"I have not read extensively on WW1, I have read a few (I've just taken Max Hastings' Catastrophe from the library) and am open to new information gathered from new sources but to dismiss historians because they are dead or left or right wing is frankly ridiculous. Only by reading a variety of the information are you able to come to an informed view." - Raggytash

I do not think anyone has dismissed out of hand historians "because they are dead or left or right wing". What has been said is that post-1970 due to secret information being declassified and brought into the public domain, due to the Imperial War Museum opening it's archives of World War One material for examination and research by historians and through the release and translation of material in Belgium, Germany and in France the latter day crop of historians working on the Great War have/had at their disposal a greater abundance of material than those writing before ever had access to and where that material throws doubt on conclusions reached by previous historians then that aspect of that earlier work should be dismissed as flawed.

"Only by reading a variety of the information are you able to come to an informed view"

Couldn't agree more, but reading OWALW is not information, neither is "Blackadder Goes Forth". After the First World War from the late 1920s onward there was an amazing pacifist ground swell that almost sealed our fate through appeasement at any price during the 1930s. Had the President of France or the Prime Minister of Great Britain viewed the non-compliance of Treaty terms and conditions as George W. Bush did in 2002 then in 1934 when it was suspected (correctly) that Germany under Hitler was rearming in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles then the Armed Forces of Great Britain and France would have fought a German Army of roughly 100,000 men who had no heavy weapons at all, no artillery, no armour, no air force and no navy to speak of - There would have been no World War in Europe it would have been a minor skirmish that would have lasted one month at the outside.

In assessing the performance of the British Army during the First World War take into account what must be seen to be blatant untruths:

Haig was against tanks - Couldn't have been because it was under his command that they were first introduced, first adapted and improved and first had their role in warfare greatly expanded.

Haig was against innovation - Couldn't have been because it was between December 1915 (When Haig was given command of the BEF) and August 1918 that a whole host of innovations were adopted by the British Army. The differences between the British Army that entered the war in 1914 and the one that emerged as ultimate victors at the end of it in November 1918 was the difference of chalk to cheese, ten times the size with weapons the destructive power and potential of the world had not imagined in 1914. And in the summer of 1918 it was the British & Commonwealth Armies that were the only ones on the field that were capable of mounting offensive operations that ended the fighting having defeated what in 1914 was considered to be the most powerful and professional army in the world. Rationally and logically such a feat is simply not possible if you are badly led - at some point cold hard common sense has to clutch in.

Haig was known as the Butcher of the Somme - Not in his lifetime he wasn't. The Somme was a battle that was foisted upon Haig by his political masters at home and upon the insistence of the French political and military establishment. Passchendael was another offensive campaign decided upon by others who insisted that Haig undertake it and keep on attacking, if you read about it Raggytash you will find that one of the things driving decisions in 1917 from back in Great Britain had to do with submarines and shipping losses.