Historian, Gary Sheffield, came up with the idea that it was not Haig’s strategies that were at fault but the soldiers for not being well trained or that good at fighting. He said that this battle was good experience for the British army and helped to turn them into a stronger fighting force. We should also consider the fact that most of the surviving soldier’s believe that Haig was the only reason why they survived and that they couldn’t have done it without him. This demonstrates that the soldiers had absolute faith in Haig and saw him as a hero.
Another aspect where Haig was heavily criticized for was the fact that he never visited the front line himself. The general thought that the public had was that a general had to visit the front line to check how well things were going. This led them to the conclusion that Haig was a poor leader and was not bothered to check how things were going. As a General you need to look at the whole battle field instead of one battle if Haig had visited the battle field he would only be able to focus on that battle and would not be able to see what goes on around him. The actual explanation for Haig being so far back was so that he could see the whole picture and all the battles. Therefore it is unreasonable to criticize Haig for this factor as he needed to stay further back to see the whole Blood-stained picture.
Most people were not convinced that Haig was fit to be general. He had an ability to get on with people in higher positions than himself. This made many people believe that it wasn’t due to his leadership abilities that he became general but due to the fact that he had friends in high places who would have wanted him to get promoted. An example of this is that Haig lent John French a massive £2000, likely because Haig must have known that John French would be recommending him for promotion. Haig was also very good friend of King George V, which meant that Haig would get a good recommendation from him. Many people believe that if Haig hadn’t had these friends there is a good chance that he would not have been promoted to Commander-in-Chief.
Every General was entitled to make a few mistakes but the mistakes made by Haig were catastrophic and had massive consequences. Haig had a lot of lives to carry on his shoulder as General but he should have been aware that one slip up may have cost him thousands of lives. Other sources reveal how he would just sit back and watch his men fall in their thousands just to try and weigh the enemy down and if that failed he would just try again. This is highlighted in the video ‘Black Adder’. The video shows General Haig practicing with toy soldiers and just knocking
them down and then sweeping them up. This shows how little sympathy he had for his men as nearly every family in the war had lost someone.
If Haig was in charge of the British Army he had to rely on the information given to him by others but the information given to him by his head of intelligence John Charters worried about pleasing Haig and therefore resulted in him lying and telling him the battle was going well. Haig was dealing with a battle where he was given the wrong information about which might have caused him to change his tactics if he had known the correct circumstances. A major effect of this proved to be very vital as Haig was told that at the Battle of Somme the Germans were on the Brink
Of collapse so one final push would topple the Germans. This lead to Haig going for it trying to kill of the battle which eh thought was nearing its end.
On the other hand Haig had an objective which was to push forward and take ground but by the end the Allies were in the same position as they started in. This meant that the battle was a stalemate and that the war was the same from the start excluding the enormous number of deaths. This meant that the lives taken during the war could have all been avoided or at least reduced during the whole period of war if only the right tactics had been applied.
Haig’s main battle plan would begin with five days of bombardment by the allies and Haig had been advised that this would break the enemy’s barb wire. He would then plan to send a wave of men followed by cavalry to capture the base. Haig had hoped that the men inside the enemy’s trenches would have been killed during the bombardment but he was wrong. The Germans had built trenches deep enough to with stand these attacks and could bring them out when needed. As the wave after wave of men attacked the Germans would come out of the trenches and gun down all the men. As for the cavalry the mud made it slow and sticky for the horses making them easy targets for German machine guns.
The tactic applied during the war was against a war of attrition which involved two sides trying to wear each other down by attacking the enemy’s trenches with artillery bombardment and infantry advances. This involved massive loss of life. By looking at the overall figures of the war it will show that Britain was not the only country to lose millions of lives this was down to the fact that both sides were going for attack and therefore resulting in a massacre. Therefore Haig can not to be judged so harshly on the numbers of death as all the other countries lost so many as well.
Haig was also heavily criticized by the Prime Minister David Lloyd George who described Haig as being ‘brilliant to the top of his army boots’. Haig was heavily criticized for not being able to have the creativity to build new weapons but one think he did was encourage the use of tanks which latter paid off. The result was that by 1918 the British army was second to none in its modernity and military ability. In the late battle of Amiens the British used this new technology to startle the Germans and creep past their defense. They then attacked with 552 tanks along with the French, Canadian and Australian infantry advances they were able to win.
Passchendaele also known as the third battle of Ypre; this was the point were Haig planned an all out assault as the last two battles were by the Germans. This battle had also been given the name the battle of the Mud as the battle field had been swamped by mud. Haig had started with the usual bombardments on the German trenches but yet again it failed to break through. Haig’s objectives here were to take the channel ports in Belgium and then go deeper into Germany but in the end the British army only managed to get to Passchendaele. Over 300,000 British soldiers were killed in this battle and it took 3 months to take Passchendaele. What Haig had originally planned as a breakthrough was a complete disaster with the British only advancing five miles. The fact that the Germans suffered heavy causalities was the only real consolation in this battle.
In conclusion to this it is impossible to determine whether the failures of the war should fall on Haig and it is unfair to say that Haig was solely to blame for the massive losses during the war. Haig though did make massive mistakes during the war but some of the losses were due to others misleading him which lead to heavy consequences and that blame should not fall on him. The argument against Haig was the fact of how little he cared about the death rate but as a leader you must put these things behind you and look forward. Even if Haig had been replaced how would you know that this new leader would have done a better job and was it not Haig’s final tactic which won it for the British. So my final verdict is that Haig genially tried his best and in the end the British did
win the war and Haig should take credit from that. As he had come under pressure because of his failures but should he not gain praise for his successes.
