Who was he?
Haig was British commander on the Western Front for most of World War One. The huge casualties that his military strategy produced has made him a controversial figure.
Douglas Haig was born in Edinburgh on 19 June 1861 into a wealthy family who owned a whisky business. He studied at Oxford University and in 1884 went to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.

His responsibilities included the organisation of a British Expeditionary Force (BEF) for deployment in the event of war with Germany. On the outbreak of war in 1914, Haig was commanding the BEF's 1st Army Corps, whose overall commander was Sir John French.

In an attempt to break the stalemate on the Western Front and relieve the pressure on the French at Verdun, Haig ordered the Somme offensive, which began on 1 July 1916.
The British army suffered 60,000 casualties (just under 20,000 of whom were killed) on the first day, the highest in its history, and Haig's conduct of the battle made him one of the most controversial figures of the war.

In July 1917, a new offensive - the Third Battle of Ypres (also known as Passchendaele) resulted in further heavy casualties, but did succeed in weakening the German army and helped prepare the way for its defeat in 1918.

The great German attacks of the spring of 1918 almost broke the British army, but inspired the creation of a single command of allied forces on the Western Front under the French commander Ferdinand Foch, strongly supported by Haig. Between August and November 1918 the Allied forces under Haig's command achieved a series of victories against the German army which resulted in the end of the war.

died on 28 January 1928.