Special Guest Blogger: Field Marshall Douglas Haig

I lived by a simple rule of when i mess up, it’s other peoples fault but when i do something right, it’s all on me and i commanded the British Army when it achieved arguably its greatest victories, those over the Germans on the Western Front during the First World War, engaging and defeating it although the death toll was huge, the first rule of war is young men die unless you are hundreds of miles behind the front line which happily for me, is exactly where i was.
I joined the British Army as a young buck and saw active service in India, Sudan and South Africa and became an authority on cavalry warfare and with my social connections at the Polo club, i rose swiftly though the ranks and became the commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France just when we were entering into a entrenched stalemate with the Germans along the Western Front.
One of the biggest changes between 19th century horse led stabby war which is where i learnt my art and the 20th-century mechanical more shooty warfare that we were now engaged in was that the other side had bloody great weapons which could kill men in large numbers.
I found that out when i ordered the Somme offensive which resulted in 60,000 casualties and 20,000 deaths on the first day so i formulated a brilliant new tactical plan to ensure final victory in the field which involved our brave boys climbing out of our trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy and then keep doing it because what was so inspired about it was that it would catch the watchful Hun totally off guard, doing precisely what we've done eighteen times before being exactly the last thing they'll expect us to do the next time.
We launched a series of mighty offensive against the German lines using my knowledge of cavalry charges which included attacking Fritz where their line is strongest and lulling them into a false sense of security that we were led by complete incompetents so when we attacked their weak points, they would be totally surprised but despite all this we failed to break the deadlock or to win any significant territory.
Considering i had to not only coordinate the British army which was full of men who amazingly didn't particularly want to be there but also the French, Americans, Belgians and Portuguese i thought i was getting the hang of it but the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, said i was 'a second-rate, incapable Commander' but if nothing else the army learnt how not to do it which served them well because they began ignoring me and doing things differently so in many ways the final victory over the Bosche was all due to my cleverly awful tactics so i'm taking that as a win for me.