Why Did Haig Deserve To Be Called The Butcher Of The Somme
How far does General Haig deserve to be known as ‘The Butcher Of The Somme’?
By the battle of the Somme in 1916 the war had been in a huge stalemate for 18 months that didn’t look like it was going to be broken any time soon. Trenches had been dug on the Western front all they way from the coast at Ostend to the Alps. Just before the offensive at the Somme, Verdun was under a heavy attack from German forces forcing the French to pull all their troops back to Verdun. General Haig was asked to relieve pressure of the French by French commanders. Therefore there was no choice but an offensive somewhere on the Western Front by the British army. I believe General Haig did deserve to be named Butcher of the Somme for several reasons. Firstly because of the number of casualties, secondly because of his naivety not to change his tactics and lastly due to the poor planning by Haig,
On one hand there are several reasons why I believe he deserved to be called ‘The Butcher Of The Somme’. Firstly throughout the whole battle that only lasted five months, there were over one million casualties in all, around 600,000 of those were British soldiers, this included …show more content…
At Verdun the German army had launched an all out attack against the French army, for the Germans there plan was for a battle of attrition and so they wanted to pull in the French army to Verdun and then kill as many of them as possible but not to take Verdun. ‘The necessity of relieving pressure on the French army’ is said to be the main objective of the battle of the Somme said in Ben Walsh’s book. The German plan was going well and pressure needed to be taken off the French and so some think Haig had to send thousands to their death to cause a distraction and relieve pressure off the French army and so what he did was save more lives than he
By the battle of the Somme in 1916 the war had been in a huge stalemate for 18 months that didn’t look like it was going to be broken any time soon. Trenches had been dug on the Western front all they way from the coast at Ostend to the Alps. Just before the offensive at the Somme, Verdun was under a heavy attack from German forces forcing the French to pull all their troops back to Verdun. General Haig was asked to relieve pressure of the French by French commanders. Therefore there was no choice but an offensive somewhere on the Western Front by the British army. I believe General Haig did deserve to be named Butcher of the Somme for several reasons. Firstly because of the number of casualties, secondly because of his naivety not to change his tactics and lastly due to the poor planning by Haig,
On one hand there are several reasons why I believe he deserved to be called ‘The Butcher Of The Somme’. Firstly throughout the whole battle that only lasted five months, there were over one million casualties in all, around 600,000 of those were British soldiers, this included …show more content…
At Verdun the German army had launched an all out attack against the French army, for the Germans there plan was for a battle of attrition and so they wanted to pull in the French army to Verdun and then kill as many of them as possible but not to take Verdun. ‘The necessity of relieving pressure on the French army’ is said to be the main objective of the battle of the Somme said in Ben Walsh’s book. The German plan was going well and pressure needed to be taken off the French and so some think Haig had to send thousands to their death to cause a distraction and relieve pressure off the French army and so what he did was save more lives than he