The British general Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig (1861-1928), commanded British forces on the Western front in Europe during World War I. He is credited with the final British victories over the German armies in 1918.

Douglas Haig was born on June 19, 1861, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. His first army duty was in India. He later attended the staff college and then went to join H.H. Kitchener for his campaign in the Sudan in 1898, where he was an outstanding officer. The following year, after having been assigned to duty in England, Haig was sent to South Africa to fight in the Boer War. He proved to be an excellent officer in action, and as a result Kitchener took him to India as inspector general of cavalry in 1903.

In 1906 R.B. Haldane, the war secretary, brought...