Does General Douglas Haig deserve to be remembered as the butcher of the Somme(TM)?

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Name: Masum Hussain                      

Does General Douglas Haig deserve to be remembered as ‘the butcher of the Somme’?

General Douglas Haig was born in 1861 in Edinburgh. He was Major General in World War 1. The Battle of with which Haig's name is most often associated began on 1 July 1916. The Battle of Somme was planned because the French had been asking for some form of military assistance from the British to help them in their battle with the Germans at . Haig’s plan was to launch an attack on the Germans that would require them to remove some of their troops from the Verdun battlefield consequently relieving the French in Verdun. The first day of the Battle of the Somme saw the British Army suffer the highest number of casualties in its history: 60,000. I will consider the view of Haig being known as a ‘butcher’ is to be fair or not. Haig’s plan was after an initial weeklong bombardment of the German front line their defences would be destroyed. Haig confidently believed that there would not even be a rat alive in the German trenches and ordered the British soldiers to advance in waves, at walking pace to keep formation. Haig was obviously experienced as he was successful in the Boer war so he was experienced, also if he wasn’t experienced they wouldn’t have put him as the leader.                

Haig deserves to be remembered as the Butcher of the Somme as seen in source 1a. Fred Pearson a private on the Western Front commented on Haig in a local newspaper, 1966 states that Haig was ‘the biggest murderer of the lot’ and also Haig didn’t know what a trench was like because the nearest he got was 5 kilometres behind the line. This tells me that Haig never actually went to the battle himself. Haig was the individual to slaughter his men. This source also states that Haig was made earl and given £100,000 and was compensated for his appalling behaviour. At the end of the source Fred Pearson says ‘I’d known what I’d given him.’ Haig being rewarded for his repellent activities when he did nothing, he was the murderer of all and doest deserve to be made earl. This source is reliable because it comes from a witness from the time; however I have to consider this source might be bias because it’s his own opinion so the soldier might have something personal towards Haig. This source is a valid interpretation as it does interpret Haig being the butcher of the Somme because he did not play a role in the battle of Somme. This source is talking negatively about Haig as it tells me that Haig did not contribute in the battle of Somme so therefore he is the butcher of the Somme. The purpose of this source was to give an outline of what a soldier thought of Haig.

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Haig can also be considered as the Butcher of the Somme, as seen in source 3. The source is a page from the list of dead and wounded on the first day of battle. It shows a name of soldiers who died and that most deaths were on the 01/07/1916 which was the first day of the Battle of the Somme. This source tells me that if that many soldiers were killed and injured on the first day, then how many soldiers would have died during the battle of Somme.  This also gives me an idea that Haig didn’t ...

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