BRITAIN'S VICTORY GENERAL

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3098, 31 May 1917, Page 5

BRITAIN'S VICTORY GENERAL

A PEN PICTURE OF HAIG BLEND OF ACTION AND IDEALISM In one of his most striking 'tales, "Ole Luk Oie u narrates how a general is able to divine the courso of action adopted by his adversary through knowledge of tho other's character derived from an incident of their school days spent together.. Let us suppose for a moment (writes "C in the "Daily Mail") that Marshal von jjindenburg hud been at Clifton with Sir Douclas Haig. The boy. they say, is father to tho man, and there was already in those far-off days that in the face of Britain's future Field-Marshal to have warned the victor of Tannanberg to build up his strategy on a basis better adapted to tho British leader's psychology than the tactics which have hitherto brought rtoIliiVg but disaster to German arms. Windenburg, they say, ordered the German retreat in the west in order that the German Staff misht resume open warfare and therebv benefit by thoir superior training. The trap was baited with the prospect of an easy initial success. British ignorance of warfare wns the factor on which the German -Higher Command reckoned. The plan was to lure the British forward into a country laid waste by Kultur, then to fall upon and rend them before the heavy artillery was np, .before communication with the TeaT was securelr established, tlindenburg relied on British recklessness. Ono glance at his adversary's face might have Tynrned him ; a better acquaintance with this hnrdv and tenciious "Tifer" would surely havo taught him, bud psychologist": ns the Germans are. that caution and tliorauehness arc the salipnt features of his opponent's chnrncler exnre=s*'l- as.they are, in every lineament of his face. Features and Character. When 1 have met a British general in this war 1 havo made it a practice to study his features and general char-' aeteristica to see what estimate might be formed of his military character. There is Monro, thick-set; Btout-hearted, amazingly, indomitably cheerful in all circumstances; JL'lumer. tenacious as a bull-dog, with a fine sense of humour flashing at you out of hiß oyes; Hawlinson, tall, debonair, slightly lackadaisical, highly intuitive;, Gough, bright-eyed, vivacious, keen as a Toledo blade; Cavan, stocky in build, indefatigably energetic, his personal courago equalled only by his unfailing optimism the mind passes them over in review until it rests on tbo figure of "The Chief," the keystono of the whole fabric of our armies in France and Belgium, in whom may be said to h6 united all tho different characteristics of our generals, in that ho has had the discrimination to recognise the varying qualities which fit each for his appointed task.

In a few sentences Lord Northcliffe, in his book, "At (he War," has penned a lightning sketch of Sir Douglas Haig's porsonal appearance. "Lithe and alert," he writes, "Sir Douglas Haig is known for his distinguished benring arid good looks. He has .blue eyes and an unusual facial angle, delicately' chiselled features, and a chin to be reckoned with. There is a characteristic movement of (hehands when explaining things."

"The unusual facial angle" is probably due to the broadness of the FieldMarshal's face and tho forward thrust of his finely proportioned head. ' Massively built, four-square to all the winds that blow, the gales of adversity, and the fair.breezes of success alike, Sir Douglas Haig carries his head erect with a suggestion of aggressiveness in its forward thrust, rather like a boxer when he squares up in the ring. Below an unusually broad, intellectual forehead, a well-chiselled nose stands out, while the suggestion of aggressiveness is fnithor seen in the firm, well-defined chin—the chin of a fighter.

T have left the eyes to tho last because there is more' to bo said about them than about any feature of tho Field-Marshal's face. Large and luminous, one feels that they are somehow in contradiction to his' other failures. For they are the eyes of a thinker—one might almost say of an idealist: Casements of the soul, as we are (old tho eyes are, the eyes of the fighting Briton givo even the most sniperticinl' visitor a glimpse into the depths of character underlying the firm, direct, and virile exterior, adamant as the ernnite of the Field-Marshal's native Fife. Three War Glimpses. Here are three little glimpses of Haig at work. The first glimpse shows us the Meuin road, running out of Ypres past the pretty little .summer chateau of Hooge, all rent and riven with shells. The hour is two o'clock on the afternoon of October 31, 1914; the Germans havo captured Gheluvelt and punched a hole in the line of the First Division—every man available, down to the very cooks and servants, has been flung into the line to avert irretrievable disaster. Suddenly along.the Menin road Sir Douglas Haig conies riding, superbly mounted as he always is, beautifully spruce with brilliantly burnished field-boots, behind him his escort of the Death-or-Glory boys. To the men, pushed to the break-ing-point of their the apparition of that, calm, debonair figure, firm and resolute, was a gift of fresh confidence to hold out.

Now we are close up behind the lines during the Battle of Loos. The air shakes to the roar of the guns, and down the road come marching in their fours the remnants of a. battalion of Cameron Highlanders frseh out of action. In the gateway of an old French chateau Sir Douglas Haig is standing in the sunshine talking' to Sir John French, who is mounted. They aro alone, save for a.trooper a dozen yards away bearing on his lance tho TJniou Jack pennant of the Commander-in-Chief. The fight had reached a critical stage, but Haig, like his chief, is cool and smiling as ever.

Next we are on tho Sommo battlefield, on a 'summer evening, outside a village lying on tho high road into the battle. On a sweep of open hillside between vast horse lines stretching away to the horizon, a sturdy figure gallops on a splendid horse, a slim A.D.C. at his side, a trooper with the Union Jack pennant cantering behind. " 'Duggie' havin 1 a look round!". says a groom watering a horse at a canvas trough. "Ay, ho's a rare one on a horse!" says his comrade, looking after the galloping figure. For, .cavalryman as he is, the Field-Marshal always uses a horse in preference to a car, and sees that it is a good horse too.