Haig was an uncaring general who sacrificed the lives of his soldiers for no good reason. How far do the sources support this view?

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Rachel Everingham 11R                History GCSE Coursework

“Haig was an uncaring general who sacrificed the lives of his soldiers for no good reason.” How far do the sources support this view?

I think all the different sources all have a mixed view on Haig, some implying he was ‘uncaring’ and that he ‘sacrificed the lives of his soldiers’, but others disagreeing with this.

        Source A mainly agrees with the statement. It is written by Haig himself, so it is not somebody’s opinion of him. He has a cynical tone, saying that, “The nation must be taught to bear losses” and that they cannot win “without the sacrifice of men’s lives”. It seems as if Haig is trying to defend himself, as he says, “No amount of skill on the part of the higher commanders…will enable victories to be won without the sacrifice of men’s lives.” Although Source A does support the idea that Haig is sacrificing men’s lives, and that he is bad for not caring about this, I think Haig may be just defending himself. He says that “no training, however good” and “no superiority of arms and ammunition” will stop people dying, so he is telling people so that he doesn’t get blamed if it does happen. I think it also shows he must care a bit because he is warning the nation, and describing the deaths of soldiers as a “sacrifice”.

         Most of what is said in Source C agrees with the statement, and it was taken from an interview years after the battle. Private George Coppard says there were “hundreds of dead” and that “it was clear that there were no gaps in the wire at the time of the attack”, so he was saying the battle had not gone well. He criticises Haig saying, “How did the planners imagine that Tommies would get through the wire?” which shows George Coppard agreeing with the statement, and showing Haig did not think through the plan. We know Coppard was there at the battle, and so obviously had his own experience from it and knew exactly what was happening. The source was written years after the battle, so George Coppard would have heard opinions from different people and would have access to a lot of information like casualty figures and reports, so we know he had a good knowledge of what happened at the battle, and therefore the source is quite trustworthy. On the other hand, it doesn’t agree with the statement as it says they couldn’t have known about the German wires and he says, “Who told them”, which implies that Haig was misinformed, but overall Coppard is agreeing with the statement.

        Source D is a still from TV series ‘Blackadder Goes Forth”, and again this source mainly agrees with the statement. The source uses sarcasm as a way to criticise Haig, by saying, “Are we all going to get killed? Yes”, and “Clearly Haig is about to make a giant effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin,” implying that Haig was living in luxury and wasn’t making much of an effort whilst the soldiers were risking their lives fighting. The source is positive about the battle in one way, as the officers say they want to give a “darn good British style thrashing”. The source was used for entertainment purposes so we cannot fully trust it as parts of what happened could be exaggerated to make it funny or more interesting than the actual events that took place. The source does make out that Haig did not care about his men and wasn’t doing a lot to help them.

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        A couple of the sources very strongly agree with the statement, and one of those is Source F. The source is from a book written recently called “British Butchers and Bunglers of World War”. Source F speaks completely negatively of Haig, and describes him as “as stubborn as a donkey and as unthinking as a donkey”, saying his principle was “if he could kill more Germans than the Germans could kill his men”, which agrees with the statement as it implies that Haig did not care about the lives of his men, as he just wanted to kill Germans and ...

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