The Conduct of the Generals on the Western Front

The Conduct of the Generals on the Western Front

With the outbreak war in 1914 no country was to know the devastation

that would out come over the next 4 years.

For many soldiers, the war began and ended in trenches where they were

killed in there thousands. The numbers killed or wounded were

enormous. Each country including Britain, France and Germany were bled

to death. By the end of the first world war it seemed as if a whole

generation of youth was wiped out.

The tactics the Generals employed had a lot to be desired.

The difficulties within comunication were because of the size of the

armies and a lack of radio technology.

The use of low tech defences such as trenches and barbed wire along

with sending men over the top constantly in a war of attrition, were

thought to be an example of bad leading decisions. John Keegan,

Historian states in his description of the Battle of the Somme, it was

a human tragedy and he raises a question "why did they not stop one

battalion following in the wake of another to join it in death?"

I believe that this source is reliable as it is written by a well

known historian.

" 'Butcher Haig'. That's what we called him. He'd think nothing about

sending thousands of men to die. But then that's what you'd expect

from the so-called 'educated' classes." Bill Brooks, a private in

Haig's army, wrote this source in 1993. This source says that Haig

didn't care about sending thousands of men to die, and this made him a

bad General. Bill Brooks thought that Haig believed that people were

expendable because they were uneducated. This source might be biased,

because at the time of the First World War, people were prejudiced,

because they thought that General Haig was a 'butcher', and secondly,

Bill Brooks' friends were killed in WW1, so he had a very bad opinion

of General Haig, which he has had over 79 years (this source was

written in 1993).