"A general who wears down 180,000 of the enemy by expending 400,000 men...has something to answer for." This idea from military historian C.E.W Bean is the main line of argument from traditionalist historians. They represent General Douglas Haig, British Commander-in-Chief of the BEF from 1915 to the end of the war in 1918, in a critical, damning light: a hopelessly incompetent general with a willingness to sacrifice the men of Britain for a few metres of muddy ground. On the converse of this interpretation is a revisionist perspective of Haig as a caring ‘architect of victory’, bringing long-term achievements with his perceptive strategies. With an examination of these two seemingly polemic perspectives and primary evidence, judgement, albeit a complex and multifaceted one, can be reached on both these smaller debates and of Douglas Haig’s role in World War One: villain or vanquisher? Context A judgement of Haig cannot be reached without an understanding of his context. Haig, in society today, is most commonly viewed as a foolish “butcher” who failed to grasp the basics of the battlefield and proceeded to sacrifice Britain’s ‘flower of youth’. But to blindly accept this perspective is to misunderstand the complexities surrounding interpretations of Haig. We must realise that the First World War was one of inherent contradictions: a war with unexpected 20th Century technology, a war of attrition rather than the traditional 19th Century one of movement. Commanders, including Haig, struggled with the advent of modern warfare. This inflexibility is one of the traditionalists’ main lines of argument – move this into a paragraph on the mini-debate of inflexibility, but then I’m unsure where the following paragraph fits, because it i... ... middle of paper ... ...did not exist.” However, when this information arrived the next morning, Haig told Rawlinson that “The enemy has undoubtedly been severely shaken and our correct course, therefore, is to press him hard with the least possible delay” . This military strategy was one which led, as Terraine argued, to long-term success. Primary source German Order of the Day from General Von Bulow on 3 July stated “the decisive issue of the war depends on… our victory on the Somme. We must win this battle…” . Furthermore, Haig’s strategy is shown to be perceptive and correct when we consider Ludendorff’s, German Chief of Staff, thoughts: “We were completely exhausted on the Western Front… If the war lasted our defeat seemed inevitable... I cannot see as I look back how the German G.H.Q. could have mastered the situation if the Allies had continued their blows as they did in 1916.”
“The war correspondent is responsible for most of the ideas of battle which the public possesses … I can’t write that it occurred if I know that it did not, even if by painting it that way I can rouse the blood and make the pulse beat faster – and undoubtedly these men here deserve that people’s pulses shall beat for them. But War Correspondents have so habitually exaggerated the heroism of battles that people don’t realise that real actions are heroic.”
To set the stage for this battle, we must first understand what the British were thinking at the time. The British had not ...
Even though German high commanders have received much praise, they relied on the ability of senior German generals. Many commanders lacked ideas for victory and often were indecisive which led to unwillingness of using modern technology and resources to conduct a successful war effort. Commanders had little understanding on what was really needed; many only thought more men would successfully defeat the allied forces, along with an increase in firepower all which strained the troubled home nation. Not only did the war effort rely on the efficiency of the army and armed forces, but it also relied on the homefront. The German homefront felt the brunt of the war and the British naval blockade was not helping.
At the beginning of the war, the preconceptions of each side show exactly why Britain was destined for failure. On the American team,
as facts go - Haig was that far away. The rest of the source is
To illustrate, according to Churchill, it indicates the worst side of World War I as how it was the most damaging and cruel war of humanity because it was global and wounded most people. Moreover, it confused the thought of how the war started, who was responsible for the war, and how it ended up, and no one still got a right answer, but the previous war was not cruel that kill most of the people around the world. It was well known who started the war and whose fault it was. Also, Generals in WWI were not participating directly with their soldiers and were sitting far from the wars with having information through telephones. Therefore, they had less effects on their soldiers, and the armies did not get encouragement from their Generals as in the previous wars had, such as the physical battle of Hannibal and Caesar, Turenne and Marlborough, Frederick and Napoleon. Another point of view in the essay is that Generals as Napoleon have hard work to do in order to attack a place. For instance, they should organize their armies, have better tactics and plans, know how to defeat themselves, know the right time of attacking, and make big decisions. Hence, it is the deal of thousands of men’ life including the General himself in the previous wars, but the World War I was only the armies and citizens as well were the victims, so Generals were disappearing. That’s why
The First World War witnessed an appalling number of casualties. Due partly to this fact, some historians, developed the perception that commanders on both sides depended on only one disastrous approach to breaking the stalemate. These historians attributed the loss of life to the reliance on soldiers charging across no-man’s land only to be mowed down by enemy machineguns. The accuracy of this, however, is fallacious because both the German’s and Allies developed and used a variety of tactics during the war. The main reason for battlefield success and eventual victory by the Allies came from the transformation of battlefield tactics; nevertheless, moral played a major role by greatly affecting the development of new tactics and the final outcome of the war.
war went on, was that of encouraging at least some degree L&LL. At the same time they stoically maintained a toecap-to-toecap confrontation with the German Army whilst periodically energetically pursuing the High Command’s policy of continuous offensive action. This meant that when the German High Command in 1918 finally felt obliged by external factors to take the great gamble of their last great offensive on the Western Front, the German Army suffered increasingly unsustainable levels of attrition to their armies. Secondly, by thus steadfastly holding the Germans and their allies at bay in the trenches, the trench fighters enabled the twin pressures of the Allied land and sea blockade, and the failure of German State’s domestic production, to squeeze the fighting heart out the German nation and its autocratic rulers.
Stewart David, Fitzgerald James, Pickard Alf. The Great Wars: Sources and Evidence. Australia: an International Thomson Publishing company, 1987. Print.
O'Neill, William L. World War II: A Student Companion. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. Print.
Field, Frank. British and French Operations of the First World War. Cambridge (England); New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
...ings by then, whose memories, fears, and enthusiasms should not be remembered." Thus, unlike the title suggests, this remarkable war memoir is not about one soldier. Instead it refers to the entire German army who were defeated by the Allies. Although the German cause was very controversial, these gentlemen bravely fought for their country. Many men died, many were mutilated, and many more had to forever live with the atrocities they encountered. At war's end, however, they were merely "forgotten" for their failure of success. And although The Forgotten Soldier is an astonishing account of the horrors of infantry warfare, it serves a much greater purpose. It allows the historian to glance into the German experience and realize they too were young men fighting because their nation called upon them, and they deserve to be remembered for such a courageous act.
Some of the British regard the man who led Britain’s biggest-ever army to one of the most important victories to Britain as a national hero. However since the 1960s, some people started to call Haig “Butcher Haig” or “butcher of the Somme” who simply didn’t care how many soldiers were killed to accomplish an objective that could be far more less than a battle should be. Nevertheless, does General Haig deserve to be remembered as ‘the butcher of the Somme’? This essay will mainly focus on the reasons of why and why not Haig deserve the nickname ‘butcher Haig’ or ‘butcher of the Somme’, and will make a conclusion of does Haig may or may not be accused wrongly after all.
Many historians and common wealth citizens believe General Haig saw the soldiers as pawns, metaphorically speaking, in his own route to personal glory. Haig allegedly had no pity for the high death count and devoted his care only in winning the war to make himself a ’hero’. This is evident in The Battle Of The Somme. The battle initially began on the 1st of July with a five day bombardment of the enemy trenches. General Haig believed it would jeopardise the Germans giving the British and French divisions an advantage when the soldiers went ‘over the top’. What Haig had not count...
O’Neill, William L. World War II A Student Companion. 1 ed. William H. Chafe. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.