Sir Douglas Haig has received severe criticism for his leadership of the British army in the battle of Somme. Haig himself did not doubt his capacity to lead, and indeed, felt himself to be the only choice as commander-in-chief. For the most part, the criticism received was well deserved, as Haig made some horrific decisions that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of men. However, some situations could not have been forseen by him, and it is quite likely any other Commander-in-Chief would have made the same decisions. Yet despite this, Sir Douglas Haig proved to be a poor leader of the British forces and does indeed deserve the criticism he has received from historians and others.

The Battle of Somme was an offensive launched by the British as they wished to relieve the pressure on the French at Verdun and Haig believed that the offensive was absolutely necessary. However, there is much evidence of poor planning and preparation.There was an ineffective attempt made to keep preparations secret.The Germans discovered the plans and strengthened their positions in expectation of the iminant a

The tactic to be employed by the British in the Somme Offensive was a massive artillery bombardment 52, 000 tonnes of shells were fired at German trenches in just over a week. The intentions of the attack on June 24 were to cut the wire and run in and destroy German trenches. However, although the Geman trenches were destroyed, the underground trenches were not. As a result, the Germans were able to crawl out and rapidly set up machine guns in the ruined trenches as soon as the bombardment stopped. As the British troops emerged from their trenches they were slaughtered by German machine gun fire. The British artillery did not support the advancing troops and so they failed to make any significant advances.

There were 20 000 dead and 40 000 wounded on first day. It is estimated that 600 000 British men were lost for this one battle according to the War Office. The French only lost 195 000 and they had just as many men in the field as the British and faced just as many German divisions as the British, yet lost a fraction of the amount of men the British did. This undoubtably is a result of poor leadership.Historian Liddell Hart believed that Haig was “A poor strategist, inflexible and wasteful of men's lives, had little knowledge of infantry war and did not try to find out.” For example, on the 1 July when the Bristish launched their attack and failed miserably, the French delay

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