Talk:Richard Haking

Untitled
A British General Sir Richard Haking earned Estonian Cross of Liberty I/1 on March 26, 1920. What about this man?

Probably the same man.Paulturtle (talk) 10:42, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup & Balance
Clearly Fromelles has given this man a place of honour in the Australian demonology of the war, whether fairly or unfairly. The article as it stood before I had a play with it seemed to be trying to damn him by insinuating blame for things that weren't entirely his fault, like the losses suffered at Aubers Ridge or Loos in 1915 (at both of which he was a subordinate general), or the fact that the Portuguese got hit hard by "Georgette" in April 1918.

More to the point, it made the claim that other generals were learning by experience by mid-1916 and that Haking's military knowledge was behind the curve. I haven't read the Les Carlyon book (yet) but if he does make such a claim then it needs to be flagged as a claim and cited. None of the bare facts I've seen in this article persuade me that this is actually so. In 1915 everyone was flailing in the dark. In 1916 a good deal of debate took place about the planned mega-offensive on the Somme: how wide should the attack be, how long and how intense should the bombardment be, should mines be tried, should this new-fangled lifting barrage be tried to protect our men as they advanced etc. Nowadays a smart couple of analysts could probably do a computer simulation - but at the time it wasn't so easy to deduce, from the many variables involved, the exact formula which would work. Despite the amount of planning that went into 1 July 1916, it was a tragic disaster - but even then high-morale divisions like the Ulstermen at Thiepval were able to make surprising progress, so Haking wasn't quite the fool that the out-of-context quotes about 61st Division make him look (also language evolves over time so it is always easy to make historical figures look silly by quoting out-of-date expressions like "pluck" and "blooding the pups"). The Germans and French were more successful in their offensives by 1916 (just) but they had more guns and had been doing more fighting up until that point.

After mid-1916 tactics evolved to the point that generals were able to make some incremental progress and kill Germans as well as killing their own men - and at this point the butcher's bill (latter stages of Somme, Arras, Third Ypres, even 1918) dwarfed the casualties from the disastrous but small offensives of 1915 and early 1916.

The Great War is now nearly a century ago and beyond living memory. Time to stop flinging careless accusations of "incompetence" and "butchery".Paulturtle (talk) 10:42, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Italy
(note to self and others) XI Corps was posted to Italy in the winter of 1917-18. However, the article on XI Corps suggests that just the Corps HQ was sent, with no divisions attached (this was not unprecedented - Henry Wilson's IV Corps briefly commanded zero divisions in autumn 1916). Cavan's XIV Corps was also in Italy, presumably with divisions reporting to it. I realise that divisions were shuffled around between corps. Maybe Haking's Corps HQ was there in case more British divisions were sent, and Plumer's force was built up into a small Army.

Cavan was, as far as I can see, promoted from GOC XIV Corps to CinC BEF (I) in March 1918, replacing Plumer. Haking came back to France with his Corps HQ and was put in command of troops in Flanders. In his diary for early April 1918, Haig, who had just been ordered by Lord Derby to sack Gough from command of Reserve Army (Haig had sacked him from command of Fifth Army on 26 March), mentioned that he recommended Cavan to succeed Gough and Haking to succeed Cavan in Italy. This didn't happen. Peyton then Birdwood became GOC Reserve Army, which was built up into a new Fifth Army.

There was a new biog of Haking published a few years ago - I have a copy somewhere but have never actually got round to reading it. It may shed some light.Paulturtle (talk) 06:44, 22 March 2022 (UTC)