Arguments that show he was a butcher:
Haig was prepared to accept heavy casualties to win. He thought that no amount of training could be linked with the number of deaths. Haig's explanation for huge losses was simply: "in this price victory is paid". Sources suggest that he was wrong; thorough and strategic planning would have lowered the number on the casualty list.
Politicians and soldiers all criticised Haig on his absence from the front line.
According to soldiers' views, Haig was never present at a battle, dined and lived in nearby hotels and was never seen by his men. This is proven by a letter from Haig claiming that the battle of the 1st of July 1916 had gone well, when really, it had gone terribly wrong.
If Haig was never present at battle or seen by his troops, then how could he know/see exactly what was going on personally? And if he was living in a nearby hotel, not one of the back trenches, how could he report back to Britain saying individually "the men are in splendid spirits" when he wasn't there to see them?
Was he always relying on the higher members of his troops to report back to him, and if so, are these the actions of a good general?
Haig's plans for the battle of the Somme were that a week before attacking, the artillery would bombard the German trenches for a week. This was supposed to destroy German barbed wire and trenches. Huge mines were supposed to be planted under German trenches. A week later the British soldiers were to walk across no man's land (where the barbed wire would be destroyed by the artillery and mines) where they would find the Germans ready to surrender and their trenches ruined. The cavalry would then advance to join the men on foot.
This all went terribly wrong.
For a start, the artillery had not cut the barbed wire, it had just made it even more tangled up; meaning that the men on foot could not get through to the German trenches. The Germans had dug trenches so deep that the bombardment that was supposed to destroy them, didn't.
After the British had tried to get through the barbed wire to the German trenches they found that German soldiers were ready for them.
The guns used were sparse and damaged, with poor accuracy and the shells were of bad quality and many failed to explode. The shells that did work were short and there were several times when instead of hitting the German trenches, the Shells hit the British on foot near the Germans.
Haig's method for battle was always based on morale, determination and draining the energy of the opposition, maybe the huge number of deaths on the first day was due to Haig not researching and scrutinizing enough his plan for battle.
Haig continued with his plans for the Battle of the Somme until 1918 when Britain won. His technique of battle was "lazy, costly in lives and unoriginal" said politicians and soldiers. So why didn't he change them?
Historians have suggested methods that could have worked at that period in time. Such as: stopping the full forward attacks when he realised they weren't working, he could have easily used the Navy to bomb the Germans and instead of surprise attacks onto the Germans, costing lives, he could have ordered a machine gun attack onto the weaker parts of the German trenches which would have used less men. Yet he didn't use any of these methods, he always stuck to the technique of attrition, determination and morale of soldiers and surprise attacks, which cost dearly in the lives of hundreds of men.
Arguments in support of Haig
Even though Haig's methods of battle resulted in many men dead, his ideas of battle were common for the time. In all the letters written whilst Haig was Commander of the British forces complaining/criticising his battle plans, there were never any contributions of alternative methods.
Haig, throughout his military career, said that wars were won through "the loss of initiative" and not having a self-protective attitude, not by having the finest artillery or latest war equipment.
Conclusion
Was Haig the butcher of the Somme?
He was willing to accept heavy casualties, he was criticised for never being near the front line or with the soldiers, his plan backfired yet he still carried on using it (even when there were other solutions) are all arguments against Haig. Arguments that support Haig are just that his plans were criticised yet there was never a given alternative.
Yes, Haig was the butcher of the Somme. The arguments for Haig being the butcher of the Somme overshadow those saying he wasn't.
