Just bought an ex-review copy ( ie half-price ! ) of the just-published 'Douglas Haig : War Diaries and Letters 1914-1918' ( Sheffield and Bourne ), the first scholarly selection of his writings since 1952 (!). Haig strikes me as the 'Bomber Harris' of WW1, undeniably an important but very controversial figure who always attracts extreme opinions. This looks to be an essential book concerning the history of warfare.
Martin - I've seen this on the bookshelves. Very tempted. Its based upon the original handwritten copy of Haig's diaries.
I've noticed that book on the shelves of bookshops round here, and I'm sorely tempted to fork out the £25 jacket price and get my hands on it, especially having read some of Sheffield's work and been impressed by it. I've read Phillip Warner's short biography 'Field Marshall Earl Haig', which is very sympathetic, but not uncritical, and have been looking (on and off) for Terraine's book 'The Educated Soldier'. I think the Harris analogy is an apt one.
I've started dipping into it. There's an interesting introduction/historiography by the two editors ; they seem to me to be a little too pro-Haig but maybe that's just me..... Otherwise, this book seems as important a source for WW1 as the recent Alanbrooke diaries are for WWII.
Are they really very pro-Haig, or do they just seem that way because of how savaged his reputation has been in the past?
No - I've read some more and they definitely fall into the 'Haig admirer' camp, along with John Terraine....
I would go for more revisionists martin. You have to remeber Haigs reputation was effective battered when Lloyd George produced his memoirs. And this wasn't helped by the works of Clark et al.
I used to read a lot about Haig ( Charteris, Blake, Cooper etc ) about 20 years ago - I don't have the time or money to start again ! I'm content to just stick with Haig's own words in this book.....
