H.W Field Marshall Haig - 'The butcher of the Somme' ?

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H.W          Field Marshall Haig: 'The butcher of the Somme' ?

A. Source A proves that Haig did not care about his men to quite a far extent and it is from a reliable source because it is from Haig himself. He had written about how the nation must be taught to bear losses which showed he did not care much about the lives of people because losses did not seem to mean much to him while it meant a lot more to the soldiers and their families and he did not seem to realise that. In this source he also mentions how 'No amount of skill on the part of his higher commanders, no training however good, on the part of the officers and men, no superiority of arms and ammunition, however great, will enable victories to be won without the sacrifice of men's lives.' When he had wrote this passage it seemed like he was sending his men to execution because it sounded like he was ready for men to die. He also shows that he felt that in every war there would have to be a sacrifice of the lives of men no matter how well trained and you could argue that comment because the word 'sacrifice' sounds like the words of a person who was willing to put his men out there knowing that they are going to die in large numbers. He then ends the source with ' The nation must be prepared to see heavy casualties.' This justified that he knew men were going to die and he didn't seem to want to change his strategy which showed he felt that the lives of people didn't mean much to him. All through this source he doesn't give any sympathy to the soldiers that were going to 'sacrifice' there lives for him and Britain and he doesn't even say sorry to the families of the soldiers that are going to lose their lives. Source B backs this up by showing how Haig had no idea really about what was happening on the frontline and this could be the fault of his intelligence. But nevertheless he writes how the first attack was very successful and went like 'clockwork' when actually many men died and it was a total disaster. This source shows that not only did Haig not care about the lives of his men, he didn't know anything at all about what was happening on the frontline which in turn might have lead to the deaths of more men.

B. Sources B and C both give very different facts about what happened on the battlefield and they were both written at different times which could have lead to the very different descriptions.  But I trust source C more because even though it is years after the battle, Private George Coppard was on the frontline and even though those thoughts may be exaggerated they are still more real than the thoughts of Haig. In Haig's extract he describes how 'the barbed wire has never been so well cut, nor the artillery preparation so thorough.' But in the other source Private Collard describes how the artillery fire 'lifts wire up and drops it down, often in a worse tangle than before'. This shows that Haig did not have a clue about warfare and the artillery and Private Collard seemed to know more about artillery and the damage it was doing to the Germans. Another extract from Haig's diary says how it 'All went like clockwork' when actually everything went horribly wrong and many men had died. Throughout the whole of Source B Haig was telling himself lies and hardly anything he said was true, he had no experience of the frontline and nearly all the information that was given to him about the battle was by his intelligence who could have been telling him lies. That is also another reason why I trust Private Coppard more because what he said was thoughts of his own and the things that Haig was writing down in his diary was mostly information not gathered by him but by his intelligence. But in some ways Haig could be trusted more because his account was fresh in the mind while Private Coppard's might be a bit blurry and exaggerated because his interview was years after the battle. You might also trust Haig more because some of the things that Private Coppard says seem highly exaggerated even compared to the thoughts of Haig. But I still trust Source C more because it is from someone who was there at the scene and even though some descriptions might not be totally true it will still be a lot more trustworthy than the false thoughts of Haig.

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C. These two sources are both comical references to Haig and the battle of the Somme and I do agree that they have no real use for the historian studying Haig and the Battle. This is because in Source D it describes how Haig has finally decided to make the decision to go over the top and fight the Germans and then it leads to the other man saying ' you mean are we going to get killed? yes'. This Source has no use because it has no description of Haig's artillery fire or thoughts about the war and ...

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