Was Haig a good general, or was he a butcher (i need facts)?

Answer 1

Haig has been viewed as a butcher as he constantly committed troops in hopeless attacks - men fighting across no-mans land into the face of machine guns. These attacks gained very little ground and were to all intents and purposes pointless. He appeared to not to learn from his mistakes, always looking for 'the big push' that would end the war. Personally, I cannot accept that any general who allowed his men to die in the numbers they did on the Somme, Passendaele etc was a 'good general'. Furthermore, when they had the weapon which could help save 1000s of lives, the tank, it wasn't used for a long time and when it was wasn't used in sufficient numbers or in the right way. Haig has had a bad press for many years (just think of the musical 'Oh What a Lovely War'), but in recent times theres has been a revision of this view. His diaries have been quoted from showing how he agonised before a big battle. Big deal. I bet all those that were killed went to their deaths feeling great for knowing that their C in C was worried about them.

Answer 2

Field Marshall Haig was a very good general and much loved by his troops. He was very much a Victorian soldier and fought WW-One along the lines which he understood.

Haig [Earl Douglas Haig] was blamed for the massive death toll after the war ended - it really was not his fault.

The Haig name lives on and is the name of a world famous Scotch Whisky - drink a toast to the memory of Haig.

Answer 3

Something between the two. He was an average general in a war which, contrary to myth, could not have been waged without mas casualties. We managed to avoid that scale of loss of life in WWII because other people did most of the fighting - the weight of the German force was in the East, whereas in WWI it was in the West.
Paradoxically, what Haig was good at was the modern administrative side of being a general.

Answer 4

Unfortunately to reach the rank of general takes time so all the generals in 1914 came to a new way of fighting with new technology with 19th centuary minds conviced the great british bayonet charge would decide the issue and they would all be home by Christmas.He was not alone most of the other generals were the same.Contary to popular belief these generals did not sit sit behind the lines sending millions to their death more generals were killed than in any other coflict over 60 in each of the French,British and German armys.

Answer 5

I think its a little unfair to blame Douglas Haig for everything. He had a staff of high ranking officers around him and I think that a phrase that was doing the rounds at the time was particularly apt "Lions being led by donkeys". Says it all really.

Answer 6

the answer is an unequivocal and resounding "sure". The time period suits (resembling the shoe) so he could placed on it distinctively. Ammianus and West aspect have touched upon the specifics fairly properly so i will not rehash any of what they stated. i visit upload that once the hollow day salvos of the conflict the 12 Scott Fusiliers could be lost in no mans land because the BUTCHER himself watched through a searching glass and could remark "...it became an proper loss". the position each step he took became seen to were through an act of windfall with some type of divine intervention ~ he's and could be continually in my opinion "The BUTCHER of the Somme". My view aspect as you so allowed responders to grant. Have a reliable day! Gerry

Answer 7

Good general??? He was a colonial commander who was used to being taught how to suppress rebellions, strengthen the Empire etc. Machine guns and shrapnel came along and before you could say 'mechanised slaughter' he was relegated into the ranks of extinct species incredibly quickly.

His legacy will be forever linked with poor tactics, unforgivable waste of life, and being an average military man in time of enormous historical singificance.

Answer 8

That depends on who is telling you his story, doesn't it?
To call him a "butcher" now seems easy, but not all of those who call him this would fare any better if they were to command the BEF in France in 1916. One fact can easily be understood - if those who call him such were poets, or novelists, then they would not be able to direct soldiers in an offensive capability either.

Answer 9

Douglas Haig, the son of John Haig, the head of the successful whisky distilling company, was born in Edinburgh in 1861. After obtaining a degree at Brasenose College, Oxford University he went to the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. After he completed his training Haig was commissioned into the 7th Hussars.
Haig was sent to India with his regiment in 1886 and while there worked his way through the ranks. Haig experienced active service in the Sudan (1898) and the Boer War (1899-1902), where he served under Major-General Sir John French. Promoted to the rank of colonel, Haig returned to India where he served in a variety of administrative posts under Lord Kitchener. When Haig became major-general he was the youngest officer of that rank in the British Army.
In 1906 Haig took up the important post at the War Office as Director of Military Training. He worked closely with R. B. Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, to establish a general staff and a territorial army. It was also Haig's responsibility to organize a British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to be deployed in time of war.
In 1914 Haig obtained the rank of Lieutenant General and was given command over the 1st Army Corps of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France and Belgium. Haig commanded his forces at Mons and was praised for his Ypres campaign in 1914. Later in the same year, Haig was promoted to full general and was given command of the recently enlarged BEF, under the supreme command of General Sir John French.
In December 1915, Haig was appointed commander in chief of the BEF. Haig now become under extreme pressure from the French to produce a diversion from Verdun. The first Battle of the Somme was fought from July to November 1916. In that time Allied forces advanced 12km and suffered 420,000 British and 200,000 French casualties.
In 1918 Haig took charge of the successful British advances on the Western Front which led to an Allied victory later that year. After the war Haig's management of the major campaigns, notably on the Somme in 1916, and at Passchendaele in 1917, was criticized by David Lloyd George, the British prime minister. Some military historians have claimed that Haig tactics were deeply flawed. Others have defended his actions and claimed that his approach was largely determined by French demands for continuous action at that part of the Western Front.
After the war Haig was posted as commander in chief of home forces until his retirement in 1921. Haig, who was granted £100,000 by the British government, devoted the rest of his life to the welfare of ex-servicemen via the Royal British Legion. He was made Earl Haig in 1919 and then Baron Haig of Bemersyde in 1921. Douglas Haig died in 1928.

Answer 10

a butcher.if he lost 30 thousand going over the top he would send another 30 thousand.