Where is Sir Douglas Haig’s Grave?

Haig Family Burial Plot, Dryburgh Abbey

By James Patton

Some, including Haig himself, regarded him as the leading British general of the First World War. “The Man Who Won the War,” some have said, even reportedly including Gen. John Pershing. Although in the postwar period Haig was increasingly criticized for issuing orders which led to very heavy casualties, especially during the Somme, Third Ypres (Passchendaele) and the Hundred Days offensives. 

After the Armistice, Haig became Commander of Home Forces until his retirement in 1920. Subsequently he devoted his attention to the welfare of ex-servicemen. He was a founder of the British Legion and set up both the Haig Fund and Haig Homes charities. He also attended numerous ceremonies and memorial dedications, including some in Canada, Newfoundland, and South Africa.

Bemersyde House (ca. 1585), today in Roxburghshire, was the ancient seat of the clan Haig, but the Haigs became wealthy  making whiskey and in 1849 the family seat was shifted to the newly built Haig House in Fife, which was less rustic and more convenient to Edinburgh. As Douglas Haig was a professional soldier, he was seldom in residence at Haig House, and the estate was converted into a hospital in 1912. So, in 1921, with Haig needing a residence suited to his station, the Crown purchased Bemersyde and bestowed it upon him. It remains in the Haig family today and is located less than two miles from the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey.

The Abbey's Ruins Today

Haig was in London when he died of a heart attack on 29 January 1928. He was only 66 years old. As was befitting his fame and rank, he was given an elaborate state funeral. 

On  3 February, "Great crowds lined the streets ... come to do honour to the chief who had sent thousands to the last sacrifice when duty called for it, but whom his war-worn soldiers loved as their truest advocate and friend," wrote the London Times. 

Funeral Procession, February 1928

They didn’t stint themselves. As a Scot, he first lay in state for three days at St. Columba’s (Church of Scotland) in Knightsbridge (later destroyed in the Blitz on 10 May 1941). The gun-carriage that had carried the Unknown Warrior in 1920 was retrieved to carry Haig's body to Westminster Abbey. Representing the Crown were three royal princes, the Dukes of York, Gloucester, and Kent, following first behind the gun-carriage. Then came Haig’s favorite horse and his man-servant Mr. Secrett, followed by the  pall bearers, who  were Marshal of France Philippe Pétain, General Lord Cavan, General Lord Horne, General Sir Ian Hamilton, Field Marshal Sir Claud Jacob, Admiral Lord Beatty, Field Marshal Lord Methuen, Lieutenant General Baron de Ceuninck of Belgium, General Sir Hubert Gough, General Sir Herbert Lawrence, General the Viscount Byng, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Hugh Trenchard, Marshal of France Ferdinand Foch, and Admiral Lord Jellicoe.

The cortege was accompanied by five honor guards, each from the Royal Navy, the Irish Guards, the Royal Air Force, the 1st French Army Corps, and the Belgian Regiment of Grenadiers. After the service at the Abbey, the procession was re-formed to escort the body to Waterloo station for the rail journey to Edinburgh, where it lay in state for another three days at St Giles's Cathedral (Church of Scotland), the High Kirk of Edinburgh. 

Artist's Concept of the Original Abbey

After all of this pomp it is surprising that Haig wasn’t buried in a cathedral or a massive crypt, preferably in a public place, but at the Dryburgh Abbey, and not even in the cemetery (which contains the tomb of the author and poet Sir Walter Scott), but in what had been a side chapel of the Abbey before being razed to the foundation stones. 

Haig’s grave itself is marked with a stone tablet of the Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC) standard used in all of their cemeteries except those at Gallipoli and Salonika, although Haig’s is made of granite (while the similar IWGC headstones are Portland stone) and is inscribed on both sides. The front bears the supplemental inscription "He Trusted in God and Tried To Do the Right," the rear, the insignias of personal guard regiment as commander in chief and those of three regiments he had commanded earlier in his career.  Nearby, on the grounds of the abbey, there is an IWGC Cross of Sacrifice. 

Rear View of Haig's Gravestone

The Countess Haig, The Hon.  Dorothy Maude Vivian Haig (1879–1939) was subsequently buried next to her husband, and their only son, George A E D Haig, OBE, KStJ, DL, FRSA, the 2nd Earl (1918–2009), is also buried there, so it has become a sort of family plot.

I came across Haig’s grave entirely by accident. In September, I spent a day in the Scottish  Borders seeking out sites of significance to my ancestors, including Sgt. John Laurie of the Royal Scots Greys.  I had a local guide named Stewart to drive me around and in conversation we got onto the subject of the First World War. Then Stewart said to me ”Would you like to visit Haig’s grave”? Of course I would! Then I discovered that it might be the only CWGC site in the world that isn’t free. As a senior, it cost me £6. 

Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, KT, GCB, OM, GCVO, KCIE (1861–1928)
1922 Portrait, Braesnose College, Oxford

A Virtual Tour of the Italian Front — Video from the Western Front Association

Witness to the Christmas Truce: Henry Williamson—Soldier, Author, Naturalist

Henry Williamson in Uniform

As Christmas Day dawned on the Western Front in 1914, British and German soldiers put down their rifles, climbed out of their trenches and met in no-man's-land, that narrow strip of land between their lines, where they chatted, exchanged gifts, took photographs, and even kicked a football around together. This astonishing and totally unofficial truce, which has become legendary, lasted in some cases for several days. To the young Henry Williamson, who was then a private in the London Rifle Brigade, a Territorial battalion in the frontline trenches at Ploegsteert (popularly known as "Plugstreet") Wood, and who was present at the truce, the experience came as a revelation that changed his life. 

Henry Williamson wrote about the truce several times over the course of his life. Below is a transcript  of a letter that he wrote to his mother immediately after the event, giving an eyewitness account. It so moved his family that they sent it to the Daily Express newspaper which  published selections from it on 5 January 1915.

26 Dec. 1914

Trenches

Dear Mother

I am writing from the trenches. It is 11 o'clock in the morning. Beside me is a coke fire, opposite me a 'dug-out' (wet) with straw in it. The ground is sloppy in the actual trench, but frozen elsewhere. In my mouth is a pipe presented by the Princess Mary. In the pipe is tobacco. Of course, you say. 

But wait. In the pipe is German tobacco. Haha, you say, from a prisoner or found in a captured trench. 

Oh dear, no!

 From a German soldier. Yes a live German soldier from his own trench. Yesterday the British & Germans met & shook hands in the Ground between the trenches, & exchanged souvenirs, & shook hands. Yes, all day Xmas day, & as I write. Marvelous, isn't it? Yes.

This is only for about a mile or two on either side of us (so far as we know). It happened thus wise.

On Xmas eve both armies sang carols and cheered & there was very little firing. The Germans (in some places 80 yds away) called to our men to come and fetch a cigar & our men told them to come to us. This went on for some time, neither fully trusting the other, until, after much promising to 'play the game' a bold Tommy crept out & stood between the trenches, & immediately a Saxon came to meet him. They shook hands & laughed & then 16 Germans came out.

Thus the ice was broken. Our men are speaking to them now.

They are landsturmers or landwehr, I think, & Saxons & Bavarians (no Prussians). Many are gentle looking men in goatee beards & spectacles, and some are very big and arrogant looking. I have some cigarettes which I shall keep, & a cigar I have smoked.

We had a burial service in the afternoon, over the dead Germans who perished in the 'last attack that was repulsed' against us. The Germans put 'For Fatherland & Freedom' on the cross.

They obviously think their cause is a just one.

If you get a Daily Mail of Dec 23 & turn to the letter page you will see an article entitled 'Snapshots from the Front' & in the second snapshot an account is given of what we, with others, have done, and the identical apparatus is mentioned. 

When you find a sentence or word 'blacked out' & not initialed by me, it is the work of the censor.

 Many of the Germans here are, or were, waiters. [i.e. in England before the war.] Thank Efford for his chocolate. Auntie Belle for the cigarettes. I have had an awful time with swollen feet and my toes are frostbitten now.

But it is all in the days work, as is working all night at digging or etc & sleeping in wet and mud. Where we are billeted (8 of us in a cottage in a town which is shelled now and again) we have a good time. There is a family of Belgians here whose house has been destroyed, and the old mother, about 56 yrs old, is very jolly and resourceful, as well as comical. [Any further pages are missing.]

 

Twenty-three years later, an older and more pacifistic Williamson submitted a more detailed and reflective account of the Christmas Truce to the same Daily Express that was published on Christmas Eve 1937. I think I'll save that for another Christmas season, though. 

Merry Christmas. MH

Source: The Henry Williamson Society

Wartime Christmas Cards and Illustrations

Click on Images to Enlarge

Carriage 2419D: History's Most Momentous Railway Car

The Original Carriage, 1918

4 JUNE 1914: Carriage 2419D is brought into service

Twenty-two identical restaurant carriages are put into service by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Carriage 2419D is sent to the Gare Montparnasse station serving the western lines.

28 OCTOBER 1918: Carriage 2419D is requisitioned

Carriage 2419D joins the command train placed at the disposal of Marshal Foch.

At the Compiègne Forest during Armistice Discussion
2419D on Left, German Quarters on Right

Allied Representatives with Signed Armistice Instrument

11 NOVEMBER 1918: Carriage 2419D becomes the “Armistice Carriage”

On 11 November 1918, Marshal Foch and Admiral Wemyss, representing the Allies, and Minister of State Erzberger, representing Germany, sign the armistice at 5:15 a.m. It would take effect at 11 a.m.

11 NOVEMBER 1922: Inauguration of the Armistice Clearing

At the entrance to an avenue stretching 250 meters is erected the Alsace-Lorraine Monument in pink sandstone from the Vosges. Within the clearing, a granite slab reads: “Here, on 11 November 1918, the criminal pride of the German empire was vanquished by the free peoples it had sought to enslave.”

1922 at Les Invalides

1922: Exhibition of the carriage at Les Invalides

Symbolizing France’s victory over Germany, the carriage is exhibited in the main courtyard at Les Invalides, capturing the public’s attention

NOVEMBER 1922:  The carriage is restored

During six years sitting outside at Les Invalides, the carriage must brave the bad weather. Newspapers finally cry out. Arthur Henry Fleming, an American millionaire, offers 10,000 gold francs for the carriage’s restoration and relocation to the clearing.

10 MAY-22 JUNE 1940: The Battle of France

In the space of 40 days, the German army occupies Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and a portion of France.

21 JUNE 1940: Reading of the Armistice conditions

On 21 June, Hitler, surrounded by his general staff, welcomes within the carriage (reinstalled in the clearing) the French delegation led by General Huntzinger. After the reading of the Armistice conditions, Hitler leaves the clearing.

Adolf Hitler and Entourage at the Carriage

22 JUNE 1940: The Signature of the Armistice

On 22 June, the Armistice is signed by Generalfeldmarschall Keitel and General Huntzinger.

JULY 1940: The carriage and monuments are taken to Germany

On Hitler’s order, the carriage is transported to Germany, as are the Sacred Slab and the Alsace-Lorraine Monument. The Marshal Foch statue is spared and protected during the clearing’s complete destruction.

1940 - 1945: The carriage in Germany

The carriage is initially exhibited in Berlin. It is then transferred to the Ohrdruf prison camp to protect it from the Berlin bombings.

The Carriage in Berlin

1945: End of the Second World War

The carriage is destroyed in the accidental burning of the Crawinkel railway station next to the Ohrdruf prison camp.

11 NOVEMBER 1946: The monuments recovered

Recovered in Germany, the monuments are brought back to France in July 1946. They are reinstalled in the Armistice Clearing in time to commemorate 11 November 1946.

16 SEPTEMBER 1950: The carriage’s installation

A carriage from the same series is presented by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. It is identically furnished and fitted out and installed within a new shelter attached to a rotunda built to house 800 stereoscopic views.

The Identical Carriage at the Armistice Glade Today

(Notes:  The museum was enlarged in 1992 and further enhanced for the Centennial of the Great War in 2018)

Source:  Le Mémorial de L'Armistice Website

 

What Happened at Bois des Nonne Bosschen During the First Battle of Ypres?

Fighting at  Nonne Bosschen, 11 November 1914

On three days during the Fall of 1914's First Battle of Ypres,  the tide of victory turned on actions at three locations near where the extreme eastern boundary of the salient crossed the Menin Road: Polygon Wood, Gheluvelt Chateau, and Nonne Bosschen. The action at Nonne Bosschen—fought on 11 November—was the final significant action of the last major battle in the west of the war's first year. Afterward, it was evident that any decisive movement would necessitate a new approach for breaking through the massive and deep trench system that had ended the war of maneuver.

At the dawn of 11 November 1914, the German Army, though, had not quite given up on breaking through at Ypres. The Fourth Army was ordered to prepare another assault over a broad front. After an intense bombardment, their best advance was just north of the Menin Road. A force estimated at 13 German Guards battalions captured Gheluvelt Chateau and they pushed almost a mile farther to Bois de Nonne Bosschen, a small wooded area just northwest of Polygon Wood. The defending British troops in the sector were from the 1st Guards Brigade under the command of Brigadier General Charles FitzClarence, who would later be killed in the action.

Key  Locations During the First Battle of Ypres

After they captured a British Guards' trench, counterattacks—enabled by reinforcements and artillery fire that prevented the attackers being reinforced—drove the German Guards back. The most famous of these is commemorated with the painting shown at the very top of this page. At 1400 hours, the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, accompanied by a company of the Northamptonshire Regiment and the 5th Field Company, Royal Engineers who did not want to be left out of the action, moved forward to clear Nonne Boschen of the 1st Prussian Foot Guard.  The official history of the British Second Division, described the decisive action:

A combined charge was then made on the enemy, who, though standing bravely to meet the attack, again lost heavily in killed and wounded, besides many prisoners. The Prussians thereupon fell back to the trench they had captured earlier in the day from the Black Watch and Camerons. . . When night fell, the stretch of ground won by the Prussians was only 500 yards in length. Their losses were very heavy, for although they advanced with great gallantry in close formation they were decimated by the accurate and rapid rifle-fire of Sir John French's infantry, combined with the splendid practice made by the Divisional Artillery. When the Prussians broke through the northern exits of the Nonne Bosschen Wood they came within a hundred yards of the 9th, 16th, and I7th Batteries of the XLIst Brigade R.F.A., and within rifle fire of the gunners of the 35th (Heavy) Battery. Here again they suffered considerably from rifle fire, the gunners of the four batteries using their rifles with excellent effect.

General Fitzclarence made an effort to organize a counterattack the following morning, but the opportunity was lost when he was fatally wounded. After a last effort, on 17 November, German forces moved into a defensive mode in the west and sent available troops to the Russian Front. Sporadic fighting continued until 22 November, when the arrival of winter forced an end to the battle. The Allies claimed a victory.  A month later, the Ypres battlefield would be the site of the famous episode, the 1914 Christmas Truce.

Photos from the Families of the Yanks Who Served in the Great War

I seem to have lost my master list of contributors, but these are photos people have sent me over the years. I've included the names of the individuals that I'm sure about.  MH

Diving Crew of USS Aroostook, North Sea Mine Barrage
Contributed by Shawnee Brown, Granddaughter of the Diver, Larkin Brown

Men of Company K of the 144th Infantry, 36th "Lone Star" Division Contributed by Rebecca Hornyak, Granddaughter of Richard Henry Immel on the Left

Machine Gun Company, 317th Inf., 80th "Blue Mountain" Division at Camp Lee

Three Notable Pilots of the 94th "Hat in the Ring" Squadron
Alan Winslow, Douglas Campbell, John Huffer

KP Detail, Trainees of 78th "Lightning" Division
Left Front Is PFC Louis Marcocci, Whose Great-nephew Steve Contributed the Photo

Officers 308th Field Artillery, 78th Division
Contributed by Tom D'Amario Whose Grandfather Kenneth Haddow Chalmers is Somewhere Above

Kitchen Crew 337th Field Hospital

Members Company 79, 6th Marines

Members of H Company, 106th Infantry in New York City

Marine Detachment Unidentified Battleship

Polar Bears of the AEF, Northern Russia

US Navy Yeomanettes Sworn In

US 2nd Cavalry Somewhere in France

Crew Members of U.S.S. Olympia
AEF, Northern Russia

363 Infantry & 347 Field Artillery Welcome Home
Market St., San Francisco, 23 April 1919

Members 369th "Harlem Hellfighters" Inf., Returning Home

Fathers of Jack Savage Wildman and Barbara Albertson Wildman

John Rudolph Webb [l.] and Crew
301st Tank Battalion (from Bob Rudolph)

Members 124th MG Battalion, 33rd Div.with Citizens of Christnach. Luxembourg (from Steve Collins)

Gun Crew, 148th Field Artillery (From Mary Schaefer)

America Mobilizes—The Challenge of the Nation's Railroads

A Troop Train Passing through West Virginia

By Leo P. Hirrel

Of all the aspects of home front mobilization, railroad operations produced the most spectacular failure. In turn, the crisis in railroad transportation resulted in overdue structural reforms both for the War Department and the entire national mobilization process. At this time motor vehicles were still in the developmental stage, and water transportation served only limited areas. The nation moved on its rails, and railroads relied upon steam engines. 

Troop transportation had some difficulties but on the whole the railroads did a credible job. They moved soldiers from home to initial training, often from one installation to another, and then to the ports of embarkation. Along the way they coordinated with the Red Cross or other organizations to support the troops. 

Even in peacetime the American cargo movement was inefficient because railroads could not manage their freight cars. Cars might pass between different lines, and in the process, they might be held while loading or unloading.  Railroads might also hold empty cars with the expectation of needing them later. After the war in Europe began, the demands upon railroads increased, creating further problems. In the winter of 1916/1917, trains serving New York City and its port became severely congested, and the lines were just starting to clear up when the United States entered the war. 

American entry into the war further complicated the procedures. In theory, the railroads recognized the potential problems presented by the war and organized the Railroads War Board, but this was only an advisory organization, without any real authority. Antitrust laws further prevented railroads from cooperating in the emergency to find more mutually efficient means of managing operations. 

Troubles began quickly. Cantonment construction dominated freight shipments. Soon each of the supply bureaus began pushing its own shipments either for raw materials or finished goods, often without regard for whether the organization at the other end was ready to receive and unload the cargo. Government contracts called for payment once a product was loaded on to the train, so manufacturers wanted to begin shipment upon completion of production. Shipments to the New York port soon exceeded the ability of the port to unload the cars or load the ships. Efforts to ease the congestion through a priority system failed miserably because there were no controls, and every shipment became a high priority. 

Winter turned a bad situation into a disaster. Winter always brought added stress to the railroad system, with increased demands for coal, the difficulties of heating steam engines in cold weather, snow on the tracks, and frozen equipment. The winter of 1917/1918 was brutally cold with extra snow storms and sub-zero temperatures. The forces already in France required supplies, and these shipments contributed to the backlog. At the peak of the crisis, railroads were backed up from New York City to Buffalo, while 200 ships lay at anchor unable to load.

Coal shortages plagued the northeastern states and hindered the sailing of cargo ships, which further contributed to the traffic jams on the rail system. Finally, on 26 December 1917, President Wilson seized control over the railroads using authorities granted in the 1916 Army Appropriation Act. Concurrently, President Wilson created the U.S. Railroad Administration. Less than one month later, on 17 January 1918, the director of the Fuel Administration announced that factories in the eastern United States would close for four days in order to provide coal to the ships ready to sail. 

1918 Cartoon Characterizing the Start-up of the 
U.S. Railroad Administration

Resolution of the paralysis required control over shipments at the point of origin. Even before the federal seizure of the railroads, the War Department initiated a process to control shipments through a newly created Inland Traffic Division on the expanded General Staff. The supply bureaus lost their freedom to initiate shipments, and instead each rail shipment required a War Department Transportation Order from the Inland Traffic Division. Following seizure of the rail system, the Director General of Transportation instituted a similar system to resolve comparable conflicts among the other government agencies and essential civilian commerce.

Requests for a transportation order needed to include evidence that the receiving party was ready to unload and store the traffic, instead of using the cars as improvised storage. Other changes allowed for better tracking of freight cars and more efficient use of less crowded lines. With the coming of warmer weather the situation resolved itself.

Source: Source:  "America Mobilizes," Over the Top, September 2017

What Happened on the Bainsizza Plateau in 1917? - A Roads Classic

Note:  Because of the frequent mention of the Bainsizza Plateau in Ernest Hemingway's Farewell to Arms, this article is among the most read and commented  in the history of Roads to the Great War.

Austrian Defensive Position on the Rugged Bainsizza

The Bainsizza (Banjšice in Slovene) is a semi-mountainous plateau to the north of the strategic city of Gorizia on the Italian Front of 1917.  The city had been captured during the the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo in 1916 in hopes that it would provide a launch pad for the Italian Army to the highly prized port city of Trieste. However, Austro-Hungarian forces retained control of several key mountains north of the city and most of the rugged Carso Plateau to the south. During the previous ten battles along the Isonzo, the Bainsizza was considered impassable by both sides, and it remained lightly defended during the summer of 1917.  

The Italian Army had previously resisted attacking the area, which presented incredibly challenging terrain. It is a hybrid of pretty pastoral farmland and towering limestone mountains separated by narrow ravines. However, by this stage of the war there was a secondary issue north of the Bainsizza. Near the town of Tolmino, the enemy held a bridgehead across the Isonzo.  It was great strategic threat to both Italian armies in the area and had to be dealt with. Commando Supremo concluded that both challenges could be overcome by a major attack through the Bainsizza—the Tolmino bridgehead and the mountains around Gorizia could both be flanked by a successful breakthrough. From past experience, the planners knew that the plateau would be lightly defended, at least for the opening assault.

Benign-looking Farmland on the Plateau

This was the genesis of the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo. The main objective was to capture the Bainsizza Plateau. Unfortunately, the planners combined this somewhat creative solution with the old standby scheme for capturing Trieste by just pounding very, very hard through the Carso. Guided by this two-pronged strategy, Italy's Second and Third Armies began the largest of all the Isonzo Offensives on 19 August 1917.

Looking Directly South at the Rugged Bainsizza from
One of the Assault Points

The new target for 1917, the Bainsizza, rises so rapidly and so high from the Isonzo that a frontal assault would be nearly suicidal. For once, however, tactics were adjusted to the situation. In an admirable bit of creativity it was decided that the plateau, with the help of 14 bridges to be placed across the river by engineers, would be assaulted from the north at a section where the terrain was not as challenging for assault troops. Despite heavy casualties, the men of the 24th Corps crossed the river, advanced behind an effective artillery barrage, forced their adversaries to withdraw, and eventually occupied about half of the plateau. On the south edge of the plateau a secondary attack was staged from Mte Kuk, resulting in the capture of Mte Santo, which had resisted the Italians in the Tenth Battle. These advances around the plateau stopped, however, when the artillery support was not able to follow farther and the Austro-Hungarian forces—always good on the defense—started taking advantage of the many caverns and hiding places provided by the Bainsizza's weird geology. 

Fourteen Foot Bridges Were Quickly Built by Engineers
for the Attack

The Italian Army, which entered the fighting with a huge manpower advantage, still suffered 150,000 killed and wounded, the Austro-Hungarian 5th Army about two-thirds of that figure by the 12 September conclusion of the battle. Nevertheless, after the success of the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo when Gorizia was captured, the Eleventh Battle was the most impressive military achievement by the Italian Army on the Isonzo. Their opponents were nearing the breaking point and were about out of troops to reinforce the sector. However, their concerned German allies were watching and the decision was near for them to help their partner. Italian Supreme Commander Luigi Cadorna sensed the Germans were about intervene and decided to get ready. His preparations, though, would prove  inadequate in preventing the cataclysm to come, at Caporetto.