Haig, Douglas, 1st Earl

Haig, Douglas, 1st Earl

(born June 19, 1861, Edinburgh, Scot.—died Jan. 29, 1928, London, Eng.) British general in World War I. A career army officer, he was promoted to general in 1914 and led British forces in northern France. In 1915 he succeeded John French as commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force. Advocating a strategy of attrition, he was criticized for the enormous British losses at the Battles of the Somme (1916) and Ypres (1917). He was promoted to field marshal in 1916. In 1918 he secured the appointment of Ferdinand Foch as commander of the Allied forces; the two worked well together, and after helping stop the last German offensive, Haig led the victorious Allied assault in August 1918.