Sir Douglas Haig
General Sir Douglas Haig was commander of the British 1st Army. That already made him one of Britain’s most senior soldiers, yet in December 1915 he had been promoted again, appointed to command the British Army on the western front. Meanwhile General Sir Douglas Haig, commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force, was facing a time of great responsibility. Planning had begun for a massive offensive to be launched alongside the French in the Somme area of the western front. The Allied plans had already been disrupted by the surprise German attack on the French at Verdun in February 1916. Now Haig was checking with his political masters that they were indeed content for the attack to go ahead as planned. On 14 April he met the secretary of state for war, Lord Kitchener, and the chief of imperial general staff, General Sir William Robertson, at the War Office in London. I asked them definitely: “Did His Majesty’s government approve of my combining with the French in a general offensive during the summer?” They both agreed that all the cabinet had come to the conclusion that the war could only be ended by fighting, and several were most anxious for a definite victory over German arms. In making his plans, Haig was keen to exploit the potential of a new weapon developed in great secrecy – the tank. I was told that 150 would be provided by 31 July. I said that was too late. Fifty were urgently required. Swinton is to see what can be done, and will also practise and train ‘Tanks’ and crews over obstacles and wire similar to the ground over which the attack will be made. I gave him a trench map as a guide and impressed on him the necessity for thinking over the system of leadership and control of a group of ‘Tanks’. In the end Haig would be thwarted and, in fact, none at all would be made available until mid-September. His men would attack on 1 July without the benefit of support from the new tanks. DISCOVER MORE WEBSITE Read previous instalments of
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