Who led the British forces in the Battle of Morval?
Battle of Morval
Sir Douglas Haig
At the beginning of August, optimistic that the Brusilov Offensive would continue to absorb German and Austro-Hungarian reserves and that the Germans had abandoned their offensive at Verdun, Sir Douglas Haig advocated to the War Committee in London, that relentless pressure be kept on the German armies in France for as long as possible. Haig had hoped that the delay in producing tanks had been overcome and that enough would be ready to be used in September. Despite the small numbers of tanks available and the limited time for the training of crews by September 1916, Haig had committed them in the Battle of Flers–Courcelette, in view of the importance of the general Allied offensive being conducted on the Western Front in France, by Italy against the Austro-Hungarians and by Brusilov in Russia, which could not continue indefinitely. Haig had believed that the German defence of the Somme front was weakening and that by mid-September might collapse altogether.[2]