"Haig- the somme- 1916 - hero or villain?" Topic

Hi all,

This I feel is clean cut, in my opinion Haig was old school, a man who saw clean lines in advance as the way forward.
Perhaps memories of lessons learned at horse guards from the Boer war told him push, push, push?

Who knows?

My question is….did he send 20,000 of the queens men to their deaths in 1 day believing he'd push the jerries back at the Somme and bring the war closer to an end, or was he reckless with the lives of his men?
Did he really believe he could push jerry off his perch?
I say he was a butcher and heaven help him.

Maybe you've a different opinion and believe the Somme had a beneficial value…..

It would be good to hear your opinions.

So, the somme made him….

A. He was a failed psychopathic butcher
B: He was a failed strategist
C: He was an unsung hero who made a strategic mistake

Cheers

Matt

I have a feeling you are not as new as your profile would seem to show.

What's your next thread going to be?
Lee vs Grant?
Patton vs Monty?

B

I'm Green here John, I'm no pro on military history, just know a bit more than the average Joe.
Hence, what makes the papers for propoganda (or the questions our teachers leave us with) is where I begin.

1.Lee
2.Monty

While I'm here John, Luke skywalker or superman? :)

Cheers

Matt

id he send 20,000 of the queens men to their deaths in 1 day

The "queens" men?

Leaving aside the missing capital letter & the absent apostrophe for possessive case, I think you'll find Great Britain had a king then. George V to be precise.

BTW you're a sharp one, John.

Our pal Matthew83 doth protest a tad too much.

" The Lord's people are his hidden one; the world knows them not."
Matthew 83: 8

Sorry about the qUeEn'z' bit, should've stayed at school, referring to British soldiers as such is force of habit.

Surprised at your opinions on Haig and the somme though Ochoin, much to ponder on there.

Right, I'm off to the David icke forum, who's coming?

Cheers

D. Out of his depth.

You can't evaluate Hague based on one action. He said when he took command he would wear the Germans out, it was, in his opinion, the only strategy. In 1918 his strategy was proved right. He won.

The denigration of Hague as a failure is counter to the first 50 years of post WWI history, and is more a reflection of the liberal values redolent in society at the time it was made.

Further to that, Hague was clearly not a great strategist, but in evaluating his performance, you have to remember that he was the man on the spot. NO ONE ELSE came up with an alternative strategy.

Not sure on this one! To a lot of people he was an out and out butcher, but hindsight is something he didn't have, on the whole world war one was wholesale slaughter, I can't think of anyother war where the male population of entire villages where wiped out. I don't think the upper classes really cared for the commen soldier, he was purely a means to an end. The Germans needed defeating at whatever cost, but too a degree arnt all wars the same, waste of live on both sides. So in hindsight yes he was a butcher, but in his defence weren't they all, sending men to their deaths is not a job I would want!

"My question is….did he send 20,000 of the queens men to their deaths in 1 day believing he'd push the jerries back at the Somme and bring the war closer to an end, or was he reckless with the lives of his men?"

He wouldn't have attacked if he didn't think they were going to win.

The Battle of the Somme didn't last one day, but several months and eventually resulted in combined losses for both sides of over 1 million men. It was a 'victory' in the sense that the Germans eventually packed up and retreated to the Hindenberg Line.

Haigs main fault was prolonging a battle beyond the point at which the front had crusted over and decisive results could no longer be achieved, this was particularly the case at Third Ypres, although on the Somme it is less clear cut. The final phase (the Battle of the Ancre) was well thought out, planned and executed including the first use of tanks. 600,000 casualties was a high price for Kitcheners Army to complete its tactical training though.

Was he a butcher? Well, as John Keegan pointed out, faced with an entrenched army with secure flanks and a front manned with a higher troop density than that found at Waterloo but armed with machineguns and rifled artillery, ANY sort of offensive action was going to be slow and expensive. To a nation used to cheap colonial wars and the occasional amphibious adventure in Spain or the Crimea, the sheer scale of losses associated with continental warfare were a huge shock. Less so for the French, Germans and Russians. So if Haig was a butcher, so were all the other Generals.

Before anyone mentions about Stormtooopers and infiltration attacks, although such tactics gained ground more rapidly, they were equally expensive in lives. The Germans lost almost 700,000 men in their 'successful' 1918 offensives in France, while the Allies lost another million men in the Hundred Days after Amiens.

Early twentieth century warfare was an expensive and unpleasant business for all concerened. In WW2, the mass killing took place on the Eastern Front. The Battle of Stalingrad alone generated more casualties than the Somme and Kaiserschlact combined.

He is judged with hindsight, and by those who by speaking out against him, can distance themselves from being complicit (Asquith and Lloyd George et al) and by those who in the 30's onwards needed someone (else in many cases) to blame.

But answer this:

It is April 1916, France is fighting for its life at Verdun and being bled dry. You have to take over a length of their frontline to help release troops, you must also launch a large enough attack on the German lines to draw reserves and troops away from the Verdun battlefield.

You command an army of 1,000,000 men, and you and your staff have at best commanded 1/10th of that number (and likely much smaller ones) until now.

You plan the attack…

the first day of the Somme is a black day and terrible etc etc.

But it happened because a new kind of war was tried, some things worked some didn't.

The British (and commonwealth and Empire) casualties on the first day of the Somme were percentage points lower than Wellingtons at Waterloo, caused more casualties and took more immediate ground (although sadly it didn't break the back of the enemy and end the war).

To all those who say he is a butcher, what were his other options?

D: he was a man who had to do what was done, right or wrong. (if he hadn't attacked, London would have replaced him with another man who would).

A) No-one's yet been able to convince me otherwise.

Pass the popcorn

FreddBloggs is spot on. Also, in order to properly assess the man you have to include an analysis of the 100 days and consider the malign influence of that snivelling little pimp, Lloyd George.

I have to agree with John Keegan's assessment that the senior military leaders had been steeped in Napoleonic tactics and technology and weren't able to adapt to the new form of warfare and its requirements. The technological changes had completely changed the battlefield, but en masse charges were what they knew. I just think Haig, like so many other commanders on the Front, was unequipped to fight the new type of warfare.

The technological changes had completely changed the battlefield, but en masse charges were what they knew.

If the Crimean War 60 years earlier hadn't persuaded the top brass that en masse frontal charges were a bad idea, perhaps they could have learned some lessons from the American Civil War 50 years earlier, or perhaps the Franco Prussian War 40 years earlier. Failing that, the Boer war, only a decade earlier.

There's being a slow learner, and there's being a moron.

A product of his time. Most of the other generals weren't any better.

Just for fun…

YouTube link

My Grandfather fought at the Somme as an infantryman on the German side. He survived the war even after taking a bullit to the forehead later in the war.

"There's being a slow learner, and there's being a moron."

Possibly, although there isn't any appreciable difference between the tactical deployment of British infantry battalions in an assault between those on the Somme in July 1916, their children in Operation Epsom, and their grandchildren at Goose Green in 1982.

Still two companies up, 100m between platoons, walking slowly forwards behind an artillery barrage. That is what infantrymen do. The paras had a bit less artillery support though. The Argentinians did not however have defences ten miles deep, unlike the Germans in 1916 and 1944. British gunners were somewhat more efficient in 1944 than 1916 as well.

"There's being a slow learner, and there's being a moron.
"

Or, there's behaving in a manner you have learned and been taught all your life, or behaving in a manner that went completely against that. Nobody achieving command of the forces Haig did in that age was going to be the latter. And there simply weren't any alternative.

It wasn't Haig's fault that Britain:

1. went to war against the most powerful army in the world;
2. had a pitifully small army that lacked heavy artillery and generals experienced in commanding large forces;
3. lacked a large pool of trained reservists;
4. hadn't got an arms industry with the tooling cut ready to mass produce 'material'.

All these problems had to be rectified if the war was to be won. In June 1916 the BEF was composed largely of green volunteers; by November it was battle-hardened, having attacked at night, got to grips with new artillery tactics and gas, invented tank warfare and turned the Somme valley into "the bloody graveyard of the pre-war German army".