Does Haig deserve the title 'The Butcher of the Somme'?

After all, the only reason that Haig gave the order to walk was because he was under the false impression that all the Germans had been killed in the bombardment and the men would be walking straight through the trenches to Berlin. It is for this reason that the men were carrying 30 pounds of pack on their shoulders, and were told that they were walking towards empty trenches. However, when this clearly wasn't the case, and it was obvious that they were not walking towards empty trenches, why carry on walking if the only reason for doing so is now void?

Haig's mentality is also to be questioned, as his attitude towards human life is simply shocking. His 'attacking initiative' ideas where men are simply thrown over the top on little raiding parties of 10 or 15 people, were madness. Every group died and was just another target for the Germans to shoot down. They had absolutely no hope of succeeding and he knew it. He was just throwing away lives when he knew all who went over the top would die. This may or may not have created an attacking spirit, but what good is an attacking spirit when the men are sent over the top to die? I can't see how the deaths of their friends could possibly create an attacking spirit, the only thing it would create was the impression that there General was a complete maniac. There is no use in raising the morale of troops who are going to die anyway, and surely victories would create a better morale boost for the men than constant casualties. Imagine this: You are a middle aged lady in England and you are proud to say to all your friends that your husband has gone to fight for his country. You are then informed that he has been killed in action. After the war, you find out that he was killed in a raiding party, all to raise the morale slightly of men on the front line. You think to yourself...'oh, won't they be happy! I'm sure his life was a worthy sacrifice and the other men had high spirits for the next week, to know that another 15 people had been sent over the top and died'.

Haig said, the day before the offensive: 'The men are in splendid spirits. Several have said that they have never before seen so instructed and informed of the nature of the operation before them. The barbed wire has never been so well cut, nor the artillery preparation so thorough. All the commanders are full of confidence.' This statement in itself tells the story. Haig was either miss-informed or delusional, and despite the fact that the wire was clearly not cut, he sent the men out anyway.

Does Haig deserve the title 'The butcher of the Somme'?

Argument: Against Statement

Haig didn't listen to his commanders advise and reports from the battlefield. He made it difficult for people to tell him bad news about the battle. This was a big mistake and it meant that anyone trying to tell him something would be afraid of the way he would react. They would distort the news to make it sound like the battle is going better than it actually was. This means that Haig would be hearing news that wasn't accurate to the actual battle, so he would be acting on false information. This could arguably mean that Haig's decisions at the Somme were made under the false impression that everything was going to plan, if he had been told that the truth was, the men were getting slaughtered and the Germans were alive, he may have changed his strategy. It would have been hard to tell Haig that his brilliant plan had completely failed and there were catastrophic casualties. Despite this, he would have no doubt been told what was going on, but would it have been the whole truth? We will probably never know. It has to be said though that if Haig made it difficult for people to tell him bad news, he has to be blamed for any misinterpretations that he might have been told resulting in him getting the wrong impression of the battlefield. A General must know what is happening to his troops on the battlefield, and a communication brake down between a General and his troops is always fatal. But you could say that if Haig's decisions were based on false information, maybe he wasn't entirely to blame for the implications of those decisions.

Haig didn't have any proper training in being a General, he simply married the right people and went to the right school.

The decision to make Haig General was more based on his Childhood and his marriage than anything else, but any man put in charge of the British army isn't going to decline, so maybe he was put in a position were he had to make decisions he didn't know how to make.

Also, Haig has been pulled apart by historians recently saying, as I have done, that he was a bloodthirsty waster of good life, and fully deserves the title, 'butcher', but maybe to make such a bold statement you should look at the whole picture, and look a bit more deeply into Haig's thinking...

In the 21st Century, we fight our wars by firing cruise missiles over distances of 100's of miles, you don't have a chance against that kind of bombardment, and that's why our wars last weeks rather than years. But in Haig's day, warfare was only just evolving out of basic guns, cavalry charges and swords and shields, not long after the bow and arrow. Haig, as a cavalry officer, was unquestionably influenced by his cavalry warfare techniques, and was convinced that Cavalry charges through a gap in the enemy line would win the war. These tactics are simply ridiculous, and as a Tommy noticed, 'Our high command had not advanced beyond the tactics of the stone age. They could not think of any other form of warfare, except to throw into battle large numbers of men month after month'.

Despite what it seems today, Haig's decisions were not as disastrous as we might have thought. His tactics were in line with current warfare techniques of the time, and he had no experience when dealing with machine guns. He couldn't see the whole battle like we can today in a complete overview.

Conclusion

As an overview, Haig was a ruthless General in charge of people's lives, with the attitude that the death of 60,000 men on the first day was a worthy sacrifice. He did not regret any of his decisions, and said 'the nation must be prepared to bear losses, no amount of skill on the part of the higher command...' No amount of skill would have saved a Tommy when ordered to walk towards blazing machine guns.

Haig's incapacity to understand the truth is the most disturbing thing; he simply couldn't grasp the concept that machine guns will simply kill anything that moves. But even more worrying, was the fact that he simply didn't care. He couldn't care about people's lives that he had ordered to be thrown to the guns, he was just lazy in his tactics, and it was this laziness that cost so many lives. The key factors in determining whether Haig deserves the title 'the Butcher of the Somme', are:

? He formulated the strategy that was so stupid on paper, and catastrophic in practice

? He could have changed his planes when he knew they weren't having any affect, like any reasonable General would

? His attitude towards the death toll was sickening and his 'attacking initiative' raiding parties prove the point that he simply didn't care about the fates of his men

? You can't really blame him for not knowing what he was doing when the decision was based on the school he went to and his tactical marriage

? He made it hard for people to tell him bad news so he may have got a different impression of the battle from which to make his decisions.

? He couldn't see the whole battle like we can today in a complete overview.

To call Haig a 'butcher', meaning:

Cutter of meat

Seller of meat

Profiteer from death

Slaughterer

Authority to kill

Murderer

This description pretty much fits Haig, but taking into account the evidence, you have to say he made so many inexcusable mistakes and decisions, however the evidence against this statement is also significant. The conclusion I have come to is that if Haig was a general today, (supposing technology had not advanced and we were still in the day of the machine gun and trench warfare) Haig would deserve the title outright, but he wasn't. He had no way of seeing the entire battle and getting a truthful account on what was going on, and his tactics were in line with the warfare of his day, so he does and he doesn't deserve the title, depending on which way you look at it. However, as a final note, I would like to add this quote from a British soldier fighting at the Somme.

'We are lousy, stinking, ragged, unshaven and sleepless. My tunic is rotten with other men's blood and partly splattered with a friends brains. It is horrible, but why should you people at home not know? The horror was indescribable...I want to tell you so that it may be on record, that I honestly believe that Goldie (a mate) and many others were murdered through the stupidity of those in authority.'