1-157-459 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig of Bermersyde, Scottish-born British soldier, 1917. Haig (1861-1928) was appointed Commander-in-Chief of British and Empire forces in France in 1915. His conduct of the war on the Western Front was controversial. On the one hand, his pursuit of a strategy of attrition and planning of offensives which ultimately made minimal territorial gains at the cost of massive casualties, as at the Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917), earned him the nickname 'Butcher Haig'. General John J Pershing, commander of the US army in France, described Haig as the man who won the war, however. He was made a Field Marshal in 1917, and after the war served as Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces until 1921.