The Times Great Scottish Lives: Obituaries of Scotland’s Finest - Magnus Linklater

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Law had a great reception in the House on his reappearance. But he at once resumed the retirement which his weak health continued to make necessary. However, he was now watching events more closely, and, as even the speech on the agreement showed, with more detachment. The position, amounting to something like a dictatorship, which Mr. Lloyd George had assumed was regarded with more and more dislike by a large number of Conservatives, and Bonar Law, no longer in daily touch with the wand of the magician, gradually became critical of it. Matters came to a crisis in the autumn and, finally, on October 19, 1922, a meeting of Conservative members of the House of Commons was held at the Carlton Club, at which a motion was carried declaring that the Conservative Party should fight the election “as an independent party with its own leader and its own programme.” This motion Bonar Law had, the day before, been persuaded to come and support. The result was that Mr. Lloyd George resigned and Bonar Law became Prime Minister on October 23.

      The election campaign almost immediately followed, and the new Prime Minister’s speeches sharply marked his departure from the Lloyd George system and atmosphere. He declared for a policy of tranquillity and economy, reduction of our commitments, so far as our obligations allowed, both abroad and at home, and abandonment of the practice of constant personal intervention by the Prime Minister in the work of the Departments. Never was an election a greater contrast to its predecessor. Instead of a flood of promises, there were no promises at all. But the electors were tired of them, and in 1922 Bonar Law, with his simplicity and tranquillity, was as much the man of the moment as Lloyd George had been in 1918 with his magniloquent promises and programmes. The elections resulted in the return of 344 Conservatives, giving the new Ministry a sufficient majority even if all sections of the Opposition combined against them.

      Mr. Bonar Law’s Premiership was one of the shortest on record. It was with many fears that he had gone to the Carlton Club meeting, but he had been given reason to hope that he might be able to bear the strain of office for at least a year. He bore it only for about six months, when his voice failed and he had to go away for a complete rest. When he returned, on May 20, 1923, he was too ill to do anything but resign.

      In so short a Premiership, interrupted by a General Election, he had obviously little opportunity to leave any great mark on public affairs. The chief problems with which he had to deal were unemployment at home and Franco-German relations abroad. His refusal to receive a deputation of the unemployed, whom he referred to the Minister of Labour, was a courageous illustration of his determination to leave each Department to do its own business, and, after some agitation, was vindicated by success. For the rest Bonar Law maintained his old popularity in the House of Commons, of which his qualities both of mind and of temper made him a born leader. Indeed, he held the affections of his colleagues and of members of Parliament as very few leaders have. When his daughter married almost every member of the House subscribed to a present for her; and the same kind of feeling was shown when he finally retired in such tributes as that of his successor, Mr. Baldwin: “Of Mr. Bonar Law I cannot trust myself to speak: I love the man.”

      No man could have played the part which he played during the five most strenuous years of English history without being possessed of very rare qualities. “Character, character, character,” said one of those who had known him longest. That, and his modesty and simplicity, his life of duty and austerity, his complete indifference to pomps and vanities and privileges of power, combined to give him a place in hearts of his friends and in the confidence of the nation which men of more dazzling genius have been able to win.

      Mr. Bonar Law married in 1891 Annie Pitcairn, daughter of Harrington Robley, of Glasgow. She died in 1909, leaving several children. Two of the sons were killed in the war; one of the daughters is the wife of Major-General Sir Frederick Sykes.

      Douglas Haig

      ‘The greatest soldier that the empire possessed.’

       His qualities were industry, coolness, and tenacity

      

      

      31 January 1928

      

      

      The greatest soldier that the Empire possessed has passed away suddenly, while still in the fullness of his powers. Lord Haig not only shouldered the heaviest military burden that any Briton has ever borne, but, when the War was over, and with the same foresight that distinguished him in his campaigns, he took up a task which probably no other could have accomplished, and devoted all his time and energy to the service of his old comrades in the field.

      Haig’s great characteristic was thoroughness. From his boyhood he seemed almost to foresee what destiny had in store for him and was constantly preparing himself for it. Among his contemporaries none could rival him in the knowledge of his profession. He had worked up through every grade of the Staff and had commanded every unit, so that, when he reached the position of Commander-in-Chief of the greatest Army that the Empire had ever put in the field, he was known to all his subordinates as being a master of every detail.

      As a young man in South Africa, and in 1914, when he commanded the I Corps, Haig showed that he was able to manœuvre troops in a war of movement. By the time he became an Army commander the front in France had become stabilised, and he then showed his ability to adapt himself to the changed conditions of trench warfare. It was he who was responsible for planning the operations that were to be undertaken at Neuve Chapelle, and so well did he foresee the character of the new struggle that his dispositions and orders for that battle became in their essential details the model of all future British attacks during the War, except in regard to the length of the preliminary bombardment.

      To thoroughness he added coolness, optimism, and an intense tenacity of purpose. In the darkest days of the First Battle of Ypres and of the March offensive he never became ruffled, but continued to carry on his duties as though he were at manœuvres. His judgment was sound; he never failed to appreciate the difficulties of his situation; but at the same time he saw those of his adversary, and was always able to distinguish the factors favourable to himself. His bulldog tenacity was remarkable. Once he had taken a decision nothing would move him from it, and, though at times he was severely criticised for persisting in operations long after their advantages had passed, he held strongly to the opinion, expressed in his celebrated order of April 11, 1918, that “Victory will belong to the side which holds out the longest … There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man; there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end.”

      In spite of this tenacity he was always willing to listen to his allies and to cooperate with them. One of the most striking features of the First Battle of Ypres was the manner in which he worked with the French − with Dubois, who commanded the IX Corps, and with D’Urbal, the commander of the Eighth Army. Later on, too, when he was Commander-in-Chief, he was in the closest cooperation with both Foch and Petain. He resisted, however, to the utmost all attempts to commit him to enterprises which he considered dangerous, and where he considered that the public good required it he was always willing to subordinate his own interests. He gave a notable example of this characteristic at Doullens, for it was due to him more than to anyone else that Foch was appointed without opposition and without friction to the supreme command. It was he, too, who, after Lord Milner had proposed that Foch should be appointed to co-ordinate the action of the Allied Armies on the Amiens Front, urged the inadequacy of this step, and had Foch’s authority extended to cover the whole of the Western Front.

      Douglas Haig was born in Edinburgh, June 19, 1861, the youngest of the sons of John Haig, of Cameron Bridge, Fife, sixth in descent from Robert Haig, who was the second son of the 17th laird of Bemersyde, Roxburghshire. He was educated at Clifton Bank School, St. Andrews, Clifton College, where he played Rugby football, and Brasenose College, Oxford, whence, as University candidate, as was the custom then, he passed not direct into the Army but into the R.M.C., Sandhurst. There he exhibited altogether exceptional zeal for a cadet, not only listening to the instruction but writing out notes of it each day. Commissioned into the 7th Hussars in 1885, he went out to India, and soon became known as a polo player and breaker

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