Editing Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig (section)

====Casualties====
Haig has been criticised for the high casualties in British offensives, but historians like John Terraine argue that this was largely a function of the size of the battles, as British forces engaged the main body of the German Army on the Western Front after 1916.<ref>Terraine 1980, pp. 37, 105, 108</ref> Although total deaths in the [[World War II|Second World War]] were far higher than in the First, British deaths were lower, because Britain fought mainly peripheral campaigns in the Mediterranean for much of the [[Second World War]], involving relatively few British troops, while most of the land fighting took place between Germany and the [[USSR]].<ref name="westernfrontassociation.com"/><ref>Corrigan 2002, p. 70.</ref> When British forces engaged in Normandy in 1944, total losses were fewer than on the Somme in 1916, as Normandy was around half the length and less than half the size but casualties per unit per week were broadly similar.<ref>Corrigan 2002, pp. 298–300, 408.</ref> David French wrote that British daily loss rates at Normandy, in which divisions lost up to three quarters of their infantry, were similar to those of Passchendaele in 1917, while average battalion casualty rates in 1944–45 (100 men per week) were similar to those of the First World War.<ref>French 2000, p. 154.</ref>

John Terraine wrote:
{{blockquote|It is important, when we feel our emotions rightly swelling over the losses of 1914–18, to remember that in 1939–45 the world losses were probably over four times as many ... the British task was entirely different, which is why the (British) loss of life was so different: about 350,000 in 1939–45 and about 750,000 (British deaths, 1 million including the Empire) in 1914–18 ... – ... The casualty statistics of the Great War ... tell us ... virtually nothing about the quality of ... British generals. The statistics show that ... the British losses in great battles were generally about the same as anyone else's.}}

He also wrote that British perceptions were coloured by the terrible losses of [[First Day of the Somme|1 July 1916]], during which the British Army sustained 57,000 casualties, but that it should also be remembered that the British never suffered anything like the losses of [[Brusilov Offensive|June 1916]], when the Austro-Hungarian Army experienced 280,000 casualties in a week, or of [[Battle of the Frontiers|August 1914]], when the French Army lost 211,000 men in 16 days, or of [[German spring offensive|March and April 1918]], when the Germans lost nearly 350,000 men in six weeks, or [[Great Retreat (Russian)|1915]], when Russia suffered 2 million casualties in a year.<ref>Terraine 1980, p. 45</ref>

Total British First World War deaths seemed especially severe as they fell among certain groups such as [[Pals Battalions]] (volunteers who enlisted together and were allowed to serve together) or the alleged "Lost Generation" of public school and university-educated junior officers. British deaths, although heavy compared to other British wars, were only around half those of France or Germany relative to population.<ref>Corrigan 2002, p. 55.</ref>