31 MAY 1963, Page 14

EXORCISING THE HAIG TRAUMA

SIR,—Mr. Terraine suggests that what Haig 'MO have said' about the machine gun being an over rated weapon in 1915 was said out of petulance' In fact, Haig didn't say it, he wrote it. He wrote it in rejection of a proposal made in 1915 that the number of machine guns per battalion should be raised from two to four. (A scale equivalent to sixty' four light and heavy machine guns per battalion vcas eventually found to be necessary.) The proposal OS put forward by Major (later General) Baker-Cart' commanding the newly formed machine gun schoo,I. Captain Liddell Hart—a source Mr. Terraine doesn,t, hesitate to use when it suits him—documented a" this thirty years ago.

ROBERT gl"

Flora House, Kew Green, Richmond, Surrey