Douglas Haig was born in Edinburgh on June 19th 1861, the youngest of the eleven children of John Haig, the head of the successful whisky distillery which still bears the family name. He was educated at Clifton College in Bristol and Brasenose College, Oxford, leaving university before completing his degree, so as to enroll at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. Here he completed a one-year course and in 1885, was commissioned into the 7th Hussars.

Following success in India, Haig worked with Sir John French on a new Cavalry Drill Book, as a result of which, in 1896, the High Command decided that he should be permitted to join the Staff College, without sitting the entrance examination, which he had earlier failed. Haig justified this decision, proving to be an excellent student. After this, he left for the Sudan, having been promoted to the rank of Major. In 1898, he returned again to England, where he served under Sir John French at Aldershot. During this time, French borrowed £2,000.00 from Haig, in order to pay his debts, and this loan effectively saved French’s career, although there is some doubt as to whether it was ever repaid.

The two men served together again during the Boer War and by the time of his return to England in 1902, Haig had been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In 1905 he met Dorothy Vivian, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Alexandra, and although he was renowned for his dour and uncommunicative personality, they were married within a month. In 1909, he was knighted and two years later, following another spell in India, Haig was appointed as Commanding Officer at Aldershot.

When the First World War began, Haig automatically became Commander in Chief of the First Corps and he used his position, as well as his social status, to criticise and undermine the abilities of the Commander in Chief of the British Forces, Sir John French. Haig’s criticisms were not without foundation or support and in December 1915, Haig replaced French as the C-in-C of the British Armies in France.

The Battle of the Somme, which began in July 1916, was the first real test of Haig’s leadership. Haig, however, had not wanted to fight on the Somme, preferring the area around Ypres, and also wanted to postpone the battle to allow the many new recruits a little more time to train and prepare themselves. However, he was overruled and the first day of the Battle of the Somme remains the bloodiest in British military history.

During and immediately after the war, Haig was greatly respected by both soldiers and the public, although not within political circles. After the war, while other generals were rewarded by large cash gifts and honorary titles, Haig’s anticipated peerage was delayed until 1919. When a cash sum was eventually offered to him, he refused to accept it until his soldiers had received their pensions. He used his influence to amalgamate several veteran’s associations into the British Legion, which held the first of its annual Poppy Days on 11th November 1921. When Haig died on 28th January 1928, his funeral was attended by tens of thousands of his former soldiers, who still respected him enough to make expensive journeys from all over the country.

David Lloyd George was born in Manchester on January 17th 1863, the son of William, a schoolteacher, and his wife Elizabeth. The following year, William died, so Elizabeth returned to her native Wales, where the family lived with her brother, Richard.

Lloyd George began his career as a lawyer, but soon turned his attention to politics, taking a keen interest in the policies of the Liberal party. In January 1888, he was married to Margaret Owen and two years later, won the election for Caernarvon Boroughs, becoming the youngest Member of Parliament. He soon became renowned for his skilled oratory and achieved national fame when he spoke out against British involvement in the Boer War.

When H. H. Asquith became Prime Minister in 1908, Lloyd George was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, and devised the ‘People’s Budget’ of 1909, which called for higher taxes on the rich. This budget was rejected by the House of Lords, resulting in the Parliament Act of 1911, under which the powers of the Upper House were severely reduced.

When the First World War began, Lloyd George served in Asquith’s coalition government, firstly as Minister for Munitions and then as Secretary for War. As the conflict progressed, Lloyd George and others became increasingly disaffected with Asquith’s leadership and in December 1916, Lloyd George used Conservative support to take over the position of Prime Minister and cause a permanent rift in the Liberal party.

He immediately formed a War Cabinet, which consisted of himself and one other Liberal (Lord Milner), two Conservatives (Andrew Bonar Law and Lord Curzon) and one representative of the Labour party (Arthur Henderson). Lloyd George came into frequent conflicts with Commander in Chief, Sir Douglas Haig and conspired to reduce the power of many of the generals, enforcing several changes in leadership. After the war, Lloyd George immediately called a General Election, which his coalition with the Conservatives won by a landslide, although within the coalition itself, the Conservatives had the balance of power. After the Treaty of Versailles had been signed, he settled down to more domestic politics.

In June 1922, the Conservatives, keen to take power by themselves, showed that he had been selling peerages and knighthoods and in October of that year the coalition was abandoned and Lloyd George was forced to resign.

In the 1930s he published his memoirs, in which he was scathing towards the Generals, especially Douglas Haig, being dead by this time, had no right of reply. Margaret, his wife, died in 1941 and Lloyd George then married his long-term mistress, Frances Stevenson, much against the wishes of the five children whom he had had with Margaret.

David Lloyd George died of cancer in March 1945 and was buried beside the river Dwyfor in Llanystumdury, where he grew up.

The very name of this nurse and patriot came to represent all that was good about the British during the First World War, while also showing the public the very worst side of humanity.

Born on 4th December 1865 at Swardeston in Norfolk, Edith Cavell was the daughter of the parish priest, Frederick and his wife, Louisa. Edith was the oldest of four children and they grew up together in the vicarage where they lived a poor but contented life. Throughout her childhood, Edith maintained a talent for painting and also enjoyed ice skating in the winter, tennis in the summer and dancing all year round. She was mainly educated at home, but later attended Laurel Court in Peterborough, where she showed a talent for French. This resulted in a position as governess for a family in Brussels, where Edith remained for five years. In 1895, she returned to Norfolk briefly, before taking a position as a trainee nurse at the London Hospital. She carried out a variety of roles including as a private nurse and Night Superintendent at a London Hospital for the homeless.

By 1906, Edith was Matron at one of the Queen’s District Nursing Homes, and by the following year she was back in Brussels, in charge of a training school for nurses on the outskirts of the city. Edith often returned to Norfolk to visit her mother and it was while staying in Norwich that she heard of the declaration of war. Despite pleas from her family to remain in England, Edith knew that her place was with the wounded in Belgium, so she returned there on August 3rd 1914, one day before Great Britain even became involved in the conflict.

Her clinic in Brussels was made into a Red Cross hospital and she worked there with more than sixty British nurses until Brussels was captured by the advancing Germans. Although the nurses were all sent home, Edith and her assistant, Miss Wilkins, remained. As the Allies retreated, many French and British soldiers became isolated from their units and those that found their way to Edith’s hospital were secure. A lifeline was set up by the Prince and Princess de Croy and Edith played an integral part in helping more than 200 Allied soldiers reach the safety of neutral Holland, over the ensuing months. Edith knew the risks involved in helping the men and took great pains not to involve anyone else at the hospital in the scheme.

In working for the Red Cross, which afforded Edith a degree of protection, she should have remained detached, but her humanitarian personality meant that she found it impossible not to help these stranded men. However, in July 1915, two members of the lifeline were arrested and within five days, the Germans also took Edith into captivity, telling her that the other prisoners had confessed everything. Believing there to be no hope of concealment, Edith told her captors all that they wanted to know. At the trial which followed, Edith openly admitted her guilt and was condemned to death. The American and Spanish embassies tried to intervene, but to no avail and Edith Cavell was shot by firing squad on October 12th.

There was international condemnation of this act and the British government wasted no time in using Edith’s death for propaganda purposes, causing recruitment numbers to double in the following two months. After the war a ceremony was held at Westminster Abbey and her body was re-interred at Norwich Cathedral.

None of this aftermath would really have suited Edith, who saw herself as merely doing her duty. On the eve of her execution, she summed up her own feelings towards her situation, in the full knowledge and acceptance of what lay ahead:

“Standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realise that Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”

It would take another three years of fighting before those with the power to end the conflict would talk half as much sense, or show nearly as much humility.

Horace Lockwood Smith-Dorrien was born on 26th May 1858 at Berkhamsted and was the eleventh of the fifteen children of Robert Algernon and Mary Ann Smith-Dorrien. Following his education at Harrow, he attended the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, from where he joined the 95th Regiment of Foot and saw service in the Zulu Wars, Egypt, India, the Sudan and the Boer War. By 1912, he had been promoted to full General, which made him a natural choice, as far as Lord Kitchener was concerned, to command II Corps of the British Expeditionary Force. Sir John French, Commander in Chief of the BEF, did not agree with this appointment, but was forced to accede to Kitchener’s wishes. Smith-Dorrien’s troops took part in battles at the Marne, the Aisne and Ypres during 1914, although French disapproved of some of his methods. During the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915, Smith-Dorrien recommended to French that his troops be allowed to withdraw, which gave French the excuse he needed to sack Smith-Dorrien on the grounds of his pessimism. His replacement, Herbert Plumer, then carried out Smith-Dorrien’s plan – with French’s approval. Smith-Dorrien played no further significant part in the First World War. He had married Olive Croft Schneider in 1902 and they had three sons. He died in August 1930, following a car accident.

Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace, his family’s ancestral home, on 30th November 1874. He was educated at St George’s School, Ascot, Brunswick School in Hove and then Harrow. He attended the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, following which he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 4th Queen’s Own Hussars. He also took the unusual step of becoming a war correspondent which meant he both fought in and wrote about conflicts in India and the Sudan before resigning his commission in 1899 to become a journalist and politician.

Churchill returned to England, following a daring escape during the Boer War, in 1900 and was elected to Parliament that same year. In September 1908, he married Clementine Hozier and they went on to have five children, although one of them, Marigold, died in infancy. By 1914, Churchill’s political career had advanced and he was First Lord of the Admiralty when war broke out. Following the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign, he was forced to resign and went into the army, where he rose to the rank of Colonel, in command of the 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers. In 1917, he was recalled by David Lloyd George and made Secretary of State for Munitions.

After the war, in 1924, Churchill was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, although defeat in the 1929 election saw him out of office and he remained in the political wilderness for the next decade. When the Second World War began, he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and then in May 1940 he became Prime Minister – an office which he held for the duration of the conflict. In July 1945, he was defeated at the General Election and became Leader of the Opposition until October 1951, when he was once again returned to office.

Churchill retired as Prime Minister in 1955 at the age of 80, although he remained on the back benches until 1964, when he stood down. He died in January 1965 at the age of 90. He was given a state funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral, before being buried at St Martin’s Church, Bladen, not far from Blenheim Palace.

Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer was born on March 13th 1857. He was the oldest child of Hall Plumer and his wife Louisa and he grew up in London. He was educated at Eton College, before attending the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and being commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the 65th Foot Regiment, which later became the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire and Lancashire Regiment. In July 1884, he married Annie Constance Goss and they had four children in the next six years. Plumer served in the Sudan and South Africa and by 1914 he held the rank of Lieutenant-General, in charge of the Northern Command, based in York. When Sir John French dismissed Smith-Dorrien in April 1915, it was Plumer who replaced him, taking command of the British Second Army. In June 1917 he commanded British troops during the Battle of Messines, which was a great success. The Third Battle of Ypres followed and Plumer was, once again, called upon to save the day when all seemed lost. At the end of the war, he led the Second Army into Germany and took command of the Army of Occupation. He was promoted to the rank of Field Marshal in 1919 and later awarded the title of First Viscount Plumer of Messines. He had proved not only successful but almost universally popular (the notable exception being Sir Douglas Haig, who did not like him) and made a moving speech at the opening of the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres in July 1927. Plumer died in July 1932 and is buried at Westminster Abbey.

Excerpt from Lord Plumer’s speech at the unveiling of the Menin Gate memorial on 24th July 1927:
“… One of the most tragic features of the Great War was the number of casualties reported as ‘Missing, believed killed’. To their relatives there must have been added to their grief a tinge of bitterness and a feeling that everything possible had not been done to recover their loved ones’ bodies and give them reverent burial… when peace came and the last ray of hope had been extinguished the void seemed deeper and the outlook more forlorn for those who had no grave to visit, no place where they could lay tokens of loving remembrance. … It was resolved that here at Ypres, where so many of the ‘Missing’ are known to have fallen, there should be erected a memorial worthy of them which should give expression to the nation’s gratitude for their sacrifice and its sympathy with those who mourned them. A memorial has been erected which, in its simple grandeur, fulfils this object, and now it can be said of each one in whose honour we are assembled here today: ‘He is not missing; he is here’.”

Although his military career began in the Navy, French switched to the cavalry in 1870, after which he saw service in Ireland, India and Egypt before taking command of the 1st Cavalry Brigade, stationed at Aldershot. Following the Boer War French’s rise through the ranks continued until he was made a Field Marshal. In 1914 he was involved in the Curragh Incident, following which, he felt that his position had become so untenable that he resigned. The rank of Field Marshal, however, is given for life, so when war seemed inevitable in the summer of 1914, the British Government recalled him as Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force. His performance in this position is generally considered to have been a failure and he was replaced by Sir Douglas Haig in December 1915, whereupon he was made Commander In Chief of Home Forces. French died at Deal in Kent in May 1925 and at his funeral at Westminster Abbey, one of the pallbearers was Sir Douglas Haig.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener was born into a military family and was, naturally, commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1871. He saw service in the Sudan, the Boer War, India and Egypt before the beginning of the Great War. By pure chance, Kitchener was in Britain on leave when the war broke out and Prime Minister Herbert Asquith appointed him as Secretary of State for War. Kitchener launched a massive recruiting campaign, most famously on posters which featured his face and pointing finger. Although Kitchener was popular with the public, this admiration did not always extend to others in military or political spheres. The Shell Crisis and the defeat at Gallipoli in 1915 did nothing to improve his situation, although some did sympathise with him in his difficult position. In June 1916, Kitchener set sail on a diplomatic mission to Russia, on board HMS Hampshire. The ship struck a mine and sank, off the Orkney Islands. Kitchener did not survive.

A barrister by trade, Asquith rose quickly in the Liberal party, becoming Prime Minister in 1908. Britain’s entry into the Great War gave Asquith even more troubles in an already difficult period of office, plagued by Home Rule and Liberal Reforms. A coalition government was formed, but Asquith found himself blamed for the failed assaults at Gallipoli and the Somme. He resigned in December 1916 and was replaced by David Lloyd George. In his private life, Asquith married Helen Kelsall Melland in 1877 and they had four sons, Raymond, Herbert, Arthur and Cyril, and one daughter, Violet, before Helen’s death in 1891. He then married Margot Tennant in 1894 and they had five further children, although only two, Elizabeth and Anthony, survived infancy. Asquith died in 1928.