Blackadder Goes Forth is a comedy program and therefore tries to make jokes about various points in history and bends the truth to make it a funny program. What the man without the moustache says about the British giving the Germans a good beating is historically true as the British did think that they would teach the Germans a lesson and that it would be easy and over by Christmas. What the man with the moustache says in reply is obviously making a joke saying, “You mean are we all going to get killed? Yes. Clearly Field Marshall Haig is about to make yet another giant effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin.” This is not true as Haig thought that the Somme would be the breakthrough in the war.
Source E is a cartoon again designed to make a joke of what is happening in the war and therefore is of no use to someone who is looking at what happened in the war historically. The most
Important point is that neither of the sources have any relevance
To either what Haig was trying to achieve or the Battle of the
Somme and are therefore useless to someone trying to study the
Battle of the Somme of General Haig. Having said that both
Sources have to have some historical relevance or they wouldn’t be funny. Also it may reflect some of the feelings of people at the time and so would be good for someone studying the views of the people at the time.
Source H and source F are complete opposites of each other. Source F claims that, “Haig was as stubborn as a donkey and as unthinking as a donkey”. Source H on the other hand claims that the armies had, “complete confidence in the leadership of their commander”. Two very different opinions.
Source F also claims that the Somme, “was criminal negligence”. It tells of what a terrible leader Haig was yet source H claims that Haig took the blame and was very much prepared to do so and if he hadn’t the, “French resistance would have crumbled”. If this had happened then Germany would be well on their way to winning the war.
Source F goes on about how the Somme was a butchering of men by Haig because he had an, “appalling kind of strategy”. Yet Source G claims that the Battle of the Somme, “Had no great importance in the strategic sense, its consequences nevertheless were great”. So source G is saying that its not the strategy involved with which Source F so actively takes apart, but the fact that the Western Powers gained “confidence” and that they had “accomplished an achievement that gave good promise for the future”.
We also need to look at where the sources come from. Source F is from a book named ‘British Butchers and Bunglers of World War’ Haig has been included in this and I’m sure so that it sounds more dramatic and so appeals to more readers they exaggerated greatly what actually happened. Therefore this source is not very reliable. Source G is written from the German prospective and so would be slightly biased towards themselves, yet this source seems to be quite reliable as it agrees with the history of what happened and seems to fit in nicely it also agrees with source H. Source H is written by a British general who fought in both world wars. This source is most reliable of the three as he is saying what he thinks Haig was like, what the battle was like and he was there and gives a first hand eyewitness account which is always the most reliable.
I think that sources I and J differ because source I is during the war, Lloyd George wants to keep morale about the war high by saying its going well. Also he doesn’t have the advantage he does in 1930 in source J to look back and see what really happened and what went right and wrong and why it did. In source I in 1916 Lloyd George says, “I congratulate you most warmly on the still with which your plans were laid”. In 1930 he says, “I expressed my doubts to general Haig as to whether cavalry could ever operate successfully on a front bristling for miles with barbed wire and machine guns”.
In source I he says, “The tide has now definitely turned in our favour”. In source J he says “This offensive was already a failure”.
From this I think we can see that hindsight is a wonderful thing as in 1930 he draws conclusions to what happened where as in 1926 it was during the war and how was he to know what may happen and what the consequences of their various actions would be.
There are 2 points to be considered. Whether Haig cared about his men and whether he sacrificed them for no good reason.
Firstly we look at Haig’s views. In source A you can pick out the care factor. Firstly that he does care. He says, “sacrifice” almost in a holy way like an honourable battle and death meaning that he was acknowledging the soldiers sacrifice of their lives for the ‘good’ side. What he says about “No amount of skill…will enable victories to be won without sacrifice of men’s lives”. This was true then and still is today as we can see clearly with the war in Iraq. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t care, just that he’s accepting that loses are what happen in war. If Haig didn’t care about his men then they would desert him and without men he would lose the war. He uses the word ‘heavy’, which could have a double-ended meaning. This may mean that the number of casualties will be painful to him and the people of Britain. The other side of this, which brings me onto reasons why he may not have cared, is that he may have known that many people would die and he is just preparing Britain for the news. 57,000 people died on day 1 of the Battle of the Somme, surely if he cared he would have pulled out of the battle or tried to stop this amount of slaughter. When he says, “However good…” it seems he is already making excuses. The method by which they attack was clear to all that there would be major casualties, which may point towards him, not caring about men but caring about victory at any cost. The statements in Source A and B are clearly because he cares about keeping the public content so that he doesn’t look bad. He makes out in source B that everything, “ went like clock work”. Surely no man can consider a first day where 57,000 people have died as going like clock work. He says in source A about “men’s” lives which may mean that he feels that the ordinary “men” i.e. the soldiers are worth sacrificing and are dispensable, whereas the officers are not.
Next we need to consider whether the Battle of the Somme was meaningless and was the sacrifice of men’s lives for no good reason.
Firstly source F. It Clearly feels that Haig was useless, “as unthinking as a donkey,” and that the sacrifice of men’s lives was for no good reason, “no chance of breakthrough”. Although the source may not be very reliable as its about ‘British Butchers and Bunglers of the World War’ and I believe is has been exaggerated so as to appeal to readers and so sell more copies.
Next source J. Written by Lloyd George after the war. He says that, “Had it not been for the stupidity of the Germans in provoking a quarrel with America, the Somme would not have saved us from a stalemate”. He therefore says that the Somme achieved nothing.
Source G disagrees with the two above and says that although tactically the Somme was useless, it did have a good reason for those men to sacrifice their lives for. It says that the Germans lost some of their best troops and morale meaning that later on in the war they had to use young soldiers, “Whose training was poor”. This source is even more reliable as it is written by Germans as an official history in 1930.
Lastly source H fully supports what Haig did and claims that the men had, “complete confidence in the leadership of their commander”. It also backs Haig’s decisions and aggress that the sacrifice of men was for a good reason saying: “Haig was on of the main architects on the Allied victory”.
To sum up I think that if Haig honestly wanted to save lives then he would have been more tactically sound. In source C a private claims that anyone would know that they couldn’t get through the barbed wire, “Any Tommy could have told them that shell fire lifts wire up and drops it down, often in worse tangles then before”.
Although the other side of the coin is that he may have believed that was he was doing was right and simply that he overlooked the tactics or was unsure to what tactics to use as technology had changed and with it so had tactics. For example they expected cavalry to play a major part in the war and yet it didn’t.
I personally think the latter. I believe Haig generally thought that what he was doing was right and would break the stalemate. I think that he was unsure of what tactics to use and therefore got it wrong which was a big error but not totally his fault. Therefore it is impossible to say that he was an, “uncaring general”. As for the sacrifice of soldier’s lives for no good reason this statement is also false. This battle killed many great German soldiers and they had bad morale after the battle knowing that they could be defeated. Even though Lloyd George claims that it was only the fact that the Americans joined in that won the war for them, the Somme played a role in the defeat of the Germans and the breakthrough of the stalemate that would not have happened without it. It eased pressure on other Allied troops, which boosted their morale and overstretched the German forces.
