Biography of General Douglas Haig Free Essays

One of the worst ones was when he sent a lot ot troops to an unsuccessful offensive on the Somme River in July-November 1916, which lead to 420,000 British casualties. The Battle of the Somme was one of the largest battles that happened in World War 1 and it was the bloodiest war that happened. HIS strategy of attrition (â€Å"kill more Germans†) also resulted in enormous numbers of British casualties. We will write a custom essay sample on Biography of General Douglas Haig or any similar topic only for you Order Now Yet another flawed plan had been hatched by General Haig in an attempt to defeat the Germans on the French and Belgian Flanders in 1917. This attack was also known as the Third Battle of Ypres. It was a significant attack and a rather large one for It was estimated that 4. 5 million shells were fired from 3,000 guns from the British side. This attack resulted In huge amounts of casualnes for the British. Haig’s original plan for this attack was to push across the Gheluvelt Plateau, take the village of Passchendaele. and then break through to open country. But his attack was not successful and the heavy rain that happened generally slowed the attack down. The thick mud in the trenches clogged up rifles and immobilised tanks. Also the fact that he drainage systems there were mainly destroyed due to the bombing that took place there made everything worse. It was believed that the third Ypres offensive was mixed with his personal teelings. General Haig wanted to achieve a British victory without the help of the French because he wanted to embarrass PM David Lloyd George, who had humiliated him earlier and he wanted to prove that the days of the cavalry had not passed through that attack. In general his talth tor cavalry didn’t do him a lot ot good, also he was slightly too traditional for he said that the machine gun was a much over rated weaporn However, his reputation as a great military leader was not wrong. He had lead amazing battles and allowed the British to progress slowly to their victory In 1918. He did exactly this during his attempt to defeat Germans in July-November 1917; though he had only weakened the Germans. it had paved the way for the final assault. He also naa an amazing sense Tor war. He was one 0T tne Tew people wno naa Knew was going to be a long and terrifying war. But his sense had helped him and his country tremendously when he was able to finally defeat the Germans and brought the war to a conclusion before the end of 1918. How to cite Biography of General Douglas Haig, Papers