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Was General Haig a bad leader, source based

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Introduction

Assignment Part B In this essay I will analyse source C through to L to judge whether there is enough evidence to suggest that General Haig was an efficient and highly skilled soldier who lead Britain to victory during the First World War. I will look at the source provided and suggest whether there is enough evidence to suggest Keegans statement. From the collection of sources I will categorise each one into supports Keegan, neutral or oppose Keegan. I will use my own knowledge along with the sources given to back up my statements. Within the several sources I managed to find four sources that supported Keegan: Source C is a newspaper extract from the Daily Telegraph quoted by Field Marshal Haig's son on November 1998. The main purpose of this extract was to persuade and inform people that General Haig knew what he was doing and was a humane man. When Earl Haig said he never heard a criticism this could be because many people feared General Haig and therefore nobody would cross him. This source is not very reliable as it is consciously biased and is probably exaggerating as General Haig is his Father and therefore he would support and praise him. ...read more.

Middle

Out of the collection of sources I had assessed there are two other sources that were neutral in the response to Keegan's statement: Source J is a news article from the British newspaper 'The Times' published in 1917. The article is the Germans perspective of General Haig. The purpose of this source is to show that even the Germans think that General Haig was a good leader however it could as well be sarcastic as the Germans are trying to say that because of General Haig's mistakes it has benefited the German Army. It suggests that because of General Haig he is the leader that is giving Germany victory to win. Overall this source is not very reliable, as it is sarcastic so the article is not very truthful in saying that Haig had good leadership. Source K is another source that is neutral. It is an article published in a GCSE modern History review in 1998. The article is on whether Haig was totally at Fault. The purpose of this source is to educate teenagers about Haig. Other purposes would be to make money by selling the history book. ...read more.

Conclusion

The documentary shows the events that took place and explains them. The video tries to make us understand that Haig was bad at communicating and had too many ideas that he wished to accomplish however by this ambition made thousands of troops injured. Overall from the collection of sources that oppose Keegan they are generally very reliable sources however there is no evidence that agrees with Keegan's statement. In conclusion I believe that there is not enough evidence to suggest that Haig was an efficient and highly skilled soldier who did much to lead Britain to victory during the First World War. Even though there are four sources that support Keegan they are very unreliable. Also John Keegan was a military historian so we can assume he was looking at the military side of the war which was very successful. Haig needed more weaponry for his soldiers and made them more efficient so that he could accomplished the rest of the battlep. Also if he was a good commander he would of known what he was leading his men into. In addition I believe that there is not enough evidence and we can conclude that Field Marshall Douglas Haig was a failure to the Battle of Somme and he led his troops to disaster. History Coursework Nikita Patel 11S Page 1 of 3 ...read more.

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