Study John Keegan a well respected modern historian, and his views on sir general Haig in the first world war his view on Haig is that he was an 'efficient and highly skilled soldier who did much lead Britain to victory in the First World War'.

Question 3

I have been set a task to study John Keegan a well respected modern historian, and his views on sir general Haig in the first world war his view on Haig is that he was an ‘efficient and highly skilled soldier who did much lead Britain to victory in the First World War’. I will now study closely to see if there is enough evidence to support this interpretation using sources and my own knowledge.

Firstly I am going to going to look at part of a report written in December 1916, sent by Haig to the British Cabinet about the aftermath of the battle of the Somme, I can clearly see Haig was trying to defend himself he said ‘The German Soldiers are practically beaten men’ which was true, even Ludendorff the German army commander said ‘my army has been fought to a standstill’ but when Haig said ‘The German casualties our greater than ours’ you can see he is twisting the truth, but this source doesn’t say much about his efficiency or skills.

My second source is an anti-Haig poster; playing on a famous Kitchener’s poster ‘your country needs you’ replaced with ‘ your country needsme- like a hole in the head which is what most of you are going to get ‘this is clearly against haig but has no facts nor evidence to support keegans view.

This is a preview of the whole essay

My third source is three extracts taken from Haig’s report diary during the war, the first was written June 1916 prior to the battle of the Somme’ he is well are that there will be huge losses in life, and casualties, he said ‘The nation must be taught to bear losses’/ ‘The nation must be prepared to see heavy casualty lists’ he also stated ‘the war cant be won without sacrifices’ and is commanders are low in skill ‘This is a reliable source and shows that he is prepared for victory with his language used and his positive attitude.

The second part was written on 30th June 1916, the day before the attack, he basically says the men are high spirits and confided, and artillery and barbed wire have never been so thorough, by my knowledge I know he was lying, as there was a huge loss of life on the first day, and was trying to make himself look good again.

And finally the third part of the source after the big attack, he claimed everything to be going very well, and as I stated before, there was a huge loss of life on the first day, which shows he was clearly lying, this shows him as very inefficient, and it is not a reliable source to back him up as it was written by Haig himself.

I am now going to look at a source written by a modern historian Anthony Livesey. He shows weaknesses and flaws of haig in battle, he says “perhaps his greatest failing was his constant, often misplaced optimism, which seemed to stem from the belief he had been chosen by god’ this source is very dependable against Haig as it has been well researched, this is almost the the complete opposite to keegans view.

Now I will look at a passage from War memoirs published after the war by the Prime Minister David Lloyd George

He is basically saying what a horrific disaster the war was and how Haig mad him believe they were doing well and he should have seen what was going on this source is very reliable and shows after the war people can see that Haig was lying.

Only two more source left and still haven’t found a source reliable enough to support keegan view.

My third to last is the official biography of haig written by duff cooper, he was asked to write this by his family which immediately shows this source is biased and as basically saying if there wasn’t a fight then there would have meant the abandonment of Verdun, and what happened was fate, there is no evidence to support this which makes this very unreliable.

Nearly there, I have a GCSE modern history report by S.Waburten, it basically says it wasn’t all Haig’s fault, and he just Contributed to the disaster, this may be true but there is no evidence to support it and again it may show another view to Haig, but is isn’t relevant.

Finally my last source, a clip from black adder. In the clip Haig is portrayed as a scatterbrain who wasn’t really in control when he thought he was, this shows that people even today still see him as the opposite to Keegans view.

So using the sources and my own knowledge I can clearly see there is not enough evidence to support Keegans view, he was even nicknamed “the butcher of the somme” and we know Britain was not led to victory as, there was nothing gained by the end of the war but a few kilometres not to mention all the sources are written about the battle of the somme and not the overall war.