Haig Deserving the Title of Butcher of the Somme

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Haig Deserving the Title of Butcher of the Somme Not entirely. Haig only deserves the title because he is the one who put ‘the plan’ into action. He fought a war of attrition with the support of Lloyd George. The Somme was only really put into action to ease pressure on the French at the battle of Verdun. Because the Germans were bleeding the France white (Germany too incidentally, but that wasn't the plan) and the British (Haig) were forced into making an ill planned attack which cost them greatly as everyone knows. Haig was under great pressure so he’s decisions may be not have been rational. One of the main events of the battle was the Artillery attack. It was supposed to happen to allow the soldiers to leave the trenches. Germany had to withdraw troops from the attack on Verdun to meet the threat posed by the Somme offensive. The British marched across no-mans land as the attack moved forward. As a result keeping the Germans in their trenches, and retreating/dying. As soon as the bombardment stopped the Germans realised it had allowing the German machine gunners to allow the destruction they did, and also bring up some heavy/medium/light artillery to hit no-mans land. In this battle 425 thousand British troops were killed and 500 thousand German soldiers were killed. The Somme was a huge military disaster from most points of view though. But it served its purpose. ‘The cost of victory was appalling, but Haig’s military methods were in line with the ideas of the time’. This suggests that what Haig did was what other commanding general’s would have done and so it was not all entirely his fault because it was the ‘normal’ thing to do. He made it difficult for people to tell him bad news about the battle. This was a big mistake and it meant that anyone trying to tell him something would be afraid of the way he would react. They would distort the news to make it sound like the battle is going better than

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