Does General Haig Deserves to Be Remembered as the Butcher of the Somme

Does General Haig deserve to be remembered as ‘the butcher of the Somme’?
General Haig was a famous general who won the last war in the First World War, he should be remembered as a hero, but why do people reckon him to be the opposite, as a butcher? As the ‘Butcher of the Somme ’? In my point of view, I think of general as a butcher rather than a hero, for he, in the first battle in the First World War, the battle of Somme, he used 420000 soldiers to defeat 500000 Germans soldiers and gain 10 kilometers of ground, not counting the French that used 200000 soldiers. His plans were all flawed, first he had the one week long artillery strike but what he did not think of was that Germans were humans and that humans have brains and knows how to change their plans. They dug trenches deeper and were unharmed by the attempt. Secondly, they forgot that artillery shells only exploded on impact and will send out shrapnel and that this will not destroy the barb wires but only make them fly up and tangle up more, causing a disadvantage to his own troops. The ways the British soldiers walk up to the Germans were too unrealistic and not professional. Walking up to the enemy and not taking cover? Ridiculous! Also if General Haig was with the soldiers together fighting and commanding, that would have boosted morale. As the people like to say, the British soldiers are lions led by donkeys. General Haig was a follower of a way of fighting called, attrition that means that when you fight an enemy to a point they can no longer bear, they will surrender of retreat. So, he used wave after wave of soldiers to ‘go over the top’ and fight the Germans. None of them work until the last great wave. They broke through the German defenses and captured 5000 German soldiers approximately. At the end, although the British have wasted loads of good men in this war, the Germans admitted that they are bitter and battered. One of the German Generals admitted this battle broke the heart of the German army. “We were completely exhausted,” he wrote, “if the war lasted, out defeat seemed certain.” General Haig and his army also contributed in saving Verdun and the French in it. The bad news is that the German army which was driven 10 kilometers back was unbeaten. The reason I believe he deserves to be called ‘the butcher of the Somme’ is because he, the general, who should have been leading the men into battle, was sitting 50 kilometers behind the front line where the soldiers are going ‘over the top’, trying to get back in one piece, and trying to capture enemy trenches while under fire . General Haig might have been drinking coffee in a big and clean bedroom with servants helping him, while the soldiers are living in muddy trenches full of disease and rats. General Haig might have been eating luxurious food and drinking clean water while the soldiers are eating army rations that are usually disgusting and drinking muddy, horrible water that might result in serious diseases that might result in death if not treated fast and properly. If they are not dead but seriously sick or ill, they will not be able to fight and will either be no use for the army for I while, medevaced back to the United Kingdom, or killed by the enemy. Although he is bad, we cannot only see one side to determine whether he is a good or a bad person. Actually the generals of the British army rose to fight every challenge they got and tried to adapt to the constant change involved in the war. However, no one cared to tell anyone about this. The reason they believed that the fault is on the generals is because of the scripts of the play “oh what a lovely war!”the British generals actually has a lot to do like planning and deciding sending the amount of people on missions and to manage the number of death coming from the army. They had so much to care about! The people should think more and not be zombiefied by some plays! The generals had a higher echelon up! Although Haig was pretty dumb, he was a very determined man and believed that the German line can be broken. Actually, he was the first to believe in this. In fact, he was also the first to break through the German line in the world war one. I believe this boosted the morale of the British army and the allied front as well as the western front. General Haig was a very traditional man and most of the generals are and they have a reason to be traditional, most of the generals have won their war traditionally with traditional tactics, like sending in the infantry first and then later send in the cavalry to finish the exhausted enemy. This tactic worked brilliantly until the 20th century when trenches came and barb wires and mines stopped the infantries and the mud slowed down the cavalry did the tactic not work. The tactic of sending in the seven day artillery strike was also not his idea. He was promised that the strike will destroy all the barb wires on the field. Also, he was promised that the trenches will be destroyed by the strike! Instead of this, the Germans just dug their trenches deeper and deeper until the artillery rounds no longer harmed them and stayed there for seven days, just feeling the shock of the rounds on the ground. On the field, the barb wires were also not destroyed! They were just thrown high into the sky and land back on the ground over and over again. There were only a few changes on the barb wires and the field, the barb wires are in a worse tangle and the field was full of huge craters. Instead of being successful in combat, they have wasted loads of human resources and lots of resources. But measuring the good and the bad points, I believe that the bad points are more than the good ones. As you see, there is loads of proof that supports the negative side than the positive side.
He did not know to change his tactics for in everyday in 140 days loads of soldiers go onto the top to attack the other side of the soldiers, just to get blown to heaven because of their tactics. Walking in a free fire zone? Crazy! With no cover, they’re as hopeless as babies! They should have ran across the no man’s land and run from cover to cover, so that even though the German spy planes have warned the Germans, they will give them less chance to survive and give themselves a better chance of survival, a better chance to help their country even more, a better chance in saving their country and stopping the Germans. His tactics are from Stone Age. He could have stopped the artillery strike, to save money for his country, but he believed the others, and let it continue. He lacked the knowledge of what the front line was like. He only relied on the reports his staff officers provided him with and he never really have gone to the front line before. So, this results in his rather ineffective 7 day shelling proposed by his officers, and the shelling of the trenches. He did not believe that his “sending people every day “over the top”” tactic was a failure, he never went to see it. He just believed that the men are ready to die for the king. When alternatives were shown to him, he simply turned it down.
The ways he trained his troops are inefficient, it lacked the realism of the battlefield like the gunfire and the shelling. There are no mud and no enemy, no barbed wire and no fear amongst the soldiers. This means that when Haig’s troops were facing the enemy, they were not prepared.
All his assaults provide heavy shelling against his enemies and even without spy planes, the Germans will know that an assault is coming. This is rather a disadvantage to the British for the element of surprise is gone, I believe. His wave of attack will be rather a massacre rather than an offensive move towards his enemies. So, to conclude this essay, I believe that general Haig deserves to be called “the butcher of the Somme’ because of his laziness and reluctance to go to the front line to observe the position his army is in, his reluctance to accept the alternatives, to change the way the soldiers were to advance into a fight, the tactics used, and the patterns used in the war, I believe that General Haig, the General who won the last war in the World War One, is the one responsible for all the loss caused in the Battle of the Somme. He should not be remembered as a national hero, rather a mass murderer, a killer and a person responsible for the Massacre of the Battle of the Somme. He was responsible for the death of 420000 British soldiers. So, to conclude my perspective again, Haig was “the butcher of the Somme”.