AH challenge- swap roles of Allenby & Haig

OK, how could Sir Douglas Haig & Sir Edmund Allenby have switched roles during WWI, and with what effect on both the Western Front and the Middle East ?
 

MrP

Banned
Seems y'd need a pre-war PoD t'me for't to make the most sense. That said, I'll take a stab at not doing so.

Grierson doesn't die, so Smith-Dorrien doesn't take command of II Corps. However, the campaign goes much as OTL. Grierson and S-D have more clout than S-D alone IOTL. Haig is as bitchy about French as ever. ITTL French is swiftly removed in later '14 or early '15 and replaced by Grierson, with S-D taking G's army command, and Haig his OTL one. Gallipoli rolls round on schedule and is the same failure as IOTL, so the govt. decides to nab a senior commander from the Western Front and have him campaign in the East. They pick Haig, who grumpily potters off. He'd rather stay on the Western Front, but Grierson is savvy to Haig's close contact with govt. and monarch back home, and to his role both in the replacement of French and in subsequently bewailing Grierson's own performance.

Allenby receives his promotion to Army command as IOTL in October '15, but ITTL he takes command of Haig's Army instead of 3rd. Haig out of the way, Grierson finally pops his clogs (heart attack again), and the commander of the BEF has to be chosen swiftly from S-D, Allenby and a few others. If we give poor old S-D a severe dose of some ailment, we'll knock him out of the running, giving Allenby command of the BEF from early 1916, making him responsible for planning and executing the Somme Operation &c. If preferred, have S-D suffer a tactical reverse and Allenby a success just when the govt. is choosing the commander.
 
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