Maximes de guerre et pensées de Napoléon Ier.: 5e édition revue et augmentée.

Paris: Librairie militaire J. Dumaine,, 1863. When we have carried out the offensive, we must support it to the last extremity" - Douglas Haig's marked up copy of Napoleon's Maximes Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig's copy, inscribed by him on the half-title, "Douglas Haig. 7th Queens Own Hussars, from General Keith Fraser, Insp[ecto]r General of Cavalry". A superb provenance: "Haig took the first important steps in his career through his association with Keith Fraser as his aide de camp for the 1894 manoeuvres" (Badsey, p. 71). Books owned by Haig rarely appear on the open market. This was most likely presented to Haig between the autumn of 1894 and early 1895, when Fraser moved on from the post of Inspector General, and while Haig was still serving with the 7th Hussars, before joining the Staff College at Camberley in 1896 and relinquishing regimental duties. Haig had failed at his first attempt to get into the Staff College due to a combination of colour blindness and a poor performance in the newly tightened mathematics examination. His well-connected sister, Henrietta, is known to have conducted some "over-zealous lobbying" on his behalf and this included writing to Fraser "asking him to recommend her brother Douglas for a nomination" (Hussey, pp. 174-5). Fraser duly obliged, writing to the Acting Military Secretary, as he considered Haig "the very man the Cavalry require as a Staff officer, a man who has been an adjutant and a very good one" (citied in ibid., p. 175). Fraser (1867-1935) himself served with the 7th Hussars, one of the more fashionable cavalry regiments, seeing action in both the first and second Matabele Wars (1893-4, 1896-7). In his role as Inspector General he was a prominent cavalry reformer, described by the veteran war correspondent Charles Williams as "one of the most cosmopolitan of cavalry authorities". The lightly pencilled marginal markings in some 60 places are presumably in Haig's hand. These mainly take the form of a simple cross, but a number have a stronger emphasis, usually where Napoleon comments on the handling of cavalry. Unsurprisingly, Napoleon is mentioned many times in Haig's only published book, Cavalry Studies: Strategical and Tactical (1907). There is a single annotation, at page 88, where he notes "Bassano" in the margin, naming Napoleon's victory over the Austrians on 8 September 1796. Yet one passage, marked both in the margin and underlined, stands out as being startlingly prescient with regards the conduct of operations on the Western Front: in Maxim XVI (p. 10), Napoleon comments, "Une maxime bien éprouvée de la guerre est de ne pas faire ce que veut l'ennemi, pour la seule raison qu'il le veut : ainsi, il faut éviter le champ de bataille qu'il a reconnu et étudié ; il faut prendre plus de précautions pour éviter celui qu'il a fortifié et où il est retranché. Une conséquence de ce principe est de ne jamais attaquer de front une position qui peut être obtenue en la tournant" (A well-tried maxim of war is not to do what the enemy wants, for the sole reason that he wants you to: thus, one must avoid the battlefield which he has recognized and studied; more precautions must be taken to avoid the one he has fortified and where he is entrenched. A consequence of this principle is never to attack head-on a position which can be obtained by turning it). Of course, after the Race to the Sea of September-October 1914, which saw the opposing armies attempt to outflank each other through the provinces of Picardy, Artois, and Flanders, both sides "dug in" and any attempt at a grand Napoleonic flanking movement was out of the question. Maxim VI includes the telling observation, "Au début d'une campagne, vous devez bien réfléchir si vous devez ou non aller de l'avant ; mais quand nous avons fait l'offensive, il faut la soutenir jusqu'à la dernière extrémité... Les retraits, d'ailleurs, coûtent beaucoup plus d'hommes et de matériel que les affaires les plus sanglantes" (At the start of a campaign, you have to think carefully about whether or not you should go forward; but when we have carried out the offensive, we must support it to the last extremity... Withdrawals, moreover, cost a lot more men and material than the most bloody affairs). Parallels have been drawn between Haig and Napoleon with regards operations on the Western Front. It has been remarked of Haig's strategy for the 1917 offensives that "his plan was highly ambitious, and indeed quite visionary. These qualities are not usually associated with Douglas Haig. Indeed it is often said that he was no Napoleon, and that herein lay his problem. The truth is quite the opposite. Had Napoleon found himself commanding the battlefield in World War I, and had he sought to apply the methods of his great triumphs of the early 1800s, he would have been ridiculously out of place. Haig's plans were entirely 'Napoleonic.' They were thereby impossible of accomplishment in the war of 1914-18" (Prior & Wilson, p. 131). A remarkable little volume that sheds light on both Haig's military thinking and one of the formative relationships of the years when he made the pivotal transition from junior to Staff officer. Small octavo (126 x 75 mm). Contemporary brown half sheep sometime neatly rebacked with the original spine laid down, red label, Papier Tourniquet pattern marbled sides and endpapers, marbled edges. Some of the binding's old leather lost, darkened in places, generally a little worn and rubbed, narrow and very mild tidemark at head of leaves yet this remains a very good copy, internally clean. Stephen Badsey, Doctrine and Reform in the British Cavalry 1880-1918, 2016; John Hussey, "'A Very Substantial Grievance', said the Secretary of State: Douglas Haig's Examination Troubles, 1893", Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 74, No. 299 (Autumn 1996); Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson, "War in the West, 1917-18", John Horne, ed., A Companion to World War I, Chichester, 2012; Charles Williams, "The Home Campaign of 1893", The United Service Magazine, Vol. VIII, New Series, 1894.