‘The First XV: the senior staff of Haig’s five armies’

Conspicuous by their absence from most histories of the British Army in the Great War are its senior staff officers. While Field Marshal Haig and his army commanders are familiar to many, little is known of the senior staff who shared their successes and failures. They have been largely overlooked and mostly forgotten. These officers played a critical role in planning operations. Shedding some light on who they were and what they did should advance our understanding of Haig’s army. This presentation will look at the fifteen senior staff officers of the five British armies on the Western Front. It will examine their backgrounds, their roles and try to determine just how important they were. Did they merit a slot in the first XV or should they have been playing in the reserves?