The First World War

by John Keegan

Douglas Haig, commander of the BEF’s First Army, was sinuous in his relationships with the great, particularly at court. He had precipitately married a royal lady-in-waiting after the briefest of introductions and had accepted an invitation to correspond privately with King George V soon after the Western Front had relapsed into stalemate. Others in the BEF hierarchy shared by the end of 1915 the belief that French had proved his incapacity to continue in supreme command, and their views were made known to the government. It was Haig, however, who wielded the dagger. During a visit by the King to France at the end of October, he told him directly that French was ‘a source of great weakness to the army, and no one had confidence in him any more’. All that was true, but it would have come better from Haig had he not added that he himself was ready to do his duty in any capacity. ‘Any capacity’ clearly meant as French’s successor which, after further consultations between the King, the Prime Minister and Kitchener, still Secretary of State for War, though his perch was creaking also, he became on 16 December 1915.42