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Should he not be judged by the standards of his time? And by his achievements? He did win the war, eventually. German casualties were not far behind him anyway.
Perhaps the fault lies with the pyche of the times. No real war for 99 years (Crimea and Franco-Prussian Affair xcepting),this ended up with Mons being fought with tactics more in place for Waterloo, a few miles and a hundred years prior. People did not learn, the US Civil War had proved that frontal charges against rifled muskets were dangerous to say the least. Against machine-guns, well........
I have never been a fan of Haig, having listened about the Somme, first hand from my great grand father, a man who had seen a fair share of war both before and after. However, his press is less than what he deserved. He did a better job than French, certainly a better one than Joffe.
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"Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell
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