Death of Haig

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

Life courses on persistently in the elder heroes of the War. Hindenburg has majestically topped 80, Foch 77, and good "Papa" Joffre 76. Early, therefore, seemed the harvest which Death reaped, last week, in striking down at 66 perhaps the greatest soldier-Scotchman, Colonel - Douglas Haig, first Earl Haig (British creation), but 29th Laird of Bemerside (Scotch), and, from 1915 onward, Commander-in-Chief of all Britannia's armies in France, famed as "Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig." Men will remember and revere him for Scotch virtues. The core of his unalterable concept of how to win the War was to husband large reserves of less experienced troops and forge their mettle, year after year in minor actions and intensive training behind the lines. Such thrift was long the despair of the French. It may even have prevented an Allied victory in the early years of the War. But Sir Douglas Haig was inflexible in believing that Britain's "new army" should not join the professional army of France in a desperate thrust "to win or lose it all." Of his attitude famed Winston Churchill, now Chancellor of the Exchequer, has written: "On questions which, in his view, involved the safety of the British armies under his command, Sir Douglas Haig--right or wrong--was, whenever necessary, ready to resign." Not until all armies neared the brink of exhaustion was the thrift of Haig vindicated by the might of his at last forged and case hardened troops. If Scotch in husbandry, he was Scotch in fortitude, in personal valor. Rang in his ears an ancestral catch: "What e're betide, what e're betide, Haig shall be Haig of Bemerside!" Did he hum those words when, amid a murderous fire at Ypres, he went to hearten his troops within the battle area itself? Characteristically the last formal act of his life was to address a Boy Scout rally, last week on his estate. "Stand up for England when people speak disrespect- fully of her!" he said. On the evening of the next day, as Earl Haig stood up to put on his pajamas and then sat down on the edge of his bed, he was stricken with heart failure, died instantly.