As a follow up - I am reading a small book now called Clausewitz - A very Short Introduction - by Michael Howard - Oxford University Press 2002
In this book and in Clausewitz`s own ON WAR - there is a notion that there is only one means of making war and that there is no limited war.
The Howard Book notes that by the 1911 time period - the doctrine of all parties later to be found guilty - promoted total war vs. limited war in all the Armies of Europe. They say the spread of democratic sentiments made all peoples more bellicose rather than less. This engendered a lack of subtlety in Strategic thinking and the "implacable determination of leaders to gain their objectives whatever the cost, their almost joyful acceptance of heavy casualties as an indication not of military competence but of moral strength. Clausewitz`s defenders could reply that given the issues that were seen to be at stake the war could only be settled by just such a `trial of moral and physical forces by means of the latter`, and no amount of military skill could have attained the political objects - the preservation and destruction of the Habsburg Empire, the establishment or prevention of a German hegemony in Europe, the maintenance of British maritime supremacy, and the territorial integrity of France - any more cheaply. (pp 68 and 69 Clausewitz - A very Short Introduction - by Michael Howard - Oxford University Press 2002)
Thus we may have many term papers to be written on Haig - no smarter but no less blind than the rest of his fellow protagonists.