Today is Remembrance Sunday when reflect upon the madness and futility of war and remember the dead but there is one man inparticular who should never be forgotten, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig who did so much to provide us with the dead for us to remember.
Haig was the man who from the comfort of his London Office, came up with the idea of sending 100,000 British soldiers 'over the top' to attack well-fortified German trenches, manned by soldiers, armed with a large number of machine guns.
As the British soldiers advanced, told to walk the distance between their own trenches and the Germans 'better to maintain control', they were mown down by machine gun and rifle fire, 20,000 were killed and 40,000 were injured in the first charge alone.
In a stunning bit of insensitive and cruel disregard for his own men and despite his staff imploring him to change his tactics, Haig stated that 'the enemy has undoubtedly been shaken' and decided to continue with his plan of sending his men walking towards certain death for another four months, until winter weather forced an end to his plan which by then, the British military had suffered more
than 420,000 casualties and advanced just 3 miles.
Haig’s chief of staff was driven to the front and, as he viewed scene, broke down in tears and said, 'Good God, did we really send our men into that?'
The image of young men going over the top to walk towards the German machine guns is probably the strongest when we bow our heads at 11am today but Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig should also be remembered as the man who so callously and knowingly threw away so many of those young lives we remember this morning.
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