He thought up some ideas on fighting and made up a plan. In 1907 Haig said, “Success in battles depends mainly on morale and determination.” This later changed to “The way to capture machine guns is by grit and determination.” This was his idea in 1915. Finally in 1916 his idea’s were: “ The machine gun is an overrated weapon,” and “ We must wear down the enemy as much as possible.”
Haig had a theory. It was to cut across the German wire, go onto the No Man’s land and attack but this did not happen. Haig thought determination was needed to win. However, Haig had a lot of determination but still too many people died, maybe because he was too impatient and too determined.
The great battle began on the 1st July, after week of heavy bombardment. The battle caused a lot of suffering and pain to many people. Germans had been warned that England were going to attack because it states in source 5, “Several large mines were placed under German positions. One was blown up ten minutes before Zero hour which warned the Germans to expect an attack.”
Haig’s theory was very well thought out but he did not think about the procedures carefully enough. The theory did not work as well as it could have. Haig did want to cut the wire, which would have meant giving out an earlier warning to cut it. However this did not occur either therefore people died. Because there was such a problem with the wire there was a huge uproar and the waiting Germans began to fire. The shots let out grenades and bullets, these got tangled in the barbed wire, which made it very difficult to handle, and also caused people to die. Peter Fisher said “ There were many mistakes in the allied tactics.” I agree with what this man said.
The whole theory was based upon a barbed wire being cut however large sections still remained in tact so the plan backfired and they did not have a back up plan.
Clearly the battle had not followed Haig’s plan. This was mainly because the time that the plan was made was different from when it was actually carried out and they were under different circumstances. The plan did not work because Haig did not know about the enemy and the enemy lines, He did not know about the opposition and their tactics and plans. He also did not realise how the Germans would hide or what their trenches would be like. Haig had no idea. The artillery that had been designed was hidden by the masses of cloud so that the pilot could not see anything below.
Some people have called Haig “the butcher of the Somme” In my opinion I feel he does not deserve this because he tried his best to work at keeping everything under control and making his plan work to the best it could. Even thought many people died he tried to save the millions left at home. Haig showed how he determined he was to keep on going and keep his head up. He was NOT the “butcher of the war.”
