Haig's Opinions On The Generals Of World War I

Many say that the generals of World War 1 were donkeys and the infantry were lions lead to their death by their generals. Although many historians have their own opinions on the generals of World War I, a lot of highly acclaimed historians believe that the infantry were courageous and brave soldiers who laid down their life for their country. They also believed that the generals were cowardly and sat 30 miles behind front lines and stayed in luxurious conditions compared to that of the infantry and never saw the action of the front lines. I for one agree with this.

The British Generals were crude and ill equipped for the large scale war they fought. From the British empire, under General Haig’s control, 8,904,467 soldiers were deployed. Out

In the summer of 1917, Haig’s army had launched many failed full frontal assaults all along the Western Front. There was only one technological advance that was promising and that was the tank, but due to the conditions and the location that the battle of the Somme took place, it was difficult for tanks to make a large impact on the battle. The terrain along the 300 miles of the Western Front was no less suited to the terrain of the battle of the battles of Ypres which was wet, low lying ground. The tanks couldn’t live up to their full potential but still made a big impact in the later years of the war. Haig was well known for using an older style of warfare from the past century and said in 1926 that “...Aeroplanes and tanks are only accessories to the men and the horse…” and that he believes that a horse will be as useful as it has been in past wars fought. He believed that the cavalry was Britain's way to win the war, and had made the call for the cavalry to be ready to charge only to be shot down by enemy machine guns. Haig was so confident in his battle plans that had been outdated for many years, experiences on the battlefield would not change his opinion due to his stubbornness on the issue. Haig had fantasies of his cavalry to gallop across fields only to send a huge amount of infantry against the enemies, walking slowly in nice and orderly ranks to stay in control but becoming sitting ducks for German machine gun fire. This method of warfare had been proven faulty during the war of 1812, then later in the american civil war had finalised the incompetency of this method on many different occasions. The battle of Cold Harbour, fought in 1864 during the American Civil War, had further proven the