Chapelle, Festubert, Givenchy and Loos. In December, 1915, he succeeded Field-Marshal Lord French as Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces in the West. Thereafter the record of his doings is the history of his country. The Somme, the German retreat, the Battle of Arras, and the victory of the Messines Ridge are part of his achievements in Supreme Command.
The foremost living British General, and one fit to rank with any soldier in Europe, is, as Generals go to-day, a young man, only fifty-six. He is at once a scientific soldier after the most modern plan, and a true leader of men. Having been a brilliant Staff officer, he has a proper understanding of the functions of a Staff. Chary of speech, bold in design, resolute in execution, he raised first his Corps and then his Army to a foremost place among British forces, and now he has raised the British Army to a foremost place among the armies of the world. He has the complete confidence of his men, and has earned the admiration and affection of all who work with him.
Scotland has given an innumerable host of soldiers to British and foreign armies, but, with the possible exception of Montrose and Sir John Moore (if Moore can be counted a Scotsman), there has been none who stands in the very front rank of the profession of arms. To-day there is such an one. It has been truly said that the biggest soldiers of all have not the specific military mind, but have a brain indistinguishable from the brain which makes a great statesman or any other great man of action. Sir Douglas Haig, while possessing every technical quality of a soldier, has the mind as well of a statesman, and of a great captain of industry. The organisation of modern war, indeed, requires qualities of which the soldier of other years had no conception. The gigantic industrial activities behind the British front, on which our fighting line depend, the gigantic educational schemes necessary to train our new Armies, demand from the Commander-in-Chief an administrative talent not less high than that required from a Prime Minister or a Pro-Consul. In such tasks Sir Douglas Haig has shown himself pre-eminent, and to this capacity he adds the swiftness in design and precision in performance of the foremost captains of history. Britain has entrusted her manhood to one who has nobly justified her confidence.
