The Good Soldier: The Biography of Douglas Haig by Gary Mead
A DONKEY who led lions to the slaughter in scarcely credible numbers is the epitaph many historians would have be placed on the grave Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the Western Front.
It is a perception that has endured from the killings fields of the Somme to Paschendaele to today.
This book sets out to set the record straight by re-examining Haig’s role in the battles, and the circumstances he faced in the context of the time. This is not the first book seeking to rehabilitate Haig’s reputation and neither will it – in this age of revisionism – be the last.
Certainly the author has done his subject proud with marshalling of an armoury of detail setting out strong and cogent arguments in favour of his subject. The man who emerges is neither a saint nor sinner. Thought-provoking stuff.
