BUTCHER OF THE SOMME

To what extent does Haig deserve the title “Butcher of the Somme”?

On 27th June 1916 the Battle of Somme began. This battle is also known as the battle of the most dead soldiers in all the wars. Most of the historians blamed Haig for all the deaths and casualties who are known as the orthodox but there were many contradictions on this point by many historians who are known as revisionist. This essay is going to be looking at both the perspective and then will conclude by evaluating on which side most sources lead to. The themes are going to be Plans and Tactical errors, Weapons and Soldiers.

For the first theme I am going to explore the plans and the errors that Haig made for the battle. The plan for the battle days was in this order;
There would be a huge artillery bombardment on the German trench: This happened for 7 days. This was done to destroy the barbed wire which did not break after the bombardment.
The next step was the mine blast: which occurred around the trenches so that they get smashed on the contrary the Germans already built dug-outs made of concrete thus they did not experience much damage. The mine blast occurred earlier than planned so the Germans were ready to defend their posts.
He considered that because of the bombardment the barbed wire would be destroyed and the enemy trenches would be shattered, in respect to this event Haig therefore concluded that he British troops would be able to walk across the no man’s land rather than running: but as mentioned before that the Germans were ready on their posts the soldiers easily got killed.
The soldiers would be carrying heavy packs with tools to repair the trench so that the Germans don’t come back to get their lost territory.

The whole plan didn’t work the way Haig hoped it would have but still they won the battle. On the first day there were 58,000 casualties. These numbers are taken from the “First world war encyclopedia” by John Simkin. This book is not so reliable because the author was not present during that time but it had people’s names in it that were present there. Even after knowing the amount of deaths that was suffered on the first day of the war the same order was repeated for quite a long time this shows that Haig was the “Butcher of the Somme” because he did not take consideration of the death statistics. Although several soldiers died, Haig still made Britain win the battle and was successful to relieve pressure from Verdun. He didn’t go on the battlefield to look at the battle, the source demonstrating that is “he never ever saw the ground which his greatest battles took place” this quote was from the Prime Minister of UK at that time. This certainly depicts that the prime minister and Haig have a good bond. This source can be biased as mentioned before that they don’t have a good relationship, the minister would have wanted him to look bad in front of the public. From this we can infer that Haig was timid of his life and was scared, this therefore proves that he was the “Butcher of the Somme”
This section illustrates that Haig was blameful for all the loss of lives, however it also shows that he also helped Britain relieve pressure at Verdun and win this battle.

The second theme that we will consider would be technology which perhaps will be the weapons that were used in the battle. Haig for this battle expected 36 divisions, 828 guns, 29 roads and 7 railways, but the equipments that were provided were: 18 divisions, 400 guns, 13 roads, and 3 railways. These estimates were taken from the papers he wrote in 1915 and the ww1 started in 1914 so these estimates are quite reliable however these estimates can be biased because Haig might want to portrait that the prime minister could not give enough money to buy all the equipments for the army. This is approximately half of what Haig had expected. However even if Haig was trying to depict that the prime minister could not give enough money to buy, but Haig did not calculate how much equipments can be bought in that budget. So if he would have been given enough equipment he could have won the battle without much loss of lives, thus this shows that Haig does not deserve the nickname, “Butcher of the Somme”
This portion displays that Haig was not the “butcher of the Somme” because the lack of equipments but because he did not calculate the budget properly he is the “Butcher of the Somme”

The third theme that we can find in battle is the soldiers. We will consider it because they were the ones who fought on the field on the orders of the general. The soldiers were mostly inexperienced as they were volunteers and local people from town and villages. As they were new they could not follow complex orders that were given by the general. Although this shows that Haig was not the ‘Butcher of the Somme” however it also display that because the death of experienced soldiers they had to recruit local peasants and workers, which explains because of the death of many soldiers, Haig deserves the nickname “Butcher of the Somme” this also links to the shells. Only 1/3 of shells worked, which shows that the workers who normally made the shells were out there on the no-man’s land fighting for the country, and the women here were working in the factories making shells. The shells won’t work because the women were inexperienced and were not perfect at this art.
This fraction shows that having inexperienced soldiers were not Haig’s fault but the death of many soldiers was Haig’s fault. Considering the disarm of the shells, we therefore presume that Haig was the “Butcher of the Somme”.

In conclusion as per the above text most of the segments fall upon the category of the orthodox point of view, consequently I designate myself as an orthodox historian.

The End