Then from your great knowledge of senior British Officers 1914 - 1918, tell us who and why any other commander would have done any better. At the same time you can identify just why Haig was any worse than any of the other commanders I listed.
Haig lost 20,000 men with a further 40,000 injured on Day 1 of the Somme. He continually ignored the fact that he was sending men to their slaughter by sending wave after wave after wave to their death. He was a belligerent fool, as he refused to accept that his tactics of sheer weight of numbers was simply not working. Over 400K Allied troops lost their lives in that futile 10 mile push, and Haig was the man who's antiquated tactics, stubborness and downright idiocy, was responsible for the bulk of them.
I suppose that the fact that the reports that he was getting were to the effect that the 1st wave had been a success, that German trenches were being taken and objectives achieved had nothing to do with the fact that he and his planners were of the opinion that with a little more effort they would still be successful. Strange how an unmitigated disaster can appear very different to a commander who can't see the battlefield and is reliant upon reports. So now demonstrate just how Haigs tactics differed from any of the French or German commanders I listed earlier. As usual lot's of emotional bluster from you but very little fact. BTW I base the above on the War Diaries for Day 1 of the Somme - National War Museum
I gave you numbers i.e fact, you gave me subjective opinion and zero 'facts' Here you go, this about sums it up for me, have a read. http://www.historynet.com/field-marshal-sir-douglas-haig-world-war-is-worst-general.htm
I gave you my source you plank. You obviously merely grab the first populist view and hold it as fact just like the majority of journalists. There's absolutely no point in discussing anything with you.
So a War diary isn't a subjective view? The 'populist' view that has been arrived at by numerous historians and some of the notable figures of the time - Lloyd George being one, is that the man was a buffoon. This view has been sculpted by analysing the facts of the man's total disregard for human life, those lives being that of his charges, the men he was responsible for, and he failed them miserably, by sticking to his idiotic, out of date and frankly plain f**ing stupid 'plan' No wonder that you have such an affinity with him.
You are really really thick. The War Diary for Haigs HQ is certainly not subjective. It details the times and essential comments of all communications - inwards and outwards plus the minutes of meetings. You just cannot get closer to an official record. As for the total disregard of human life then Haig followed a long line of commanders who considered their troops only in terms of their ability to achieve objectives including Wellington. I note you have still not been able to provide a name for a 'better' British commander or indeed been able to display how any of the other commanders tactics fro attacking differed from Haig's so as to reduce casualties. You haven't because you can't because as usual your talking out of your arse.
Post the link to the diary that's not in any way subjective and is indeed a 'statement of fact'? As if you're referring to his own diary then you're an even bigger bell end than I thought you were
TBF Tobes, Richard Holmes put up quite a robust defence of Haig a few years ago on a C4 programme. Now, Holmes is a Sandhurst academic, and 'he would say that', I suppose, but with the advent of the maxim gun war had completely changed, and none of generals of any side, except perhaps Hindenburg, had even learned the lessons of the American Civil War, let alone the Franco-Prussian war of 1871. There were innovations with the introduction of the tank and the aeroplane, but both sides, catastrophically, were more intent on not losing for long periods, entwined with moments of politically inspired 'magic' offensives that would somehow turn the whole war (see Lloyd George, as one of those two-faced politicians, much like Churchill distancing himself from Harris after the Dresden raid that Churchill himself had previously endorsed). In summary though, Haig wasn't the worst, but he was the most responsible and thus should deserve most of the cricism aimed at him - along with most of the staff officers of most of armies at the time.
Sorry for the late reply but exactly - agree entirely. Ignorance is universal unfortunately. On the Haig argument (why is this happening) - think there was a big problem in WW1 due to the class differences between ranking officers and the common soldier which did lead to the war being fought like a bloody game of chess.
Haigs fault lay in his obstinancy. It's easy to fall into viewing through modern eyes but he epitomized the arrogance of the British Military Command. You can forgive the "fighting the last war issue" as its hard to fight the war yet fought, except he insisted on using infantry tactics that had clearly failed in conflicts over the century before (failed even before the machine gun had shown it's devastating effect). So he actually insisting on fighting a "losing" war of a war before. He kept dreaming of a cavalry offensive grounded in his past career that could never happen in the actual war being fought. But as I say, forgive him even all that leading to the Somme. But you can't forgive him repeating every action around Ypres/Flanders when it had clearly been shown to have failed even his own minimum objectiveof win by attrition, never mind ideas of overwhelming assault. The greatest failure though was the half measured response by the politicians. They refused (quite rightly) to send the waiting reinforcements to haig as he would have simply used them up but that should have immediately signalled his replacement, to have a fracture between political will and military objective lead to the no win, win.... As Dave said though, find the replacement that would have really done it different or even could of along that particular 300 miles once the front was in place. The modern mechanical infantry and notion of air supremacy were so much in their infancy to be largely irrelevant to the available commanders. Although the counter to that I suppose is development is driven by belief and will to get it just like anything else. They just didn't see it.
Change the numbers involved and the same charge that is being levelled at Haig could equally be levelled at Harris in WW2. Both were tasked with particular broad objectives and losing human resources at an unacceptable rate. However neither had the power or the technology to hand to effectively reduce the carnage. All they could actually do was enact Churchill's maxim - KBO! As with all commanders Haig has to take his share of the condemnation but to merely trot out the old charges (actually mostly presented post-WW2) without testing it's veracity is senseless.
In fairness now one must see that war in the period was utterly revolutionised and breaking such entrenched lines saw huge revolutions not only in technology but communication, organisation and discipline The break through at messine in 1917 with tanks and rolling barrages and marching at exact pace to exact time shows a totally different war than mins 1914 I think if you were faced with the Somme you'd try barrage and over the top too In any event a terrible war and the difference in tactic and technology is mirrored in WWII where at the start tiny tanks and horse drawn equipment was replaced by jets 60 tonnes tanks and rockets, apc, mechanised infantry and of course the atom bomb Sadly human ingenuity finds fertile ground on war and those in the middle strive to learn It's making the same mistake over and over that's unforgiveable
This^ Can't we reserve this thread for respect and commemoration of the dead without grinding our personal axes?
