GENERAL HAIG.

Hokitika Guardian, 30 June 1917, Page 4

GENERAL HAIG.

* FOUR LITTLE GLIMPSES. ~ Here are four little glimpses of Haig at work. The first glimpse s ows us the Meniu 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, 1614; the Germans have captured Glieluvelt and punched a hole in the line of the First Division; every man available, down toihe very cooks and servants, has been flung into the line to avert irretrievable disaster. Suddenly along the Menin road Sir Douglas Haig comes rifling, superbly mounted as lie always is, beautifully spruce with brilliantly burnished field-boots, behind him liis escort of the Death-or-Glory boys. To the men, pushed to the breaking-point of their strength, the apparition of that calm, debonair figure, firm and resolute, was a gift of fresh confidence to hold out. 1

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 v .of a battalion of Cameron Highlanders lresli out oi 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 are alone, save for a trooper a dozen yards away bearing on his lance the Union Jack pennant of the Commaiidcr-iii-Cliief. The fight had reached a critical stage, but Haig, like his chief, is cool and smiling as ever. Next we are on the Somme battlefield, on a summer evening, outside a village lying" 011 the high road into the battle. On a sweep of open hillside between viflst 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 penant cantering behind. ‘ Duggie ‘ havin’ a look round ! ” says a groom watering a horse at a canvas trough. “ Av, he’s a rare one on a horse ! ’’

says his comrade, looking after the galloping figure. For, cavalryman as lie is, the Field-Marshal always uses a horse in preference to a car, and sees that "it is a good horse too. Lastly, let we quote Lord Northed ife again : "“ When history relates the story of the great battles of the Somme it will tell how Sir Douglas Haig and his staff had their headquarters in a modest dwelling, part of which was still occupied by the family who owned it. Thus it is that the voices of children running up and down the corridors mingle with the ceaseless murmur of the guns and the work of the earnest little company of "men whose labours are never out of the thoughts of their countrymen throughout the Empire.” X.