In this essay I will discuss whether General Haig deserves to be remembered as ‘the butcher of the Somme’. General Haig’s title of ‘the butcher of the Somme’ originated after the First World War, when, due to large number of casualties Britain suffered from the war and mostly the Somme. The people of Britain wanted someone to blame. This was a coping mechanism in which people could deal with the loss of the ‘lost generation’. Arguably Haig does deserve his nickname. This is because Haig sent thousands of men to their deaths continuously after his war efforts seemed not to be working. For instance 60,000 soldiers died in the first day alone in the battle of the Somme. The reason that so many people died was that Haig ordered his men to walk across no-man 's land. They were easy …show more content…
This shows that he only cared for himself, not for the hard fighting soldiers. Haig did not spend his time on the front line with his men, but stayed away from the direct fighting. This was done not so he could live a luxurious life, but so he was able to see a further stretch of the trenches and plan his tactics accordingly. This is compared to being on the front line and only seeing a small area of the battle field and would therefore have less well planned tactics as they would only take a small proportion of the trenches into account. Hence Haig was acting well in his role, rather being ‘the butcher of the Somme’ as he positioned himself in a position where he could have an overview of the whole battlefield. This resulted in the best planned tactics in the given circumstances. Also, if Haig was in the front line of the Trenches then there was a higher risk of him being killed and then the army would be in a much worse state than actually being in the state they were in when General Haig was in
The reasons being; the military experience of each general and the number of recorded mistakes made by each general during their military expeditions. But as to whether the lack of recorded mistakes by him was as a result of little participation during the war is another
All that seems to be remembered is a reverie; a spectacle of valiance and bravery. The older generation —the ones who were there—simply became the collateral damage. The war, in all its infamy, can never be
It is almost universally understood that the winners of war often write history. With this concept comes the acceptance that history can and is construed in a way that benefits the winner and can hide the truth. In George Robert Elford’s book, Devil’s Guard, Elford accounts for the perspective of a former Waffen SS officer who joined the French Foreign Legion upon the conclusion of World War 2. Throughout this story, many obstacles, adventures, and morals are explored that communicate various perceptions on what war (particularly the war in Vietnam during the French occupation) was like. The book conveys various arguments such as the exploration of unconventional warfare and the struggle of decisive action when the chain of command has
*War is a broad topic. There have been many wars across history. Across Five Aprils is a novel, written by Irene Hunt, about a family living during the Civil War. This book shows the troubles that this family went through; the bad times. None of the good, if there were any.
This disheartening conceit, that eternally battles time for relevance, illuminates lack of importance people place on living beings, and on life in general. Humankind has lost sight of the original divinity of existence a Randall Jarrell, in his chilling anti-war poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” emphasizes the stark contrast between the warm comfort of the speaker’s previous life and his cold, painful sufferings as a gunner at the warfront, in order to condemn the government’s impassivity towards fallen soldiers, treated as replaceable parts in war’s perpetual assembly line. In the first sentence of the poem, Jarrell displays the speaker’s transition into an emotionless soldier at the manipulative hand of the government. At the beginning
troops were very unprepared they made the first attack. That didn’t really help because they were defeated in Detroit. They were facing very well prepared troops from Britain lead by Sir Isaac Brock. The results were very mixed for the U.S. Things over in the West were way better.
They have never seen this style of fighting before and were not ready. The surprise attacks could not be stopped. The British did not expect to be fighting a war like this and had no idea how to counter it. The Americans strategy was t use guerilla warfare and it worked for them the British were completely thrown off guard by this and it cost them the war in the
The Unbeatable Souls The Lost Battalion is based totally on a real story of an American battalion that was sent out to battle during the World War I. Major Charles Whittlesey, a New York lawyer, who ends up in the trenches of France having under his command mostly young, unexperienced men. When Whittlesey and his battalion of five hundred men are ordered to advance into the Argonne Forest they find themselves surrounded by Germans troops when the other battalions instantly withdrew, leaving Whittlesey’s battalion on his own. Confined behind enemy lines, Whittlesey’s battalion turned into the only force in the German army’s plans to move forward. Trapped and with no other way to rescue, Whittlesey is given an opportunity to surrender, but chose to continue fighting and keep his men together.
He clearly wanted nothing to do with the war as he explains "I was too good for this war. Too smart, too compassionate, too everything. It couldn’t happen. I was above it”. Him saying this meant his heart was to full of compassion to kill anyone or be violent to anyone, he was a better man then that he didn 't want the grief of killing someone to hang heavy over his head for the rest of his life, but he was afraid to admit that to anyone until now.
Millions of people have gone through life-altering experiences in their time in World War I. In Erich Maria Remarque’s novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paul Bäumer, a 19-year-old German soldier, narrates his personal memoirs of this war. He describes the mental change and suffering he goes through as he is forced to mature from a young boy to a soldier in order to survive, leaving him permanently scarred from the throes of war. By employing juxtaposition to contrast Paul’s mindset, before and after the war, Remarque demonstrates how the mental health of the World War I soldiers is damaged because of the abrupt loss of their youth, leaving them in a state of survival and mental instability.
He was there for fighting the fight only. He would show very little respect to his commanding officers and to Shaw because he was promoted to Colonel
Throughout the ages, wars have wreaked havoc and caused great destruction that lead to the loss of millions of lives. However, wars also have an immensely destructive effect on the individual soldier. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front written by Erich Maria Remarque, one is able to see exactly to what extent soldiers suffered during World War 1 as well as the effect that war had on them. In this essay I will explain the effect that war has on young soldiers by referring to the loss of innocence of young soldiers, the disillusionment of the soldiers and the debasement of soldiers to animalistic men. Many soldiers entered World War 1 as innocent young boys, but as they experienced the full effect of the war they consequently lost their innocence.
All he did for the war effort was lead soldiers to their death, he never changed his tactics even When he saw that it was killing so many, highlighting his share incompetence; he never tried anything new, only trying the same failing tactics again and again. John Laffin, a military historian states “Haig and other generals must be blamed for wilful blunders and wicked butchery. However stupid they might have been, however they were the product of the system which obstructed enterprises, they knew what they were doing. There can never be forgiveness for their sheer incompetence” This point is inevitably the right one, John Laffin who specialises in military history clearly agrees. Haig obviously doesn’t have the expertise required to plan ahead and protect his soldiers and
He used the war as a tool without even stating that he was talking about the war. But the mere fact each one of us was a part of this war against terrorist was later to be found pointless and we used killing others to try to heal the wounds and be peaceful. In fact, in the essay he wrote “young men dying for no good reason” (Gillman 680) informing the reader that that particular soldier could have only wanted to get his college tuition paid for. Because, he only wanted to get his college paid for and he was randomly killed by a stray bullet make him a
The Battle of Normandy otherwise known as “D-Day” was one of the most famous battles to be held during World War II and took place over a fifty mile stretch of the Normandy coastline. Allied forces that included the United States, United Kingdom and Canada took over Nazi forces which eventually lead to the mass destruction of the German forces. This intense invasion started on June 6th, 1944 and included parachute landings, air and naval attacks and many different phases of land and sea invasions throughout the day. The Allied forces were equipped with a staggering amounts of weaponry including, fifty thousand vehicles, four thousand warships and over eleven thousand planes ready to send into action. Choosing a supreme commander for this attack was crucial and