Douglas Haig, Viceroy of India

MrP

Banned
Can we make Haig a 1920s viceroy? Would he be an improvement on the OTL situation?

Personally I feel that there are only two ways of treating India; either we must look forward to the time when India will be in the position of one of the Dominions, and we must prepare for it gradually, looking forward say another 100 years; or the other way is to keep India entirely as a vassal state and keep it entirely under control. For this we shall want a very much larger army than we have now, and it seems hardly possible, having started to give the people a voice in the Government to retrace our steps. There is thus, in my opinion, no other course than to give the sons of the fighting class an opportunity of becoming officers; only those however who show they are morally and intellectually fit for such appointments...

Source: p.49, J. P. Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World War, CUP, 2008 quoting a letter from Haig to Kiggell of mid 1911.

Clearly, he's not in tune with OTL's loss of India in the 1940s, but few of his generation expected Britain's financial mastery to be dissolved in two great conflagrations. He seems quite reasonable, albeit not so reasonable as a twenty-first century chap (chappess) would see himself (herself).
 
Pardon my stunning historical ignorance in this respect, but what was Haig like to work with, and how politically savvy was he?

See, if those are 'bad', then Haig-as-Viceroy is in with a big problem I suspect. The Viceroyalty was generally given to diplomatically minded, aristocratic, bureaucratic types - I don't think there was even any men from a seriously professional military background until that became a useful qualification in WW2 and you had Wavell etc.
 

MrP

Banned
Pardon my stunning historical ignorance in this respect, but what was Haig like to work with, and how politically savvy was he?

See, if those are 'bad', then Haig-as-Viceroy is in with a big problem I suspect. The Viceroyalty was generally given to diplomatically minded, aristocratic, bureaucratic types - I don't think there was even any men from a seriously professional military background until that became a useful qualification in WW2 and you had Wavell etc.

Oh, he's good to work for - he's demanding, but lavish with praise. He was quite suspicious of government - as a result of being in charge of the army for several years, he saw the worst as well as the best of it. Communication was supposedly a weakness, but Harris' biography suggests this is because Haig only talked fluently on certain subjects and not even all the time on then. He's quite diplomatic - did his best to smooth over the Curragh Crisis before the war. His aristocratic credentials depend on the scenario, I suspect. He was the son of a distiller and independently wealthy. Definitely a good bureaucrat - he spent a lot of time doing staff work.

But I'm not trying to force the idea. So your suggestion that military men didn't get the job is a bit of a stumbling block. I just wondered about it on seeing the paragraph earlier today.
 
So your suggestion that military men didn't get the job is a bit of a stumbling block.

Not neccessarily - just make security in and around the subcontinent in the 20's much more of an issue than OTL, and you'd be on good ground I would reckon. Not sure what the POD would have to be though.
 

MrP

Banned
Not neccessarily - just make security in and around the subcontinent in the 20's much more of an issue than OTL, and you'd be on good ground I would reckon. Not sure what the POD would have to be though.

Ah, that could be a thought. I'm not too bothered about the PoD. In fact, even Haig not ending up as C-in-C doesn't bother me too much. Pretty much 1912 onward, perhaps, is open to PoDing.
 

Thande

Donor
Ah, this is an interesting one, P. You probably know more about Haig than most thanks to your WW1 research, so you might be better disposed to answer questions like V-J's with something more than "teh evol aristocrats tipped teh plastic men off teh table, it must be true because they showed it on TV in school" :rolleyes:
 

MrP

Banned
Ah, this is an interesting one, P. You probably know more about Haig than most thanks to your WW1 research, so you might be better disposed to answer questions like V-J's with something more than "teh evol aristocrats tipped teh plastic men off teh table, it must be true because they showed it on TV in school" :rolleyes:

We had a long rambling discussion last Saturday about the importance and relevance of studying the War in the current era, when popular perception seems to be lodged firmly in that outdated "lions led by donkeys" view.* One of the chaps felt that part of the problem was the BBC (you'll be happy to hear ;) ) since a lot of the people who go on to broadcasting are** English graduates, whose seminal experience with WWI is mediated through Owen, Sassoon and so on. So the war is presented to them as an exercise in futility, supported by none, and so when it comes to looking at the war, it regurgitates and reinforces this view, even to the extent of ignoring modern experts.***

* Which was first challenged by Terraine back in '59 or '62! I think.
** According to this theory I have not verified, anyway.
*** Dr Bourne was asked to advise on the recent prog on Tull, but was so disappointed by the standards, he declined. I forget offhand whether it was the fictionalised one or the "real" one that asked him . . . or both.
 
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