That your grandfather served on the Somme,does not prove that Britain was running out of men .
My grandfather saw the massive loses in his own sector.
At one stage British troops were running out of ammunition on the front line, volunteers were called for to bring supplies from the rear. Two attempts failed due to German shelling. My grandfather ran back, gathered mules and under shell fire managed to get through, whether by luck or the grace of God I don't know, but he did it. His company commander took his name for some sort of award.. Later that day the company commander was killed. My grandfather never got his medal.
The*Somme*led to the loss of 600,000 men on the Allies side; 400,000 were British or Commonwealth troops. When the battle had ended, they had gained ten miles of land. Haig has been criticised by some for his belief in the simple advance of infantry troops on enemy lines. With 20,000 Allied soldiers killed on Day One and 40,000 injured, some historians have claimed that Haig should have learned from these statistics and adjusted his tactics. He did not. However, the Somme attack was not just about antiquated tactics as the battle witnessed the use of the rolling artillery barrage that should have helped the Allied troops as they advanced. That it did not was more a comment on the fact that the Germans had dug in more deeply than British intelligence had bargained for and was less susceptible to artillery fire. Once the artillery firing had stopped, the British had all but signaled that the infantry was on its way.*
he had a stubborn and unwillingness to change his way of looking over the battle as a whole, which meant that even though lots of men were dying each day he still did not change his tactics or the rate in which he used up men ‘the nation must be taught to bear losses’ (Haig, June 1916, before battle of Somme and also even implied that he knew he was doing it yet didn’t care and thought of the men’s deaths as just a*statistic, ‘the nation must be prepared for a heavy casualty list’
You are talking nonsens about the Boer War:in 1899,Haig was 38( a major):how could he be responsible for the slaughter of thousands of British troops ? And,the British losses in the Boer War were very limited :most losses were non combat losses,due to sickness .
Haig was (September 1899) appointed Assistant Adjutant General (i.e. chief staff officer) of French’s brigade-sized cavalry force as it was sent off to the Boer War, not a mere Major as you suggest.
The Boer War was a watershed event for the British Army, the Boers employed hit-and-run tactics that not only caused losses the British could not afford,*they*did not conform to the usual "gentlemanly" rules of war.
Britain suffered 55,000 casualties during the second Boer War, while fighting a mobile Boer force of something like 27,000.
Two factors that contributed to the large amount of casualties were that many British soldiers were physically unprepared for the environment and poorly trained for the tactical conditions they faced. Who's fault was that may I ask?
You are talking nonsens about WWI:the official losses I have given are dead,wounded and missing .If I am not wrong,the British losses for the whole war,on all fronts,from all causes were some 2.5 million,of which 750.000 dead,less than the French,German and Russian losses .
750.000 =some 3% of the British male population .
I repeat :Haig was not incompetent;it was politically impossible that the BEF would do nothing,while the French and Russians were fighting and killed .The BEF had to attack,and could do this only on the Western Front .Thus,Haig attacked,and with results:a lot of Germans were killed.
Frankly,I am astonished that a former military is talking all these nonsens .
There was no way that Haig could attack with less losses .
I'm not concerned with Russian or German loses, my concern is British loses due to Haigs mishandling of the troops under his command.
During (and after) WW1, many people have criticised him. Most of the criticisms were fair, and not many disagreed. He even earned the nickname "Butcher of the Somme" for constantly sending troops, especially on the western front into excessive casualties.
Haig was not a coward; in fact he was exactly the opposite. This was not a good thing. He was rarely defensive or passive and too often offensive, sending many men forward into battles that sometimes even he knew they wouldn't win. Many people were forced into an almost certain death like this.
Another similar criticism is that Haig would often use cavalry to charge around the trench and make an attack. He usually knew that the enemy would be armed with machine guns and other automatic weapons. The cavalry stood little chance against machine guns. Many soldiers (and horses) died like this. What makes it worse it that the horses required a lot of looking after, feeding and cleaning, which wasted a lot of their time and was not worth it just for it to charge into its almost certain death.
Haig himself had never fought in a war/battle, so had little knowledge of what he was sending his troops into. He knew about most of the dangers, but he did not know about the fear of being on a battlefield.
Another criticism is that he expected men to be able to cut through or climb over barbed wires. This was a mistake, and led to many casualties and a big waste of time.
Haig would also give orders to use massive bombardments thinking that they would destroy the enemy trenches making it easier for the soldiers to capture them. This did not go to plan and were almost useless, as the German trenches were too well defended, and very deep as they were defending, stationary, so had more time to dig the trenches.
He built his headquarters a long way from the trenches, usually around 40 miles away. This led to more problems such as taking a long time to send a message from the headquarters to the battlefield. Radio was not efficient then, as it would be costly and may not work, and the signal would have been difficult to understand.