ABSTRACT
Douglas Haig took command of the BEF on December 19, 1915 and started making personnel changes at GHQ.1 Changing the MGRA was not an early priority. John Headlam arrived at GHQ only a few days before Haig, and held the post of MGRA a few months before Haig replaced him with the man he wanted for the job, noel Birch. After the war, Headlam claimed he had been replaced because he had got on the wrong side of Haig at a GHQ dinner in 1915, but his account does not answer all questions.2 Despite being the odd man out in Haig’s headquarters, he worked hard, starting some of the projects that would bear fruit for Birch. As Haig shook up the whole BEF, making it face up to the prospect of a long war under trench warfare conditions, Headlam started the process with the Royal Artillery. The key event was the issue of the “Artillery notes” series of pamphlets, described in more detail in Chapter 4. The first item on the agenda at Headlam’s first conference after Haig’s arrival was creating “a common doctrine.”3 While Headlam had a reasonable record on training and doctrine at the Second Army, the responsibility for pushing a common doctrine via “Artillery notes” seems to lie with Haig.
