SIR DOUGLAS HAIG.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1618, 30 September 1916, Page 4

SIR DOUGLAS HAIG.

BRITAIN’S LEADER IN THE FIELD. A STRONG. SILENT, ABLE SCOT. No military lender is more averse to publicity or works more silently than Sir Douglas Haig, the British Commander-in-Chief. His generals say that he never tells them his plans; only what they are to do.

Probably not one man out of ten 1 of the million or more under his command would recognise him if they saw him. Not given to reviews or any kind of display, this quiet and studious Scotsman was the choice of the progressive, practical, driving element of the Army, as the one tit by equipment, training and experience to succeed Sir John French. At 55 he is nine years younger than Sir John, and ten years younger than Jotire or \on Hindenburg. There is a .story-tliai he entered the Army as the result of a boyish wageif. He went ' through Oxford with distinct ion. |>ef ore he went to the military' school aV‘ Sandhurst. His of arm was the cavalry, which' has ha(J„sp little to - do so far ■ in this war. But no sooner had he received .bis. commission, lyter in life than'most officers because of ’ the time that he had spent at Oxford, .than he set out with the thoroughness of the student to master every branch of his profession. “It was at Berlin in the nineties that I met a Captain Haig, who was studying German and the German army,” said an Englishman. “T ■was struck by his industry—not a brilliant man, perhaps, hut a sound and well-balanced one. A little hesitation of speech, what he did say went to the heart of things. He studied the French army, too, and the history of all campaigns with the systematic thoroughness that he applied to everything. It was the same with his pastimes as his profession. Whether he had talent for it or not, he made himself a first-class golf player, though the form which he developed did not excite the envy of professionals. At the. British Army Staff College, where officers learn organisation, he was a marked man before he acted as chief of staff to General French in South Africa in the operations that made French’s reputation. He was a soldier s soldier who had won solid professional esteem, though the public had hardly heard of this reserved undemonstrative worker. Of the men of command rank in the Britisli Army in August, 1914, he and Sir William Robertson —another studious man who had risen from the ranks, and is now chief of staff in London —were the two who were appraised by the generation of officers who had developed since South Africa, as having prepared themselves for the direction of large bodies of troops on the scale of Continental warfare. They are not the magnetic, dashing leader

type, but organisers. Going out in command of the First Army of the British Expeditionary Force, Sir Douglas had seventeen months’ experience, Mons, Ypres, and Loos, of the warfare of the •western front —which all agree is the toughest school any soldier has ever known.

There was no doubt who commanded the First Army. It was Haig. He was no figurehead for the work of an able chief of staff. London gossip did not handy his name about; he was not a personality to the public, though he was to the Army. When anyone asked at the front who was the best man to take Sir John’s place the answer was almost invariably, “Haig.” He had not captured the Army’s imagination, hut its reason. The tribute was one to brains. Like General Jofl’re, he sleeps long hours. A rested mind is a fclear mind for great responsibilities. Like von Hindcnburg, he never leads fiction. When reading has not to do with his profession it is of serious hooks and monthlies and quarterlies. Even during the battle of Ypres, when it was touch and go with disaster, he slept as soundly as Joffre during the battle of (he “Marne. At a crisis of the retreat from Mons he remai’ked as quietly as if he were giving directions to his aide: “We shall have to hold on here for a while, if we all die for it.” There is never any fnstion about these modern scientific soldier organisers: Again, during the retreat, when a certain general became

somewhat demoralised, Sir Douglas took him by the arm and walked up and down with him in silence till he was over his fit of nerves on that terrible August day. Those who work with him know that his sign of anger is prolonged silence ot a felling kind. Ho has a temper, but does not let it get past his lips, they say. He has, too, a keen sense of humour, with a Scotch flavour.

The impression he leaves on a caller is that of a soldier without illusions; a soldier who sees with a soldier’s logic;.who is not afraid to be patient.

A licntenanl .in the trenches knows as much of when the blow will be struck as a corps commander or a staff department head. A cpiiet order from that quiet room and then the struggle, which by the token of the commander’s strong chin and imperturbability he will carry through with unbending resolution and Scotch “canniness." Being a good Scot, he goes every Sunday morning to a little woodenPresbyterian chattel which has been erected on the outskirts of headquarters town, where he sits in the company of Scottish officers and soldiers during a good Scotch sermon, and a long one, too.