The first reason (why the Battle of the Somme is regarded as military tragedy) to be looked at is the attitude of General Haig. Haig expected that casualties would be high, because he warned the politicians in 1916 that the country needed to be prepared for heavy losses if the war was to be won. To Haig the sacrifice was acceptable because he believed that the key objectives of the battle of the Somme were achieved. It had saved Verdun and some of Germany’s best troops had been killed and injured in the battle.
General Haig’s knowledge of what was going on in the battle was also a reason why Somme was considered to be military tragedy. He never visited the frontline, his headquarter was 30 miles behind; he had a very different life to what the soldiers had. Haig was heavily criticised for being obsessed with out-of-date tactics like cavalry charges. But the criticism was not entirely fair because he did vary his tactics when they attacked a different part of the Somme and used tanks for the first time in the war. Other tactics couldn’t have been used because no one knew any more; Haig had used these kinds of tactics in other battles and been successful, so he thought they would prevail this time too.
The Battle of the Somme was deemed a military disaster because of the sheer number of causalities. The overall number of men lost was approximately 1,120,000: 420,000 British, 200,000 French and 500,000 German. On the first day of fighting there were 57,000 casualties, about a third of them killed. The British forces had not experienced a battle with that many casualties before.
The attitudes of the soldiers contributed to the catastrophe because they started to lose faith in their leaders. They would see their “pal” (many soldiers where in pals battalions were you would fight with men from your local area) being sent over the top to there near certain death. And this would happen over and over again because the leaders kept sending men over even though they knew they would probably get killed.
At the time the Prime Minister’s (David Lloyd George) and the government’s attitude towards the war wasn’t very good. In the chaos and confusion of the first days of battle, many reports were misleading and over-optimistic and people became suspicious of their own leaders. In particular the relationship between Haig and the Prime Minster was poor, after the war was over they kept shifting the blame from one to the other.
The Public Opinion towards the war changed after the Battle of the Somme because they were shocked at how many people had died; around Britain an entire generation of young men had been lost at the Somme. Until Somme, people believed that a victorious battle could lead to a breakthrough and thus end the war. The Somme brought home to many people that this would be a long, grim war of attrition.
The Battle of the Somme was a disaster, it is a popular view and is an easy view to support; the immense loss of life, the pitiful ground gained mad it a total waste. However, should it be regarded as a tragedy at all? The battles objectives were achieved; it relieved a lot of pressure off the French at Verdun, it wore down the German soldiers, which helped a great deal in Germanys eventual defeat. Also Haig had warned that there would be heavy losses and it was the government who failed to prepare the people. The generals were considered to be incompetent, but there was no other way to fight the battle so it isn’t right in saying that. It is therefore very difficult to classify The Battle of the Somme as being a disaster or a success. It is a disaster due to the great losses and a success due to the good things that came out of it (i.e. helped weaken the Germans, thus helping to win the war).
