Haig; Ein Mann und eine Epoche
Berlin: Vorhut-Verlag Otto Schlegel GmbH, c1930. Presumed First Edition, First printing thus. Hardcover. Text is in German script. 483, [1] pages. Mit 20 bildern und 6 karten (including a folding map at back). Minor loss at bottom edges of covers. Some page discoloration. Alfred Duff Cooper (1890- 1954), First Viscount Norwich, was a Conservative politician who rose to become Secretary of War 1935-37. He resigned from the government in 1938 over Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy, but served as Minister for Information during the war and became ambassador to France 1944- 47. Duff Cooper fought in the Grenadier Guards during the First World War. He was a family friend of the Haigs, and he was officially invited to write Haig's biography by Lord Haig's executors. At the time, however, Duff Cooper's account of Haig was especially useful and important. Because he was close to the Haig family, Duff Cooper had access to two sources which were to be unavailable to other historians for many years. The first were Haig's personal Diaries, and the second was a memorandum on the war, penned by Haig himself, but sent to the British Library with orders that it only be made available to the public in 1940. Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE (/he /; 19 June 1861 – 29 January 1928) was a senior officer of the British Army. During the First World War, he commanded the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) on the Western Front from late 1915 until the end of the war. He was commander during the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, the Third Battle of Ypres, the German Spring Offensive, and the Hundred Days Offensive. Although he had gained a favorable reputation during the immediate post-war years, with his funeral becoming a day of national mourning, Haig has, since the 1960s, become an object of criticism for his leadership during the First World War. He was nicknamed "Butcher Haig" for the two million British casualties endured under his command. The Canadian War Museum comments, "His epic but costly offensives at the Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917) have become nearly synonymous with the carnage and futility of First World War battles." Conversely, he led the BEF during the final Hundred Days Offensive when it crossed the Canal du Nord and broke through the Hindenburg line, capturing 195,000 German prisoners. This campaign, in combination with the Kiel mutiny, the Wilhelmshaven mutiny, the proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918, and civil unrest across Germany, led to the armistice of 11 November 1918. It is considered by some historians to be one of the greatest victories ever achieved by a British-led army. Major-General Sir John Davidson, one of Haig's biographers, praised Haig's leadership, and since the 1980s many historians have argued that the public hatred in which Haig's name had come to be held failed to recognize the adoption of new tactics and technologies by forces under his command, the important role played by British forces in the allied victory of 1918, and that high casualties were a consequence of the tactical and strategic realities of the time. Condition: Fair.
Keywords: Douglas Haig, British Army, Western Front, Somme, Passchendaele, Ypres, Battle of Arras, Cambrai, Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Loos, Military Offensive, The Hundred Days, Canal du Nord
[Book #83317]
Price: $65.00