Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE (/heɪɡ/; 19 June 1861 – 29 January 1928) was a senior officer of the British Army. During the First World War he commanded the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front from late 1915 until the end of the war.^[1][2][3]

His military career included service in the War Office, where he was instrumental in the creation of the Territorial Force in 1908. In January 1917 he was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal, subsequently leading the BEF during the final Hundred Days Offensive. This campaign, in combination with the Kiel mutiny, the Wilhelmshaven mutiny, the proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918 and civil unrest across Germany, led to the armistice of 11 November 1918. It is considered by some historians to be one of the greatest victories ever achieved by a British-led army.

He gained a favourable reputation during the immediate post-war years, with his funeral a day of national mourning. However he also had some prominent contemporary detractors and, beginning in the 1960s, has been widely criticised for his wartime leadership. He was nicknamed “Butcher Haig” for the two million British casualties under his command. The Canadian War Museum comments: “His epic but costly offensives at the Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917) have become nearly synonymous with the carnage and futility of First World War battles.” Since the 1980s many historians have argued that the public hatred of Haig failed to recognise the adoption of new tactics and technologies by forces under his command, the important role played by British forces in the allied victory of 1918, and that high casualties were a consequence of the tactical and strategic realities of the time.

Early life

Haig was born in a house on Charlotte Square, Edinburgh.His father, John Richard Haig, an alcoholic, was head of the family’s successful Haig & Haig whisky distillery; he had an income of £10,000 per year (£1,160,000 in 2018), an enormous amount at the time. His mother, Rachel (daughter of Hugh Veitch of Stewartfield), was from an impoverished gentry family. The family home was Haig House in Windygates, Fife.

Haig’s education began in 1869 as a boarder at Mr Bateson’s School in St Andrews. Later in 1869, he switched to Edinburgh Collegiate School, and then in 1871 to Orwell House, a preparatory school in Warwickshire. He then attended Clifton College.Both of Haig’s parents had died by the time he was eighteen.^[18]

After a tour of the United States with his brother, Haig studied Political Economy, Ancient History and French Literature at Brasenose College, Oxford, 1880–1883. He devoted much of his time to socialising – he was a member of the Bullingdon Club – and equestrian sports. He was one of the best young horsemen at Oxford and part of the University polo team. While an undergraduate he was initiated as a Freemason in Elgin’s Lodge at Leven, Fife, taking the first and second degrees of Freemasonry. In 1920 the Earl of Eglinton encouraged Haig to complete his Masonic progression, and he returned to his lodge to take the third degree, serving as Worshipful Master of the lodge from 1925 to 1926.^[21] He became an officer of the Grand Lodge of Scotland.

Although he passed his final exam at Oxford (a requirement for university applicants to Sandhurst), he was not eligible for a degree as he had missed a term’s residence owing to illness, and if he had stayed for longer he would have been above the age limit (23) to begin officer training at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, which he entered in January 1884. Because he had been to university, Haig was considerably older than most of his class at Sandhurst. He was Senior Under-Officer, was awarded the Anson Sword and passed out first in the order of merit. He was commissioned as a lieutenant into the 7th (Queen’s Own) Hussars on 7 February 1885.

Career

Junior officer

Early in his military career, Haig played polo for England on a tour of the United States (August 1886). He would remain a polo enthusiast all his life, serving as Chairman of the Hurlingham Polo Committee from 1914 until 1922, President of the Army Polo Committee, and founder of the Indian Polo Association.

Haig saw overseas service in India (sent out November 1886), where he was appointed the regiment’s adjutant in 1888. He was something of a disciplinarian, but impressed his superiors by his administrative skill and analysis of training exercises. He was promoted to captain on 23 January 1891.

Haig left India in November 1892 to prepare for the entrance exam for the Staff College, Camberley, which he sat in June 1893. Although he was placed in the top 28 (the number of places awarded by exam) he was not awarded a place as he had narrowly failed the compulsory mathematics paper. He concealed this failure for the rest of his life and in 1910 recommended dropping the mathematics paper as a requirement. Adjutant-General Sir Redvers Buller refused to award Haig one of the four nominated places, citing his colour blindness, despite Haig having his eyesight rechecked by a German oculist and despite glowing testimonials. It has been postulated that Buller was looking for a rationale to give a place to an infantry officer.

Haig returned briefly to India as second-in-command of the squadron which he had himself commanded in 1892, then returned to the UK as Aide-de-camp to Sir Keith Fraser, Inspector General of Cavalry. Fraser was one of those who had lobbied for Haig to enter the Staff College, and he was finally nominated in late 1894, a common practice in the day for promising candidates. While waiting to take up his place, he travelled to Germany to report on cavalry manoeuvres there, and served as staff officer to Colonel John French on manoeuvres. The careers of French and Haig were to be entwined for the next twenty-five years, and Haig helped French write the cavalry drillbook, published 1896.

Haig entered Staff College, Camberley in 1896, where he was apparently not popular with his peers. For example, they chose Allenby as Master of the Drag Hunt, despite Haig being the better rider.^[33] Haig impressed the Chief Instructor, Lt-Col G. F. R. Henderson, and completed the course, leaving in 1897. Camberley’s old-fashioned curriculum^[34] especially influenced Haig, as he was an absorber of doctrine rather than an original thinker. Haig was taught that victory must come from defeating the main enemy army in battle, and that attrition (the “wearing out fight”) was merely a prelude to the commitment of reserves for a decisive battlefield victory; traces of this thought can be seen at Loos and the Somme. Great emphasis was placed on morale and mobility, and on Murat‘s cavalry pursuit after Napoleon‘s Jena campaign of 1806.

Mahdist War, 1898

In early January Haig was picked by Evelyn Wood (by then Adjutant-General) as one of three recent staff college graduates requested by Kitchener for a campaign in the Mahdist War in the Sudan. He may have been picked to keep an eye on Kitchener, as Wood invited him to write to him in confidence. Haig needed little encouragement to (privately) criticise his superiors – he was especially critical of Kitchener’s dictatorial habits. Kitchener’s force was Anglo-Egyptian, and Haig was required to formally join the Egyptian Army, most of whose officers were British. The plan had been for him to train and take command of an Egyptian cavalry squadron, but Kitchener did not want a command reshuffle with combat imminent. Unlike many British officers, Haig believed that the Egyptians could make good soldiers if properly trained and led. Still without a formal position but accompanying the cavalry, Haig saw his first action in a skirmish south of Atbara (21 March). In his report to Wood about the skirmish, Haig commented on the lack of British machine guns. While later criticized for his failure to optimize the use of machine guns, Haig made a special trip to Enfield to study the Maxim Gun, and throughout the campaign commented on its worth.

Four days later he was made staff officer of Broadwood‘s cavalry brigade. Haig distinguished himself at his second action, the Battle of Nukheila (6 April), where he supervised the redeployment of squadrons to protect the rear and then launch a flank attack. He was present at the Battle of Atbara (8 April), after which he criticised Kitchener for launching a frontal attack without taking the Dervishes in flank. During the latter action Haig risked his life rescuing a wounded Egyptian soldier under enemy fire, an act which moved several officers present to believe Haig should receive the Victoria Cross. After Atbara, Kitchener was given reinforcements and Haig received a squadron of his own, which he commanded at Omdurman (in reserve during the battle, then on a flank march into the town afterwards). He was promoted to brevet major on 15 November 1898.

Second Boer War, 1899–1902

Haig returned to the United Kingdom hoping for a position at the War Office, but was instead appointed (May 1899) brigade major to the 1st Cavalry Brigade at Aldershot.

Haig had recently lent £2,500 (in a formal contract with interest, worth £400,000 in 2024) to the brigade commander, John French, to cover his losses from South African mining speculations. The loan allowed French to maintain his commission. Haig was promoted to the substantive rank of major on 26 June 1899.

Haig was soon appointed Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General (September 1899)^[47] and then Assistant Adjutant General (i.e. chief staff officer) of French’s brigade-sized force as it was sent to the Boer War.He took part in French’s first battle, Elandslaagte (21 October). French and Haig were ordered to leave Ladysmith as the four-month siege began, to take charge of the new Cavalry Division arriving from the UK. The two men escaped on the last train to leave Ladysmith (2 November 1899), lying down as it passed through enemy fire.

Haig continued to be sceptical of the importance of artillery, basing his opinions on interviews with enemy prisoners.After French’s Colesberg Operations to protect Cape Colony, Frederick Roberts, newly arrived as Commander-in-Chief, appointed his protégé Colonel the Earl of Erroll, over French’s protests, to the job of Assistant Adjutant General of the Cavalry Division, with Haig, who had been promised the job (and the local rank of lieutenant-colonel), as his deputy. Cavalry played a leading role in this stage of the war, including the relief of Kimberley (15 February 1900), which featured a spectacular British cavalry charge at Klip Drift. Haig was briefly (21 February 1900) given command of the 3rd Cavalry Brigade, then made AAG to the Cavalry Division after Erroll was moved to a different job. French’s Division took part in the capture of Bloemfontein (13 March 1900) and Pretoria (5 June 1900). Haig privately criticised Roberts and thought him a “silly old man”.

After Roberts had won the conventional war, Kitchener was left in charge of fighting the Boers, who had taken to guerrilla warfare. The Cavalry Division was disbanded (November 1900) and French, with Haig still his chief of staff, was put in charge of an all-arms force policing the Johannesburg area, later trying to capture the Boer leader de Wet around Bloemfontein. In January 1901 Haig was given a column of 2,500 men with the local rank of brigadier-general, patrolling Cape Colony, and chasing Commandant Kritzinger. As was standard policy at that time, Haig’s actions included burning farmsteads as part of the scorched earth policies ordered by Lord Kitchener as well as rounding up Boer women and children to be placed in concentration camps.

Throughout the war Haig’s sister, Henrietta, had been lobbying Evelyn Wood for her brother to have command of a cavalry regiment when the war was over. French, probably not wanting to part with a valuable assistant, recommended Herbert Lawrence for the vacant command of the 17th Lancers, but Roberts, now Commander-in-Chief back in Britain, overruled him and gave it to Haig (May 1901). As the 17th Lancers were in South Africa at the time Haig was able to combine that command with that of his own column.

As the war drew to a close Haig had to locate and escort the Boer leader Jan Christiaan Smuts to the peace negotiations at Vereeninging. Haig was mentioned in despatches four times for his service in South Africa (including by Lord Roberts on 31 March 1900,and by Lord Kitchener on 23 June 1902), and appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in November 1900. He was promoted to the substantive rank of lieutenant colonel on 17 July 1901.

Following the war, Haig left Cape Town with 540 officers and men of the 17th Lancers on the SS German in late September 1902.The regiment was supposed to stay in South Africa but in the end returned home sooner than planned, and arrived at Southampton in late October, when they were posted to Edinburgh. Haig was appointed an aide-de-camp to King Edward VII in the October 1902 South Africa Honours list, with the brevet rank of colonel.

Inspector-General of Cavalry, India

Haig continued as the commanding officer of the 17th Lancers until 1903, stationed in Edinburgh. He was then appointed Inspector-General of Cavalry in British India. He would have preferred command of the cavalry brigade at Aldershot, where French was now General Officer Commanding, but had first to spend a year on garrison duty at Edinburgh until the previous incumbent completed his term.

Haig’s war service had earned him belated but rapid promotion: having been a captain until the relatively advanced age of thirty-seven, by 1904 he had become the youngest major-general in the British Army at that time. He was present at the Rawalpindi Parade 1905 to honour the Prince and Princess of Wales’ visit to India. At this time a great deal of the energies of the most senior British generals were taken up with the question of whether cavalry should still be trained to charge with sword and lance (the view of French and Haig). Lord Roberts, now Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, warned Kitchener (now Commander-in-Chief, India) to be “very firm with Haig” on this issue, and wrote that Haig was a “clever, able fellow” who had great influence over Sir John French.

Marriage and children

On leave from India, Haig married Dorothy Maud Vivian on 11 July 1905 after a whirlwind courtship (she had spotted him for the first time when he was playing polo at Hurlingham two years earlier). She was a daughter of Hussey Vivian, 3rd Baron Vivian and Louisa Duff.^[62]: 562

The couple had four children:

• Lady Alexandra Henrietta Louisa Haig (9 March 1907 – 1997); First married to Rear-Admiral Clarence Dinsmore Howard-Johnston, with whom she had three children: James Howard-Johnston, Xenia, and Peter. She secondly married in 1954 historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, who was later created Baron Dacre of Glanton.
• Lady Victoria Doris Rachel Haig (7 November 1908 – 1993). Married Colonel Claud Andrew Montagu Douglas Scott on 10 August 1929, with whom she had two children (divorced 1951)
• George Alexander Eugene Douglas Haig, 2nd Earl Haig (15 March 1918 – 10 July 2009)
• Lady Irene Violet Freesia Janet Augusta Haig (7 October 1919 – 2001); wife of Gavin Astor, 2nd Baron Astor of Hever

Haig had used his leave in 1905 to lobby for a job at the War Office, but the proposal was rejected by H. O. Arnold-Forster the Secretary of State for War as too blatantly relying on royal influence.

War Office

The Boer War had exposed Britain’s lack of a general staff and modern reserve army. In August 1906 Haig was appointed Director of Military Training at the War Office. Haldane later wrote that Haig had “a first rate general staff mind” and “gave invaluable advice”. Although both men later claimed that the reforms had been to prepare Britain for continental war, they created a small professional army within a budget, with conscription politically impossible.

The reforms reorganised the militia, yeomanry and volunteers into the new Territorial Force. Haig was intolerant of what he regarded as old-fashioned opinions and not good at negotiating with strangers. Haig had wanted a reserve of 900,000 men, but Haldane settled for a more realistic 300,000. Haig’s skills at administration and organising training and inspections were better employed in setting up an Expeditionary Force of 120,000 men in 1907. As an intimate of Haldane Haig was able to ensure high priority for cavalry, less for artillery, contrary to the advice of Lord Roberts (now retired). Haig’s records of his time supervising artillery exercises show little interest in technical matters.

In November 1907 Haig was moved sideways to Director of Staff Duties. He required commanders to take the staff officers assigned to them (rather than choose their own by patronage) and assigned staff officers to the new Territorial Army. He supervised publication of “Field Service Regulations”, which was later very useful in expanding the BEF, although it still stressed the importance of cavalry charging with sword and lance. At this time he was completing a separate work, “Cavalry Studies”, and devoting much time to cavalry exercises.

Chief of Staff, India

By 1909 it seemed likely that an Anglo-German War loomed and Haig was reluctant to accept appointment as Chief of the General Staff in India. He passed the Director of Staff Duties job to his loyal follower Brigadier-General Kiggell, to whom he wrote with “advice” every fortnight. Haig, who had been knighted for his work at the War Office, was promoted to lieutenant-general in November 1910. In India he had hoped to develop the Indian General Staff and to organise despatch of the British Indian Army to a future European war. The latter was vetoed by Viceroy Lord Hardinge. An Indian Corps would serve on the Western Front early in the conflict, and Indian troops were used in comparatively small formations in the Middle East.

Aldershot

Haig left India in December 1911, and took up an appointment as General Officer Commanding Aldershot Command (1st & 2nd Divisions and 1st Cavalry Brigade) in March 1912.

In the Army Manoeuvres of 1912 he was decisively beaten by Sir James Grierson despite having the odds in his favour, because of Grierson’s superior use of air reconnaissance. At dinner afterwards Haig abandoned his prepared text, and although he wrote that his remarks were “well received”, John Charteris recorded that they were “unintelligible and unbearably dull” and that the visiting dignitaries fell asleep. Haig’s poor public speaking skills aside, the manoeuvres were thought to have shown the reformed army efficient.

First World War

1914

Outbreak of war

During the Curragh Mutiny (March 1914) Haig urged caution on his chief of staff John Gough, whose brother Hubert Gough was threatening to resign rather than coerce Ulstermen into a semi-independent Ireland. Haig stressed that the army’s duty was to keep the peace. Sir John French was forced to resign as CIGS, after putting in writing a promise that officers would not be required to coerce Ulster; Haig respected Hubert Gough’s principled stand but felt French had allowed himself to be used as a political tool by H. H. Asquith.

Upon the outbreak of war in August 1914, Haig helped organize the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), commanded by Field Marshal Sir John French. As planned, Haig’s Aldershot command was formed into I Corps. In a letter to Haldane (4 August), Haig predicted that the war would last for months if not years; Haig wanted Haldane to delay sending the BEF to France until the Territorial Army had been mobilised and incorporated. Haig attended the War Council (5 August), at which it was decided that it was too dangerous to mobilise forward in France at Maubeuge near the Belgian border, as British mobilisation was running three days behind that of France and Germany. There were no other contingency plans – Haig and Kitchener proposed that the BEF would be better positioned to counter-attack in Amiens. Sir John French suggested landing at Antwerp, which was vetoed by Winston Churchill as the Royal Navy could not guarantee safe passage. A critical biographer writes that Haig was “more clear-sighted than many of his colleagues”.

In his much-criticised memoirs 1914, French claimed that Haig had wanted to postpone sending the BEF, which may be partly true given what Haig had written to Haldane. Haig was so angry at this claim that he asked Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey to correct French’s “inaccuracies”. However Haig also rewrote his diary from this period, possibly to show himself in a better light and French in a poor one. The original manuscript diary does not survive but there is no positive evidence that it was destroyed, and it is just as likely that the extant typed version was prepared from dictation or notes now lost. Hankey’s notes of the meeting record that Haig suggested delaying or sending smaller forces, but was willing to send forces if France was in danger of defeat or if France wanted them (which it did). Haig predicted that the war would last several years and that an army of a million men, trained by officers and NCOs withdrawn from the BEF, would be needed.

Haig had been appointed aide-de-camp to King George V in February 1914.^[83] During a royal inspection of Aldershot (11 August), Haig told the King that he had “grave doubts” about French’s temper and military knowledge. He later claimed that these doubts had gone back to the Boer War but there appears to have been an element of later embellishment about this; Haig had in fact praised French during the Boer War and had welcomed his appointment as CIGS in 1911.

Mons to the Marne

Haig crossed over to Le Havre. The BEF landed in France on 14 August and advanced into Belgium. Haig was irritated by Sir John French, who ignored intelligence reports of German forces streaming westwards from Brussels, threatening an encirclement from the British left. Although II Corps fought off the German attack at Mons on 23 August the BEF was forced to withdraw.

The retreats of I and II Corps had to be conducted separately because of the Mormal Forest. The two corps were supposed to meet at Le Cateau but I Corps under Haig were stopped at Landrecies, leaving a large gap between the two. Haig’s reactions to his corps’ skirmish with German forces at Landrecies (during which Haig led his staff into the street, revolvers drawn, promising to “sell our lives dearly”) caused him to send an exaggerated report to French, which caused French to panic. The following day 26 August, Horace Smith-Dorrien‘s II Corps engaged the enemy in the Battle of Le Cateau, which was unsupported by Haig. This battle slowed the German advance. However, a critical biographer writes that too much has been made of the “moment of panic” at Landrecies, and that the 200-mile (320 km) retreat, over a period of 13 days, is a tribute to the “steady and competent leadership” of Haig and Smith-Dorrien.

On 25 August the French commander Joseph Joffre ordered his forces to retreat to the Marne, which compelled the BEF to further withdraw. Haig was irritated by the high-handed behaviour of the French, seizing roads which they had promised for British use and refusing to promise to cover the British right flank. He complained privately of French unreliability and lack of fighting competence, a complaint which he would keep up for the next four years. He wrote to his wife that he wished the British were operating independently from Antwerp, a proposal which he had rejected as “reckless” when Sir John French had made it at the War Council on 4 August.

The retreat caused Sir John French to question the competence of his Allies and led to his decision to withdraw the BEF south of the Seine. On 1 September, Lord Kitchener intervened by visiting French and ordering him to re-enter the battle and coordinate with Joffre’s forces. The battle to defend Paris began on 5 September and became known as the first Battle of the Marne. Haig had wanted to rest his corps but was happy to resume the offensive when ordered. He drove on his subordinates when he thought them lacking in “fighting spirit”. Although Sir John French praised Haig’s leadership of his corps, Haig was privately contemptuous of French’s overconfidence prior to Mons and excessive caution thereafter.

First Battle of Ypres

On 15 October, after two weeks of friction between British and French generals, Haig’s I Corps was moved to Ypres in Flanders as part of the “Race to the Sea“. In the belief that the German northern flank was weak, Haig was ordered to march on Ghent, Bruges and Courtrai in western Belgium but the new German Chief of Staff Falkenhayn was trying to do the opposite and roll up the Allied northern flank. I Corps marched headlong into a thrust westward by fresh German forces, resulting in the First Battle of Ypres. German forces, equipped with 250 heavy guns (a large number for this stage in the war), outnumbered I Corps by two to one and came close to success. At one point Haig mounted his horse to encourage his men, who were retreating around Gheluvelt, although the town had just been recaptured by a battalion of the Worcesters. Haig cemented his reputation at this battle and Ypres remained a symbolic location in later years. Haig was also influenced by the fact that the Germans had called off their offensive when they were on the verge of success, concluding that attacks needed to be kept up so long as there was any chance of success

After a fortnight of intense fighting I Corps had been reduced from 18,000 men to just under 3,000 effectives by 12 November. After six days of bickering between British and French generals, I Corps was relieved by French troops; Haig was very suspicious of the pro-French sympathies of Henry Wilson. French, who had been ordered by his doctor to relieve the strain on his heart, recommended Haig for immediate promotion to general. Haig travelled to London on French’s behalf to consult Kitchener about the plan to expand the BEF and reorganise it into two armies.

At this point it was thought that the war would end once the Germans were defeated by the Russians at Lodz and the difficulties of attacking on the Western Front were not yet appreciated. A failed attack by Smith-Dorrien’s II Corps on Messines–Wytschaete (14–15 December) was blamed on poor GHQ staff work, and on 18 December, Haig met French, who said he wanted to sack the BEF chief of staff Murray, whose performance had been unsatisfactory throughout the campaign and promote his deputy Henry Wilson. Haig thought that Wilson had “no military knowledge” and recommended Quarter-Master General “Wully” Robertson. This was also the view of Lord Kitchener, so Robertson received the promotion. Haig received promotion to general on 16 November 1914.

1915

Spring offensives

Like French, Haig wanted to push along the North Sea Coast to Ostend and Zeebrugge but Joffre did not want the British acting so independently. Germany had recently sent eight infantry divisions to the Eastern Front, so French and Joffre agreed that a French offensive in Artois and Champagne, should be accompanied by a British offensive at Neuve-Chapelle to be conducted by Haig. At Neuve Chapelle, Haig wanted a quick bombardment and his subordinate Henry Rawlinson a longer and more methodical one. Shortage of shells meant that only a thirty-five-minute bombardment was possible but the small front of the attack gave it the concentration to succeed.

Haig was greatly interested in the potential of aircraft and met Major Trenchard of the Royal Flying Corps to organise photographic air reconnaissance and a map of German lines was obtained; aircraft were also used for artillery spotting. Four divisions attacked at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle on 10 March and penetrated 1,600 yards (1,500 m) but no progress was made on subsequent days, as the Germans brought in reinforcements. Casualties were around 12,000 on each side. Rawlinson had wanted to end the offensive after the first day and Haig felt that reserves should have been committed quicker. On Rawlinson’s suggestion Haig came close to sacking Major-General Joey Davies until it was found that Davies had followed Rawlinson’s orders; Haig reprimanded Rawlinson but thought him too valuable to sack. This may have made Rawlinson reluctant to stand up to Haig thereafter.

Whilst the Germans attacked Smith-Dorrien at the Second Battle of Ypres (April), new Allied offensives were planned by the French at Vimy and by Haig at Aubers Ridge (9 May). It was believed on the British side that the lessons of Neuve Chapelle had been learned – reserves were ready to exploit and mortars were ready to support attackers who had advanced beyond artillery cover – and that this time success would be complete not partial. The attack was less successful than Neuve Chapelle as the bombardment was over a wider front and against stronger defences; Haig was still focussed on winning a decisive victory by capturing key ground, rather than amassing firepower to inflict maximum damage. Attacks (at Festubert, 15–25 May) as a diversion, gained 1,100 yards (1,000 m) over a front of 4,400 yards (4,000 m), with 16,000 British casualties to around 6,600 German losses. Sir John French was satisfied that the attacks had taken pressure off the French at their request but Haig felt that German reserves were being exhausted, bringing victory nearer.

Lack of shells at these offensives was, along with Admiral Fisher‘s resignation over the failed Dardanelles Campaign, a cause of the fall of the Liberal Government (19 May). Haig did not approve of the Northcliffe press attacks on Kitchener, whom he thought a powerful military voice against the folly of civilians like Churchill (despite the fact that Kitchener was an opponent of the strong General Staff which Haig wanted to see). French had been leaking information about the shell shortage to Charles à Court Repington of The Times, whom Haig detested and which he likened to “carrying on with a whore”. French also communicated with Conservative leaders and to David Lloyd George who became Minister of Munitions in the new coalition government.

Haig was asked by Clive Wigram (one of the King’s press staff) to smooth relations between French and Kitchener. At Robertson’s suggestion, Haig received Kitchener at his HQ (despite French’s attempt to block the meeting), where they shared their concerns about French. The two men met again in London (14 July), whilst Haig was receiving his GCB (awarded on French’s recommendation after Neuve Chapelle) from the King, who also complained to him about French. Over lunch with the King and Kitchener, Haig remarked that the best time to sack French would have been after the retreat to the Marne; it was agreed that the men would correspond in confidence.

Haig had long thought French petty, jealous, unbalanced, overly quick to meddle in party politics and easily manipulated by Henry Wilson. Haig was increasingly irritated by French’s changes of orders and mercurial changes of mood as to the length of the war, which French now expected to last into 1916. Haig still thought Germany might collapse by November, although at the same time he was sending a memo to the War Office recommending that the BEF, now numbering 25 divisions, be equipped with the maximum number of heavy guns, ready for a huge decisive battle, 36 divisions strong in 1916.

Loos

Further information: Battle of Loos

The war was not going well – besides the failure at Cape Helles (landing 25 April), Bulgaria had joined the Central Powers (Serbia was soon overrun). Allied attacks in the west were needed to take pressure off the Russians, who were being flung out of Poland. The original plan was to attack in July. At Joffre’s insistence the offensive was planned next to the French Tenth Army at Loos.

Haig inspected the Loos area (24 June) and expressed dissatisfaction with the ground. French and Haig would have preferred to renew the attack at Aubers Ridge. French was dissuaded by Foch, who felt that only a British attack at Loos would pull in enough German reserves to allow the French to take Vimy Ridge. French wrote to Joffre saying he was willing to go along with these plans for the sake of Anglo-French cooperation, but then wrote to Joffre again suggesting an artillery bombardment with only limited British infantry attacks. Kitchener listened sympathetically to Joffre’s suggestion that in future Joffre should set the size, dates and objectives of British offensives, although he only agreed for the Loos attack for the moment. It is unclear exactly why Kitchener and then Haig agreed to go along with Joffre’s wishes – possibly the disastrous plight of the Russians, but it may be that a promise that poison gas could be used may have persuaded Haig. The French then postponed the attack as they picked new attacking ground in Champagne and arranged for extra shelling at Vimy, in both cases because of the very reasons – German-held villages and other obstructions – to which the British generals had objected.

Only 850 guns were available, too few for concentrated bombardment over a frontage far wider than at Neuve Chapelle. There was also argument over the placement of the reserve (including inexperienced New Army divisions), which Haig wanted close to the front. Haig had persuaded himself that decisive victory was possible, and it may be that French wanted to keep control of the reserve to stop them being thrown into battle needlessly. French tried in vain to forbid Haig to discuss his plans with Kitchener (on the grounds that Kitchener might leak them to politicians). Battle began (25 September) after Haig ordered the release of chlorine gas.

The attack failed in the north against the Hohenzollern Redoubt but broke through the German first line in the centre. The reserves were tired after night marches to reach the front in secrecy and were not available until 2 pm, but were thrown into battle without success on the second day.

Haig replaces French

Haig wrote a detailed letter to Kitchener claiming “complete” success on the first day and complaining that the reserves had not been placed as close to the front as agreed and that French had not released control of them when requested. Haig strengthened his case by reports that captured enemy officers had been astonished at the British failure to exploit the attack and by complaining about the government’s foot-dragging at introducing conscription and the commitment of troops to sideshows like Salonika and Suvla Bay.

The failure of Loos was debated in the British press. Kitchener demanded a report and Lord Haldane was sent to France to interview French and Haig. French in turn demanded a report from Haig, in particular his claim to have penetrated the German lines. Lord Stamfordham, the King’s Secretary, telephoned Robertson to ask his opinion of French and Robertson conferred with Haig – who was pushing for Robertson to be appointed Chief of the Imperial General Staff – before giving his opinion. The King also discussed the matter with Haig over dinner on a visit to the front (24 October). Haig again told him that French should have been sacked in August 1914. Four days later the King, whilst inspecting troops, was injured when thrown by one of Haig’s horses and had to be evacuated to England on a stretcher, which embarrassed Haig. French had his orders releasing the reserves published in The Times (2 November), with an article by Repington blaming Haig. Haig demanded a correction of French’s “inaccuracies”, whereupon French ordered Haig to cease all correspondence on this matter,. Haig met with the Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith on 23 November and Bonar Law (Conservative Leader) the next day. Rumours were rife that French was to be sacked. Matters had been delayed as Kitchener was away on an inspection tour of the Mediterranean and French was sick in bed. Kitchener returned to London (3 Dec) and at a meeting with Haig that day, told him that he was to recommend to Asquith that Haig replace French.

Haig’s appointment as Commander-in-Chief BEF was announced on 10 December and almost simultaneously Robertson became Chief of the Imperial General Staff in London. Haig and Robertson hoped that this would be the start of a new and more professional management of the war. Monro was promoted to GOC First Army in Haig’s place, not Rawlinson whom Haig would have preferred, and for reasons of seniority Haig was forced to accept the weak-willed Launcelot Kiggell, not Butler as chief of staff BEF in succession to Robertson. Haig and French, who seemed ill, had a final handover meeting (18 December, the day before the formal change of command), at which Haig agreed that Churchill – recently resigned from the Cabinet and vetoed from command of a brigade – should be given command of a battalion.

1916

Prelude to the Somme

For the first time (2 January) Haig attended church service with George Duncan, who was to have great influence over him. Haig saw himself as God’s servant and was keen to have clergymen sent out whose sermons would remind the men that the war dead were martyrs in a just cause.

Robertson and Kitchener wanted to concentrate on the Western Front, unlike many in the Cabinet who preferred Salonika or Mesopotamia. Haig and Robertson were aware that Britain would have to take on more of the offensive burden, as France was beginning to run out of men, but thought that the Germans might retreat in the west so they could concentrate on beating the Russians. Haig thought that the Germans had already had plenty of “wearing out”, that a decisive victory was possible in 1916 and urged Robertson to recruit more cavalry. Haig’s preference was to regain control of the Belgian coast by attacking in Flanders, to bring the coast and the naval bases at Bruges, Zeebrugge and Ostend into Allied hands and where the Germans would suffer great loss if they were reluctant to retreat.

Lloyd George visited Haig at GHQ and afterwards wrote to Haig, to say that he had been impressed by his “grip” and by the “trained thought of a great soldier”. Subsequent relations between the two men were not to be so cordial. Haig thought Lloyd George “shifty and unreliable”.Haig had thought that the German troops reported near Verdun were a feint prior to an attack on the British but the Verdun Offensive began on 21 February. In March 1916 GHQ was moved from Saint-Omer to Montreuil, Pas-de-Calais. For his residence Haig commandeered Beaurepaire House a few kilometres away.

Haig decided that Verdun had “worn down” the Germans enough and that a decisive victory was possible at once. The Cabinet were less optimistic; Kitchener would have preferred smaller, purely attritional attacks but sided with Robertson in telling the Cabinet that the Somme offensive should go ahead. Haig attended a Cabinet meeting in London (15 April) where the politicians were more concerned with the political crisis over the introduction of conscription.

The French had already insisted on an Anglo-French attack at the Somme, where British and French troops were adjacent, to relieve the pressure on the French Army at Verdun, although the French component of the attack was gradually reduced as reinforcements went to Verdun. Haig wanted to delay until 15 August, to allow for more training and more artillery to be available. When told of this Joffre shouted at Haig that “the French Army would cease to exist” and had to be calmed with “liberal doses of 1840 brandy”. The British refused to agree to French demands for a joint Anglo-French offensive from the Salonika bridgehead. Eventually, perhaps influenced by reports of French troop disturbances at Verdun, Haig agreed to attack on 29 June (later put back until 1 July). It later turned out that Pétain at Verdun was warning the French government that the “game was up” unless the British attacked.

The government was concerned at the volume of shipping space being used for fodder and wanted to cut the number of cavalry divisions. Haig opposed this, believing that cavalry would still be needed to exploit the imminent victory. Most of the fodder was for the horses, donkeys and mules which the BEF used to move supplies and heavy equipment. Discussing this matter with the King, Haig told him that Germany would collapse by the end of 1916.This round of planning ended with a sharp exchange of letters with the Cabinet, Haig rebuked them for interfering in military matters and declared that “I am responsible for the efficiency of the Armies in France”. Lloyd George thought Haig’s letter “perfectly insolent” and that the government “had the right to investigate any matter connected with the war that they pleased”.

From 1 July to 18 November 1916, Haig directed the British portion of the Battle of the Somme. Although too much shrapnel was used in the initial bombardment for 1 July, Haig was not entirely to blame for this – as early as January 1915 Haig had been impressed by evidence of the effectiveness of high explosive shells and had demanded as many of them as possible from van Donop (Head of Ordnance in Britain).

1917

On 1 January 1917, Haig was made a field marshal. King George V wrote him a handwritten note ending: “I hope you will look upon this as a New Year’s gift from myself and the country”. Lloyd George, who had become Prime Minister in December 1916, infuriated Haig and Robertson by placing the BEF under the command of the new French Commander-in-Chief Robert Nivelle. The failure of the Nivelle Offensive in April 1917 (which Haig had been required to support with a British offensive at Arras) and the subsequent French mutiny and political crisis, discredited Lloyd George’s plans for Anglo-French co-operation. During the second half of 1917, Haig conducted an offensive at Passchendaele (the Third Battle of Ypres). Haig hoped to liberate the North Sea coast of Belgium from which German U-boats were operating, provided that there was assistance from the French, support from Britain and that Russia stayed in the war.

The Admiralty, led by John Jellicoe, believed that the U-boat threat could jeopardise Britain’s ability to continue fighting. Another objective was to commit German resources to Belgian Flanders, away from the Aisne sector in France, where the French mutiny had been worst, to give the French Army time to recover.Haig was worried that the Russian Revolution would result in Russia and Germany making peace and forming an alliance. If this happened the German troops located on the Eastern Front would be transferred to the west by late 1917 or early 1918, making a decisive victory much more difficult.

The Third Battle of Ypres caused the British far fewer casualties than the Battle of the Somme and the substantial success of the occupation of the ridges around Ypres, the first stage of the offensive strategy and inflicted comparable losses on the Germans, who were far less capable of replacing losses and which contributed to their defeat in 1918.

Cambrai

By the end of 1917, Lloyd George felt able to assert authority over the generals and at the end of the year was able to sack the First Sea Lord Admiral Jellicoe. Over the objections of Haig and Robertson, an inter-Allied Supreme War Council was set up. When the council was inaugurated (11 November), Lloyd George attributed the success of the Central Powers to unity and scoffed at recent Allied “victories”, saying he wished “it had not been necessary to win so many of them”. His speech angered several leading politicians and Derby assured Haig of his backing.^[141] Haig and Pétain objected to a common command, arguing that coalitions work better when one power is dominant, which was no longer the case now that British military power had increased relative to that of France. Lloyd George got his wish to send British forces to Italy, after the Italian defeat at Caporetto in November. Haig knew that manpower was scarce in the BEF and at home and wrote to Robertson that an offensive at Cambrai would stem the flow of reinforcements to Italy; Robertson delayed the despatch of two divisions.

Plans for a III Corps attack at Cambrai had been proposed as far back as May. Haig had informed the War Office (5 June) that “events have proved the utility of Tanks”. The plan was to trap German troops between the River Sensee and Canal du Nord, with the cavalry to seize the St Quentin Canal crossings, then exploit north-east. The first day objective was the high ground around Bourlon Wood and Haig was to review progress after 48 hours.

The Third Army attacked at Cambrai early on 20 November with 1,000 guns (using a surprise predicted barrage rather than a preliminary bombardment) and nine tank battalions. On the first day the British penetrated 5 miles (8.0 km) on a 6 miles (9.7 km) front with only 4,000 casualties, limited by blown bridges and the shortness of the November day. The 51st (Highland) Division was held up at Flesquieres village, which fell the following day. Haig’s intelligence chief Brigadier-General Charteris told him that the Germans would not be able to reinforce for 48 hours and James Marshall-Cornwall, then a junior intelligence officer, later an admiring biographer of Haig, alleged that Charteris refused to have reported fresh German divisions shown on the situation map as he did not want to weaken Haig’s resolution.

Haig visited the battlefield (21 November), inspecting the fighting at Bourlon Wood through his binoculars. He thought the attacks “feeble and uncoordinated” and was disappointed at the lack of grip by corps and division commanders and encountering 1st Cavalry Division, which had been ordered to fall back, resisted the temptation to countermand the order. At around 9 pm he decided to continue the attack on Bourlon Wood, a decision which has been much criticised but which made good military sense at the time and was supported by Byng, although the political need for a clear victory may have been a factor. The offensive continued but with diminishing returns. Bourlon Wood fell on 23 November but German counter-attacks had begun. Haig arrived at a Third Army planning meeting (26 November) and ordered further attacks the following day but then had to bow to Byng deciding to go onto the defensive. Haig complained that the lack of extra divisions had prevented a breakthrough, a view described by one biographer as “self-deception, pure and simple”.

Some of the gains were retaken after 30 November, when the Germans made their first counter-offensive against the British since 1914, using new Sturmtruppen tactics. GHQ intelligence had failed to piece together warnings. British casualties had mounted to over 40,000 by 3 December, with German losses somewhat less. One biographer argues that the initial success at Cambrai helped to save Haig’s job but another view is that the ultimate disappointment did more damage to Haig’s political credibility than Passchendaele. Lloyd George was particularly angry at the embarrassing Cambrai reverse, but Haig’s support amongst the Army, the public and many politicians made sacking him impossible; a plan that Haig be “promoted” to a sinecure, as generalissimo of British forces, was scotched when Lord Derby threatened resignation.

Asked to provide a statement to the House of Commons, Haig attributed the German success to “one cause and one alone … lack of training on the part of junior officers and NCOs and men”, a verdict supported by the court of enquiry which, at Derby’s instigation, Haig ordered, although the enquiry also criticised “higher commanders” for failing to enforce defensive doctrine. In a later report to Robertson Haig accepted the blame, stating that the troops had been tired as a result of the attack on Bourlon Wood. Although Haig defended Charteris, he was required to dismiss him. Robertson had arrived at Haig’s Headquarters with orders (signed by Derby) for his dismissal, in case Haig refused to do as he was asked. A common criticism is that Haig only accepted intelligence from Charteris (who told him what he wanted to hear) and did not cross-check it with other intelligence.

1918

Further information: Role of Douglas Haig in 1918

Political manoeuvres

Over lunch at 10 Downing Street with Derby and Lloyd George in January, Haig predicted that the war would end within a year because of the “internal state of Germany”. Haig left the War Cabinet with the impression that he thought the Germans would launch small attacks on the scale of Cambrai. Haig recommended that the British draw in German reserves by renewing the offensive around Ypres, which did not meet with political approval. By now Haig’s 1917 offensives were being criticised in the press and in Parliament, where J.C. Wedgwood openly demanded a change of command.The purge of Haig’s staff continued, with the removal of Maxwell (Quartermaster-General) and Lt-Gen Launcelot Kiggell as BEF Chief of Staff.

In January the Cabinet Minister Jan Christiaan Smuts and the Cabinet Secretary Maurice Hankey were sent to France to discreetly see whether any of the Army Commanders were willing to replace Haig – none were. At the Supreme War Council at Versailles Haig and Pétain complained of shortage of troops, but Haig’s political credibility was so low that Hankey wrote that they “made asses of themselves”. It was agreed that an Allied General Reserve be set up, under Foch with Henry Wilson as his deputy; Haig was reluctant to hand over divisions and argued against a common command, claiming that it would be “unconstitutional” for him to take orders from a foreign general, and that he did not have the reserves to spare. Milner thought Haig’s stance “desperately stupid”.

Lloyd George proposed that the CIGS be reduced to his pre-1915 powers (i.e. reporting to the Secretary of State for War, not direct to the Cabinet) and that the British military representative at the Supreme War Council in Versailles be Deputy CIGS and a member of the Army Council (i.e. empowered to issue orders to Haig). He offered Robertson a choice of remaining as CIGS with reduced powers or else accepting demotion to Deputy CIGS at Versailles. Derby summoned Haig to London, expecting him to support him in backing Robertson. In a private meeting with Lloyd George, Haig agreed with Robertson’s position that the CIGS should himself be the delegate to Versailles, or else that the Versailles delegate be clearly subordinate to the CIGS to preserve unity of command. However, he accepted that the War Cabinet must ultimately make the decision, and according to Lloyd George “put up no fight for Robertson” and persuaded Derby not to resign. Haig thought Robertson egotistical, coarse, power-crazed and not “a gentleman” and was unhappy at the way Robertson had allowed divisions to be diverted. Henry Wilson now became CIGS, with Rawlinson as British military representative at Versailles.Although Haig had been suspicious of Wilson, they gradually established a warily respectful relationship.

German Michael offensive

By March 1918 Germany’s Western Front armies had been reinforced by the release of troops from the Eastern Front. At this point British troops were tired and weakened, and British divisions had been cut in size from 12 battalions to 9. Allied intelligence did not fall for German deceptions that they might attack in Italy or the Balkans, but thought that the main attack might fall in the Cambrai-St Quentin sector. Haig inspected the Fifth Army (7–9 March) and noted widespread concerns, which he shared, at lack of reserves. As late as 17 March, Cox, who had replaced Charteris as Intelligence Chief, predicted that the German Offensive was not yet immediately imminent. By 20 March deployment of German trench mortars had been reported by deserters, and British artillery began some spoiling fire.

Germany launched an attack, “Michael” (21 March 1918), with a force larger than the entire BEF and enjoying superiority of 5:1 over Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army, which were spread thinly over line recently taken over from the French.Haig was initially calm on 21 March, as owing to the communications of the time GHQ was “an information vacuum” where news often took over a day to reach him, and spent much of the day entertaining foreign dignitaries including the US War Secretary. The Third Army retreated as planned from the Flesquieres Salient. With three-quarters of the 50-mile front under attack, the British troops fought hard and the Germans failed to reach their first-day objectives. However, lacking reserves Gough had to retreat behind the Crozat Canal. 22 March saw the Fifth Army retreat to the Somme; Haig still anticipated further German attacks in Champagne or Arras. The Germans did not initially realise the importance of Amiens as an objective.

Haig did not speak to or visit Gough until 23 March. That day Haig arranged for reserves to be sent down from Flanders. Formal orders were issued to the Fifth Army to maintain contact with the Third Army to their north and the French to their south.After initial optimism, Tim Travers has written of “panic” setting in amongst senior officers at GHQ on 23 March,and there is evidence that a retreat towards the Channel Ports may have been considered.

Doullens

Haig had a GHQ Reserve which was massed in the north, 72 hours’ march away, to protect the Channel Ports. The French Commander-in-Chief, Pétain, agreed to place two French armies under Fayolle as a reserve in the Somme valley, but could not agree to Haig’s request to send 20 French divisions to Amiens.

24 March was “probably the most traumatic day (Haig) had endured since” First Ypres in 1914. Half of BEF supplies came into Le Havre, Rouen and Dieppe and passed by train through Amiens, making it a major choke point. Planning that winter had left open the question of whether the BEF would retreat southwest or form “an island” around the Channel Ports through which Haig’s armies drew the other half of their supplies. A retreat on the ports does not seem to have been decided until some days after 21 March.

This is one of the occasions where doubt has been cast on the authenticity of Haig’s diary. For example, Haig’s typed diary – probably based on notes prepared in April – describes Pétain as “almost unbalanced and most anxious”, claiming that after attending a Cabinet meeting in Paris, where he had been ordered to “cover Paris at all costs”, he threatened to retreat on Paris, leaving the British right flank uncovered. Tim Travers argues that Pétain said at the meeting that he would only retreat on Paris if Haig retreated on the Channel Ports, and that Pétain had come away satisfied that Haig would not break contact. In a postwar exchange of letters with Haig Pétain denied that he had ordered a retreat on Paris or had threatened Haig that he might, a recollection which Herbert Lawrence appears to have supported. It has been suggested that Haig and Lawrence may simply have misunderstood his intentions, and that any factual errors in Haig’s diary were honest if mistaken recollections.

Haig’s letter of 25 March, sent via Weygand, asked for 20 French divisions to cover the southern British flank as the BEF fought its way back “covering the Channel Ports”. The letter is ambiguous and does not specifically mention a retreat “to” the ports. Sheffield argues that orders to Third Army were not a precursor to retreat but “a means to an end”, pointing to orders for, if needs be, a counterattack onto the northern flank of the German attackers, and also argues that although GHQ had a duty to consider contingency plans, unlike in 1940, evacuation was never actually likely. Wilson claimed that Haig suggested Pétain be appointed Allied generalissimo (which is not consistent with Haig’s later claim that Pétain was unwilling to help the British) and that he proposed Foch over Haig’s objections.

At the Doullens Conference (26 March), Haig accepted the appointment of Foch to coordinate reserves of all nationalities wherever he saw fit. In his typed diary Haig claimed much of the credit for Foch’s appointment and to have insisted that he have wider powers over Pétain than Clemenceau had wanted to grant him. Milner, who represented the British government at Doullens, recorded that Clemenceau was unhappy with Pétain’s recent efforts, but claimed that he himself had persuaded Haig to accept the appointment of Foch; Haig’s official biographer Duff Cooper gave Haig the credit but commented that the idea had probably occurred to several participants simultaneously.

After a German offensive near Arras (“Mars”, 28 March) was beaten back, between 29 and 31 March the Germans pushed on Amiens. A Canadian brigade took part in an action at Moreuil Wood. Attacks on 4 April (Villers-Bretonneux, east of Amiens) and 5 April on the Third Army front were beaten back by British and Australian forces, although contingency plans were still being prepared to cover Rouen and Le Havre in case Amiens fell.

German Georgette offensive

To ALL RANKS OF THE BRITISH ARMY IN FRANCE AND FLANDERS Three weeks ago to-day the enemy began his terrific attacks against us on a fifty-mile front. His objects are to separate us from the French, to take the Channel Ports and destroy the British Army. In spite of throwing already 106 Divisions into the battle and enduring the most reckless sacrifice of human life, he has as yet made little progress towards his goals. We owe this to the determined fighting and self-sacrifice of our troops. Words fail me to express the admiration which I feel for the splendid resistance offered by all ranks of our Army under the most trying circumstances. Many amongst us now are tired. To those I would say that Victory will belong to the side which holds out the longest. The French Army is moving rapidly and in great force to our support. There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the Freedom of mankind alike depend upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment. (Signed) D. Haig F.M. Commander-in-Chief British Armies in France, 11 April.

Lloyd George demanded Haig sack Gough, and when Haig was reluctant he was given a direct order to do so by Derby. Haig offered to resign; Lloyd George wanted to accept, but the other ministers, and Henry Wilson, thought there was no obvious successor.

During the second major German offensive, “Georgette” in Flanders (9 April), Haig issued his famous order that his men must carry on fighting “With Our Backs to the Wall and believing in the Justice of our Cause” to protect “the safety of our homes and the Freedom of mankind”. Just as “Michael” had swept over the Cambrai and the Somme battlefields, won at such cost by Haig’s own offensives in previous years, this one swept over Passchendaele although not Ypres itself. The offensive threatened Hazebrouck, “the Amiens of the north”, a key railhead through which supplies were brought from the Channel Ports.

Foch had earlier refused to send four French divisions to Flanders but now redeployed Maistre’s Tenth French Army to the Somme sector, freeing up British forces. During a renewed attack (17 April) Foch drew attention to the valour of the British at First Ypres and refused to send further French reinforcements so as to keep a strategic reserve. 24 April saw a further unsuccessful German attack at Villers-Bretonneux near Amiens, featuring the first tank-to-tank combat. Haig was suspicious of Foch’s request to move British divisions to the French sector to free up French reserves, worrying that this might lead to “a permanent Amalgam” of French and British forces. At a meeting on 27 April meeting the dispute was smoothed over, and British IX Corps moved to the French sector. On 30 April Ludendorff called a halt to the Flanders offensive.

Although some American divisions were now serving with the British forces, Haig thought Pershing “very obstinate and stupid” for refusing to integrate US troops with Allied units.At Abbeville (2 May) it was agreed that in the event of renewed attack British forces would retreat south if necessary and abandon the Channel Ports rather than lose touch with the French.

The near-debacle of March 1918 was an object of political controversy. Repington wrote that it was “the worst defeat in the history of the Army”. Bonar Law claimed in a House of Commons debate (23 April) that Haig and Pétain had agreed the extension of the British line, which was not wholly true as in January 1918 the Supreme War Council had ordered a longer extension than Haig and Pétain had agreed between themselves in December 1917. Lloyd George was accused (in the Maurice Debate of 9 May 1918 in the House of Commons) of having hoarded troops in the UK to make it harder for Haig to launch offensives. Lloyd George misled the House of Commons in claiming that Haig’s forces were stronger (1.75 million men) at the start of 1918 than they had been a year earlier (1.5 million men) – in fact the increase was caused by an increase of 335,000 in the number of labourers, and Haig had fewer combat infantry holding a longer stretch of front. Haig had opposed Maurice in taking his concerns into public, but was disappointed at how Lloyd George was able to get off the hook with a “claptrap speech”. Maurice believed he had saved Haig from dismissal.

German Bluecher offensive

By late spring the BEF had taken just over 300,000 casualties. Battalions had had to be brought in from the Middle East. Haig spent time touring his forces in May. Haig’s wife reported rumours that he was to be brought home as Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces; when Wilson denied the rumours to Haig, Haig recorded that “no one has been chosen yet!” to replace him.

A third major German offensive against the French on the Aisne (“Bluecher”), starting on 27 May, overwhelmed Hamilton-Gordon’s IX British Corps which had been sent there to refit after being involved in “Michael” and “Georgette”. At a conference at Versailles (1 June) there was friction between Haig, who was worried that the Germans would attack his sector again, and Foch, who demanded that the US divisions trained by the British be moved to his sector to release French divisions. Foch moved French forces down from Flanders, but there was further friction at a meeting in Paris about Foch’s request to move British reserves south. Haig threatened to appeal to the British government if he felt Foch was demanding too many British troops, so it was agreed that Haig and Foch should meet more frequently, and in time they developed a good working relationship.

Cooperation improved when the Germans launched their “Gneisenau” Offensive on 9 June. Lloyd George and Milner gave their full support to Foch on moving four British divisions. They told Haig that he should consider himself subordinate to Foch for the time being.

With another German attack imminent, Herbert Lawrence was asked (Haig was on leave in England) to send d Divisions – he sent only two. Haig thought this was breaching an agreement of 1 July that covering Paris and the Somme was to take priority. Wilson consulted the War Cabinet then told Haig to “exercise his judgement” about holding the British line. Haig felt that they would take credit for Foch’s victory but might dismiss him if disaster befell the British forces. The German “Peace Offensive” began against the French at Rheims on the same day. Haig eventually agreed that the French could use XXII Corps if necessary “for exploitation”.

Turn of the Tide and the Hundred Days

In July and August the Germans were defeated at the Second Battle of the Marne and Amiens. The latter victory was described by General Erich Ludendorff as “The Black Day of the German Army” after mass surrenders of German troops. On 11 August Haig, contrary to the wishes of Marshal Foch, insisted on a halt to the Amiens offensive and launched a new attack on 21 August between the Scarpe and the Ancre. As with his previous offensives in 1916 and 1917, Haig encouraged his subordinates to aim for ambitious objectives, in this case a thrust from Albert to Bapaume, and this time with more success than in previous years. On 10 September Haig, on a brief visit to London, insisted that the war could end that year and asked Lord Milner (Secretary of State for War) to send all available men and transportation. Milner afterwards shared with Wilson his concerns that Haig would embark on “another Passchendaele”.

Haig’s forces continued to enjoy much success, but when they began to advance towards the Hindenburg Line Haig received a supposedly “personal” telegram from the CIGS Henry Wilson (31 August), warning him that he was not to take unnecessary losses in storming these fortifications. Haig, surmising that the War Cabinet were not forbidding him to attack but might dismiss him if the assault failed, telegraphed Wilson back that they were a “wretched lot” and wrote that attacking the Germans now would be less costly than allowing them time to regroup.^]

There is some dispute over how much direct operational control Haig maintained at this time, Tim Travers in particular arguing that he allowed his Army Commanders a very free hand, whilst Ferdinand Foch was exerting ever-greater influence over strategy. Haig was irritated that Foch insisted that Plumer’s Second Army remain part of an Army Group commanded by the King of the Belgians, so that the French and Belgians could take credit for liberating Brussels.

Germany first requested an Armistice after the penetration of the Hindenburg Line at its strongest point, St Quentin/Cambrai, on 28 September, and the almost simultaneous capitulation of Bulgaria, and discussions continued until the ceasefire on 11 November. Haig urged moderation, suggesting that Germany only be asked to give up Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine, and warning that humiliating terms might lead to a militarist backlash. Haig suspected Wilson, a staunch Unionist, of wanting to prolong the war as an excuse to subdue southern Ireland by bringing in conscription there. The collapse of Austria-Hungary encouraged the politicians to demand stricter terms (although less strict than Foch or Pershing would have liked) and Germany was required to evacuate the Rhineland as well.However, once Germany had accepted the strict armistice terms, Haig suggested Germany be split into independent states at the peace treaty.

The forces under Haig’s command achieved impressive results: whereas the French, American and Belgian armies combined captured 196,700 prisoners-of-war between 18 July and the end of the war, Haig’s forces, with a smaller army than the French, engaged the main mass of the German Army and captured 188,700 prisoners. British daily casualty rates (3,645 per day) were heavier during this period than at the Somme (2,950) or Passchendaele (2,121),because British forces were attacking across the line, instead of being rotated through a single offensive. The military historian, Gary Sheffield, called this, the so-called Hundred Days Offensive, “by far the greatest military victory in British history”.

Executions during the First World War

Further information: British Army during World War I § Discipline

As commander-in-chief, one of Haig’s responsibilities was to give the final signature to the death warrants of British and Commonwealth soldiers (but not Australian – these went to the Governor-General of Australia) who had been first sentenced to death by Field General Court Martial. Although the book Shot at Dawn (1983), which began the campaign for pardons, says that it is “quite incorrect” to hold Haig solely responsible as he was part of a legal process, by the late 1990s Haig was perhaps best known to the general public because of publicity which implied him to be a brutal disciplinarian – this was not the view of contemporaries. Of the 3,080 men sentenced to death in all theatres, 346 were executed, 266 (77%) were for desertion, 37 for murder and 18 for cowardice. Just over 250 of the executions took place during Haig’s time as Commander-in-Chief, but only executed men’s records survive, so it is hard to comment on the reasons why men were reprieved.

Promotion of army dentistry during the First World War

During the war, Haig suffered from toothache and sent for a Parisian dentist. Consequently, within months the British Army had hired a dozen dentists and, by the end of the war, there were 831. This led to the formation of the Royal Army Dental Corps in 1921.

Later life

Lloyd George arranged a ceremonial reception for Marshal Foch on 1 December; Haig was asked to travel in the fifth carriage with Henry Wilson but not invited to the reception. Feeling that this was a snub and an attempt to win votes for the imminent election, Haig declined to attend at all. In November 1918 Haig refused Lloyd George’s offer of a viscountcy, partly as he felt it was another snub, as his predecessor Sir John French had been awarded the same rank on being removed from command of the BEF, and partly to use his refusal to bargain for better state financial aid for demobilised soldiers. Haig held out despite being lobbied by the King, until Lloyd George backed down in March 1919, blaming a recently sacked pensions minister. Haig was created Earl Haig, Viscount Dawick and Baron Haig, of Bemersyde in the County of Berwick, received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament and a grant of £100,000.

In January 1919, disturbances broke out among troops at Calais, as men returning from leave were expected to return to full army discipline and key workers with jobs to go to (who had often been the last to enlist) were – contrary to Haig’s advice – given priority for demobilisation. Haig accepted the advice of Winston Churchill that exercising his right to shoot the ringleaders was not sensible. For much of 1919, Haig served as Commander-in-Chief Home Forces, a key position as a General Strike seemed likely. Haig kept a low profile in this job and insisted the Army be kept in reserve, not used for normal policing. His military career ended in January 1920. Lord Haig arranged for his Dispatches to be published in 1922 as the General Election loomed, although in the end his nemesis Lloyd George was ousted for unrelated reasons.

After retiring from the service, Lord Haig devoted the rest of his life to the welfare of ex-servicemen.^[224] Haig pushed for the amalgamation of organisations, quashing a suggestion of a separate organisation for officers, into The British Legion which was founded in June 1921. He visited South Africa in 1921, Newfoundland in 1924, and Canada in 1925 (visits to Australia and New Zealand were being planned when he died) to promote ex-servicemen’s interests. He was instrumental in setting up the Haig Fund for the financial assistance of ex-servicemen and the Haig Homes charity to ensure they were properly housed.

An avid golf enthusiast, Haig was captain of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, from 1920 to 1921. He was president of The British Legion until his death and was chairman of the United Services Fund from 1921 until his death.

Haig maintained ties with the British Army after his retirement; he was honorary colonel of the 17th/21st Lancers (having been honorary colonel of the 17th Lancers from 1912), The London Scottish, the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, and Royal Horse Guards. He was Lord Rector and later Chancellor of the University of St Andrews.

Death

Haig died in London from a heart attack on 29 January 1928, and was given an elaborate funeral on 3 February. “Great crowds lined the streets … come to do honour to the chief who had sent thousands to the last sacrifice when duty called for it, but whom his war-worn soldiers loved as their truest advocate and friend.” The gun-carriage that had carried the Unknown Warrior to his grave in 1920 took Haig’s body from St Columba’s Church, where it had been lying in state, to Westminster Abbey. Three royal princes followed the gun-carriage and the pall-bearers included two Marshals of France (Foch and Pétain). The cortege was accompanied by five guards of honour, representing the Royal Navy, the Irish Guards, the Royal Air Force, the 1st French Army Corps, and the Belgian Regiment of Grenadiers. After the service at the Abbey, the procession re-formed to escort the body to Waterloo station for the journey to Edinburgh, where it lay in state for three days at St Giles’s Cathedral.

Haig was buried at Dryburgh Abbey in the Scottish borders, the grave being marked with a plain stone tablet in the style of the standard headstones of the Imperial War Graves Commission issued to British military casualties in the First World War.

The Earl Haig Memorial, an equestrian statue in Whitehall commissioned by Parliament and sculpted by Alfred Frank Hardiman, aroused some controversy and was not unveiled until just before Armistice Day in 1937.

Reputation

Main article: Reputation of Douglas Haig

Post-war opinion

After the war Haig was praised by the American General John J. Pershing, who remarked that Haig was “the man who won the war”.^[236] His funeral in 1928 was a huge state occasion. However, after his death he was increasingly criticised for issuing orders which led to excessive casualties of British troops under his command on the Western Front, earning him the nickname “Butcher of the Somme”.

Winston Churchill, whose World Crisis was written during Haig’s lifetime, suggested that greater use of tanks, as at Cambrai, could have been an alternative to blocking enemy machine-gun fire with “the breasts of brave men”. Churchill also wrote that although the Allied offensives up until August 1918 had been “as hopeless as they were disastrous”, “Haig and Foch were vindicated in the end”.Churchill admitted to Lord Beaverbrook that “subsequent study of the war has led me to think a good deal better of Haig than I did at the time. It is absolutely certain there was no one who could have taken his place.” Churchill’s essay on Haig in Great Contemporaries, written after Haig’s death, was slightly more critical, noting the government’s refusal to offer Haig employment after 1920, his emphasis on the Western Front and his lack of the “sinister genius” possessed by the truly great generals of history.

Lloyd George was more critical in his War Memoirs, published in 1936. He described Haig as “intellectually and temperamentally unequal to his task”, although “above the average for his profession—perhaps more in industry than intelligence”. Lloyd George’s biographer John Grigg (2002) attributed his vitriol to a guilty conscience, that he had not intervened to stop the Passchendaele Offensive. John Terraine, writing of the “shrill venom” with which Lloyd George sought to “exculpate himself”, called the memoirs “a document as shabby as his behaviour at Calais”

B. H. Liddell Hart, a military historian who had been wounded during the First World War, went from admirer to sceptic to unremitting critic. He wrote in his diary:

[Haig] was a man of supreme egoism and utter lack of scruple – who, to his overweening ambition, sacrificed hundreds of thousands of men. A man who betrayed even his most devoted assistants as well as the Government which he served. A man who gained his ends by trickery of a kind that was not merely immoral but criminal.

John Laffin, an Australian military historian who had served in the Second World War, commented unfavourably on Haig:

Haig and other British generals must be indicted not for incomprehension but for wilful blunders and wicked butchery. However stupid they might have been, however much they were the product of a system which obstructed enterprise, they knew what they were doing. There can never be forgiveness.

Other historians

One of Haig’s defenders was the military historian John Terraine, who published a biography of Haig (The Educated Soldier) in 1963, in which Haig was portrayed as a “Great Captain” of the calibre of the Duke of Marlborough or the Duke of Wellington. Terraine, taking his cue from Haig’s “Final Despatch” of 1918, argued that Haig pursued the only strategy possible given the situation. Gary Sheffield stated that although Terraine’s arguments about Haig have been much attacked over forty years, Terraine’s thesis “has yet to be demolished”.

Australian historian Les Carlyon wrote that while Haig was slow to adapt to the correct use of artillery in sufficient quantities to support infantry attacks and was generally sceptical that such doctrine had much place in military theory, he was fully supportive of excellent corps and field commanders such as Herbert Plumer, Arthur Currie and John Monash, who seem to best grasp and exercise these concepts, especially later in the war. Carlyon also wrote that there was a case to answer, for his support of more dubious commanders such as Ian Hamilton, Aylmer Hunter-Weston and Hubert Gough.

Tactical developments

Critics, including Alan Clark and Gerard De Groot, argue that Haig failed to appreciate the critical science of artillery and that he was “unimaginative”, although de Groot added that he has had the misfortune to be judged by the standards of a later age.Paul Fussell, a literary historian, wrote in The Great War and Modern Memory:

although one doesn’t want to be too hard on Haig … who has been well calumniated already … it must be said that it now appears that one thing the war was testing was the usefulness of the earnest Scottish character in a situation demanding the military equivalent of wit and invention. Haig had none. He was stubborn, self-righteous, inflexible, intolerant—especially of the French—and quite humourless … Indeed, one powerful legacy of Haig’s performance is the conviction among the imaginative and intelligent today of the unredeemable defectiveness of all civil and military leaders. Haig could be said to have established the paradigm.^[248]

Military historian John Bourne wrote that Haig, although not familiar with technological advances, encouraged their use. He also rejected claims that Haig was a traditionalist and focused only on cavalry tactics.^[249] Cavalry represented less than three per cent of the BEF in France by September 1916, whilst the British were the most mechanised force in the world by 1918, supported by the world’s largest air force. The Tank Corps was the world’s first such force and some 22,000 men served in it during the war. The Royal Artillery grew by 520 per cent and the engineers who implemented combined arms tactics grew by 2,212 per cent. Bourne wrote that this hardly demonstrates a lack of imagination.^[250] Other historians, notably John Keegan, refused to accept that the British Army underwent a “learning curve”; despite this example, Bourne wrote that there “is little disagreement among scholars about the nature of the military transformation”.^[251] Popular “media opinion” had failed to grasp that under Haig, the British Army adopted a modern style of war in 1918.^[252]

There is no consensus on the speed of a learning curve. Tim Travers blamed the management of early campaigns on the ethos of the pre-war officer corps, which was based on privilege, with a hierarchy intent on self-preservation and maintaining individual reputations. As a consequence the army was poorly positioned to adapt quickly. Travers wrote that initiative was discouraged and that the ethos of the army was pro-human and anti-technological. The offensive spirit of the infantry, quality of the soldier, rapid rifle-fire and the idea of the soldier being the most important aspect of the battlefield prevailed. The lessons of the Russo-Japanese War and the power of artillery were ignored, which caused costly tactical mistakes in the first half of the war. The tactics that Haig pursued were beyond the mobility and range of artillery, which contributed to operational failures and heavy losses. Travers also criticised Haig and enemy commanders for seeing battle as perfectly organised and something that could be planned perfectly, ignoring the concept of fog of war. Travers wrote that top-down command became impossible in the chaos of battle. The lack of attention to lower levels of command in the early years of the war created a command vacuum.^[253]

Bourne considered this to be too harsh, arguing that Haig progressed along with other commanders of the Edwardian era in implementing advances in operational methods, technology and tactical doctrine. Bourne also wrote that it was difficult to reconcile the commanders of 1918 with the dogma-ridden, unprofessional, unreflecting institution depicted by Tim Travers.^[254][255]

Biographers Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004) state:

As a result of his determination to accomplish great victories Haig too often disregarded key factors such as weather, and the condition of the battlefield, placed his objectives beyond the range which his artillery could cover and incorporated in his schemes a role for cavalry which this arm was helpless to accomplish. These shortcomings, it needs to be stressed, were not at all peculiar to Haig. … But the outcome, too often, was British operations directed towards unrealizable objectives and persisted in long after they had ceased to serve any worthwhile purpose. The consequence was excessive loss of British lives, insubstantial accomplishment, and waning morale.^[256]

Casualties

[edit]

Haig has been criticised for the high casualties in British offensives, but historians like John Terraine argue that this was largely a function of the size of the battles, as British forces engaged the main body of the German Army on the Western Front after 1916.^[257] Although total deaths in the Second World War were far higher than in the First, British deaths were lower, because Britain fought mainly peripheral campaigns in the Mediterranean for much of the Second World War, involving relatively few British troops, while most of the land fighting took place between Germany and the USSR.^[210][258] When British forces engaged in Normandy in 1944, total losses were fewer than on the Somme in 1916, as Normandy was around half the length and less than half the size but casualties per unit per week were broadly similar.^[259] David French wrote that British daily loss rates at Normandy, in which divisions lost up to three quarters of their infantry, were similar to those of Passchendaele in 1917, while average battalion casualty rates in 1944–45 (100 men per week) were similar to those of the First World War.^[260]

John Terraine wrote:

It is important, when we feel our emotions rightly swelling over the losses of 1914–18, to remember that in 1939–45 the world losses were probably over four times as many … the British task was entirely different, which is why the (British) loss of life was so different: about 350,000 in 1939–45 and about 750,000 (British deaths, 1 million including the Empire) in 1914–18 … – … The casualty statistics of the Great War … tell us … virtually nothing about the quality of … British generals. The statistics show that … the British losses in great battles were generally about the same as anyone else’s.

He also wrote that British perceptions were coloured by the terrible losses of 1 July 1916, during which the British Army sustained 57,000 casualties, but that it should also be remembered that the British never suffered anything like the losses of June 1916, when the Austro-Hungarian Army experienced 280,000 casualties in a week, or of August 1914, when the French Army lost 211,000 men in 16 days, or of March and April 1918, when the Germans lost nearly 350,000 men in six weeks, or 1915, when Russia suffered 2 million casualties in a year.^[261]

Total British First World War deaths seemed especially severe as they fell among certain groups such as Pals Battalions (volunteers who enlisted together and were allowed to serve together) or the alleged “Lost Generation” of public school and university-educated junior officers. British deaths, although heavy compared to other British wars, were only around half those of France or Germany relative to population.^[262]

Alleged falsification of records

1. The shot that was heard around the world. On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his wife, Sophie, were shot dead by a nineteen-year-old Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, as they rode in a procession through the streets of Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary blamed the Serbian government for the assassination and sought military support from Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II in preparation for war. Serbia was backed by Russia. By the time the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on July 28, 1914, both sides had officially gained powerful allies.
2. Many actors were involved. The Triple Entente (France, Russia, Britain) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) both acquired additional forces following the outbreak of war. The Allies gained Belgium, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, and the United States. Italy’s allegiance to the Central Powers was inconsistent, but the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria were added into the mix.
3. The United States eventually joined the war. At the start of the war, US President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality—a position supported by a majority of Americans. On April 6, 1917, however, the United States, now galvanized for war by the “Zimmerman Telegram,” declared war on Germany after German U-boats sank US merchant ships.
4. A deadly day. The heaviest loss of life in a single day occurred on July 1, 1916, when the British army suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 fatalities, in the Battle of the Somme.
5. One battle lasted 300 days. The Battle of Verdun lasted from February to December 1916. The Germans managed to surprise the French, and the heavy use of artillery accounted for 70 percent of the estimated 800,000 casualties. Nine French towns were completely destroyed, and while they were never rebuilt, still appear on maps to this day.
6. Women fought, too. The Russian forces called upon women to join female shock battalions in order to boost morale in the later years of the war. June 1917 saw the 1st Women’s Battalion of Death marching out to the front. Though the practice was discontinued following a substantial loss in one unit, many women continued to apply and fight for the regular units.
7.  Explosions in Ypres were heard in London. British forces dug tunnels and laid approximately one million pounds worth of explosives underneath German lines outside Messines. British soldiers on the scene were reportedly knocked off their feet, and those in France mistook the vibrations for an earthquake. The Messines detonations are considered to be one of the largest human caused pre-nuclear era explosions.
8. An elephant made an appearance. With a majority of horses being used on the front, Britain utilized the circus animals they had to cart around much-needed munitions. The most famous of these animals was Lizzie, an Indian elephant who wore boots as she carted around food and necessities in the town of Sheffield.
9. Vengeance at Versailles. French Prime Minister Georges Clémenceau pointedly picked the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles for peace negotiations, as it was there the Germans had declared the German Empire. The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. It came into effect on January 10, 1920. Germany was forced to accept full responsibility for the war, give up vast amounts of territory, and pay $31.4 billion in reparations. The result, as France wanted, crippled Germany. On October 3, 2010, Germany paid off the last of its debt set by the Treaty of Versailles. The global economic crisis in 1931 as well as Adolf Hitler’s rise to power had cut off its trend of paying annually.
10. Nine new countries. Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Estonia were able to exist independently following the collapse of the Austria-Hungarian Empire. Two of these countries (Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia) were brand new.
11. Laying the foundations for the United Nations. At the end of the war, the League of Nations was created to “promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security.” It disbanded following Hitler’s rise to power, but made way for the United Nations that now comprises 193 nations.

When the United States entered the World War in April 1917, American forces were ill-prepared to confront the horrors of chemical warfare. Mustard “gas,” particularly, was difficult to manage because of its characteristics and long life cycle. While true gases such as chlorine and phosgene dissipated over several hours, this agent (actually a liquid, dispersed in droplet or aerosol form) remains active for up to 25 to 30 years1 and causes rapid injury in contact with skin, even through clothing. Thus, after battles were concluded, even when the soldiers rested, ate food or slept, mustard gas remained dangerous. It is not surprising that mustard caused the largest number of chemical casualties in the war, and earned the sad title of the “King of Battle Gasses.”²Once combatants were exposed to the agent, they needed immediate decontamination or within 30 minutes of exposure, huge blisters would spot their entire bodies.³ The decontamination process required that soldiers were stripped of their uniforms, bathed and given new clothing to wear before they were brought to the hospital for treatment. Miss Julia Stimson (later to become Chief of the Army Nurse Corps) described the phenomenon: “We have been receiving patients that have been gassed and burned in a most mysterious way … they had burns on their bodies, on parts that are covered with clothing.”⁴

Several treatments were devised. Acute conjunctivitis required alkaline eye irrigations over and over again until the symptoms lessened and abated. With the large numbers of patients admitted to hospital units, this meant the nurses started at one end of the ward and by the time they had reached the other end of the unit, it was time to begin a new round of treatments.⁵ For those who had breathed in the mustard gas, nurses at Base Hospital 32 helped devise a mixture of “guiacol, camphor, menthol, oil of thyme and eucalyptus [that forced the patients to expectorate the inflammatory material]. Patients received immediate relief, [respirations were less labored so] … healing was begun.”⁶

Chemically burned soldiers took longer to heal than thermally burned combatants.⁷ Simple burns were mostly treated with sodium hypochlorite on the wounds.⁸ More extensive burns were treated with Vaseline gauze.⁹ Nurses first excised blisters then wrapped the affected area. Chief Nurse Lily B. Craighton of Red Cross Military Hospital # 6 described how chemical burn treatment was performed in their hospital:

“The men would come in with hideous blisters, extending from their shoulder down [the length of their bodies]. The nurses would clip away all this blistered skin, clean the … raw surface with antiseptic solution, dry it with an electric blower and spray on the “amberine.” Burns treated in this way healed in an incredibly short time.”¹⁰

At the war’s end, more than 30% of the casualties were related to chemical warfare and 80% of the casualties were directly related to mustard gas.¹¹ In creative and compassionate ways, Army nurses, as members of the busy healthcare team, rose to the challenge of caring for combatants who were injured by this hideous type of warfare weapon. Without their ingenuity, and dedicated service the majority of the gas cases would not have been successfully treated.¹²

James Patton, BS
Military Historian, U.S. Army Veteran, and WW-I Feature Writer

Every war brings to the fore a new way of maiming and killing soldiers. Gun powder in the 16th and 17th centuries meant that – finally, sadly – one could eliminate many of his enemies with one agent of offensive effort, an artillery round. While the efficiency of maiming and killing steadily advanced from the 17th to the 20th centuries it accelerated by an order of magnitude in WWI with the use of inhaled poison gasses.

One of the enduring hallmarks of WWI was the large-scale use of chemical weapons, commonly called, simply, ‘gas’. Although chemical warfare caused less than 1% of the total deaths in this war, the ‘psy-war’ or fear factor was formidable. Thus, chemical warfare with gases was subsequently absolutely prohibited by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. It has occasionally been used since then but never in WWI quantities. Production of some of these dangerous chemicals continues to this day as they have peaceful uses – for example, phosgene (carbonyl dichloride) is an industrial reagent, a precursor of pharmaceuticals and other important organic compounds.

Masked soldiers charge through a cloud of gas.

Several chemicals were weaponized in WWI and France actually was the first to use gas – they deployed tear gas in August 1914. The agent used was either xylyl bromide, which is described as smelling ‘pleasant and aromatic’, or ethyl bromoacetate, described as ‘fruity and pungent.’ Both are colorless liquids and have to be atomized to be dispersed as weapons. As lachrymatory agents, they irritate the eyes and cause uncontrolled tearing. Large doses can cause temporary blindness. If inhaled they also make breathing difficult. Symptoms usually resolve by 30 minutes after contact. Thus, tear gas was never very effective as a weapon against groups of enemy soldiers.

The German gas warfare program was headed by Fritz Haber (1868 – 1934) whose first try for a weapon was chlorine, which he debuted at Ypres in April 1915. Chlorine is a diatomic gas, about two and a half times denser than air, pale green in color and with an odor which was described as a ‘mix of pineapple and pepper’. It can react with water in the lungs to form hydrochloric acid, which is destructive of tissue and can quickly lead to death, or, at least, permanent lung tissue damage and disability. At lower concentrations, if it does not reach the lungs, per se, it can cause coughing, vomiting, and eye irritation. Chlorine was deadly against unprotected soldiers. It is estimated over 1,100 were killed in its first use at Ypres. Ironically, the Germans weren’t prepared for how effective it would be and were unable to exploit their advantage, gaining little ground.

Chlorine’s usefulness was short-lived. Its color and odor made it easy to spot, and since chlorine is water-soluble even soldiers without gas masks could minimize its effect by placing water-soaked – even urine-soaked – rags over their mouths and noses. Additionally, releasing the gas in a cloud posed problems, as the British learnt to their detriment when they attempted to use chlorine at Loos. The wind shifted, carrying the gas back onto their own men.

Phosgene (carbonyl dichloride) was Haber’s next choice, probably used first at Ypres by the Germans in December 1915. Phosgene is a colorless gas, with an odor likened to that of ‘musty hay’, but for the odor to be detectable, the concentration had to be at 0.4 parts per million, or several times the level at which harmful effects occur. Phosgene is highly toxic, due to its ability to react with proteins in the alveoli of the lungs, disrupting the blood-air barrier, leading to suffocation.

Allied soldiers pose for a picture while wearing their gas masks.

Phosgene was much more effective and more deadly than chlorine, though one drawback was that the symptoms could sometimes take up to 48 hours to be manifest. The minimal immediate effects are lachrymatory. However, subsequently, it causes build-up of fluid in the lungs (pulmonary edema), leading to death. It is estimated that as many as 85% of the 91,000 gas deaths in WWI were a result of phosgene or the related agent, diphosgene (trichloromethane chloroformate).

The most commonly used gas in WWI was ‘mustard gas’ [bis(2-chloroethyl) sulfide]. In pure liquid form this is colorless, but in WWI impure forms were used, which had a mustard color with an odor reminiscent of garlic or horseradish. An irritant and a strong vesicant (blister-forming agent), it causes chemical burns on contact, with blisters oozing yellow fluid. Initial exposure is symptomless, and by the time skin irritation begins, it is too late to take preventative measures. The mortality rate from mustard gas was only 2-3%, but those who suffered chemical burns and respiratory problems had long hospitalizations and if they recovered were thought to be at higher risk of developing cancers during later life.

Windswept gas spreads across a battlefield in Europe.

Chloropicrin, diphenylchlorarsine, American-developed Adamsite (diphenylaminechlorarsine), and others were irritants that could bypass gas masks and make soldiers remove their masks, thus, exposing them to phosgene or chlorine.

Gases often were used in combinations. Most gas was delivered by artillery shells. The agent(s) were in liquid form in glass bottles inside the warhead, which would break on contact and the liquid would evaporate. Shells were color coded in a system started by the Germans. Green Cross shells contained the pulmonary agents: chlorine, phosgene and diphosgene. White Cross had the tear gases. Blue Cross had the ‘mask breakers’ like chloropicrin. Gold (or Yellow) Cross had mustard gas.

John Singer Sargent’s ‘Gassed’ depicts the aftermath of a mustard gas attack on British troops.

In retrospect it is sad to know that warfare by poisoning soldiers – so brutal, highly personal, and used with such little restraint by both sides in WWI – had been previously outlawed by the Hague Convention in 1899. The ironies of gas warfare are vividly focused in the life of Fritz Haber, the German chemist who invented phosgene and also the ‘Haber Process’ which allowed fixation of atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia-based fertilizer. A German Jew who converted to Christianity, he received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1919 for the Haber Process. Though long dead before The Holocaust, he was one of the chemists who perfected the hydrocyanide-based insecticides Zyklon A and Zyklon B, the latter gas used to kill millions of Jews and others, including some of his relatives.

The Imperial War Museum in London is the source of some of the images, particularly the John Singer Sargent painting, ‘Gassed.’

The development of tanks in World War I was a response to the stalemate that developed on the Western Front. Although vehicles that incorporated the basic principles of the tank (armour, firepower, and all-terrain mobility) had been projected in the decade or so before the War, it was the alarmingly heavy casualties of the start of its trench warfare that stimulated development. Research took place in both Great Britain and France, with Germany only belatedly following the Allies’ lead.

In Great Britain, an initial vehicle, nicknamed Little Willie, was constructed at William Foster & Co., during August and September 1915. The prototype of a new design that became the Mark I tank was demonstrated to the British Army on 2 February 1916. Although initially termed “Landships” by the Landship Committee, production vehicles were named “tanks”, to preserve secrecy. The term was chosen when it became known that the factory workers at William Foster referred to the first prototype as “the tank” because of its resemblance to a steel water tank.

The French fielded their first tanks in April 1917 and ultimately produced far more tanks than all other countries combined.

The Germans, on the other hand, began development only in response to the appearance of Allied tanks on the battlefield. Whilst the Allies manufactured several thousand tanks during the war, Germany deployed only 18 of its own.

The first tanks were mechanically unreliable. There were problems that caused considerable attrition rates during combat deployment and transit. The heavily shelled terrain was impassable to conventional vehicles, and only highly mobile tanks such as the Renault FTs and Mark IV performed reasonably well. The Mark I’s rhomboid shape, caterpillar tracks, and 26-foot (8 m) length meant that it could negotiate obstacles, especially wide trenches, that wheeled vehicles could not. Along with the tank, the first self-propelled gun (the British Gun Carrier Mk I) and the first armoured personnel carrier followed the invention of tanks.

Conceptual roots

See also: History of the tank

The conceptual roots of the tank go back to ancient times, with siege engines that were able to provide protection for troops moving up against stone walls or other fortifications. With the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the demonstrable power of steam, James Cowan presented a proposal for a Steam Powered Land Ram in 1855, towards the end of the Crimean War. Looking like a helmet on ‘footed’ Boydell wheels, early forerunners of the Pedrail wheel, it was essentially an armoured steam tractor equipped with cannon and rotating scythes sprouting from the sides. Lord Palmerston is said to have dismissed it as ‘barbaric’.

From 1904 to 1909, David Roberts, the engineer and managing director of Hornsby & Sons of Grantham, built a series of tractors using his patented ‘chain-track’, which were put through their paces by the British Army, a (small) section of which wanted to evaluate artillery tractors. At one point in 1908, Major William E. Donohue of the Mechanical Transport Committee remarked to Roberts that he should design a new machine with armour that could carry its own gun. However, disheartened by years of ultimately-fruitless tinkering for the Army, Roberts did not take up the idea. In later years, he expressed regret at not having pursued it.^[5]

An engineer in the Austro-Hungarian Army, Lieutenant Gunther Burstyn, designed a tracked armoured vehicle in 1911 carrying a light gun in a rotating turret; equipped also with hinged ‘arms’, two in front and two at the rear, carrying wheels on the ends to assist with obstacles and trenches, it was a very forward-looking design, if rather small. The Austro-Hungarian government said that it would be interested in evaluating it if Burstyn could secure commercial backing to produce a prototype. Lacking the requisite contacts, he let it drop. An approach to the German government was similarly fruitless.

In 1912, Lancelot De Mole, of South Australia, submitted a proposal to the British War Office for a “chain-rail vehicle which could be easily steered and carry heavy loads over rough ground and trenches”. De Mole made more proposals to the War Office in 1914 and 1916, with a culminating proposal in late 1917, accompanied by a huge one-eighth scale model, but all fell on substantially-deaf ears. De Mole’s proposal already had the climbing face, which was so typical of the later World War I British tanks, but it is unknown whether there was some connection.

Inquiries to the government of Australia after the war yielded polite responses that Mr. De Mole’s ideas had unfortunately been too advanced for the time to be properly recognised at their just value. The Commission on Awards to Inventors in 1919, which adjudicated all the competing claims to the development of the tank, recognised the brilliance of De Mole’s design and even considered that it was superior to the machines actually developed, but its narrow remit allowed it only to make a payment of £987 to De Mole to cover his expenses. He noted in 1919 that he was urged by friends before the war to approach the Germans with his design but declined to do so for patriotic reasons.

Before World War I, motorised vehicles were still relatively uncommon, and their use on the battlefield was initially limited, especially of heavier vehicles. Armoured cars soon became more common with most belligerents, especially in more-open terrain. On 23 August 1914 the French Colonel Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne, later a major proponent of tanks, declared, “Gentlemen, victory will belong in this war to the one of the two belligerents that will manage to be the first to succeed in putting a 75 mm cannon on a vehicle that can move on all types of terrain.”

Armored cars indeed proved useful in open land, such as in deserts, but were not very good at crossing obstacles, such as trenches and barriers, or in more-challenging terrain. The other issue was that it was very hard to add much protection or armament.

The main limitation was the wheels, which gave a high ground pressure for the vehicle’s weight. That could be solved by adding more wheels, but unless they also were driven, the effect was to reduce traction on the powered wheels. Driving extra wheels meant more drive train weight, which required a larger and heavier engine to maintain performance. Even worse, none of the extra weight was put into an improvement of armour or armament carried, and the vehicles could still not cross very rough terrain.

The adoption of caterpillar tracks offered a new solution to the problem. The tracks spread the weight of the vehicles over a much greater area, all of which was for traction to move the vehicle. The limitation on armour and firepower was no longer the ground pressure but the power and weight of the power-plant.

The remaining issue was how to use and configure a vehicle. Major Ernest Dunlop Swinton of the Royal Engineers was the official British war correspondent serving in France in 1914 and recounted in his book Eyewitness how the idea of using caterpillar tracks to drive an armoured fighting vehicle came to him on 19 October 1914 while he was driving through northern France. In July 1914, he had received a letter from a friend, Hugh Marriott, a mining engineer, who drew his attention to a Holt caterpillar tractor that Marriott had seen in Belgium.

Marriott thought that it might be useful for transport over difficult ground, and Swinton had passed the information on to the appropriate departments. Swinton then suggested the idea of an armoured tracked vehicle to the military authorities by sending a proposal to Lieutenant-Colonel Maurice Hankey, who tried to interest Lord Kitchener in the idea. When that failed, he sent a memorandum in December to the Committee of Imperial Defence, of which he was himself the secretary. Winston Churchill the First Lord of the Admiralty was one of the members of the committee. Hankey proposed to build a gigantic steel roller pushed by tracked tractors to shield the advancing infantry.

Churchill, in turn, wrote a note on 5 January to Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and warned that the Germans might any moment introduce a comparable system. A worried Asquith now ordered Kitchener to form a committee, headed by General Scott-Moncrieff, to study the feasibility of Swinton’s idea; however, after trials with a Holt 75 horsepower machine, the committee concluded in February 1915 that the idea was impractical.

Landship Committee

Churchill, however, decided that unless the Army took up the idea, the Navy should proceed independently, even if it exceeded the limits of his authority. He created the Landship Committee in February 1915, initially to investigate designs for a massive troop transporter. As a truer picture of front-line conditions was developed the aims of the investigation changed. A requirement was formulated for an armoured vehicle capable of 4 mph (6.4 km/h), climbing a 5 feet (1.5 m) high parapet, crossing an 8 feet (2.4 m) wide gap, and armed with machine guns and a light artillery piece.

A similar proposal was working its way through the Army GHQ in France, and in June, the Landships Committee was made a joint service venture between the War Office and the Admiralty. The Naval involvement in Armoured Fighting Vehicle (AFV) design had originally come about through the Royal Naval Air Service Armoured Car Division, the only British unit fielding AFVs in 1914. Surprisingly, until the end of the war, most experimentation on heavy land vehicles was conducted by the Royal Naval Air Service Squadron 20.

At first, protecting heavy gun tractors with armour appeared the most promising line of development. Alternative early ‘big wheel’ designs on the lines of the Russian tsar tank of 1915 were soon understood to be impractical. However, adapting the existing Holt Company caterpillar designs, the only robust tracked tractors available in 1915 into a fighting machine, which France and Germany did, was decided against. Although armour and weapon systems were easy to acquire, other existing caterpillar and suspension units were too weak, existing engines were underpowered for the vehicles that the designers had in mind and the ability to cross trenches was poor because of the shortness of the wheelbase.

The Killen-Strait tractor with three tracks was used for the first experiments in June but was much too small to be developed further. The large Pedrail monotrack vehicle was proposed in a number of different configurations, but none were adopted. Trials to couple two American Bullock tractors failed. There also were considerable differences of opinion between the several committee members. Col R.E.B. Crompton, a veteran military engineer and electrical pioneer, drafted numerous designs with Lucien Legros for armoured troop carrying vehicles and gun-armed vehicles, to have used either Bullock tracks or variants of the Pedrail.

At the same time, Lt Robert Macfie, of the RNAS, and Albert Nesfield, an Ealing-based engineer, devised a number of armoured tracked vehicles, which incorporated an angled front ‘climbing face’ to the tracks. The two men fell out bitterly as their plans came to nought; Macfie in particular pursued a vendetta against the other members of the Landships Committee after the war.

To resolve the threatened dissipation of effort, it was ordered in late July that a contract was to be placed with William Foster & Co. Ltd, a company having done some prewar design work on heavy tractors and known to Churchill from an earlier experiment with a trench-crossing supply vehicle, to produce a proof-of-concept vehicle with two tracks, based on a lengthened Bullock tractor chassis. Construction work began three weeks later.

Fosters of Lincoln built the 14 ton “Little Willie“, which first ran on 8 September. Powered by a 105 hp (78 kW) Daimler engine, the 10-foot-high (3.0 m) armoured box was initially fitted with a low Bullock caterpillar. A rotating top turret was planned with a 40 mm gun but abandoned due to weight problems, leaving the final vehicle unarmed and little more than a test-bed for the difficult track system. Difficulties with the commercial tracks supplied led to Tritton designing a completely new track system different from, and vastly more robust than, any other system then in use.

The next design by Lieutenant Walter Gordon Wilson RNAS, a pre-war motor engineer, added a larger track frame to the hull of “Little Willie”. In order to achieve the demanded gap clearance a rhomboidal shape was chosen—stretching the form to improve the track footprint and climbing capacity. To keep a low centre of gravity the rotating turret design was dropped in favour of sponsons on the sides of the hull fitted with naval 6-pounder (57 mm) guns.

A final specification was agreed on in late September for trials in early 1916, and the resulting 30 ton “Big Willie” (later called “Mother”) together with “Little Willie” underwent trials at Hatfield Park on 29 January and 2 February. Attendees at the second trial included Lord Kitchener, Lloyd George, Reginald McKenna and other political luminaries. On 12 February an initial order for 100 “Mother” type vehicles was made, later expanded to 150.

Crews rarely called tanks “Willies”; at first they referred to them as “cars”, and later informally “buses”.^[6] Although landship was a natural term coming from an Admiralty committee, it was considered too descriptive and could give away British intentions. The committee, therefore, looked for an appropriate code term for the vehicles. Factory workers assembling the vehicles had been told they were producing “mobile water tanks” for desert warfare in Mesopotamia. Water Container was therefore considered but rejected because the committee would inevitably be known as the WC Committee (WC meaning water closet was a common British term for a toilet).

The term tank, as in water tank, was in December 1915 accepted as its official designation. From then on, the term “tank” was established among British and also German soldiers. While in German Tank specifically refers to the World War I type (as opposed to modern Panzer), in English, Russian and other languages the name even for contemporary armored vehicles is still based on the word tank.

It is sometimes mistakenly stated that, after completion, the tanks were shipped to France in large wooden crates. For secrecy and in order to not arouse any curiosity, the crates and the tanks themselves were then each labeled with a destination in Russian, “With Care to Petrograd“. In fact, the tanks were never shipped in crates: the inscription in Russian was applied on the hull for their transport from the factory to the first training centre at Thetford.

The first fifty had been delivered to France on 30 August. They were ‘male’ or ‘female’, depending upon whether their armament comprised two 6-pounder cannons and three Hotchkiss machine guns or four Vickers machine guns and one Hotchkiss. It had a crew of eight, four of whom were needed to handle the steering and drive gears. The tanks were capable of, at best, 6 km/h (3.7 mph), matching the speed of marching infantry with whom they were to be integrated to aid in the destruction of enemy machine guns. In practice, their speed on the broken ground could be as little as 1 mph.

After the war the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors decided that the principal inventors of the Tank were Sir William Tritton, managing director of Fosters, and Major Walter Gordon Wilson. Fosters returned to manufacturing Traction engines and steam lorries, but incorporated a small trademark outline image of a tank on the front smokebox door of their postwar road locomotives. During WWII, Tritton and Wilson were called upon to design a Heavy tank, which was known as TOG1, (named for “The Old Gang”), but this was not a success. However, Lincoln City erected a full-size outline Mk 1 as a memorial to the invention of the tank in 2015, and placed it on the Tritton Road roundabout.

First deployments

For secrecy, the six new tank companies were assigned to the Heavy Section of the Machine Gun Corps.^[6] The first use of tanks on the battlefield was the use of British Mark I tanks by C and D Companies HS MGC at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme) on Friday 15 September 1916, with mixed results. Many broke down, but nearly a third succeeded in breaking through. Of the forty-nine tanks shipped to the Somme, only thirty-two were able to begin the first attack in which they were used, and only nine made it across “no man’s land” to the German lines. The tanks had been rushed into combat before the design was mature enough (against the wishes of Churchill and Ernest Swinton) and the number was small but their use gave important feedback on how to design newer tanks, the soundness of the concept and their potential to affect the course of the war.

On the other hand, the French Army was critical of the British employment of small numbers of tanks at the battle. It felt the British had sacrificed the secrecy of the weapon but used it in numbers too small to be decisive. Since the British attack was part of an Anglo-French offensive, and the Russians were attacking at the same time, Haig felt justified in making a maximum effort, regardless of the limitations of the tank force.

Tank crews who had read press reports depicting the new weapon driving through buildings and trees, and crossing wide rivers, were disappointed. The Mark I’s were nonetheless capable of performing on the real battlefield of World War I, one of the most difficult battlefield terrains in history. Despite their reliability problems, when they worked, they could cross trenches or craters of 9 feet (2.7 m) and drive right through barbed wire. It was still common for them to get stuck, especially in larger bomb craters, but overall, the rhomboid shape allowed for extreme terrain mobility.

Most World War I tanks could travel only at about a walking pace at best. Their steel armour could stop small arms fire and fragments from high-explosive artillery shells. However, they were vulnerable to a direct hit from artillery and mortar shells. The environment inside was extremely unpleasant; as ventilation was inadequate the atmosphere was heavy with poisonous carbon monoxide from the engine and firing the weapons, fuel and oil vapours from the engine and cordite fumes from the weapons. Temperatures inside could reach 50°C (122°F). Entire crews lost consciousness inside the tanks, or collapsed when again exposed to fresh air. Crews learned how to create and leave behind supply dumps of fuel, motor oil, and tread grease, and converted obsolete models into supply vehicles for newer ones.

To counter the danger of bullet splash or fragments knocked off the inside of the hull, the crew wore helmets with goggles and chainmail masks. Fragments were not as dangerous as fire, because of explosive fumes and the large amount of fuel aboard; smoking was prohibited inside and within 20 yards outside tanks. Gas masks were also standard issue, as they were to all soldiers at this point in the war due to the use of chemical warfare. The side armour of 8 mm initially made them largely immune to small arms fire, but could be penetrated by the recently developed armour-piercing K bullets.

There was also the danger of being overrun by infantry and attacked with grenades. The next generation had thicker armour, making them nearly immune to the K bullets. In response, the Germans developed a larger purpose-made anti-tank rifle, the 3.7 cm TAK 1918 anti-tank gun, and also a Geballte Ladung (“Bunched Charge”)—several regular stick grenades bundled together for a much bigger explosion.

Engine power was a primary limitation on the tanks; the roughly one hundred horsepower engines gave a power-to-weight ratio of 3.3 hp/ton (2.5 kW/ton). By the end of the 20th century, power-to-weight ratios exceeded 20 hp/ton (15 kW/ton).

Many feel that because the British Commander Field Marshal Douglas Haig was himself a horse cavalryman, his command failed to appreciate the value of tanks. In fact, horse cavalry doctrine in World War I was to “follow up a breakthrough with harassing attacks in the rear”, but there were no breakthroughs on the Western Front until the tanks came along. Despite these supposed views of Haig, he made an order for 1,000 tanks shortly after the failure at the Somme and always remained firmly in favour of further production.

In 1919, Major General Sir Louis Jackson said: “The tank was a freak. The circumstances which called it into existence were exceptional and not likely to recur. If they do, they can be dealt with by other means.”

French developments

France at the same time developed its own tracked AFVs, but the situation there was very different. In Britain a single committee had coordinated design, and had to overcome the initial resistance of the Army, while the major industries remained passive. Almost all production effort was thus concentrated into the Mark I and its direct successors, all very similar in shape. In France, on the other hand, there were multiple and conflicting lines of development which were badly integrated, resulting in three major and quite disparate production types.

A major arms producer, Schneider, took the lead in January 1915 and tried to build a first armoured vehicle based on the Baby Holt tractor but initially the development process was slow until in July they received political, even presidential, support by combining their project with that of a mechanical wire cutter devised by engineer and politician Jean-Louis Bréton. In December 1915, the influential Colonel Estienne made the Supreme Command very enthusiastic about the idea of creating an armoured force based on these vehicles; strong Army support for tanks was a constant during the decades that followed. Already in January and February 1916, quite substantial orders were made at that moment with a total number of 800, much larger than the British ones.

Army enthusiasm and haste had its immediate drawbacks however. As a result of the involvement of inexperienced army officers ordered to devise a new tank based on the larger 75 hp Holt chassis in a very short period of time, the first French tanks were poorly designed with respect to the need to cross trenches and did not take the sponson-mounting route of the British tanks. The first, the Char Schneider CA equipped with a short 75 mm howitzer, had poor mobility due to a short track length combined with a hull that overhung both front and rear.

It was unreliable as well; a maximum of only about 130 of the 400 built were ever operational at the same time. Then industrial rivalry began to play a detrimental role: it created the heavy Char St Chamond, a parallel development not ordered by the Army but approved by government through industrial lobbying, which mounted much more impressive weaponry—its 75mm was the most powerful gun fielded by any operational tank up until 1941—but also combined many of the Schneider CA’s faults with an even larger overhanging body. Its innovative petro-electrical transmission, while allowing for easy steering, was insufficiently developed and led to a large number of breakdowns.

But industrial initiative also led to swift advances. The car industry, already used to vehicle mass production and having much more experience in vehicle layout, designed the first practical light tanks in 1916, a class largely neglected by the British. It was Renault‘s excellent small tank design, the FT, incorporating a proper climbing face for the tracks, that was the first tank to incorporate a top-mounted turret with a full 360° traverse capability.

The FT was in many respects the first truly ‘modern’ tank, having a layout that has been followed by almost all designs ever since: driver at the front; main armament in a fully rotating turret on top; engine at the rear. Previous models had been “box tanks”, with a single crowded space combining the role of engine room, fighting compartment, ammunition stock and driver’s cabin. (A very similar Peugeot prototype, with a fixed casemate mounting a short 75mm cannon, was trialed in 1918 but the idea was not pursued). The FT had the largest production run of any tank of the war, with over 3700 built, more numerous than all British and German tanks combined. That this would happen was at first far from certain; some in the French army lobbied for the alternative mass production of super-heavy tanks.

Much design effort was put in this line of development resulting in the gigantic Char 2C, the most complex and technologically advanced tank of its day. Its very complexity ensured it being produced too late to participate in World War I and in the very small number of just ten, but it was the first tank with a three-man turret; the heaviest to enter service until late in World War II and still the largest ever operational tank.

French production at first lagged behind the British. After August 1916 however, British tank manufacture was temporarily halted to wait for better designs, allowing the French to overtake their allies in numbers. When the French used tanks for the first time on 16 April 1917, during the Nivelle Offensive, they had four times more tanks available. But that did not last long as the offensive was a major failure; the Schneiders were badly deployed and suffered 50% losses from German long-range artillery. The Saint-Chamond tanks, first deployed on 5 May, proved to be so badly designed that they were unable to cross the first line of German trenches.

German developments

Germany concentrated more on the development of anti-tank weapons than on development of tanks themselves. They only developed one type of tank which saw combat in the war. The A7V Sturmpanzerwagen was designed in 1917 and was used in battle from March 1918. It was manned by a crew of 18, and had eight machine guns and a 57-millimetre cannon. Only 20 A7Vs were produced during the war. The Germans did, however, capture Allied tanks and re-purpose them for their own uses.

Battle of Cambrai

The first battle in which tanks made a great impact was the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. British Colonel J.F.C. Fuller, chief of staff of the Tank Corps, was responsible for the tanks’ role in the battle. They made an unprecedented breakthrough but the opportunity was not exploited. Ironically, it was the soon-to-be-supplanted horse cavalry that had been assigned the task of following up the motorised tank attack.

Tanks became more effective as the lesson of the early tanks was absorbed. The British produced the Mark IV in 1917. Similar to the early Marks in appearance, its construction was considered to produce a more reliable machine; the long-barrelled naval guns were shortened, (the barrels of the earlier, longer guns were prone to digging in the mud when negotiating obstacles) and armour was increased just enough to defeat the standard German armour-piercing bullet.

The continued need for four men to drive the tank was solved with the Mark V which used Wilson’s epicyclic gearing in 1918. Also in 1918 the French produced the Renault FT, the result of a co-operation between Estienne and Louis Renault. As mentioned before, it had the innovative turret position, and was operated by two men. At just 8 tons it was half the weight of the Medium A Whippet but the version with the cannon had more firepower. It was conceived for mass production, and the FT became the most produced tank of World War I by a wide margin, with over 3,000 delivered to the French Army. Large numbers were also used by the Americans and several were lent to the British.

In July 1918, the French used 480 tanks (mostly FTs) at the Battle of Soissons, and there were even larger assaults planned for the next year. In Plan 1919, the Entente hoped to commit over 30,000 tanks to battle in that year.

Whippet

Finally, in a preview of later developments, the British developed the Whippet. This tank was specifically designed to exploit breaches in the enemy front with its relatively higher speed (around 8 mph vs 3–4 mph for the British heavy tanks). The Whippet was faster than most other tanks, although it carried only machine gun armament, meaning it was not suited to combat with armoured vehicles but instead with infantry. Postwar tank designs reflected this trend towards greater tactical mobility.

Villers-Bretonneux: Tank against tank

Main article: Second Battle of Villers-Bretonneux

The German General Staff did not have enthusiasm for tanks but allowed the development of anti-tank weapons. Regardless, the development of a German tank was underway. The only project to be produced and fielded was the A7V, although only twenty were built. The majority of the fifty or so tanks fielded by Germany were captured British vehicles. A7Vs were captured by the Allies, but they were not used, and most ended up being scrapped.

The first tank-versus-tank battles took place on 24 April 1918. It was an unexpected engagement between three German A7Vs and three British Mk. IVs at Villers-Bretonneux.

Fuller‘s Plan 1919, involving massive use of tanks for an offensive, was never used because the blockade of Germany and the entry of the US brought an end to the war.

 WW`1 was the first major conflict involving the large-scale use of aircraft. Tethered observation balloons had already been employed in several wars and would be used extensively for artillery spotting. Germany employed Zeppelins for reconnaissance over the North Sea and Baltic and also for strategic bombing raids over Britain and the Eastern Front.

Airplanes were just coming into military use at the outset of the war. Initially, they were used mostly for reconnaissance. Pilots and engineers learned from experience, leading to the development of many specialized types, including fighters, bombers, and trench strafers.

Ace fighter pilots were portrayed as modern knights, and many became popular heroes. The war also saw the appointment of high-ranking officers to direct the belligerent nations’ air war efforts.

While the impact of airplanes on the course of the war was mainly tactical rather than strategic, the most important role being direct cooperation with ground forces (especially ranging and correcting artillery fire), the first steps in the strategic roles of aircraft in future wars were also foreshadowed.

The early years of war

At the 1911 meeting of the Institute of International Law in Madrid, legislation was proposed to limit the use of aeroplanes to reconnaissance missions and banning them from being used as platforms for weapons. This legislation was rooted in a fear that aeroplanes would be used to attack undefended cities, violating Article 25 of the Den Hague Reglement (the set of international laws governing warfare).

At the start of the war, there was some debate over the usefulness of aircraft in warfare. Many senior officers, in particular, remained skeptical. However the initial campaigns of 1914 proved that cavalry could no longer provide the reconnaissance expected by their generals, in the face of the greatly increased firepower of twentieth century armies, and it was quickly realised that aircraft could at least locate the enemy, even if early air reconnaissance was hampered by the newness of the techniques involved. Early skepticism and low expectations quickly turned to unrealistic demands beyond the capabilities of the primitive aircraft available.

Even so, air reconnaissance played a critical role in the “war of movement” of 1914, especially in helping the Allies halt the German invasion of France. Aircraft were first used in Alexander von Kluck‘s German First Army during the Battle of Mons to target its guns on British II Corps positions. On 22 August 1914, British Captain L.E.O. Charlton and Lieutenant V.H.N. Wadham of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) reported von Kluck’s forces were preparing to surround the British Expeditionary Force, contradicting all other intelligence. The British High Command took note of the report and started to withdraw from Mons, saving the lives of 100,000 soldiers. Later, during the First Battle of the Marne, observation aircraft discovered weak points and exposed flanks in the German lines, allowing the allies to take advantage of them.

In Germany the great successes of the early Zeppelin airships had largely overshadowed the importance of heavier-than-air aircraft. Out of a paper strength of about 230 aircraft belonging to the army in August 1914 only 180 or so were of any use. The French military aviation exercises of 1911, 1912, and 1913 had pioneered cooperation with the cavalry (reconnaissance) and artillery (spotting), but the momentum was, if anything, slacking.

The United Kingdom had “started late” and initially relied largely on the French aircraft industry, especially for aircraft engines. The initial British contribution to the total allied airwar effort in August 1914 (of about 184 aircraft) was three squadrons with about 30 serviceable machines. By the end of the war, the British Armed Forces had formed the world’s first air force to be independent of either army or naval control, the Royal Air Force. The United States Armed Forces air services were far behind; even in 1917, when the United States entered the war, they were to be almost totally dependent on the French and British aircraft industries for combat aircraft.

The Germans’ great air “coup” of 1914 was at the Battle of Tannenberg in East Prussia, where an unexpected Imperial Russian Army attack was reported by Leutnants Canter and Mertens, resulting in the Russians being forced to withdraw.

Early Western Front reconnaissance duties

Further information: Aerial reconnaissance in World War I

By the end of 1914 the line between the Imperial German Army and the Allied powers stretched from the North Sea to the Alps. The initial “war of movement” largely ceased, and the front became static. Three main functions of short range reconnaissance squadrons had emerged by March 1915.

The first was photographic reconnaissance: building up a complete mosaic map of the enemy trench system. The first air cameras used glass plates. (Photographic film had been invented by Kodak, but did not at this stage have sufficient resolution).

Artillery “spotting” enabled the ranging of artillery on targets invisible to the gunners. Radio telephony was not yet practical from an aircraft, so communication was a problem. By March 1915, a two-seater on “artillery observation” duties was typically equipped with a primitive radio transmitter transmitting using Morse code, but had no receiver. The artillery battery signalled to the aircraft by laying strips of white cloth on the ground in prearranged patterns. Observation duties were shared with the tethered balloons, which could communicate directly with their batteries by field telephone, but were far less flexible in locating targets and reporting the fall of shot.

“Contact patrol” work attempted to follow the course of a battle by communicating with advancing infantry while flying over the battlefield. The technology of the period did not permit radio contact, while methods of signalling were necessarily crude, including dropping messages from the aircraft. Soldiers were initially reluctant to reveal their positions to aircraft, as they (the soldiers) found distinguishing between friend and foe problematic.

Reconnaissance flying, like all kinds, was a hazardous business. In April 1917, the worst month for the entire war for the RFC, the average life expectancy of a British pilot on the Western Front was 93 flying hours.

Early bombing efforts

Typical 1914 aircraft could carry only very small bomb loads – the bombs themselves, and their storage, were still very elementary, and effective bomb sights were still to be developed. Nonetheless the beginnings of strategic and tactical bombing date from the earliest days of the war. Notable are the raids by the RNAS on the German airship sheds at Düsseldorf, Cologne and Friedrichshafen in September, October and November 1914, as well as the formation of the Brieftauben Abteilung Ostende.

The dawn of air combat

As Dickson had predicted, initially air combat was extremely rare, and definitely subordinate to reconnaissance. There are even stories of the crew of rival reconnaissance aircraft exchanging nothing more belligerent than smiles and waves. This soon progressed to throwing grenades, and other objects—even grappling hooks. The first aircraft brought down by another was an Austrian reconnaissance aircraft rammed on 8 September 1914 by a Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov in Galicia in the Eastern Front. Both planes crashed as the result of the attack, killing all occupants. Eventually, pilots began firing handheld firearms at enemy aircraft; however, pistols were too inaccurate and the single-shot rifles too unlikely to score a hit. On August 23, 1914, no 5 Squadron British observer Lt Leslie da Costa Penn Gaskell opened fire on a German aircraft with a machine gun for the first time and the era of air combat was underway as more and more aircraft were fitted with machine guns.

Evolution of fighter aircraft

The pusher solution

As early as 1912, designers at the British firm Vickers were experimenting with machine gun carrying aircraft. The first concrete result was the Vickers Experimental Fighting Biplane 1, which featured at the 1913 Aero Show in London. and appeared in developed form as the FB.5 in February 1915. This pioneering fighter, like the Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2b and the Airco DH.1, was a pusher type. These had the engine and propeller behind the pilot, facing backward, rather than at the front of the aircraft, as in a tractor configuration design. This provided an optimal machine gun position, from which the gun could be fired directly forward without an obstructing propeller, and reloaded and cleared in flight. An important drawback was that pusher designs tended to have an inferior performance to tractor types with the same engine power because of the extra drag created by the struts and rigging necessary to carry the tail unit. The F.E.2d, a more powerful version of the F.E.2b, remained a formidable opponent well into 1917, when pusher fighters were already obsolete. They were simply too slow to catch their quarry.

Machine gun synchronisation

The forward firing gun of a pusher “gun carrier” provided some offensive capability—the mounting of a machine gun firing to the rear from a two-seater tractor aircraft gave defensive capability. There was an obvious need for some means to fire a machine gun forward from a tractor aircraft, especially from one of the small, light, “scout” aircraft, adapted from pre-war racers, that were to perform most air combat duties for the rest of the war. It would seem most natural to place the gun between the pilot and the propeller, firing in the direct line of flight so that the gun could be aimed by “aiming the aircraft”. It was also important that the breech of the weapon be readily accessible to the pilot so that he could clear the jams and stoppages to which early machine guns were prone. However, this presented an obvious problem: a percentage of bullets fired “free” through a revolving propeller will strike the blades, with predictably destructive results. Early experiments with synchronised machine guns had been carried out in several countries before the war. Franz Schneider, then working for Nieuport in France but later working for L.V.G. in Germany, patented a synchronisation gear on 15 July 1913. Early Russian gear was designed by a Lieutenant Poplavko: the Edwards brothers in England designed the first British example, and the Morane-Saulnier company were also working on the problem in 1914. All these early experiments failed to attract official attention, partly due to official inertia and partly due to the failures of early synchronising gears, which included dangerously ricocheting bullets and disintegrating propellers. The Lewis gun used on many Allied aircraft was almost impossible to synchronise due to the erratic rate of fire resulting from its open bolt firing cycle. Some RNAS aircraft, including Bristol Scouts, had an unsynchronised fuselage-mounted Lewis gun positioned to fire directly through the propeller disk. The propeller blades were reinforced with tape to hold the wood together if hit, and it relied on the fact that the odds of any single round hitting a blade below 5%, so if short bursts were used, it offered a temporary expedient even if it was not an ideal solution.

The Maxim guns used by both the Allies (as the Vickers) and Germany (as the Parabellum MG 14 and Spandau lMG 08) had a closed bolt firing cycle that started with a bullet already in the breech and the breech closed, so the firing of the bullet was the next step in the cycle. This meant that the exact instant the round would be fired could be more readily predicted, making these weapons considerably easier to synchronise. The standard French light machine gun, the Hotchkiss, was, like the Lewis, also unamenable to synchronisation. Poor quality control also hampered efforts, resulting in frequent “hang fire” rounds that didn’t go off. The Morane-Saulnier company designed a “safety backup” in the form of “deflector blades” (metal wedges), fitted to the rear surfaces of a propeller at the radial point where they could be struck by a bullet. Roland Garros used this system in a Morane-Saulnier L in April 1915. He managed to score several kills, although the deflectors fell short of an ideal solution as the deflected rounds could still cause damage. Engine failure eventually forced Garros to land behind enemy lines, and he and his secret weapon were captured by the Germans. Famously, the German High Command passed Garros’ captured Morane to the Fokker company—which already produced Morane type monoplanes for the German Air Service—with orders to copy the design. The deflector system was totally unsuitable for the steel-jacketed German ammunition so that the Fokker engineers were forced to revisit the synchronisation idea (perhaps infringing Schneider’s patent), crafting the Stangensteuerung system by the spring of 1915, used on the examples of their pioneering Eindecker fighter. Crude as these little monoplanes were, they produced a period of German air superiority, known as the “Fokker Scourge” by the Allies. The psychological effect exceeded the material: The Allies had up to now been more or less unchallenged in the air, and the vulnerability of their older reconnaissance aircraft, especially the British B.E.2 and French Farman pushers, came as a very nasty shock.

Other methods

Another method used at this time to fire a machine gun forward from a tractor design was to mount the gun to fire above the propeller arc. This required the gun to be mounted on the top wing of biplanes and be mounted on complicated drag-inducing structures in monoplanes. Reaching the gun so that drums or belts could be changed, or jams cleared, presented problems even when the gun could be mounted relatively close to the pilot. Eventually, Foster mounting became more or less the standard way of mounting a Lewis gun in this position in the R.F.C.: this allowed the gun to slide backward for drum changing, and also to be fired at an upward angle, a very effective way of attacking an enemy from the “blind spot” under its tail. This type of mounting was still only possible for a biplane with a top wing positioned near the apex of the propeller’s arc: It put considerable strain on the fragile wing structures of the period, and it was less rigid than a gun mounting on the fuselage, producing a greater “scatter” of bullets, especially at anything but very short range.

The earliest versions of the Bristol Scout to see aerial combat duty in 1915, the Scout C, had Lewis gun mounts in RNAS service that sometimes were elevated above the propeller arc, and sometimes (in an apparently reckless manner) firing directly through the propeller arc without synchronisation. During the spring and summer of 1915, Captain Lanoe Hawker of the Royal Flying Corps, however, had mounted his Lewis gun just forward of the cockpit to fire forwards and outwards, on the left side of his aircraft’s fuselage at about a 30° horizontal angle. On 25 July 1915 Captain Hawker flew his Scout C, bearing RFC serial number 1611 against several two-seat German observation aircraft of the Fliegertruppe, and managed to defeat three of them in aerial engagements to earn the first Victoria Cross awarded to a British fighter pilot, while engaged against enemy fixed-wing aircraft.

1915: The Fokker Scourge

Main article: Fokker Scourge

The first purpose-designed fighter aircraft included the British Vickers F.B.5, and machine guns were also fitted to several French types, such as the Morane-Saulnier L and N. Initially the German Air Service lagged behind the Allies in this respect, but this was soon to change dramatically.

In July 1915 the Fokker E.I, the first aircraft to enter service with a “synchronisation gear” which enabled a machine gun to fire through the arc of the propeller without striking its blades, became operational. This gave an important advantage over other contemporary fighter aircraft. This aircraft and its immediate successors, collectively known as the Eindecker (German for “monoplane“) – for the first time supplied an effective equivalent to Allied fighters. Two German military aviators, Leutnants Otto Parschau and Kurt Wintgens, worked for the Fokker firm during the spring of 1915, demonstrating the revolutionary feature of the forward-firing synchronised machine gun to the embryonic force of Fliegertruppe pilots of the German Empire.

The first successful engagement involving a synchronised-gun-armed aircraft occurred on the afternoon of July 1, 1915, to the east of Lunéville, France when Leutnant Kurt Wintgens, one of the pilots selected by Fokker to demonstrate the small series of five special Eindecker service-test prototype aircraft, forced down a French Morane-Saulnier “Parasol” two seat observation monoplane behind Allied lines with his Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker production prototype/service-test aircraft, carrying the IdFlieg military serial number “E.5/15”. Some 200 shots from the synchronised Parabellum MG14 machine gun on Wintgens’ aircraft had hit the Gnome Lambda rotary engine of the Morane Parasol, forcing it to land safely in Allied territory.

By late 1915 the Germans had achieved air superiority, rendering Allied acquisition of vital intelligence derived from continual aerial reconnaissance more dangerous. In particular the defencelessness of Allied reconnaissance types was exposed. The first German “ace” pilots, notably Max Immelmann, had begun their careers.

The number of actual Allied casualties involved was for various reasons very small compared with the intensive air fighting of 1917–18. The deployment of the Eindeckers was less than overwhelming: the new type was issued in ones and twos to existing reconnaissance squadrons, and it was to be nearly a year before the Germans were to follow the British in establishing specialist fighter squadrons. The Eindecker was also, in spite of its advanced armament, by no means an outstanding aircraft, being closely based on the pre-war Morane-Saulnier H, although it did feature a steel tubing fuselage framework (a characteristic of all Fokker wartime aircraft designs) instead of the wooden fuselage components of the French aircraft.

Nonetheless, the impact on morale of the fact that the Germans were effectively fighting back in the air created a major scandal in the British parliament and press. The ascendancy of the Eindecker also contributed to the surprise the Germans were able to achieve at the start of the Battle of Verdun because the French reconnaissance aircraft failed to provide their usual cover of the German positions.

Fortunately for the Allies, two new British fighters that were a match for the Fokker, the two-seat F.E.2b and the single-seat D.H.2, were already in production. These were both pushers, and could fire forwards without gun synchronisation. The F.E.2b reached the front in September 1915, and the D.H.2 in the following February. On the French front, the tiny Nieuport 11, a tractor biplane with a forward firing gun mounted on the top wing outside the arc of the propeller, also proved more than a match for the German fighter when it entered service in January 1916. With these new types the Allies re-established air superiority in time for the Battle of the Somme, and the “Fokker Scourge” was over.

The Fokker E.III, Airco DH-2 and Nieuport 11 were the very first in a long line of single seat fighter aircraft used by both sides during the war. Very quickly it became clear the primary role of fighters would be attacking enemy two-seaters, which were becoming increasingly important as sources of reconnaissance and artillery observation, while also escorting and defending friendly two-seaters from enemy fighters. Fighters were also used to attack enemy observation balloons, strafe enemy ground targets, and defend friendly airspace from enemy bombers.

Almost all the fighters in service with both sides, with the exception of the Fokkers’ steel-tube fuselaged airframes, continued to use wood as the basic structural material, with fabric-covered wings relying on external wire bracing. However, the first practical all-metal aircraft was produced by Hugo Junkers, who also used a cantilever wing structure with a metal covering. The first flight tests of the initial flight demonstrator of this technology, the Junkers J 1 monoplane, took place at the end of 1915 heralding the future of aircraft structural design.

1916: Verdun and the Somme

Main articles: Battle of Verdun and Battle of the Somme

Creating new units was easier than producing aircraft to equip them, and training pilots to man them. When the Battle of the Somme started in July 1916, most ordinary RFC squadrons were still equipped with planes that proved easy targets for the Fokker. New types such as the Sopwith 1½ Strutter had to be transferred from production intended for the RNAS. Even more seriously, replacement pilots were being sent to France with pitifully few flying hours.

Nonetheless, air superiority and an “offensive” strategy facilitated the greatly increased involvement of the RFC in the battle itself, in what was known at the time as “trench strafing” – in modern terms, close support. For the rest of the war, this became a regular routine, with both attacking and defending infantry in a land battle being constantly liable to attack by machine guns and light bombs from the air. At this time, counter fire from the ground was far less effective than it became later, when the necessary techniques of deflection shooting had been mastered.

The first step towards specialist fighter-only aviation units within the German military was the establishment of the so-called Kampfeinsitzer Kommando (single-seat battle unit, abbreviated as “KEK”) formations by Inspektor-Major Friedrich Stempel in February 1916. These were based around Eindeckers and other new fighter designs emerging, like the Pfalz E-series monoplanes, that were being detached from their former Feldflieger Abteilung units during the winter of 1915–16 and brought together in pairs and quartets at particularly strategic locations, as “KEK” units were formed at Habsheim, Vaux, Avillers, Jametz, and Cunel, as well as other strategic locations along the Western Front to act as Luftwachtdienst (aerial guard force) units, consisting only of fighters. In a pioneering move in March 1916, German master aerial tactician Oswald Boelcke came up with the idea of having “forward observers” located close to the front lines to spot Allied aircraft approaching the front, to avoid wear and tear on the trio of Fokker Eindecker scout aircraft he had based with his own “KEK” unit based at Sivry-sur-Meuse, just north of Verdun. By April 1916, the air superiority established by the Eindecker pilots and maintained by their use within the KEK formations had long evaporated as the Halberstadt D.II began to be phased in as Germany’s first biplane fighter design, with the first Fokker D-series biplane fighters joining the Halberstadts, and a target was set to establish 37 new squadrons in the next 12 months – entirely equipped with single seat fighters, and manned by specially selected and trained pilots, to counter the Allied fighter squadrons already experiencing considerable success, as operated by the Royal Flying Corps and the French Aéronautique Militaire. The small numbers of questionably built Fokker D.IIIs posted to the Front pioneered the mounting of twin lMG 08s before 1916’s end, as the building numbers of the similarly armed, and much more formidable new twin-gun Albatros D.Is were well on the way to establishing the German air superiority marking the first half of 1917.

Allied air superiority was maintained during the height of both battles, and the increased effectiveness of Allied air activity proved disturbing to the German Army’s top-level Oberste Heeresleitung command staff. A complete reorganisation of the Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches into what became officially known as the Luftstreitkräfte followed and had generally been completed by October 1916. This reorganisation eventually produced the German strategic bombing squadrons that were to produce such consternation in England in 1917 and 1918, and the specialist close support squadrons (Schlachtstaffeln) that gave the British infantry such trouble at Cambrai and during the German spring offensive of 1918. Its most famous and dramatic effect, however, involved the raising of specialist fighter squadrons or Jagdstaffeln – a full year after similar units had become part of the RFC and the French Aéronautique Militaire. Initially these units were equipped with the Halberstadt D.II (Germany’s first biplane fighter), the Fokker D.I and D.II, along with the last few surviving Eindeckers, all three biplane design types using a single lMG 08, before the Fokker D.III and Albatros D.I twin-gun types arrived at the Front.

1917: Bloody April

Main article: Bloody April

The first half of 1917 was a successful period for the jagdstaffeln and the much larger RFC suffered significantly higher casualties than their opponents. While new Allied fighters such as the Sopwith Pup, Sopwith Triplane, and SPAD S.VII were coming into service, at this stage their numbers were small, and suffered from inferior firepower: all three were armed with just a single synchronised Vickers machine gun. On the other hand, the jagdstaffeln were in the process of replacing their early motley array of equipment with Albatros D-series aircraft, armed with twin synchronised MG08s. The D.I and D.II of late 1916 were succeeded by the new Albatros D.III, which was, in spite of structural difficulties, “the best fighting scout on the Western Front” at the time. Meanwhile, most RFC two-seater squadrons still flew the BE.2e, a very minor improvement on the BE.2c, and still fundamentally unsuited to air-to-air combat.

This culminated in the rout of April 1917, known as “Bloody April“. The RFC suffered particularly severe losses, although Trenchard’s policy of “offensive patrol”, which placed most combat flying on the German side of the lines, was maintained.^[23]

During the last half of 1917, the British Sopwith Camel and S.E.5a and the French SPAD S.XIII, all fitted with two forward firing machine guns, became available in numbers. The ordinary two seater squadrons in the RFC received the R.E.8 or the F.K.8, not outstanding warplanes, but far less vulnerable than the BE.2e they replaced. The F.E.2d at last received a worthy replacement in the Bristol F.2b. On the other hand, the latest Albatros, the D.V, proved to be a disappointment, as was the Pfalz D.III. The exotic Fokker Dr.I was plagued, like the Albatros, with structural problems. By the end of the year the air superiority pendulum had swung once more in the Allies’ favour.

1918: The Spring Offensive

The surrender of the Russians and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, and the resulting release of troops from the Eastern Front gave the Germans a “last chance” of winning the war before the Americans could become effectively involved. This resulted in the last great German offensive of the war, the “Spring Offensive”, which opened on 21 March. The main attack fell on the British front on the assumption that defeat of the British army would result in the surrender of the mutiny-weakened French.

In the air, the battle was marked by the carefully coordinated use of the Schlachtstaffeln or “battle flights”, equipped with the light CL class two seaters built by the Halberstadt and Hannover firms, that had proved so effective in the German counter-attack in early October’s Battle of Cambrai. The new German fighter aircraft, notably the Fokker D.VII, that might have revived German air superiority in time for this battle had not however reached the Jagdstaffeln in sufficient numbers, despite its own premier on the Western Front in the mid-Spring of 1918. As with several offensives on both sides, thorough planning and preparation led to initial success, and in fact to deeper penetration than had been achieved by either side since 1914. Many British airfields had to be abandoned to the advancing Germans in a new war of movement. Losses of aircraft and their crew were very heavy on both sides – especially to light anti-aircraft fire. However, by the time of the death of Manfred von Richthofen, the famed Red Baron, on 21 April, the great offensive had largely stalled. The new German fighters had still not arrived, and the British still held general air superiority.

The month of April 1918 began with the consolidation of the separate British RFC and RNAS air services into the Royal Air Force, the first independent air arm not subordinate to its national army or navy. By the end of April, the new Fokker, Pfalz and Roland fighters had finally begun to replace the obsolescent equipment of the Jagdstaffeln, but this did not proceed with as much dispatch as it might have, due to increasing shortages of supplies on the side of the Central Powers, and many of the Jastas still flew Albatros D types at the time of the armistice. The rotary engined Fokker D.VIII and Siemens-Schuckert D.IV, as well as surviving Fokker Triplanes, suffered from poor reliability and shortened engine life due to the Voltol-based oil that was used to replace scarce castor oil – captured and salvaged Allied aircraft (especially Sopwith Camels) were scrounged, not only for engines and equipment, but even for their lubricants. Nonetheless, by September, casualties in the RFC had reached the highest level since “Bloody April” – and the Allies were maintaining air superiority by weight of numbers rather than technical superiority.

Readying for battle

1918, especially the second half of the year, also saw the United States increasingly involved with the allied aerial efforts. While American volunteers had been flying in Allied squadrons since the early years of the war, not until 1918 did all-American squadrons begin active operations. Technically America had fallen well behind the European powers in aviation, and no American designed types saw action, with the exception of the Curtiss flying boats. At first, the Americans were supplied with second-rate and obsolete aircraft, such as the Sopwith 1½ Strutter, Dorand AR and Sopwith Camel, and inexperienced American airmen stood little chance against their seasoned opponents.

General John J. Pershing assigned Major General Mason Patrick as Chief of the United States Army Air Service to remedy these issues in May 1918. As numbers grew and equipment improved with the introduction of the twin-gun Nieuport 28, and later, SPAD XIII as well as the S.E.5a into American service near the war’s end, the Americans came to hold their own in the air; although casualties were heavy, as indeed were those of the French and British, in the last desperate fighting of the war. One of the French twin-seat reconnaissance aircraft used by both the French and the USAAS, was the radial powered Salmson 2 A.2.

Leading up to the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, The US Air Service under Maj. Gen. Patrick oversaw the organization of 28 air squadrons for the battle, with the French, British, and Italians contributing additional units to bring the total force numbers to 701 pursuit planes, 366 observation planes, 323 day bombers, and 91 night bombers. The 1,481 total aircraft made it the largest air operation of the war.

Impact

The day has passed when armies on the ground or navies on the sea can be the arbiter of a nation’s destiny in war. The main power of defense and the power of initiative against an enemy has passed to the air.

— Brigadier General Billy Mitchell, November 1918

By war’s end, the impact of aerial missions on the ground war was in retrospect mainly tactical; strategic bombing, in particular, was still very rudimentary indeed. This was partly due to its restricted funding and use, as it was, after all, a new technology. On the other hand, the artillery, which had perhaps the greatest effect of any military arm in this war, was in very large part as devastating as it was due to the availability of aerial photography and aerial “spotting” by balloon and aircraft. By 1917 weather bad enough to restrict flying was considered as good as “putting the gunner’s eyes out”.

Some, such as then-Brigadier General Billy Mitchell, commander of all American air combat units in France, claimed, “[T]he only damage that has come to [Germany] has been through the air”. Mitchell was famously controversial in his view that the future of war was not on the ground or at sea, but in the air.

During the course of the War, the exact number of German, British and French planes destroyed is unknown. However, the Luftstreitkräfte suffered enormous losses, so much so that seeing a German plane was considered rare towards the end of the war.

I really enjoyed my Jacket Potato with Grated Cheese and Salad I had for lunch in The NTDF Cafe yesterday it was very nice. I took the photo myself on my iPhone yesterday as you can see.

At the beginning of 1914 the British Army had a reported strength of 710,000 men including reserves, of which around 80,000 were professional soldiers ready for war. By the end of the First World War almost 25 percent of the total male population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had joined up, over five million men. Of these, 2.67 million joined as volunteers and 2.77 million as conscripts (although some volunteered after conscription was introduced and would most likely have been conscripted anyway). Monthly recruiting rates for the army varied dramatically.

August 1914

At the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914, the British regular army numbered 247,432 serving officers and other ranks. This did not include reservists liable to be recalled to the colours upon general mobilization or the part-time volunteers of the Territorial Force. About one-third of the peace-time regulars were stationed in India and were not immediately available for service in Europe.

For a century British governmental policy and public opinion were against conscription for foreign wars. At the start of World War I the British Army consisted of six infantry divisions, one cavalry division in the United Kingdom formed shortly after the outbreak of the war, and four divisions located overseas. Fourteen Territorial Force divisions also existed, and 300,000 soldiers were in the Reserve Army. Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, considered the Territorial Force untrained and useless. He believed that the regular army must not be wasted in immediate battle, but instead used to help train a new army with 70 divisions—the size of the French and German armies—that he foresaw would be needed to fight a war lasting many years.

British Army medical categories

All recruits underwent a physical exam by Army medical officers to ascertain whether they would be suitable for military service which used a number and lettering system to categorise the health of each recruit. The following list are the categories used by the British Army in 1914.

• A   Able to march, see to shoot, hear well and stand active service conditions.

• A1 Fit for dispatching overseas, as regards physical and mental health, and training
• A2 As A1, except for training
• A3 Returned Expeditionary Force men, ready except for physical condition
• A4 Men under 19 who would be A1 or A2 when aged 19

• B   Free from serious organic diseases, able to stand service on lines of communication in France, or in garrisons in the tropics.

• B1 Able to march 5 miles, see to shoot with glasses, and hear well
• B2 Able to walk 5 miles, see and hear sufficiently for ordinary purposes
• B3 Only suitable for sedentary work

• C   Free from serious organic diseases, able to stand service in garrisons at home.

• C1 Able to march 5 miles, see to shoot with glasses, and hear well
• C2 Able to walk 5 miles, see and hear sufficiently for ordinary purposes
• C3 Only suitable for sedentary work

• D   Unfit but could be fit within 6 months.

• D1 Regular Royal Artillery (RA), Royal Engineers (RE), infantry in Command Depots
• D2 Regular RA, RE, infantry in Regimental Depots
• D3 Men in any depot or unit awaiting treatment

Examinations

Medical examinations were conducted in a very specific way according to War Office Instructions issued within the Regulations for the Medical Services of the Army, the Regulations for Recruiting, and the regulations for the Territorial Force on 1 August 1914. Basic requirements for a recruit was that their height, weight, chest measurement and age all correlated with a standard table. Medical examiners were given the discretion to decide a recruit’s “apparent age,” based on their appearance and physical stature, when they did not bring satisfactory documentation for proof of age.

Detailed body examinations would include looking for signs of sexually transmitted diseases, vaccination marks, lesions and rashes; the scrotum and anus would also be checked; there would be a stethoscopic examination of the heart, lung and abdomen; the hands and feet, elbows and knees would be studied for lameness, weakness and deformities; teeth (for loss and decay as being unable to chew because of poor oral hygiene was a common cause for failing the medical examination); eyesight and hearing.

Aside from the physical tests, examiners would also the note the intelligence, voice, and character of the recruit in response to questions they would ask him. This would be used to create a psychological profile that would help determine the fitness of the candidate.

Medical rejections and deferments

There were numerous medical reasons why recruits might be deemed unfit for service.

• Any signs or symptoms of tuberculosis
• Syphilis
• Any respiratory tract infections
• Palpitations or heart disease
• Generally impaired constitution
• Poor eyesight
• Hearing loss
• Stammering
• Tooth decay that inhibited eating
• Deformity of chest or joints
• Abnormal curvature of spine
• Intelligence
• Hernia
• Haemorrhoids
• Varicose veins or varicocele
• Chronic skin conditions
• Chronic ulcers
• Fistula
• Any other disease or physical defect that would prevent military service

Volunteer Army, 1914–15

In 1914, the British had about 5.5 million men of military age, with another 500,000 reaching the age of 18 each year. The first call was for 100,000 volunteers, made on 11 August, followed by another 100,000 on 28 August. By 12 September, almost half a million men had enlisted. At the end of October, 898,005 men had enlisted, of whom approximately 640,000 were non-TF enlistments. Around 250,000 underage boys also volunteered, either by lying about their age or giving false names. These were always rejected if the lie was discovered.

The standard Regular terms of service in the British Army were 7 years service with the colours, and 5 years in the reserve. To facilitate recruitment, supplementary Regular terms of service were announced by Army Order 296 dated 6 August 1914. Recruits to the New Army could serve for “three years or the duration of the war, whichever the longer”. These “General Service” terms were changed by Army Order 470 dated 7 November, simplified to “the duration of the war.” The recruit had the right to choose the regiment they joined.

To address the short-term need for trained men to replenish the originally deployed BEF units, supplementary Special Reserve terms of service were announced by Army Order 295 dated 6 August 1914, rescinded 7 November 1914. Ex-military men could reenlist for “one year or the duration of the war, whichever the longer”.

It was believed that former NCOs may be reticent to reenlist, having to serve as Privates. Given the need not only for former privates to enlist, but also experienced NCOs to play a part in the expansion of the army, Army Order 315 dated 17 August 1914 clarified matters. It states that ‘an ex-non-commissioned officer of the regular army who enlists [under the supplemental terms of service announced on 6 August 1914].. [will be] promoted forthwith to the rank held on discharge.

One early peculiarity was the formation of ‘pals battalions‘: groups of men from the same factory, football team, bank or similar, joining and fighting together. The idea was first suggested at a public meeting by Lord Derby. Within three days, he had enough volunteers for three battalions. Lord Kitchener gave official approval for the measure almost instantly and the response was impressive. Manchester raised nine specific pals battalions (plus three reserve battalions); one of the smallest was Accrington, in Lancashire, which raised one. One consequence of pals battalions was that a whole town could suffer a severe impact on its military-aged menfolk in a single day of fierce battle.

The women’s suffrage movement was sharply divided, the slight majority becoming very enthusiastic patriots and asking their members to give white feathers (the sign of the coward) in the streets to men who appeared to be of military age to shame them into service. After assaults became prevalent the Silver War Badge was issued to men who were not eligible or had been medically discharged.

The available pool was diminished by roughly 1.5 million men who were “starred”: kept in essential occupations. Almost 40 percent of the men who volunteered were rejected for medical reasons. Malnutrition was widespread in U.K. society; working class 15‑year‑olds had an average height of only 5 feet 2 inches (157 cm) while the upper class was 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm)

From the start Kitchener insisted that the British must build a massive army for a long war, arguing that the British were obliged to mobilise to the same extent as the French and Germans. His goal was 70 divisions, and the Adjutant General asked for 92,000 recruits per month, well above the number volunteering (see the graph). The obvious remedy was conscription, which was a hotly debated political issue. Many Liberals, including Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, were ideologically opposed to compulsion, but by 1915 they were wavering.
15 July 1915 the National Registration Act was passed by the British Government, exactly one month later there was a census of every citizen aged 15 to 65, approximately 29 million forms completed. A pink coloured registration card was issued to each registree, listing pertinent data. These records were ordered to be destroyed in 1921, yet some did survive, including the lately discovered forms of 2,409 women living in Cirencester, since transcribed and made publicly available. The Cabinet were given a strong warning in September 1915 in a paper presented by their only Labour member, Minister of Education Arthur Henderson. He argued many working men would strongly resist serving a nation in which they did not have a legitimate share in governing. They resented the idea of being dragooned to face possible death by a Parliament they had no part in electing—forty percent of men over 21 were denied the vote by the franchise and registration laws (until the Representation of the People Act of 1918). To them conscription was yet another theft of working men’s rights by rich capitalists. The only counter-argument the Government could offer was it was of absolute necessity. Workers must be convinced that there were too few volunteers to meet the need, meaning the loss of the war and the end of Britain! Army leaders should convince Union leaders by stating military facts. Henderson’s own son was killed in the war a year later.