The HISTORYnet.com – how wonderful

1: The great commanders of history fascinate us, and we read their biographies looking for one or more character attributes we believe accounted for their success. With Napoleon, for example, we think imagination. In Lee, we see audacity. Wellington, composure. Hannibal, daring. Of course, truly great generals seem to possess all these qualities to some degree. They are artists of a kind, blending in one person intelligence, intuition, courage, calculation and many other traits that allow them to see what others cannot and to act when the time is right. For students of military history, the question of what makes great commanders is inexhaustibly fascinating."

Really? Take a look at the selected "Great Commanders" – there are four of them, and of those Hannibal, Lee and Napoleon have one thing in common they were all defeated {Haig wasn't} – The last, Wellington was victorious {like Haig} .

But there is another thing that the four selected "Great Commanders" have in common with each other – they were present on each and every one of their selected battlefields and could see what was going on, because the armies they commanded were tiny in comparison to forces commanded by Haig, and likewise their battlefields were tiny in comparison, if a situation developed they just cantered over with their staff officers and put things to right. Haig could never do that purely due to size of his armies and the area he was responsible for

2: Haig's "thing for horses"?? No more so than any other commanding officer in any of the combatant armies fighting world wide during the conflict.

Under Haig the British and Commonwealth Armies singularly developed an integrated all arms approach to warfare that is still followed in conventional conflicts today – now in Haig's day an integrated all arms approach would involve artillery co-ordinated with infantry supported by aircraft, tanks and cavalry

By the way, the last British soldier to die in the First World War was?

"The final British soldier to be killed in action was Private George Edwin Ellison. At 9.30am Pte Ellison of the 5th Royal Irish Lancers was scouting on the outskirts of the Belgian town of Mons" - a cavalryman

3: Verdun and the Somme both fought in 1916 and neither fought as a matter of selection or choice on the part of the allied Generals involved saw the start of the end for Germany on the Western Front after these battles had ground to a halt Falkenhayn the German Commander was sacked.

4: Attrition is never an inspired strategy and is usually the refuge of a commander who cannot come up with anything better."

Then that should be laid at the door of the person responsible for creating it the German Commander Falkenhayn The strategy of attrition was the method chosen by the Germans, for them that was what 1916 was all about and they lost.

5: "Haig was, if anything, unimaginative. As Paul Fussell writes in his indispensable volume The Great War and Modern Memory, "In a situation demanding the military equivalent of wit and invention…Haig had none."

Still, in his defense, it's clear Haig honestly believed a massive frontal assault by British infantry would punch a hole in the German line, through which his cavalry would then charge to glory. On several occasions mounted troops were brought up in anticipation of the breakout that, of course, never occurred."

Ah but imaginative enough to change and adopt new tactics, more so than any other commanding general in the First World War. Cavalry were brought up and were used to exploit gaps and pursue the fleeing enemy from 1917 onwards - Sorry I don't think too much of this chap Fusell's research, basically it sucks..

By the way if you are faced with the reality of having a continuous line of trenches and defences running from the North Sea coast to the Swiss border – what other alternative is there for attacking your enemy other than by frontal assault?

6: 1917 was quite a successful year for the British Army no new tactics? MYTH look up the battles fought under Haig by Plumer, Rawlinson, Currie and Monash. One thing and one thing alone hampered the allies and the Germans alike during the Passchendaele Offensive and that was the weather which became a factor after the battle was joined.

7: Ah according to Fusell the Americans came riding to the rescue in 1918 – Bollocks they had no rifles, machine guns, artillery, aircraft or tanks – all those, plus the ammunition required for them, had to be given to the Americans by the French and by the British. In terms of numbers their contribution was more valuable as propaganda than in the actual contribution you could have expected from fighting men, while their losses amounted to some 112,000 men only half that number died in combat.

8: At the conclusion of Operation Michael – the last major German Offensive of the First World War which had attacked the British, it was the British and Commonwealth Armies that went over onto the offensive just 21 days later using the tactics introduced on the Somme in 1916 and perfected during 1917, the afternoon start time, creeping barrage, immediately and closely followed by the infantry supported by tanks and aircraft and the gaps exploited by cavalry and light tanks. From the 8th August to the 11th November it pushed the Germans out of France and forced then to retreat beyond their own Hindenburg Line of defences. The 8th August 1918 was described by Ludendorff as being "the Black Day of the German Army".