Hamish Livingstone Saturday 2nd February 2002
How much were generals such as Douglas Haig to blame for the huge number of casualties in WW1?
In WW1 39.1% of British Empire forces mobilized were made casualties. 52.3% of total allied forces were made casualties. Of course, in war you cannot expect there to be no casualties, but casualties on this scale is astounding and there must be some reason for it. The classical way of blame for it lies with the generals, and the old saying – lions led by donkeys – but I am going to try and establish just how much the men at the top could be blamed.
I will examine Sir Douglas Haig to see how pardonable his huge casualties were. He was the general in charge of the battle of the Somme, which many would call a military disaster as Haig’s tactics resulted in an unacceptable number of high casualties, and only a 12km gain, without a significant breakthrough.
However, it may not be entirely Haig’s fault indirectly. It was almost certainly his fault directly. As David Lloyd George wrote, Haig had “the inexhaustible vanity that will never admit a mistake”. So, was he the right man for the job?
Haig did not have the experience or knowledge of 20th centaury warfare and advances in technology required to lead such large assaults. Haig was born the son of a successful whisky distilling firm head, and went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He was sent to India with his regiment and slowly worked his way up through the ranks. His had experience in active service in the Sudan and the Boer War from 1899-1902. This is significant as the British army first adopted the use of the Maxim machine-gun in 1889, so it should have been known among Generals the catastrophic effects these guns could have. But Haig had served as a cavalry officer, and swore by the good old horse. He thought that a cavalry breakthrough after an initial artillery bombardment could be adapted to all battles. In an article he wrote “Aeroplanes and tanks are only accessories to the men and the horse, and I feel sure that as time goes on you will find just as much use for the horse – the well-bred horse – as you have ever done in the past.” This shows Haig’s complete inability to move with the times. Phillip Gibbs, a historian, said that Haig was “obsessed with the idea that he would break the German line and send the cavalry through”. He should have learned at Neuve Chapelle, where his attempted cavalry breakthrough, which he had seen working in the Sudan, did not work under modern war conditions. Unfortunately, all he learned from it was that he wanted to use the same tactics over a wider stretch of front, and to use more guns. As the industrial revolution was in full swing, it was now possible to mass-produce shells in huge quantities. But when he came to use this tactic at the Somme, two things were amiss with the shells. Firstly to many of them were just shrapnel and did not remove the barbed wire, which was one of the shells fundamental purposes. And secondly, the shells that were high explosive and capable of removing the wire, were faulty due to their hurried production, and often did not explode, or worse exploded in their own shells. This could have been prevented with more careful and lengthy planning and preparation.
