The Good Soldier: A Biography of Douglas Haig

In `The Good Soldier', Mead has taken on seemingly insuperable odds and won. Could there be a character less sympathetic to the age we find ourselves in? How, in an `anti-war' and above all `anti-THAT-war' environment, do you hope to determine whether someone whose "name today is still synonymous with pointless expenditure of life in conditions of ghastly filth" is worth de-demonising, and still command a reader's attention? How, when celebrity is all and available to all, can you hope to persuade a contemporary audience to connect with a "tongue-tied Scots cavalryman", "without sparkle", who had "no charlatanism in his nature", and - beyond today's pale - came from old money and was not averse to pulling a string or two to assist his progress up the slippery military pole.? Mead therefore rather understates his task: "he is a hard character to like, not least because `being liked' was never very high on his list of ambitions." Yet he pulls it off, quite simply by telling his story, simply. And by the end of this tour de force - from Aldershot to South Africa, from India to the killing fields of Flanders - you feel something for a leader of men who showed little feeling. And something a lot less for Haig's peers - like Lloyd George and Churchill - who more readily strike a chord with "today's society, one in which public figures, at the drop of a hat, lay bare their souls, beat their breasts, thump tubs, even if they have very little to say." This is a very `good' book, indeed.

A biography for our time (5/5 people found this helpful)

Gary Mead's brilliantly written and compelling biography of one of this country's most controversial generals is likely to become the definitive work on Field Marshall Haig. With opinion still bitterly divided between those who see Haig as a 'good soldier', doing his job to the best of his ability under extreme conditions (as Mead suggests) or simply the butcher of millions, this is the kind of even handed biography that is needed right now. It succeeds in rising above some of this endless controversy to paint a portrait of a man who was complex, introverted, Victorian in outlook and at best hard to fathom. It is no coincidence that the book is subtitled 'the' biography of Douglas Haig for the simple reason that no on has ever before quite captured the essence of the man - until Mead's biography, that is.

There is no doubt that Haig believed in what he was doing and fighting for and Mead captures the man's persona through a combination of diligent research (the material on the First World War must be truly gargantuan) and a style of writing that is at once effortless, engaging and easy to follow. Despite the difficulties in describing complex battlefield manoeuvres (and the pros and cons of certain types of explosive shell that at times left me a tad confused) Mead still manages to sustain a forward momentum in his narrative that is constantly captivating and demands that you read on.

The two brilliant central chapters of the book, on the Somme and Passchendaele, bring the horror of war into sharp relief and help place Haig's sometimes impossible position as C-in-C in a new light. His dealings with the ever difficult French and the pesky Lloyd George make you wonder how we ever got through it all as eventual victors. But then the haunting photograph of German troops returning home to Berlin in 1918 "with a sense of betrayal and their heads held high" reminds us that after four years of unspeakable slaughter it is difficult still to know what it was all for.

With Amazon's bargain price (at the time of writing) of 50% off, you would be foolish not to ensure that this exceptional work ends up under someone's Christmas tree. Better still, buy it for yourself.

The Good Soldier: A Biography of Douglas Haig

Gary Mead

Reader Reviews:

More than a 'good' book (8/8 people found this helpful)

A biography for our time (5/5 people found this helpful)

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