Were the British Generals like Sir Douglas Haig responsible for the high casualty figures?

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Were the British Generals like Sir Douglas Haig responsible for the high casualty figures?

‘1916 was a year of killing’ - Malcolm Brown, The First World War, 1991. World war one began on August 4th 1914. ‘The Great War’ lased an unbelievable four years, so it did not end until the winter of 1918. No one expected it to last so long people believed that it would all be over by Christmas. Another thing people did not expect was the fantastically high casualty figures. By December 1914, 90,000 British men had been killed. That resulted in the British army being left with only 10,000 men to win the war. An average of 5509 men from all the forces were being killed each day during world war one. That is over 10 times more men being killed than in the American civil war each day. By the end of the war the British army had lost over ¾ million men. The exact figure is 761,213 men. Although this is an extremely high figure other countries lost substantially more. The german army had lost almost 2 milliom men by the time the war finally came to a close. After the first day of the Somme over 57,000 British soldiers had lost their lives or been seriously wounded. That is 75% of the British army. Were the British Generals like Sir Douglas Haig responsible for the high casualty figures or were other factors to blame? Was it the lack of training? Was it due to the fact that it was almost impossible to cross no mans land or was t the affect of modern technology?

The plan was to attack a 30km strech of German trenches. In the 10 days before the attack the British had rained an unbelievable 1,732,873 shells on the enemy lines. A bombardment so fierce it could be heard in parts of England.

On Saturday July 1st 1916, at zero hour, (7:30am), nearly 100,000 British troops climbed out of their trenches and walked towards the German front line. The British artillery were ordered to remain silent for 10 minutes to allow the soldiers to cross no mans land and take their objective. But something had gone badly wrong. The bombardment had not killed off the German soldiers as they were sheltering in their well-built, deep dugouts. The bombardment had done something else. Instead of killing the enemy it turned no mans land into a sea of muddy shell craters. No mans land was impassable to even the most experience soldier.

A source written by Josh Brooman also tells us that the bombardment was a mistake. ‘ The battle of the Somme started with a 5 day log bombardment. This had little effect’. This was written in 1985 so it is a secondary piece of evidence. ‘ The bombardment had failed.’ Rosemary Rees wrote this quote. Rationally it seems inexplicable that the bombardment should have been counted on to leave nobody alive in the opposing trenches’. This quote was written in 1970 which makes it a secondary piece of evidence. It was written by Basil Liddell Hart, and was included in the textbook entitled History of the First World War. ‘ They expected to find the enemy barbed wire, trench systems, artillery and defender all annihilated y the week long bombardment’. Correlli Barnett wrote this quote in 1979. So, because all these quotes say that the bombardment was a mistake, they are reliable as each source supports each other.

Another mistake that the generals made was that they expected the guns to destroy the German front lines. A quote written by Rosemary Rees says ‘ Haig was confident that the German front line was smashed’ and ‘Rawlinson spread his limited artillery evenly along the German front line, without regard to the strength and importance of any particular part’. This quote was written I 1970 for a history textbook. These two sources supports each other so make each other more reliable.

Infantry soldiers were made to carry 66lb of equipment when they went over the top. ‘As they advanced slowly, with 30 kilograms of equipment on their backs’, ‘Each man carried about 66lb’s, over half his body weight’. All these sources are primary pieces of evidence and they all state the same thing. Therefore they are reliable. The men had to carry all their equipment over the top.

‘Wave after wave of British troops left their trenches on July 1st 1916’. This quote shows us that the British soldiers were ordered to walk in waves towards the German trenches. Rosemary Rees wrote this quote. More quotes, which suggest that the British walked to the German trenches, are ‘It was the senselessness of sending up to eight waves if heavily laden men across open ground’. Martin Middlebrook I 1971 wrote this quote. It is a secondary piece of evidence. It was written for a history textbook named ‘The First Day of the Somme’. This quote tells us that the British walking over to the trenches in waves and carrying heavy loads was a mistake. These quote are reliable because its more than one persons opinion and they both say the same thing.

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These mistakes had a massive affect on July 1st. these mistakes cost thousands of men their lives. The bombardment cost many lives. I know this because it says ‘The five day bombardment on the German trenches had little effect’. The Germans had spotted the allied forces getting ready for an attack so they retreated to their deep well built dugouts. These provided the Germans with protection from the British bombardment. This meant that when the allied troops advanced, the German troops were waiting for them equipped with machine guns, they had caused complete devastation. The bombardment had not only failed ...

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