For Military and History Buffs: Yours thoughts on Field Marshall Haig

[cpgrad08]

Since it's the 100th anniversary of WW1 and I have been on a WW1 kick this past months I thought to ask this question for debate.

Should Field Marshal Haig be remember as a Good General in a bad spot or does he deserve his nickname the Butcher of the Somme.

Personally I think he and most Generals of WW1 deserve the villain status that surrounds the officers of WW1.

Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[HK.227]

Should Field Marshal Haig be remember as a Good General in a bad spot or does he deserve his nickname the Butcher of the Somme.
Personally I think he and most Generals of WW1 deserve the villain status that surrounds the officers of WW1.

Bad only in that he was out of his depth, like most of his colleagues.
Contemporary tactical doctrine was inadequate. In order to overcome this, WW1 strategies for a long time degenerated into trying to solve the problem by using the same doctrine on a larger scale.
It might have been reasoned something like "If we can't attack with a single division and two batteries of artillery because they get slaughtered, let's try with ten divisions and 30 batteries of artillery."

But the reasoning was unsound.
It wasn't really until large scale tanks formations and the storm trooper concepts were introduced, that doctrines really started to change, and something approaching a cost-effective way of achieving the critical mass necessary for strategic breakthroughs was achieved. I would call Haig's handling of the Somme a case of every problem looking like a nail, when all you have is a hammer. You see the same thing all the time in politics, business, and war.

 

[apdst]

In all fairness, none of the generals of WW1 had any concept of maneuver warfare. They were only doing what they knew how to do.