Talk:Richard Haking

Untitled

A British General Sir Richard Haking earned Estonian Cross of Liberty I/1 on March 26, 1920. What about this man?

Probably the same man.Paulturtle (talk) 10:42, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup & Balance

Clearly Fromelles has given this man a place of honour in the Australian demonology of the war, whether fairly or unfairly. The article as it stood before I had a play with it seemed to be trying to damn him by insinuating blame for things that weren't entirely his fault, like the losses suffered at Aubers Ridge or Loos in 1915 (at both of which he was a subordinate general), or the fact that the Portuguese got hit hard by "Georgette" in April 1918.

More to the point, it made the claim that other generals were learning by experience by mid-1916 and that Haking's military knowledge was behind the curve. I haven't read the Les Carlyon book (yet) but if he does make such a claim then it needs to be flagged as a claim and cited. None of the bare facts I've seen in this article persuade me that this is actually so. In 1915 everyone was flailing in the dark. In 1916 a good deal of debate took place about the planned mega-offensive on the Somme: how wide should the attack be, how long and how intense should the bombardment be, should mines be tried, should this new-fangled lifting barrage be tried to protect our men as they advanced etc. Nowadays a smart couple of analysts could probably do a computer simulation - but at the time it wasn't so easy to deduce, from the many variables involved, the exact formula which would work. Despite the amount of planning that went into 1 July 1916, it was a tragic disaster - but even then high-morale divisions like the Ulstermen at Thiepval were able to make surprising progress, so Haking wasn't quite the fool that the out-of-context quotes about 61st Division make him look (also language evolves over time so it is always easy to make historical figures look silly by quoting out-of-date expressions like "pluck" and "blooding the pups"). The Germans and French were more successful in their offensives by 1916 (just) but they had more guns and had been doing more fighting up until that point.

After mid-1916 tactics evolved to the point that generals were able to make some incremental progress and kill Germans as well as killing their own men - and at this point the butcher's bill (latter stages of Somme, Arras, Third Ypres, even 1918) dwarfed the casualties from the disastrous but small offensives of 1915 and early 1916.

The Great War is now nearly a century ago and beyond living memory. Time to stop flinging careless accusations of "incompetence" and "butchery".Paulturtle (talk) 10:42, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Italy

(note to self and others) XI Corps was posted to Italy in the winter of 1917-18. However, the article on XI Corps suggests that just the Corps HQ was sent, with no divisions attached (this was not unprecedented - Henry Wilson's IV Corps briefly commanded zero divisions in autumn 1916). Cavan's XIV Corps was also in Italy, presumably with divisions reporting to it. I realise that divisions were shuffled around between corps. Maybe Haking's Corps HQ was there in case more British divisions were sent, and Plumer's force was built up into a small Army.

Cavan was, as far as I can see, promoted from GOC XIV Corps to CinC BEF (I) in March 1918, replacing Plumer. Haking came back to France with his Corps HQ and was put in command of troops in Flanders. In his diary for early April 1918, Haig, who had just been ordered by Lord Derby to sack Gough from command of Reserve Army (Haig had sacked him from command of Fifth Army on 26 March), mentioned that he recommended Cavan to succeed Gough and Haking to succeed Cavan in Italy. This didn't happen. Peyton then Birdwood became GOC Reserve Army, which was built up into a new Fifth Army.

There was a new biog of Haking published a few years ago - I have a copy somewhere but have never actually got round to reading it. It may shed some light.Paulturtle (talk) 06:44, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Richard Haking/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: HandsomeFella (talk · contribs) 20:38, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Hawkeye7 (talk · contribs) 22:40, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Picking this one up. Review to follow. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:40, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

• "Haking was probably born in Halifax, West Yorkshire" Do we have a full name and date of birth?

• Mention his three sisters?

• The meme that "morale and leadership were the most important factor in winning a battle... that the attacker would have the advantage over the defender, even if numerically inferior" has been thoroughly debunked. Are you sure that Corrigan is not being quoted out of context?

• The GSO1 was not the chief of staff but the head of the operations branch. Administration and logistics was under the AA&QMG, who was also answerable to the GOC

• Haig nominated Morland, Horne, Gough and Haking for command of a corps; there was no mention of an army command

• "Lloyd agrees with Prior & Wilson" You haven't said who they are. Do you have their book? It isn't in the references.

• Ousting of Sir John French: MOS:PARA deplores one-sentence paragraphs

• BEF is not defined in the body

• There is some inconsistency regarding the hyphenation of ranks

• Do not abbreviate the ranks!!!

• Did Bourne write the chapter on Haking in Beckett and Corvi? If so, can he be credited?

• Give Munro, Barrow, Butler, Harrington, Howard, Walker etc names in full on first use

• General Walker -> Major-General Harold Walker. Should also mention that he commanded the 1st Australian Division

• "for which insubordination he would most likely have been relieved had he been commanding British troops" I flatly do not believe this; Walker was a British Army officer. What exactly does the source say?

• "the 5th Australian Division under J. W. McCay" -> "the 5th Australian Division under Major-General J. W. McCay"

• You mention the 5th Division, the least experienced of the Australian divisions, having only recently been formed and arrived in France, but not the 61st Division. The reader might infer that the references to inexperienced troops referred to the former only, which was not the case.

• Note e requires a footnote (use Bean)

• You talk about the density of the artillery, but do not say how many guns there was

• "18th and 14th Australian brigades" That is an error; it was the 8th Brigade.

• "Paul Cobb puts the blame with McCay and his staff for not processing Haking's orders quickly enough." You already refuted that.

• "10pm" space before pm (MOS:TIME)
• "Haking was not a believer in "defence in depth", but Andy Simpson argues that this was not necessarily a bad thing." That's not what he says.

• Link Edwardian era, Brigadier-general (United Kingdom), cult of the offensive, QF 18-pounder gun, trench raiding, Fromelles, Lille, Ypres, Messines, Vimy Ridge, 8th Brigade (Australia), 14th Brigade (Australia), 15th Brigade (Australia), 58th Battalion (Australia), Royal Flying Corps, Cyril Wagstaff

Given that GA is supposed to be a low bar, the above is submitted for consideration.

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:23, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

@HandsomeFella: Any progress on this? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

There has been some progress, but I guess I hadn't done my homework properly. It will take some time, so you can reject/deny this for the time being, and I'll try again later. Thanks for your invaluable input. HandsomeFella (talk) 06:51, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Okay. If you renominate, give me a ping and will review it straight away. Let me know if you need help with any of the issues above. I have a very extensive library here. The Battle of Fromelles remains a raw nerve here in Australia, mainly because they are still digging up diggers Hawkeye7 (discuss) 08:36, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Copied material

From Attack at Fromelles took section in the Analysis section based on Senior 2012. Keith-264 (talk) 15:37, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

Recent edits

@Paulturtle: Greeting, is your copy of "Haig's Generals" a book? Mine is an online ePub and its difficult to be sure of the page numbers because different magnifications can give different ones. Keith-264 (talk) 10:37, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes I'm using a book. Don't think it matters all that much so long as the info is traceable, other than that somebody might decide to make an issue out of it.Paulturtle (talk) 18:40, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

I trust the book more than the ePub. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 22:09, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

To add to the confusion, besides the discussion of Fromelles (pp.132-5) in the essay on Monro, I've also just rediscovered an appendix on Haking and William Peyton (pp.208-9) which I've had to call "Bourne(2)".Paulturtle (talk) 00:43, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

I took some of the page numbers from there....Keith-264 (talk) 10:25, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Points of Substance

Although I'm the main author of this article (most of it in around September 2013) I hadn't looked in on the talk page for ages so was unaware this was going on. I've no interest in quibbling about punctuation and the like, but I've rechecked all the points of substance raised in the GA Review above, and have noted a lot more material from the Ian Senior biog covering the same points. Feel free to give me a prod if I don't post that and further comment within a reasonable time.Paulturtle (talk) 09:27, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

I think that you did a good job on the article, my contribution has been to add Senior 2012 because of his revision of the narrative that the Attack on Fromelles did the BEF no good and a bit of copy-editing. I didn't notice that there had been a review either. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 10:02, 17 November 2025 (UTC)