I believe that some of his critics could have used dubious sources and assumptions to create detrimental accounts of his intellect so as to bolster their arguments that he was callous/slow-learning/ultra conservative etc., etc.

This also ties in with the late 20th Century and broadly left-wing view that those from privileged backgrounds were necessarily less well suited to such tasks than would have been a self-made man in a more meritocratic age, a la Tim Nice-But-Dim/stupid Guards' officers genre, and thus any criticism takes a more partisan and politicised angle, and is thus all the more vehement. It can be argued that an inverted snobbery is prevalent today; that anyone from the landed classes is now assumed more likely to be a dunce employed because they are well connected/went to the right school than having obtained their position on merit.

(Of course I am not including the nepotism rampant in two of the UK's broadsheet newspapers.)

Not into the rights and wrongs of Haig, but could have some influence on historians' accounts.

Richard

[enoch beard]

lloyd george wanted to replace haig well before 1918!

[Muerrisch]

I usually avoid LLBD as much as SAD. However, one problem we all have is that we know both too much, and too little. Even to exist in UK [apologies to our non-UK pals] is to be burdened with the words 'Somme', 'Passchendaele' etc. And to be old Commonwealth is not a great deal less prejudiced, brainwashed etc., as these dreadful words linger on.

So, does a dispassionate, scholarly, recent appraisal of Haig and his fellow leaders exist having been written by either an opponent [eg German], or a more-or-less neutral, such as USA [by this I mean not burdened by folk-lore]?

Haig can hardly be as bad as he is painted, or as good.

I will tell you one thing, though: he was in charge when the war was won, despite Lloyd George, despite backstabbing in the War Office. In charge of an army arguably more professional than the heroes of 1914. He must have done something right.

Oh dear, I seem to have slipped a little down one side of the fence.

[Anthony Pigott]

I have always found it difficult to understand why on the one hand Haig could be so eloquent in the written word, and so poor in verbal communication. "Wully" Robertson was bit like that too, although his rise from a working class background may have not helped when he eventually moved in the highest circles. Can any pals with knowledge of human learning and communications offer any explanation?

I don't have any formal expertise in this but I've regularly come across a variety of people, some in quite senior jobs, who could talk fluently and at length but couldn't write a coherent sentence and vice versa. I don't think the two skills need to go together. Interestingly, it often seems (these days, at least) to be the former that get on further and faster.

Regards

Anthony

[John_Hartley]

This also ties in with the late 20th Century and broadly left-wing view that those from privileged backgrounds were necessarily less well suited to such tasks than would have been a self-made man in a more meritocratic age,

Richard

There you go again, mate, with the old generalisations with nowt to support it.

As you know, I might be described as being of a "broad left wing" persuasion (although I've never been quite comfortable with the broad-brush description as I'm not sure where us anarcho-syndicalists sit in the pecking order). However, I don't think there ever was a view that the privileged were inherently less suited to tasks or were, inherently, dimmer than the rest - only that they were inherently privileged.

John

[michaeldr]

Read chapter V, ‘The Personality of Douglas Haig and the Role of GHQ’ in Prof Tim Travers’ book ‘The Killing Ground’

As for his writing; how much of it [1915-19] was done for him by his secretary, Philip Sassoon?

Regards

Michael D.R.

[RHLV]

In American politics Thomas Jefferson stuttered but wrote the soaring passages of our Declaration of Independence while Abraham Lincoln spoke with a "piercing" voice (according to one of his secretaries) but penned the most famous of all American speeches, the Gettysburg Address. Apparently facility with language can exist with pen but not voice. I don't think I've ever heard Haig's voice in a recording. Did he have a voice that might be "unpleasant" to the ear (to each his own definition of what that means) and thus not wish to speak in public? Strictly a guess.

Rich

[Terry_Reeves]

I wonder if Haig was as ineffective a communicator as has been made out. After all he ran a massive organisation quite effectively irrespective of any arguments which tend to surround the conduct of particular offensives. Dour he may have been , but he also dealt with allied politicians and military commanders on a fairly regular basis and had much pre-war experience dealing with people at that sort of level.

Terry Reeves

[armourersergeant]

If I recall correctly he did very well at the Staff College.

Did he?

Arm.

[sandyford]

Anyway - don't we as a society have an inherent distrust of a person who has the 'gift of the gab'? Some things do not improve with teflon coating.

History is not only selective in its view of facts but also in its selection of quotations. So probably the less said, that people can remember clearly, the cleverer the person.

And look at the trouble we, on this very forum, have been having with our own dear 'Chat room'. It is rumoured that people are there engaging in conversation but although they can see each other, we cannot see them.

Kate

[DirtyDick]

This also ties in with the late 20th Century and broadly left-wing view that those from privileged backgrounds were necessarily less well suited to such tasks than would have been a self-made man in a more meritocratic age,

Richard

There you go again, mate, with the old generalisations with nowt to support it.

Only five years and two degrees' worth of university studies with people (including several history lecturers, for that matter, who should know better) who were fighting 'their' or 'our' corner in exactly this fashion - and often with compelling results (that is not at issue); omitting to mention several months' study of late 20th C. historiography with particular reference to socialist-leaning ideals of the post-war period.

What is your evidence that this is not the case? I would suggest that an inversion of the class system in some form is decidedly in place, and many left-wing historians have sought to encompass a general criticism of the Establishment as a whole in such studies as much as the individual concerned.

Any fule kno I am rite.

Richard