Richard Haking

General Sir Richard Cyril Byrne Haking (24 January 1862 – 9 June 1945) was a senior British Army officer who is most notable for being the commander of XI Corps for most of the First World War.

Arguments over the late release of XI Corps on the first day of the Battle of Loos in September 1915 were instrumental in forcing the resignation of Field Marshal Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force. Haking is remembered chiefly for the negligible gains and high casualties suffered by his forces (including Australian troops) at the second Attack at Fromelles, during the Battle of the Somme 50 mi (80 km) to the south. Although blocked from further promotion, he continued in command of XI Corps – including in Italy in the winter of 1917–1918 and in Flanders in April 1918 – until the end of the war. After the war he held two politically sensitive posts: he was the League of Nations High Commissioner for the Free City of Danzig in the early 1920s, and then General Officer Commanding (GOC) British Troops in Egypt.

Haking has enjoyed a poor reputation, especially in Australian writing. More recently, at least two British historians have sought to defend his reputation, including his recent biographer Michael Senior and Gordon Corrigan, who regarded him as an "intelligent and capable man" unfairly maligned in the popular mythology of the war.