1 Answer

Butcher of the Somme or hero of Amiens?

Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, 1919 (ZPER 34/154)
In the spring and summer of 1918, Allied forces came under dangerously sustained attack from the Germans. Commanders were not confident of their ability to defend against this assault but the line did hold. In July, the Allies counter-attacked and for the first time in the conflict began to push the Germans back. On 8 August they won a significant victory at Amiens and the Germans were forced to retreat to the Hindenberg Line, a well-defended trench system established in 1917. By 3 October the German High Command were requesting an armistice and this famously came into effect at 11am on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918.
Historians agree that the major victories in the last 'hundred days' were mainly won by Field Marshall Haig and the British Army. But Haig's final victory presents the historian with a problem. The British High Command during the First World War is traditionally seen as totally incompetent. But if Haig and his generals were so inadequate, how did they manage to win the war?

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