Ahem, You and the professor have managed to disabuse Jim's old soldier, Harry Patch, Robert Keating ......... the only old soldier who you have not called a liar yet is my old soldier who wrote:

"I served on the western front during the 1914/18 war as a platoon commander in 914 rising to GSO1 of a division by 1918. I never once saw Haig, nor did I ever see him after the war …. I can never forgive a General who intrigues, as Haig did – against his C-in-C, and against his political chief …....... There was a tremendous gulf between the staff and the fighting army; the former lived in a large chateaux miles behind the front …....... Kiggell who was in my Regiment, had no idea of the conditions under which the soldiers lived and fought"