Download or read book First Earl Douglas Haig written by and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Website includes a biography of First Earl Douglas Haig who was Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force during World War I.
Download or read book Douglas Haig and the First World War written by J. P. Harris and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-11-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains primary source material.
Download or read book Douglas Haig 1861 1928 written by Gerard J. De Groot and published by London : Unwin Hyman. This book was released on 1988 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This biography of the First World War general, Sir Douglas Haig, counters the polarized views of Haig as either the butcher of the Somme or the saviour of Britain. To construct a more complete picture of his early life and career, usually neglected in favour of his wartime activities, the author draws on eight years of research into previously neglected sources as well as readily available material to reveal a man who, in his opinion, mirrored both the virtues and the flaws of Edwardian Britain, and whose misfortune it was to grow up in one age and to command in another.
Download or read book The Donkeys written by Alan Clark and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-09-30 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The landmark exposé of incompetent leadership on the Western Front - why the British troops were lions led by donkeys On 26 September 1915, twelve British battalions – a strength of almost 10,000 men – were ordered to attack German positions in France. In the three-and-a-half hours of the battle, they sustained 8,246 casualties. The Germans suffered no casualties at all. Why did the British Army fail so spectacularly? What can be said of the leadership of generals? And most importantly, could it have all been prevented? In The Donkeys, eminent military historian Alan Clark scrutinises the major battles of that fateful year and casts a steady and revealing light on those in High Command - French, Rawlinson, Watson and Haig among them - whose orders resulted in the virtual destruction of the old professional British Army. Clark paints a vivid and convincing picture of how brave soldiers, the lions, were essentially sent to their deaths by incompetent and indifferent officers – the donkeys. ‘An eloquent and painful book... Clark leaves the impression that vanity and stupidity were the main ingredients of the massacres of 1915. He writes searingly and unforgettably’ Evening Standard
Download or read book The Chief written by Gary Sheffield and published by Aurum. This book was released on 2011-09-22 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Well written and persuasive …objective and well-rounded….this scholarly rehabilitation should be the standard biography’ **** Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday ‘A true judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero and zero, and in this detailed biography Gary Sheffield shows himself well qualified to make it … a balanced portrait’ Sunday Times ‘Solid scholarship and admirable advocacy’ Sunday Telegraph Douglas Haig is the single most controversial general in British history. In 1918, after his armies had won the First World War, he was feted as a saviour. But within twenty years his reputation was in ruins, and it has never recovered. In this fascinating biography, Professor Gary Sheffield reassesses Haig’s reputation, assessing his critical role in preparing the army for war.
Download or read book Architect of Victory written by Walter Reid and published by Birlinn. This book was released on 2011-08-12 with total page 728 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Douglas Haig's popular image as an unimaginative butcher is unenviable and unmerited. In fact, he masterminded a British-led victory over a continental opponent on a scale that has never been matched before or since. Contrary to myth, Haig was not a cavalry-obsessed, blinkered conservative, as satirised in Oh! What a Lovely War and Blackadder Goes Forth. Fascinated by technology, he pressed for the use of tanks, enthusiastically embraced air power, and encouraged the use of new techniques involving artillery and machine-guns. Above all, he presided over a change in infantry tactics from almost total reliance on the rifle towards all-arms, multi-weapons techniques that formed the basis of British army tactics until the 1970s. Prior re-evaluations of Haig's achievements have largely been limited to monographs and specialist writings. Walter Reid has written the first biography of Haig that takes into account modern military scholarship, giving a more rounded picture of the private man than has previously been available. What emerges is a picture of a comprehensible human being, not necessarily particularly likeable, but honourably ambitious, able and intelligent, and the man more than any other responsible for delivering victory in 1918.
Download or read book The Good Soldier written by Gary Mead and published by Atlantic Books Ltd. This book was released on 2014-09-04 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Posterity has not been kind to Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front for much of the First World War. Haig has frequently been presented as a commander who sent his troops to slaughter in vast numbers at the Somme in 1916 and at Passchendaele the following year. The Good Soldier re-examines Haig's record in these battles and presents his predicament with a fresh eye. More importantly, it re-evaluates Haig himself, exploring the nature of the man, turning to both his early life and army career before 1914, as well as his unstinting work on behalf of ex-servicemen's organizations after 1918. Finally, in this definitive biography, the man emerges from the myth.
Download or read book Sir Douglas Haig s Despatches December 1915 April 1919 written by Earl Douglas Haig Haig and published by . This book was released on 1919 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Haig s Enemy written by Jonathan Boff and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the First World War, the British army's most consistent German opponent was Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. Commanding more than a million men as a General, and then Field Marshal, in the Imperial German Army, he held off the attacks of the British Expeditionary Force under Sir John French and then Sir Douglas Haig for four long years. But Rupprecht was to lose not only the war, but his son and his throne. In Haig's Enemy, Jonathan Boff explores the tragic tale of Rupprecht's war--the story of a man caught under the wheels of modern industrial warfare. Providing a fresh viewpoint on the history of the Western Front, Boff draws on extensive research in the German archives to offer a history of the First World War from the other side of the barbed wire. He revises conventional explanations of why the Germans lost with an in-depth analysis of the nature of command, and of the institutional development of the British, French, and German armies as modern warfare was born. Using Rupprecht's own diaries and letters, many of them never before published, Haig's Enemy views the Great War through the eyes of one of Germany's leading generals, shedding new light on many of the controversies of the Western Front. The picture which emerges is far removed from the sterile stalemate of myth. Instead, Boff re-draws the Western Front as a highly dynamic battlespace, both physical and intellectual, where three armies struggled not only to out-fight, but also to out-think, their enemy. The consequences of falling behind in the race to adapt would be more terrible than ever imagined.
Download or read book Douglas Haig written by Gary Sheffield and published by Aurum. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Well written and persuasive ...objective and well-rounded....this scholarly rehabilitation should be the standard biography' - Andrew Roberts, Mail on Sunday 'A true judgment of him must lie somewhere between hero and zero, and in this detailed biography Gary Sheffield shows himself well qualified to make it ... a balanced portrait' - The Sunday Times 'Solid scholarship and admirable advocacy' - Sunday Telegraph Douglas Haig is the single most controversial general in British history. In 1918, after his armies had won the First World War, he was feted as a saviour. But within twenty years his reputation was in ruins, and it has never recovered. Drawing on previously unknown private papers and new scholarship unavailable when The Chief was first published, eminent First World War historian Gary Sheffield reassesses Haig's reputation, assessing his critical role in preparing the army for war.
Download or read book With Our Backs to the Wall written by David Stevenson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-19 with total page 747 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With so much at stake and so much already lost, why did World War I end with a whimper-an arrangement between two weary opponents to suspend hostilities? After more than four years of desperate fighting, with victories sometimes measured in feet and inches, why did the Allies reject the option of advancing into Germany in 1918 and taking Berlin? Most histories of the Great War focus on the avoidability of its beginning. This book brings a laser-like focus to its ominous end-the Allies' incomplete victory, and the tragic ramifications for world peace just two decades later. In the most comprehensive account to date of the conflict's endgame, David Stevenson approaches the events of 1918 from a truly international perspective, examining the positions and perspectives of combatants on both sides, as well as the impact of the Russian Revolution. Stevenson pays close attention to America's effort in its first twentieth-century war, including its naval and military contribution, army recruitment, industrial mobilization, and home-front politics. Alongside military and political developments, he adds new information about the crucial role of economics and logistics. The Allies' eventual success, Stevenson shows, was due to new organizational methods of managing men and materiel and to increased combat effectiveness resulting partly from technological innovation. These factors, combined with Germany's disastrous military offensive in spring 1918, ensured an Allied victory-but not a conclusive German defeat.
Download or read book Somme written by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of battles as the irreducible building blocks of war demands a single verdict of each campaign—victory, defeat, stalemate. But this kind of accounting leaves no room to record the nuances and twists of actual conflict. In Somme: Into the Breach, the noted military historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore shows that by turning our focus to stories of the front line—to acts of heroism and moments of both terror and triumph—we can counter, and even change, familiar narratives. Planned as a decisive strike but fought as a bloody battle of attrition, the Battle of the Somme claimed over a million dead or wounded in months of fighting that have long epitomized the tragedy and folly of World War I. Yet by focusing on the first-hand experiences and personal stories of both Allied and enemy soldiers, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore defies the customary framing of incompetent generals and senseless slaughter. In its place, eyewitness accounts relive scenes of extraordinary courage and sacrifice, as soldiers ordered “over the top” ventured into No Man’s Land and enemy trenches, where they met a hail of machine-gun fire, thickets of barbed wire, and exploding shells. Rescuing from history the many forgotten heroes whose bravery has been overlooked, and giving voice to their bereaved relatives at home, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore reveals the Somme campaign in all its glory as well as its misery, helping us to realize that there are many meaningful ways to define a battle when seen through the eyes of those who lived it.
Download or read book Sir Douglas Haig s Despatches written by Sir Douglas Haig and published by J.M. Dent & Sons. This book was released on 1979 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Haigs of Bemersyde written by John Russell and published by . This book was released on 1881 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Haig s Tower of Strength written by John Powell and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2018-09-30 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first biography of General Sir Edward Bulfin, who rose to high rank despite his Catholic Irish republican background, at a time when sensitivities were pronounced. Not only that but by the outbreak of the Great War, Bulfin was a brigade commander despite having not attended Sandhurst or Staff College and never commanding his battalion.In his early career he was a protg of Bullers and he made his name in the Boer War. In 1914 Haig credited him with saving the day at First Ypres despite being wounded and gave him 28th Division. Unable to get on with Gough, he was sent home. He raised the 60th London Division and took it to France, Salonika and Egypt where Allenby chose him to command a corps. His success against the Turks at Gaza, Jerusalem and Megiddo justified Allenbys confidence.Despite ruthlessly crushing disturbances in post-war Egypt, Bulfins beliefs and background led him to refuse Churchills order to command the police and army in Ireland.A private man, Bulfin left few letters and no papers and the author is to be congratulated on piecing together this fascinating biography of an enigmatic military figure.
Download or read book Douglas Haig the Educated Soldier written by John Terraine and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 1963 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the Western Front and the First World War is one of battles of attrition against an entrenched enemy, with terrible casualties suffered by both sides in some of the worst fighting ever. In this history the picture has emerged of British generals remote and detached from the reality of the trenches who repeatedly sent their men to die in pointless attacks against the enemy. This book, by the renowned historian of the First World War John Terraine, scrupulously researched and brilliantly written, takes a more objective and accurate approach to the figure of Haig - the supreme commander of the British Army - and to the history of the War.
Download or read book Foch in Command written by Elizabeth Greenhalgh and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-04 with total page 569 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ferdinand Foch ended the First World War as Marshal of France and supreme commander of the Allied armies on the Western Front. Foch in Command is a pioneering study of his contribution to the Allied victory. Elizabeth Greenhalgh uses contemporary notebooks, letters and documents from previously under-studied archives to chart how the artillery officer, who had never commanded troops in battle when the war began, learned to fight the enemy, to cope with difficult colleagues and allies, and to manoeuvre through the political minefield of civil-military relations. She offers valuable insights into neglected questions: the contribution of unified command to the Allied victory; the role of a commander's general staff; and the mechanisms of command at corps and army level. She demonstrates how an energetic Foch developed war-winning strategies for a modern industrial war and how political realities contributed to his losing the peace.
