Douglas Haig: The Butcher Of The Somme

Douglas Haig was appointed commander of the army on tenth of December 1915 - he was fifty-four at the time and he had had a very successful military career. Haig decided to attack the Germans at the river Somme in 1916 to attract German soldiers from the town of Verdun where they were fighting the French and had almost broken through. But even though he was victorious there was a very high casualty figure. I will explore whether Haig deserves the title ‘Butcher of the Somme,’ with reference to multiple sources.
Firstly, he should in fact have the name "The Butcher of the Somme" because of his attitudes towards modern technology and the way he threw away many soldiers’ lives. It is clear that he did not appreciate the machine gun and stated "it is a much overrated weapon that could be taken by pure grit and determination." With this attitude he gained very little land with the cost of
many lives which he also did not care about – he also stated: "Britain should be prepared for a high loss of life." Secondly the strategies he used were "the tactics of the stone age" says Lovat Fraser (a political and miltary historian). Haig has also been criticized for giving the order for troops to advance slowly across No Man's Land, rather than 'rushing'. Haig thought that because many of their troops were volunteers, they would not be experienced enough in 'rushing' for it to be beneficial to the attack. However, Haig had intended his artillery barrage to have knocked out much of the German forces, and walking across No Man's Land would therefore not have been nearly as deadly as it proved to be - so it may not be correct to blame Haig entirely for this mistake. Thus, this clearly backs up the fact that Haig was the butcher of the Somme. In addition, his tactics were largely inflexible, and this inflexibility forced Haig to continue with the attack although he knew it had failed – thus giving us evidence as to why he deserves his title.
On the other hand, World War One as a whole was the most horrible war in history - because of the state of technology at the time, which can't be blamed on Haig. If he was a butcher - then so were Moltke, Falkenhayn, Hindenburg, Joffre, Nivelle, Foch - and Pershing. The figures also show that Britain lost eight percent of all men mobilised in the war; Germany fourteen percent, France seventeen percent . Thus, Haig was doing something right - or at least less wrong than his contemporaries, and does not deserve the title ‘butcher of the Somme.’ Haig also did not choose to fight the battle of the Somme. The combined political leadership of Britain and France met in late 1915 and decided on a massive joint offensive in the summer of 1916. A joint offensive had, logically, to be launched where the British and French sectors joined. Haig pointed out that this was a bad choice, but was over-ruled. He also knew that the British army wasn't ready - France and Germany had long had peace-time conscription for national service so when the war broke out they each had a couple of million trained reservists to call on. Britain had none - and the vast citizen army that Haig led had been built up from scratch. The battle of the Somme highlighted fundamental bad problems - poor communications, and the impossibility of moving troops rapidly from one sector to another. These were failings of technology, not of leadership. The casualties were dreadful - as everyone had always known they would be. By September, Haig wanted to call the offensive off. He was denied the permission to do so - because of the need to relieve the pressure on the French at Verdun. When the battle was over, Britain had suffered around six-hundred thousand casualties, Germany six-hundred and fifty thousand. After the war, people looked around for scapegoats – they turned to Haig However Haig assisted Britain in winning the war and although he did so with tremendous loss of life, these men did not die pointlessly. They died to protect their families and everyone else on the home front, and they died to prevent Britain from becoming a German territory.

In conclusion, it is clear that Haig’s reputation as ‘butcher of the Somme’ differs widely among different perspectives.
However, I believe that Haig in fact did not deserve the title accredited to him, as although Britain suffered several casualties (six-hundred thousand), so did the other nations, (for example Germany suffered six-hundred and fifty thousand.) Moreover, due to the fact that World War One was one of the most horrible wars in history, it is inevitable that some people will attempt to single people out as the cause of such terrible events. Haig also wanted to call the offensive off, but he was denied this as he had to help the French forces at Verdun. I do believe it is fair to say that the Battle of the Somme was largely a failure, although it was certainly not a complete one - although the British failed to take significant ground from the Germans, Haig succeeded in removing German forces from Verdun, and led to a large reduction in the number of German troops. Whether achieving these objectives was worth the massive loss of life, however, remains a controversial
issue.