Haig Was The Butcher Of The Somme Essay

There is a lot of controversy surrounding the question as to whether British generals such as Haig were incompetent during World War One. Some people view Haig as a hero due to his efforts during the war which many thought that Britain had won the war. However, many people see Haig as being incompetent during the war effort. This is highly due to the events that happened at the battle of the Somme. At the battle of the Somme, Haig was accused of sitting 8 miles behind the enemy line in a spacious chateau in the countryside away from danger and away from seeing the psychological and the physical pain that was being induced on his soldiers from the order Haig was setting. On the first day during the Battle of the Somme, Britain lost 20,000 men due to Haig’s orders to send them over the top of the trenches Into No-man’s-land. Haig continually did this even though it was evidential that this was not working at all instead it was causing innocent men to lose their lives and innocent children to lose their fathers. This suggests that Haig had very …show more content…
Source B5 shows a page from the Official list of dead suffered by the Sheffield pals Battalion. Immediately, it is evident that a large number of people died in the Sheffield pals battalion during the First World War, this is due to the fact that the list that already shows a large number of deaths is only a small excerpt of the official death list and is only by people with surnames beginning with the letter B. As well as this on the list shown, you can see that the majority of the Sheffield pals battalion died on the 1st of July 1916 as this was the first day of the battle Somme. This shows that Haig cost many innocent men their mortality on the first day of the Somme due to his poor tactics and strategies. This source is reliable as it is an official document which means that is on hundred percent accurate therefore there are little or no