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HAIG (Field Marshal Sir Douglas)
Sir Douglas Haig's Despatches (December 1915-April 1919).
Edited by Lt.-Col. J.H. Boraston, CB, OBE (Private Secretary to Earl Haig). 1st Ed., xviii+378pp., 8 portraits, 25 maps in text + 10 fldg. maps in separate mapcase. Both text & mapcase fine in dws. Dent.
1920
#58084
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![[HLMainPic]](booksThumbs/58084.jpg "Click on the left or right of the image for more images")
Haig's despatches while C-in-C of the BEF, including the battles of St Eloi, Somme, Arras, Ypres, Cambrai, &c., & the important 'Final Despatch' which includes Haig's survey of the entire course of the war on the Western Front. "[Boraston] has been allowed to insert a few passages which the Government of the day kept out, presumably because its members thought that these passages reflected adversly on them, and has made certain others; but in the main these re the formal accounts sent home for publication. They form a useful guide and reference book to the general course of events, and in their formal and restrained fashion even give very fair sense of atmosphere. Further they hardly pretended to go..." - Falls. "Haig's final despatch, dated 21 March 1919, was a closely argued case outlining his conduct of operations. Haig sought to establish that during the four and a half years of the war the operations in Belgium and France had been a single continuous campaign which had been fought through the four stages of manoeuvre, the preparation or wearing out battle, the decisive attack and the cavalry exploitation. Haig believed that these operations had the same general features as all the conclusive battles of history. What distinguished operations on the Western Front from other campaigns was their duration, and this had been determined by factors beyond Haig's control - the unpreparedness of the British for a war of such magnitude, the subsequent delay of two years before Britain's armies were able to intervene in strength, the situation in theatres other than that of the Western Front, problem's of Allied co-operation, and restrictions on manoeuvres because of the continuous battle front in the West. As long as the opposing forces at the outset were approximately equal in numbers an morale and there were no flanks to turn, then it was obvious that a long struggle was inevitable and this meant increased casualties. Haig had thought through all the arguments that would be marshalled against his conduct of operations and that y arguing that his strategy was based on the principles of war and had to be considered as a whole, he made it difficult to criticize the individual parts" - Keith Simpson (The Great War & British Military History). Orig. red cloth, both vols. fine in dws & rare in this superb condition, the mapcase, especially, being rare in dw. See illustrations on our website.
£225
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