Was General Douglas Haig of World War 1 a war winner or a butcher?

Answer 1

That is hard to answer. He was a product of his time, a typical colonial officer. Germany, his opponent, had been winning land, continental wars since Napoleon, and had worked out a far better system of land warfare, especially in the defense. Haig, a colonial officer like all the others, had no idea of a modern war. Haig never learned that infantry assaults against well fortified bunkers with machine guns was a recipe for disaster. He did not win the war, it took all the Allies France, Britain, US and Belgium on the Western Front to win it.

The Prime Minister David Lloyd George despised him and saw to it after the war that he never held another active post. So it depends on who you ask. I think he was a butcher, but when he offered to step down during the conflict, the British government had no other suitable officer to replace him. They were stuck with him.