The Great War and Different Memories: Churchill, Haig, and the Legacy of Blame

Historians commonly represent Winston Churchill’s relationship with Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig as antagonistic. Churchill was one of the British government’s most outspoken proponents of an “eastern” strategy during the First World War, urging operations against the junior members of the Central Powers. Haig’s own views on strategy, on the other hand, were resolutely orthodox. A committed “westerner,” the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) believed that victory could only be achieved through offensives against the main force of the German army in France, and he was suspicious at best of any diversion of resources and manpower to subsidiary theaters.

Churchill and Haig’s disagreements over such fundamental issues made the two men obvious opponents in wartime debates as well as the controversies that persisted long after the war had ended. According to one historian, Churchill’s postwar publications “set many of the terms for the debates which would rage around Haig’s reputation for the rest of the twentieth century.” Churchill played a key role in perpetuating the misleading image of Haig as an inept “butcher” who sacrificed a generation of Britons in futile offensives like the Somme and Passchendaele.

The fact that Churchill’s writings had such an effect on Haig’s reputation, published in the 1920s, Churchill sought to defend Haig’s decisions even as he attacked his preferred strategy—going so far as to make the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), General Sir William Robertson, a scapegoat for Haig’s poor operational methods. It was only later in the 1930s that Churchill engaged in overt criticism of Haig’s generalship. Even then his critiques were far milder than those presented by other “easterners.” While never an apologist for Haig, Churchill’s attitude towards him was much more complex than is commonly supposed.