How important was the role of General Haig in the failure of the British to win the Battle of the Somme?

A key reason why General Haig's role was important to the failure to win the Battle of the Somme is because he was very predictable. General Haig had already dropped a number of shells on the German before the battle had even started, making it easy for the German's to predict what his next move would be. He was also over-confident. An example of this was when he dropped a large shell on the enemy lines and expected everone of the enemies to be dead. After falsly predicting that all the enemies would be dead, Haig announced that the British soldiers did not need to run, but walk over the enemy lines because they would all be dead anyway. Another reason is that he did make his plans secretly, therefore whenever the German planes flew over the British line, they were able to see what the British were doing. A final reason why General Haig's role was important to the failure to win the Battle of the Somme is because he completely ignored what his superiors told him to do and the advice they gave him.

On the other hand, a key reason why General Haig's role was not important to the failure to win the Battle of the Somme is because he was not told everything by his superiors, therefore did not know all the key information he would have to to carry out an attack. He also would not have known that during the attack that his tanks would break down. Another reason why Haig's role was not a main reason to the failure to win the Battle of the Somme is because Britain was not very used to fighting, this resulted in Haig's orders being to demanding for the soldiers to follow through with and difficult to fulfill. My final reason why Haig's role was important for the failure from Britain is because it was very difficult to hide from the Germans in their trenches. The Germans had very good planes and thereroe were able to spy on the British when they were planning making it very difficult to hide their tactis from the enemies.

In conclusion, I do think that General Haig's role was important in the failure to win the Battle of the Somme because he was over-confident and predictable. This consiquenced in the Germans killing and injuring thousands of soldiers because they were much stronger as an army at this point than Britian, which Haig should have considered.

	Created by TessaLornaKolster over 10 years ago

Note on General Haig - the Battle of the Somme, created by TessaLornaKolster on 01/06/2014.

General Haig - the Battle of the Somme