of the offensive". In the same letter Edmonds repeated the story of how Gough had once come into the officers' mess at Fifth Army HQ and demanded that two officers be shot as an example. In this draft Wynne suggested Gough had been overly ambitious to break through over a wide front, despite Haig's orders at the Doullens Conference (7 May 1917) to "wear down the enemy and have an objective" (the objectives in this case being Passchendaele–Staden Ridge and then the coast) and Haig restrained him. Wynne agreed that Haig had originally intended a breakthrough, but wrote that he had learned from Davidson that Haig had changed his mind after his meeting with the politicians (25 June), after which he had issued renewed orders (30 June) for Gough to "wear down the enemy" but "have an objective". Wynne argued that Gough had placed too much emphasis on the "objective" rather than the "wearing down". Gough objected to this claim and said that Haig had told him to aim for a breakthrough at the 28 June conference. He also pointed out that a sleeper roadway earmarked for exploiting cavalry had been prepared long before he had been appointed to command the offensive and that appointing him (a "thruster") was evidence of Haig's desire for ambitious objectives. Gough also objected to Wynne's claim that he should have foreseen a wet August. In fact the weather seems to have broken unusually early that year. After seeing Wynne's draft Gough (correspondence with Edmonds, 1944) claimed that Haig had been responsible for too narrow and weak an initial thrust and that Haig's "personal explanations" at the time urged Gough "to capture the Passchendaele Ridge and advance as rapidly as possible on Roulers (if possible on the first day)", which lay behind the German front line [actually ] and thereafter on Ostend with the Fourth Army on the coast covering his left and "very definitely ... an attempt to break through and moreover Haig never altered this opinion until the attack was launched as far as I know. He confirmed this general idea on several occasions." Gough also scoffed at the implication that Haig had disapproved of his breakthrough attempt but had done nothing to stop it, and that even the corps commanders had warned of Gough's mistakes. Edmonds blamed the influence of Tavish Davidson on Wynne. Neill Malcolm, formerly Gough's chief of staff, called