Source C shows the feelings of the very son of Field Marshal Haig. Earl Haig feels that his father hasn’t been given enough credit for what he “achieved” in the war. He talks on how his father was wrongly portrayed as one of the most callous, uncaring men, when he was the most humane man. One part in this source that surprises me, is when it mentions how Earl Haig never heard any complaints from the soldiers after the war, and how he says that this view has come “in more recent times”. This makes me think, why wouldn’t these soldiers have complained? There could be two reasons for this; firstly, as these soldiers were still “alive”, they wouldn’t really have had a problem with Haig’s tactics. Straight after the war, not enough evidence was known with which to criticise Field Marshal Haig. These people weren’t alive long enough for them to have their say once the whole evidence was about. On the other side, they could have kept quiet because they didn’t have any criticism towards Haig’s leadership.
The former would be the one reason I would give for these soldiers not criticising Haig at the time. To finish with, he also points out another important point on the war; that the “serious historians are now coming to the view that the war had to be fought to the end. Although this is a very valid point, my personal feeling is that if Haig had used clever tactics, much less life would have been lost. He had millions of men to his command, and unnecessarily sent them to their deaths. One big criticism of this source, is that it was written by Field Marshal Haig’s son! All of this praise towards mr Haig, seems to me like a son typically praising his father. Blatantly, the first thing that came to mind when I was reading this source was that it was written by his son, and there fore had the potential to be a very biased piece. After reading this source, I do actually conclude that it is in fact very biased.
To conclude my analysis on the sources I would say that the three sources shown wouldn’t really be useful to a historian for the following reasons; none of these sources seem to have been made on a neutral basis. The three of them have very extreme, and I would say exaggerated views. The first two, A and B, are extremely against Douglas Haig in a funny manner, and the third, C I found straight away to be biased. Another reason for my view on the inaccuracy of the sources is that none of them can be taken seriously. The first A and B are too “cartoony” and humorous to be taken seriously, and the third seems questionable, until you read who wrote it, at which point I personally totally dismissed it. Funny cartoons, and views from the subjects family are only good pieces of evidence when there are other more serious, and sensible sources to back them up with, but with only these three sources to analyse I think any historian would pretty much be left in the dark.
John Keegan, a modern military historian, suggests that Haig was an ‘efficient and highly skilled soldier who did much to lead Britain to their victory in the First World War’. Is their sufficient evidence in sources C to L to support this interpretation? Use the sources and your knowledge to explain your answer.
Now moving on to the second question, this question asks weather the sources D to L back up the phrase that Haig was an “efficient and highly skilled soldier who did much to lead Britain to victory in the First World War.
Source D is amusingly sarcastic, yet morbid. It is a satire on the famous world war one conscription poster, showing Lord Kitchner saying “Your country needs you”. Instead of “…needs you”, this quote shows a Mr Haig saying, “…needs me”. It shows Field Marshal Haig effectively saying to Britain “You need me”, as if we would have got nowhere without him. Haig felt he was the best man for Britain, and this amusing poster emphasises this. “…like a hole in the head…” indirectly saying that he was a very bad leader, that if you need Haig, you may as well need a bullet in your head, “which is what most of you are going to get”. The source is trying to say that Haig was being greedy in power, and that he is wasting his troops, that he could just as well be shooting them I the head. As it is a very direct, critical source, it is bound to contain a biased view. There came a point in this battle, in which, every one including the soldiers themselves began morbid humour, and this is a very good example; so many people were dying that eventually soldiers would make jokes about these deaths.
Source E shows three separate writings in Haig’s personal memoirs, which wee written on three separate occasions. Haig is at first, in a way, trying to defend his future mistakes. He feels it is inevitable for thousands to die in battle, and this also shows that he has planned his strategy already.
For the second part of the source Haig emphasises the good morale of his soldiers and shows how well they have been trained, and how ready they are for war. I fee, the likelihood is that this was the truth; It was written before the war, before Haig was ever criticised, so he wouldn’t have much reason to show bias in this source. Also, after the whole battle had finished, it was later found out that out of the hundreds of thousands of troops who fought in the war, only roughly 300 were found guilty of mutiny, and desertion. This shows that the soldiers were very brave, and carried on fighting, as their commanders told them to.
The third and final part of this source shows Haig famously saying “things went like clockwork”, and that everything was going successfully in the battle, after the first day… what he didn’t know was that by this time, hundreds of thousands of his soldiers had died fighting. How can this ever be seen as “successful”? As Haig wasn’t on the battle field, how could he have known what was really going on? We now know that this source is quite incorrect, you cannot call this successful…
Source F is a brief analysis on Field Marshal Haig. It seems correct to say that Hag was a “silent, humourless, and reserved” man; a person in charge of so many soldiers, who was sending millions to their deaths (as many would criticise Haig for), and in such a high position wouldn’t exactly be a “funny” or “loud” man. The fact that Haig was “silent, humourless and reserved” could in fact show that he was committed to his work very much. It seems quite correct in saying that he thoroughly believed that God was on his side. It was this belief that made him so reluctant to stop the battle, as he thought that if he kept on pushing, no matter how many troops died, he would eventually win the war. Even though he did go on to win the war, it did in fact take the lives of millions of soldiers, they were Haig’s responsibility. The source goes on to say that it was Haig’s “inability to recognise defeat that led to his continuing attacks on the Somme and Passchendale”. A strong point that backs up the credibility of this source is the fact that it was written by a modern historian. Also, it was written more than 60years after the battle of the Somme. By this time pretty much all of the information on the battle had been released, so there was a lot to judge from.
Source G shows priminister Lloyd George’s view on the battle of the Somme, and in particular, what happened with the soldiers in that battle. Lloyd George being the priminister made him a very reliable source at the time. After all, Haig was under Lloyd George as his general. The source emphasises the bravery of how they would rather die than be seen as cowards. This statement can be backed up easily, as it is now known that over all in the battle of the Somme there were a total of only roughly 300 mutinies. This may sound a lot, but when you out in to account that millions of soldiers died in this war, it is minimal. As priminister Lloyd George is asking, should he have “resigned?”; this shows that his feelings for what was happening in the war were very strong, and also that he didn’t like what was happening. It shows that Lloyd George had told Haig to only carry on the invasion if he was sure of reaching his objective. By saying this, Lloyd George is basically trying to say that Haig breached the agreement… but did he? Haig did after all reach his objective. It seems to me that Lloyd George should have been more specific in his agreement with Haig- preferably “don’t slaughter millions of troops when you don’t need to” It seems an accurate quote, but George is trying to defend him self, when he cant! Fine, he hated what Haig did, but he should have stopped it when he had the chance.
Source H is an extract form Haigs biography. It is a short piece which gives a very valid point, trying to defend Haigs actions in battle. The point it gives is that if Haig hadn’t pressed on with the war, relations with the French may well have been broken; if he had left it he would have been abandoning Verdun, and more importantly ruining relations/co operation with the French. The French were as always, Britains closest Allies in this war, and it was crucial for the two countries to co-operate properly. A counter argument to this would be as follows; no one was criticising Haig for winning the war! Just that he shouldn’t have used the lives of so many soldiers. This war could have been won without the waste of so many lives. Fine, Haig did a good thing to win the war, but all he needed to do was to change his worn out, traditional methods of fighting and many lives would have been saved.
Source J highly acclaims Haig for his eagerness to win the war, and gives slight factual information on where Haig came from, etc.. It is in fact saying the truth by saying this, as we know now that Haig did lead Britain on to win the battle of the Somme. Although he might have won, the source doesn’t mention the hundreds of thousands of casualties that occurred. It then goes on to say that the German defence wasn’t being broken down by Haig, and this was correct again. The trench warfare on Haig’s part was very old and traditional. He regarded new weaponry like machine guns as a waste of time , and this view let him down seriously. Whenever he ordered his troops to press forward, they got mowed down by German gunfire. Ultimately, he should have changed his tactics, and in fact modernised them. Is this a reliable source? I would say so.
Source K is a modern assessment of Haig. It is saying that putting all of the blame on one man is going too far. It is stating a very valid point; if Haig wasn’t there would anyone else have won the war in his place? The likelihood seems no. It was in fact Haigs constant pushing in the battle that won Britain the war. The source then goes on to argue with itself, and this gives it a very balanced, and neutral, there fore authoritative stance. It says that it was Haig’s fault that over half a million Allied troops died on the battlefield. It even goes on to giving German quotes “the muddy grave of the German army”..
Over all, after summing up all of my information, putting together all of my evidence, and research on sources, I have come to generally one conclusion.
There are two outstanding points which nearly all of the sources state.
No1, that Haig was a thoroughly committed to winning this battle for Britain, and was prepared to go to pretty much any extent if it meant he could win this war. The fact that he won the war showed his brilliant leadership, etc…
And No2, over half a million soldiers died in the battle of the Somme, and this was Haig’s “fault” etc…
I feel that Haig was a brilliant leader in the sense that he was so well committed to his duty, and that he had always had the right intension; it’s not as if he wanted all those soldiers to die. The one biggest criticism I have against Haig is that his tactics were all wrong; he was used to the traditional trench warfare system of war, and just wouldn’t let this go. He was failing to keep up with technology in the war, and new techniques weren’t used when that is all that was needed. After calling the machine gun a “waste of time” he should have realised that it was the machine gun that was doing the most damage to the Allies in the battle of the Somme. Although he did win the war, he seemed way too arrogant and proud, and stubbornly kept to the old tactics. Opposition to this view would say, if it weren’t for Haig’s passion and desire to win the war, the Allies wouldn’t have won… but I would say that this passion and desire to win the war could have been used cleverly and less troops would have died.
So when the statement says that “Haig was a highly skilled soldier who did much to lead Britain to victory in the first world war”, I have the following opposition; for a start, Haig was never a “soldier” in the war, rather he just sat in the background planning and thinking. Secondly, I don’t think he was “highly skilled” due to the reasons I have explained earlier. The word “efficient” in my view, shouldn’t be mixed with Haigs name at all, as he pointlessly lost way too many soldiers, I have explained. Pretty much the only point which I agree with is that he did his part to help Britain win the Second world war.
Winning back Verdun in France was a very important step in Britain’s winning the world war; It was among many advances Britain needed to re gain full control of France, and drive out the Germans. The statement is very vague, and only states that Haig helped Britain win the world war, not mentioning casualties, so I cant really argue for all of the deaths, ad Britain did win the war!
