Editing Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig (section)

====Tactical developments====
Critics, including [[Alan Clark]] and Gerard De Groot, argue that Haig failed to appreciate the critical science of artillery and that he was "unimaginative", although de Groot added that he has had the misfortune to be judged by the standards of a later age.<ref>Groot 1988, p. 407.</ref> [[Paul Fussell]], a literary historian, wrote in ''[[The Great War and Modern Memory]]'':
[[File:Earl Haig Memorial, Whitehall, London, UK - 20130629-01.jpg|thumb|left|Earl Haig Memorial, Whitehall, London]]

<blockquote>although one doesn't want to be too hard on Haig ... who has been well calumniated already ... it must be said that it now appears that one thing the war was testing was the usefulness of the earnest Scottish character in a situation demanding the military equivalent of wit and invention. Haig had none. He was stubborn, self-righteous, inflexible, intolerant—especially of the French—and quite humourless ... Indeed, one powerful legacy of Haig's performance is the conviction among the imaginative and intelligent today of the unredeemable defectiveness of all civil and military leaders. Haig could be said to have established the paradigm.<ref>[[Fussell, Paul|Paul Fussell]]. 1975. "The Great War and Modern Memory".</ref></blockquote>

[[Military history|Military historian]] John Bourne wrote that Haig, although not familiar with technological advances, encouraged their use. He also rejected claims that Haig was a traditionalist and focused only on cavalry tactics.<ref>Bond 2009, p. 4.</ref> Cavalry represented less than three per cent of the BEF in France by September 1916, whilst the British were the most mechanised force in the world by 1918, supported by the world's largest air force. The [[Royal Tank Regiment|Tank Corps]] was the world's first such force and some 22,000 men served in it during the war. The [[Royal Artillery]] grew by 520 per cent and the engineers who implemented [[combined arms]] tactics grew by 2,212 per cent. Bourne wrote that this hardly demonstrates a lack of imagination.<ref>Bond 2009, p. 5.</ref> Other historians, notably [[John Keegan]], refused to accept that the British Army underwent a "learning curve"; despite this example, Bourne wrote that there "is little disagreement among scholars about the nature of the military transformation".<ref>Bond 2009, pp. 5–6.</ref> Popular "media opinion" had failed to grasp that under Haig, the British Army adopted a modern style of war in 1918.<ref>Bond 2009, p. 6.</ref>

There is no consensus on the speed of a learning curve. Tim Travers blamed the management of early campaigns on the ethos of the pre-war officer corps, which was based on privilege, with a hierarchy intent on self-preservation and maintaining individual reputations. As a consequence the army was poorly positioned to adapt quickly. Travers wrote that initiative was discouraged and that the ethos of the army was pro-human and anti-technological. The offensive spirit of the infantry, quality of the soldier, rapid rifle-fire and the idea of the soldier being the most important aspect of the battlefield prevailed. The lessons of the [[Russo-Japanese War]] and the power of artillery were ignored, which caused costly tactical mistakes in the first half of the war. The tactics that Haig pursued were beyond the mobility and range of artillery, which contributed to operational failures and heavy losses. Travers also criticised Haig ''and'' enemy commanders for seeing battle as perfectly organised and something that could be planned perfectly, ignoring the concept of [[fog of war]]. Travers wrote that top-down command became impossible in the chaos of battle. The lack of attention to lower levels of command in the early years of the war created a command vacuum.<ref>Bond 2009, pp. 6–7.</ref>

Bourne considered this to be too harsh, arguing that Haig progressed along with other commanders of the Edwardian era in implementing advances in operational methods, technology and tactical doctrine. Bourne also wrote that it was difficult to reconcile the commanders of 1918 with the dogma-ridden, unprofessional, unreflecting institution depicted by Tim Travers.<ref>Duffy 2007, pp. 320–328.</ref><ref>Bond 2009, pp. 7–8.</ref>

Biographers Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson in the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'' (2004) state:
<blockquote>As a result of his determination to accomplish great victories Haig too often disregarded key factors such as weather, and the condition of the battlefield, placed his objectives beyond the range which his artillery could cover and incorporated in his schemes a role for cavalry which this arm was helpless to accomplish. These shortcomings, it needs to be stressed, were not at all peculiar to Haig.&nbsp;... But the outcome, too often, was British operations directed towards unrealizable objectives and persisted in long after they had ceased to serve any worthwhile purpose. The consequence was excessive loss of British lives, insubstantial accomplishment, and waning morale.<ref>Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, "Haig, Douglas, first Earl Haig (1861–1928)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/33633, accessed 19 Jan 2015]</ref></blockquote>