Butcher Or Hero? Haig

Was General Haig the scarcecher or hero of the Somme?
Does Haig Deserve his last name The Butcher of The Somme? Field Marshall Haig was appointed commander of the army on 10th of December 1915, he was fifty-four at the time and he had had a very successful armed services career.

Haig decided to attack the Germans at the river Somme in 1916, to attract German soldiers from the town of Verdun, where they were fighting the French and had almost broken through. But even though he was victorious there was a very high casualty figure. He didnt shake up that much ground in the four months of fighting, only a couple of miles. Also, his sent basically sent his men to their death. He told his soldiers to walk slowly in a line towards the enemy giving the machine gunners an easy tar accept. If he had visited the figureheadline he would corroborate been able to see that the attacks he staged had major flaws. The shells that were dismissed onto the barbed wires didnt destroy it, only tough it up even more, this meaning that the troops that were sent out got tangled up in the barbed wire and were sitting ducks for the Germans. Haig didnt go out and inspect the front line; he just acted on his beliefs that the barbed wire was destroyed.



If he inspected the front lines, he would know that the barbed wire wasnt destroyed, and that the German trenches were dug too deep for the shell bombardment to sop up any real effect. A quote from Private George Coppard, who survived the employment of the Somme Hundreds of dead were strung out (on the barbed wire) like wreckage rinse up to a high water mark. Quite as many died on the enemy wire as on the ground... It was clear that there were no gaps in the wire at the time of attack. The Germans must have been reinforcing the wire for months. It was so heavyset that daylight could barely be seen through it... How did the planners imagine that the Tommies would get through the wire? Who told them that artillery fire would pound much(prenominal) wire to pieces? Any Tommy...If you want to get a intact essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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