Was Haig really “a donkey leading lions”? General Douglas Haig was the commander of the British army during WW1. He was accused of getting soldiers killed‚ and sacrificing thousands of men just to win the war. They blamed him because he was the commander and all orders came from him or passed through him. Approximately 900‚000 British soldiers died and about 3/4 of these deaths were due to rubbish leadership. The main reason he was blame was because of bad leadership. It was said by Gary Sheffield
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Is it fair to criticize General Haig as a donkey who led lions? Douglas Haig was a General during World War One. There is much controversy over General Haig’s reputation due to the high level of losses during his battles in command. Many people agree with David Lloyd George’s attitude of Haig and many other British Generals of World War One. They are said to be “donkeys”‚ incompetents who sent the “lions” (the soldier) into futile bloody battles. Many popular books‚ films and television programs
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Lions Led By Donkeys Ever since the end of WW1 in 1918 which was won by the British allies against the Germans it‚ has been hugely debated whether the famous interpretation ’Lions Led by Donkeys’ is correct. I am going to look at various peoples interpretations of this statement to reach an overall conclusion. I will be looking at different views for and against the statement. I will evaluate poems by soldiers‚ letters written by Douglas Haig and also authors of books written
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’Was general haig the butcher of the Somme?’ Introduction General Haig’s title of ’butcher of the Somme’ originated after the First World War‚ when‚ due to a large number of casualties Britain suffered from the war and mostly the Somme. The people of Britain wanted someone to blame. This was a coping mechanism in which people could deal with the loss of the ’lost generation’. Feild Marshall Haig has often been called the butcher of the Somme because 20000 soldiers died on the first day of the battle
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“Lions led by Donkeys.” How accurate an assessment is this of the British Army on the Western Front in the First World War? Written by Alan Clark a politician in the 1960s this quotation describes the leadership of the British Military and their strategies used in the Great War. It suggests that soldiers fighting in the World War were brave and courageous as he refers to them as lions. In comparison their leaders‚ the generals were mindless and stupid like donkeys. By holding these characteristics
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LIONS LED BY DONKEYS – A HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION QUESTION To what extent is the phrase “Lions led by donkeys” a fair description of what happened at the Battle of the Somme? INTRODUCTION In 1916 witnessed the commencement of the battle of the Somme. Through the course of that one battle‚ a million British men were slaughtered compared to the combined number of American casualties in both the first and Second World War. The Battle of the Somme was planned as a joint French and British
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The question "were the British soldiers ’Lions led by Donkeys?’" has been an ongoing debate since the end of the war. A war which is dominated by images of bloody battles such as the Somme and Passchendaele - futile frontal attacks against the machine guns. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the troops were ’lions led by donkeys’. The definition that the soldiers were ’lions’ in the war has never been questioned - due to the horrific reports of their lives in the war. The soldiers were
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General Douglas Haig General Haig was born in Edinburgh‚ Scotland on June 19‚ 1861. He was the 11th child; his dad was a whiskey distiller. He graduated from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. When he first joined the war efforts‚ he started off as an officer. Then he worked his way up and successfully became the commander of the British 1st Army by 1918. He retired in 1921‚ and then he died of a heart attack in London on Jan. 28‚ 1928. Despite his amazing reputation‚ he was human. During
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Haig was a significant character for various reasons during World War One‚ most of which were negative. In his earlier days‚ Haig was significant because it was ultimately his leadership that resulted in a number of disasterous losses for the British Army‚ for example the Battle of the Somme (1916) which is still seen as one of the British Army’s biggest failures to this day. His intial failures stem from his backward leadership and poor connection with the British troops. Having said this‚ in the
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Assessment- Interpretations of Haig (The battle of the Sommes was a notorious event that occurred in the time frame of World War I‚ between France and England on one side‚ while on the other side‚ Germany. The objective of this battle for the English side is too re-conquer/ seize the French town of Verdun‚ a stronghold of France against Germany. Also‚ the English soldiers were ordered to annihilate as much German soldiers as possible‚ in order to eventually gain the vantage point of the battle
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