“If by chance you should discover one day in a restaurant that you are being served by a German waiter, you will throw the soup in his foul face.”
False stories of German soldiers murdering children in Belgium often appeared in newspapers. Any German aged between 17-45 living in Britain were put in prison. The vast majority of the nation actually hated Germany.
Casualties in the First World War were appallingly high. Twenty millions soldiers were wounded, and over eight million were killed. In the British army, one in five of the soldiers never came home. The casualties meant immense sadness not only for those who witnessed the horror of war, but also for those at home who lived in hope of the safe return of their loved ones.
Another major change the government introduced from DORA was conscription. This was only introduced much later into the war when less and less people were signing up voluntarily. The reason for this is likely to be figures of battle casualties getting through, war weariness, the news of trench warfare. Or the fact that letters sent from the government telling certain civilians that their loved ones had been killed got through to many people and many people were able to identify their grief with other people in the same situation. Another reason why conscription was introduced is that the wrong kind of people were signing up: coal miners and munitions workers were needed at home. So less and less people were signing up because of changing attitudes of civilians to the war.
At first thousands answered Lord Kitchener’s appeal and joined up in a great wave of enthusiasm for the war.
The reason for this was probably a mixture of patriotism, the belief that the war would be short (“…over by Christmas…” ), fear of being called a coward, and because of the introduction of “…pals battalions...” where soldiers who were mates could join up together and fight together. The end result being that they saw each other getting horrifically killed. By 1916, 2 million had ‘taken the King’s shilling’ i.e. they had joined up.
When conscription was introduced in 1916 for 18-41 year olds, the skilled workers remained and worked in exempt occupations such as mining and farming. Conscientious objectors (‘conchies’) weren’t signing up either. They existed well before war broke out as Quakers. They only became noticed when refusing to sign up when conscription was introduced. Some people used it as an excuse to ‘skive off’. Some extremists refused to do any work, which directly or indirectly helped the war effort, i.e. by not working in coalmines that produces coal which fuels munitions factories and hence used in guns to kill. But some refused to fight because of certain moral attitudes or religious reasons. Conscientious objectors also had their own magazines in circulation. They too used propaganda to incriminate the government of its harsh laws on conchies, even though many people had no sympathy for them e.g. with the handing out of white feather to conchies (symbolising cowardice). The government also published propaganda to counter that of conscientious objectors’ propaganda.
Gradually many soldiers realised that the fighting was not only not going to be over by Christmas but could go on for years. New methods of warfare were introduced: tanks; planes; and gas added to the sheer misery of most of the soldiers. The thing that most soldiers remember about WWI is mud in the trenches. Plagues by cold, rats, fleas, lice and a shortage of food, many homesick soldiers began to question what they were doing.
“While Haig slept in a cosy bed in a quiet country chateau and dined on the best food available, his men lived in muddy, noisy trenches sharing their bully beef, and biscuits with big, bloated rats. It apparently did not bother Haig that his war was so much more comfortable than that of the men he commanded.”
“We are lousy, stinking, ragged, unshaven and sleepless. My tunic is rotten with other men’s blood and partly spattered with a friend’s brains. It is horrible, but why should you people at home not know? The horror was indescribable… I want to tell you so that it maybe on record, that I honestly believe that Goldie [a mate] and many others were murdered through the stupidity of those in authority.”
“We are slowly but surely killing off the best of the male population of these Islands. Can we afford to go on paying the same sort of prize for the same sort of gain?”
One particular example of a soldier’s changing attitude is of Siegfried Sassoon. He had enlisted before war broke out, and found it glorious. But as he saw more and more people unnecessarily dieing, is attitude changed.
“A Soldier’s Declaration – I believe the war is being prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I believe that this war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of conquest and aggression. I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.”
However not all soldiers or civilians became war weary. Some fight through thick and thin.
“Living through war is living deep. Its crowded, glorious living. If I’d never had a shell rushed at me I’d never have known the swift thrill of approaching death – which is a wonderful sensation not o be missed.”
Almost every family were affected throughout the course of this long war. Because it was long, war weariness developed within civilians’ attitudes and that of soldiers. Most families knew a friend or were related to someone who had lost a loved one from this war. So almost everyone in this country were affected. Total war was also a major factor, with the bombing of eastern and southern towns, to DORA. Due to heavy censorship civilian attitude to war took longer to change than the men fighting on the front. Civilian life changed dramatically during the war. Strikes in factories were banned so that there could be no threat to the productions of arms or other wartime necessities. Many civil liberties that were taken for granted were temporarily suspended.
The horror of the trenches was played down but after 1916 the ever-increasing list of casualties, which the government could not hide, increased awareness in people that many hundreds of thousands were dieing and slowly morale began to falter. Many people just wanted life to return to normal and began to long for the war to be over and for their loved ones to come home.
However civilians did celebrate the end of the war with parties and victory celebrations. Many had no idea what the soldiers had been through and could not understand the weary acceptance of the soldiers. The relief that it was all finally over and life could begin to return to normal was overwhelming and they all believed that it would never happen again. They though that the “war to end all wars” would be a lesson no one could forget.
History Coursework: Source Questions
Q.1 Source A is written by a historian for a textbook. It was published in 1982 therefore more knowledge of WWI would have been known by then. The Source is about the Battle of the Somme in 1916. He says that troops were told that the enemy would have been blasted by the artillery bombardment and the barbed wire would have been destroyed. But he says that in actual fact, the Somme was the worst slaughter ever suffered by a British army. The wire was not damaged and thousands died trying to cut through it because it became even more tangled up after heavy bombardment. The deep bunkers the Germans were in weren’t destroyed either. The Germans gunned down the British as they walked across No-Man’s-Land.
Source B is a photograph taken in September 1916 at the remains of a German machine gun post near Guillemont. It shows the devastation caused by artillery. It has bodies lying about the trench. It also shows a soldier standing there and we know he’s British because of the uniform and helmet.
Source A is written by a historian so it should be reliable but this isn’t always the case. Source A is about what artillery had failed to do for the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Because it was bombarded for eight days but didn’t kill many Germans. It is fact that artillery was the biggest killer of WWI. But on the first day of the Somme, the British had 57,000 casualties due to the Germans strong defences (machine gun). There is evidence now to suggest that the Germans knew there was going to be a major artillery bombardment. Because before the artillery bombardment, it was announced by a government official that the Whitsun bank holiday was to be suspended for workers in artillery ammunitions factories. This probably gave a major hint to the Germans that there was going to be an artillery bombardment. This probably explains why the Germans were very well prepared on the first day e.g. they practised getting their machine guns out and their dug-outs were extremely hard to get at with shells.
So Source A agrees with my own knowledge.
Source B is a photograph of the devastation caused by British artillery to German trenches. But a photograph can’t ever give us a full impression of an event. They are almost always selective, if not actually staged or doctored. This photograph is only a fragment of history. It shows a still, an instant, so one can’t assume that the war was like this all over. If it were then the war would’ve been short, which is certainly not the case. The photograph could be fake but it is unlikely.
I think that Source B is more reliable than Source A for a study of the effect of artillery in the First World War. Because it is a known fact that artillery was the biggest killer of WWI. And Source A can be said to be an instance, because it only comments on the first day of the Somme disaster. Source B shows what artillery is capable of.
Q.2 The general views of the Western Front are trenches, trench foot, rats, mud (on rainy days) or sun baked mud in the summer, smell, bodies everywhere and constantly being bombarded by artillery. But Source F does not fit the image of the Western Front. But then again it isn’t meant to fit the real image of the Western Front because it is an advertisement for cigarettes. And if it contains negative material then it would be difficult to sell the cigarettes.
Combat on the Western Front didn’t involve the soldier sticking their head up to see if any Germans were there. However, the Source does show them wearing the correct uniform that would’ve been worn on the Western Front in 1915. The advert shows the soldiers in a trench and this would’ve been the case on the Western Front. It shows that they each have heavy equipment to carry with them; it shows that they have a Lee Enfield rifle and it shows them wearing hats instead of helmets. These statements about combat are all true on the Western Front in 1915. Steel helmets only became standard equipment in 1916, protecting soldiers from shrapnel.
So a lot can be learnt about combat on the Western Front from this glorified image of the trenches.
History Coursework: Source Questions
Q.3 Source C is a poem called “The General” and is written by Siegfried Sassoon, an infantry officer on the Western Front in 1917. He criticises the war effort and the plan of attack the Generals used (going over the top). He comments on two particular soldiers (Harry and Jack) who were killed as a result of the Generals ordering them to go over the top: “But he did for them both by his plan of attack.” So it could be said that Sassoon is blaming the General for Harry and Jack’s death. Of course there were many like Harry and Jack who got wounded or killed when they went over the top.
Siegfried Sassoon enlisted as soon as the war had been declared. However, after spending a long period at the Front, he got wounded and was sent home. But he became convinced that the war was evil and could not be supported. So Siegfried was enthusiastic at the beginning of the war but as time passed by, the reality of the war kicked into him. This was the case for most of the soldiers at the Front, because they would’ve been used to the plan of attack (going over the top) and deaths like Harry and Jack’s. So even though many soldiers weren’t as enthusiastic about the war when they joined, there were bound to be some soldiers who remained patriotic, or were willing to fight through thick and thin.
A well-known proverb that spread within the trenches was: “Lions led by Donkeys”. The lions being the brave soldiers and the donkeys being the Generals who most of them thought didn’t know how to fight this kind of war.
So Source C is Sassoon’s personal view (opinion), which is likely to be biased. Because he became anti war after spending a couple of years at the Front. So even though it is an opinion, it can be said that a lot of the soldiers felt the same way. That agrees with my own knowledge. A more cynical approach to war would’ve been appearing in soldiers’ minds as time went by.
Q.4 Source D was written by Lloyd George in 1935 and it’s called “Lloyd George’s War Memoirs”. It is written for the public. He criticises Sir Douglas Haig’s abilities as Commander-in-Chief of the army. He calls him a “…second rate commander…” But he did not attack or sack Haig during the war because he thought it would “undermine public confidence”.
Whereas Source E is written by a historian in 1991 and he’s saying that if the test of a successful General is whether or not he wins wars, then Haig must be judged a success. He says that the war of attrition was the proper way to achieve victory. But the historian accepts that some people criticise the cost of Haig’s methods, but he doesn’t see them coming up with any other methods other than attrition. Source E obviously supports Haig and Source D criticises him.
Well Haig was known as Butcher of the Somme when a lot of British lives were lost there. But this was the reality of a war of attrition. Many attitudes of Germans are that the Somme was the turning point of their war. Because Haig kept pounding and pounding at the enemy. It could be said that he wore them down.
Lloyd George is criticising Haig because people blamed Haig for the immense loss of life at the Somme. And Lloyd George didn’t replace Haig. So now in his memoirs maybe he is self-justifying what he did, because he claims it would’ve dented public confidence but it could’ve in fact boosted public confidence
Source E gives some of the good qualities of Haig. The author (a historian) says that there wasn’t any other way suggested or likely to work except a war of attrition. But the historian also recognises the cost at which Haig won the war.
Both sources are secondary. And there was no censorship issued by the government the time they were written. It is fact that Haig won the war, but at a high price. And the success of a general depends on whether or not he wins wars, does it not?
History Coursework: Source Questions
Q.5 World War I was considered at the time, one of the longest wars in history. It has been given the nickname “The Great War”. I am going to try and explain why the war lasted so long using the sources and corroboration.
Source A is from a historian’s perspective on the Battle of the Somme. It helps us a little in trying to understand why the war lasted so long. It tells us that the Germans had “deep bunkers”. So that means the defence aspect of the war was good. But it mentions high casualties, however, this is probably on the first day of the Somme. The war wasn’t like this all the time. Soldiers often complained of boredom. And if there were high casualties everyday, then it would’ve been a short war. In theory, there isn’t meant to be a shortage of soldiers, because every year, a new set of 18 year olds should be arriving. This also explains why the war lasted so long, because if there isn’t a shortage of soldiers, both sides can carry on fighting till the end.
Source A agrees with my own knowledge but only helps a little in understanding why the war lasted so long. It is likely to be a reliable source but not very useful in answering the question. Except for the fact that the enemy had excellent defences, which usually makes wars longer. And Britain wouldn’t be running low on a supply of soldiers.
Source B also doesn’t help us a great deal either. Because if the devastation shown in the photograph was the same for all areas in the war, then the war would’ve been very short. It is only an instance, a still.
Source B can be considered reliable but not very useful in answering the question. However it does agree with my own knowledge.
Source C shows the attitude of one soldier towards the Generals and their method of fighting the war. It is most probably close to what many soldiers felt at the time. But not all the soldiers. And if the Generals were so bad, why did the Allies win the war? But this is a complex argument because there are many factors affecting the outcome of World War I like the USA joining the war etc.
So Source C shows that he has low morale and morale is crucial in a war. But even though Sassoon is ‘grumbling’, it doesn’t mean that he will stop fighting. This would also be a factor in understanding why the war lasted so long. Because even if morale were low, soldiers would rather go on fighting otherwise they will face the prospect of being court marshalled and facing the firing squad.
So Source C can be considered reliable and useful in understanding why the war lasted so long. And it also agrees with my own knowledge.
Source D is an extract from Lloyd George’s War Memoirs and he’s saying that Sir Douglas Haig was a “second – rate commander”. But if the Generals were so incompetent, then why did the Allies win the war?
So Source D isn’t very reliable because it is from Lloyd George’s War Memoirs where he is trying to justify to the public what he did. And it is a little useful in understanding why the war lasted so long. Because it shows that the Generals were facing a new kind of warfare, which it would appear that they didn’t know how to fight.
Source E doesn’t agree with Source D. Source E comments on Haig being a good commander because he won the war. But if Haig was such a good commander, why did the war last so long? Well it comments on Haig’s conventional method of fighting. And a war of attrition is long by its very nature. Source E can be considered reliable because it is from a historian. It also is a little useful in understanding why the war lasted so long.
Source F is an advertisement and it shows the main attacking weapon, which is the rifle. So therefore the main attacking method for this war of attrition is a soldier’s rifle. A good comparison can be drawn between this weak attacking weapon and the strong defensive units like the machine guns, trenches, barbed wire etc. Source F also shows that a soldier has to carry a lot of equipment, which is a slowing down process when trying to get across No-Man’s land. And the slower you go, the easier it is for machine gunners to kill you.
Source F cannot be considered reliable because it is an advert but is useful because it shows that defence was greater than offence, which leads to stalemate, which leads to a longer war.
Source G is an extract from a soldier’s view on life in the trenches. The crucial piece of information is the mud. Because mud was the thing most soldiers remembered in the war. It made you slip, slide or sink on this mud. So mud can be seen as a slowing down process. Mud slows you down and makes you less interested in fighting the war.
Source G can be seen as reliable because there isn’t any reason the soldier would want to lie for. And it can also be seen as useful because it shows that mud was a common sight in the trenches and No-Man’s Land hence it slows you down.
So most of the Sources do help in understanding why the war lasted so long. But it also shows that it is a complex issue and multi-factorial.