To what extent is it fair to call General Haig the ' Butcher of the Somme'

Title: To what extent is it fair to call General Haig the ‘Butcher of the Somme’

The Battle of the Somme was important and crucial to the development of the First World War; and earmarked the final result of the War. Both the Allies and the Germans were extremely eager to make some achievement in order to boost the morale of the armed forces and the confidence of their own countrymen after a long period of stalemate in the various battle fronts. They were both prepared to exhaust all means to win over the other.
General Haig was definitely under very great pressure from the British Government as well as his allies to determine and win the war as quickly as possible. He would have thought that if the war was dragged on further even much higher casualties would likely be resulted as the trench warfare being adopted at that time often involved heavy casualties. There was also a possibility that if the war was allowed to drag on, the balance would be tipped over so much that Britain itself might also be turned into a battlefield. I agreed the general might have been ruthless in subjecting so many young people to the risk of life; but after second thought, war invariably involves casualties and the enemy also suffered equally heavy casualties, his ruthlessness was inevitable and may be justified to a certain extent. Should he withheld the advance and withdrew his troops after the initial setback, his troops would be subjected to a fierce count-attack which would more likely inflict an equal if not even more severe degree of casualty to his army. Seeing that the enemy also suffered equivalent level of loss and advances could be secured no matter how small they would be, he was left with no alternative, as far as I can apprehend in retrospect, but to order for further attacks and advances no matter they might have appeared to be very costly in casualty.
His tactics adopted in the battle was in many occasions criticized as totally failed as resulting over 60,000 casualties for the British force alone in the first day of the battle. However, I have a different view on this. The attack was preceded by an eight-day preliminary bombardment of the German lines. The expectation was that the ferocity of the bombardment would entirely destroy all forward German defence, enabling the attacking British troops to practically walk across No Man’s Land and take possession of the German lines from the battered and dazed German troops. 3000 guns from the British and French armies were employed in the bombardment. However, the advance bombardment failed to destroy either the German front line barbed wire or the heavily built bunkers the Germans had carefully and robustly constructed. Much of the munitions used by the British proved to be ‘duds’- badly constructed and ineffective. Many charges did not go off; even today farmers of the Western Front unearthed many tons of unexploded ‘iron harvest’ each year. Hence, Haig may not be justified to be entirely held responsible for the heavy casualties suffered during the initial advances. On the other hand, if the Germans suffered comparatively much lower casualties and the munitions used were effective, this would be the case. The fact that the Germen suffered even more casualties demonstrated that Haig’s tactics was not misconceived but the advance bombardment was only partially successful and the Germans had really put up a very vigorous resistance for survival.
I, therefore, find that nicknaming General Haig as the ‘butcher of the Somme’ is quite unfair but would rather say that he was forced under the circumstances prevailing at that time to take extremely drastic measures to achieve his goal.