When Haig returned to the United Kingdom he served as the director of Military Training and Director of Staff Duties. He was promoted to General, then returned to India for several years where he became Sir O'Moore Creagh's Chief of Staff of the Indian Army.
From 1912-1914 he served as General Officer Commanding (G.O.C.) at Aldershot.
In 1914 when World War One broke out Haig was given command of the First Army Corps in France.
John French who had originally been in charge if the British Expeditionary Forces (B.E.F.) made some critical errors in the way the war was being fought. So on the 10th of December 1915 Douglas Haig was appointed the new leader of the British Expeditionary Forces.
In 1916 Haig was in Charge of the Battle of the Somme, which didn't go very well and there were lots of casualties. There, Haig was given his nickname "Butcher of the Somme"
In 1918 Haig organised the final offensive, which eventually led to Allied Victory.
When Haig returned home after the war he was rewarded with an earldom, £100 000 and the ancestral home of the Haigs at Bermersyde, for his service.
On the 28th January 1928, Haig died and was buried at Dryburgh Abbey.
The French forts at Verdun on the Western Front, were getting slowly weaker and the French needed to think up a plan to get the Germans awy from Verdun so that the forts could get back up to strength.
So the French Commander in Chief Joseph Joffre asked Douglas Haig to make a counter attack at a different place. Haig agreed and chose the area around the River Somme for the Battle.
The Battle at the Somme was originally meant to be a joint attack against the Germans made by the French and British. But because of the attack on Verdun on February 1916 it meant the Somme offensive had to be mainly fought by the British.
The Plan
Haig took over responsibility for the attack and came up with his own plan. Haigs plan meant a massive bombardment along a 18 mile long stretch of front would hopefully destroy German resistance of 16 German divisions. 27 divisions of men (about 750 000 men) would then cross no-mans land and take the German front line. Then Haigs cavalry would go through the break and sweep around behind the enemy lines and kill German reinforcement soldiers.
What actually Happened
When the heavy artillery started firing, the Germans went and sat in their dug-out shelters which were lined with concrete and they were totally safe during the 7 day bombardment which was meant to kill them. At 7:23 am July 1st the British Royal Engineers detonated 60 000lbs of explosives 53 feet under the German line which left a crater 90m deep by 300m wide. When the time came for the British troops to go over thetop of the trenches (7:30 on the 1st of July 1916) they did and the Germans came out of their 30 foot deep concrete bunkers and set up machine gun posts and were waiting to shoot them. Any soldiers that did get to the Germans trenches couldn't get through either because the shells which were fired just lifted up the barbed wire then dropped it in an even bigger tangle than it already was. This meant no-one could get through and they got shot.
The term "Butcher of the Somme" was given to Haig by those who felt that Haig did not care or how much ground was gained for the heavy losses inflicted on British Troops during the battle of the Somme (July-December 1916).Defenders of Haig argue that he had few options and had himself been ordered to launch the offensive to let the French recover at Verdun, where there was heavy fighting.
What I Think
I think Douglas Haig was not a Butcher. The Somme was a diversion wanted by the French and Haig did it for them. If the Somme had not been fought then the Germans could have broken through Verdun and taken France.
Douglas Haig was not used to modern warfare, no-one was and Haig tried his best in situations that he had never come across before. Another point to consider is that Germany had the most casualties in the battle of the Somme which shows that the tactics used by Haig did work, although they didn't work very effectively.