Was Haig the "Butcher of the Somme"?

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                                                        14th November 2002. 

 

                                Was Haig the “Butcher of the Somme”?

   Many people have regarded General Haig as the Butcher of the Somme. Does he really reserve this name? To decide this it is necessary to consider what happened at the battle of the Somme and to what extent it can be blamed on Haig.

   The Battle of the Somme was intended to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun. The commander of the British troops at the time of the Battle of the Somme was field Marshall Haig. He thought that the battle would be easy to win. Haig had a very shallow opinion of the German’s. He thought that they were useless “black” people and that they didn’t know how to fight shat his army would surly win.

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   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 ...

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