Douglas Haig: Diaries and Letters 1914-1918

(Paperback)

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There's a commonly held view that Douglas Haig was a bone-headed, callous butcher, who through his incompetence as commander of the British Army in WWI, killed a generation of young men on the Somme and Passchendaele. On the other hand there are those who view Haig as a man who successfully struggled with appalling difficulties to produce an army which took the lead in defeating Germany in 1918. Just as the success of the Alanbrooke war diaries can be put down to its 'horse's mouth' view of Churchill and the conduct of WWII, so Haig's Diaries, hitherto only previously available in bowdlerised form, give the C-in-C's view of Asquith - he records him getting drunk and incapable - and his successor Lloyd George, of whom he was highly critical. As Haig records the relationship it was stormy ('I have no great opinion of L.G as a man or leader' - Sept 1916). The diaries show him intriguing with the King (George V) vs. Lloyd George. Additional - and never previously published - are his day by day accounts of the key battles of the war, not least the Somme campaign of 1916. 'I found Foch (Allied C-in-C) most selfish and obstinate...Foch suffers from a swollen head, and thinks himself another Napoleon. '

Reviews

A re-examination and new selection of the wartime diary is overdue, and now comes in a handsome and uncommonly well-edited edition--Sunday Telegraph
Edited by two distinguished military historians, they reveal a man very different from the stereotypical warmonger of Left-wing mythology--Daily Mail
This is a major and much-needed addition to the historiography of one of the most contentious periods in British history--Sunday Herald

Author Bio

Gary Sheffield is Professor of Modern History at King's College, London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and author of Forgotten Victory: The First World War - Myths and Realities and The Somme. He broadcasts regularly on television and radio, and writes for the national press. He lives in Oxfordshire. Dr John Bourne is Director of the Centre for First World War Studies at the University of Birmingham. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Vice-President of the Western Front Association. He has written widely on the First World War, including Britain and the Great War 1914-1918 and Who's Who in the First World War. He lives in Birmingham.