History Coursework - World War One Sources Question
History Coursework - World War One Sources Question
) Sources A, B and C are war recruitment posters published by various governments with the aim of influencing more people to volunteer for armed service in the war.
Sources A and B are an earlier type of source, depending on the patriotic fervour that swept Britain at the war's outset, portraying enlistment as a duty to the country and empire. The posters themselves being of an accusatory nature, demanding from the reader "What did you do in the war?" and that they should "Go!", the fighting taking a crusade-like facade in which the only way to please parents, friends and girls was to join up and head towards the fighting. That this was accepted by many, was partly because the war was seen as an adventure, and perhaps because the last war where there was mass recruitment was almost one hundred years previous, the majority of those fighting in the interlude being well-trained career soldiers.
Source C, however, is a much later source, as can be determined from the approach it uses to "persuade" people to enlist, preventing the "mad brute (of) militarism", in this case, a raving gorilla, that represents Germany, from reaching out from Europe (bottom-centre, right) which has been decimated, to the shores of "America" (bottom, centre). The poster compels the reader to joint up for the US army, probably after the USA declared war on Germany, on the 7th April 1917, proving this to be a later source, produced after the war has raged unabated for three years, thus having dispelled the notion of adventure or even perhaps duty.
2) The three posters are very different in the fashion their aims are laid out, nevertheless, there are some similarities between them. The earlier sources provoke Victorian attitudes towards duty, leading to the enrolling of over two million volunteer troops into the British armed services from 1914 - 1916, while source C plays on the moral decency of the reader, calling for a halt to the foul deeds committed by the ape (representing Germany) that has caused the desolation of massive amounts of territory, together with the atrocities committed by soldiers under the direct control of Germany. All the sources stress the importance of duty to the cause, in particular, source C that evokes the prospect of a holy, or just war, in defence of the majority of the people. Respect also plays a significant role in all three sources, and, in what was a predominantly team-based society, a suggestion could be perceived that one would let down the side if the reader did not enlist for armed service. All the posters also suggest that the armies would be on the defensive, not the aggressors in the conflict,
The differences, however are more readily recognised, the patriotism in the former sources being subsequently replaced by usage of basically fear, with the threat from the "mad brute" contrasting to the easy and confident stance of the earlier sources. These sources definitely do not entertain the notion of defeat, let alone the horrors of warfare, which in prior conflicts had been considerable. In both the Boer War and the American Civil War, in which static trench warfare was first developed, and in which over three million men were killed or wounded by weapons, such as the Springfield rifle, which was considerably inferior to the Lee-Enfield (GB) or Mauser (Germany) used in the latter conflict, together with the machine gun, poison gas and more powerful, accurate artillery meant that casualties were almost assured in the Great War, and dissatisfaction or disillusionment rendered the earlier tactics outdated, if not obsolete.
The nature of the conflict also changed over the passing of time, changing from what was primarily a selfish war, fought by Britain against the growing ascendancy of the Central powers as a whole, and Germany especially, whom, by the eve of the war, were challenging Britain on virtually every front except finance, to the prevention of global domination by a single power. This is shown between the posters, the former merely being straightforward recruitment posters, while the latter may be seen to provide external reason for hostilities, due to the massive damage committed by the somewhat deranged gorilla.
3) Once mobilisation begun, the recruiting offices were swamped, with an average of 33,000 men per day volunteering in September 1914, and this did not really fall until July 1915, as source D confirms, there being barely sufficient space for them to be accommodated in barracks, while demand for equipment completely exceeded supply. In the first month of the war, half a million men were recruited, while by February 1916, 2,631,000 men had volunteered for active service, while conscription, begun by the Derby scheme, placing all men aged 18-41 on a call-up list, led to only a further 2,339,000 being conscripted. It may therefore be said of the recruiting posters that they were very effective in their methods of persuasion.
The initial surge towards war led to mass recruitment as source D suggests, however, recruitment was not equal, the majority being from either South East, or from the North, over 50% coming from these regions over the whole length of the war. Source D generally reflects the overall situation, but, being taken from a London burgh, it does only show their success in that particular area. However, the usage of female workers, due to necessity, not equality, together with the recruitment figures already mentioned above, help to prove more or less that source D, whatever its providence, (which is not at all clear) generally recruitment posters were fairly effective, the most famous being left out, Kitchner's finger insisting that "THE COUNTRY NEEDS YOU." It may be argued however, that recruitment posters really weren't needed, that men would join up anyway, from a variety of reasons from boredom, hope that conditions in the army were better than their current situation et cetera.
Unfortunately, there is no date on this photograph so we cannot presume that it was taken before conscription was introduced and if it was taken after then it proves nothing to us. It is impossible to prove a fact until we are 100% certain and in the case of source D proving that A and B were successful in persuading men we cannot be, although it is indeed likely. The photograph may also have been staged; there are many other reasons why it does not prove anything in particular to us.
In the US, the citizens were a little more reluctant to enrol, caused by not only the appalling casualties in Europe, but also due to the virtual lack of any military tradition in the states', the total amount of reserves being merely 32,000, insufficient even to operate large scale manoeuvres, thus in the US, of the 3,097,000 men recruited, only 517,000 were volunteers. So, was the number of enlisters due simply to opposition, or was the enormous difference between the number of volunteers numbers recruited due to something else? No doubt the complete effectiveness of controlling the population through propaganda had a considerable effect, (referred to in Q 4,5,6,7b and 8) however, pictures from around the country such as source D were a regular occurrence. Whole streets of friends joining up in "pals" battalions, which, although exceptionally successful in promoting recruitment, though were disastrous on days like 1st July 1916, where whole towns lost the flower of their manhood for an entire generation. Indeed, the attacks on the Somme, and many other dismal affairs like it, Passchendaele for example, may well have not been possible, bar such unscrupulous recruitment practices, many of the enlisting Sergeants allowing underage enlistment, "smiling they wrote his lie: aged 19 years", (Disabled) sending five different sets of brothers from Eton alone, to their premature deaths. Death, as taught in such establishments, was not one of dehumanising pain where, "eyes writhe in his face" (Dulce Et Decorum Est) after a gas attack, but rather one of Greek and Roman victories together with the "Esprit de corps" and of "daggers in plaid socks" (Disabled). Indeed, the war was skilfully portrayed as a game to be played, as in source F, where the East Surreys, somewhat naively, kick four footballs into no-mans land to launch the assault on enemy positions. The war suddenly seeming ironically similar to the soldier in Disabled, (who) liked "a smear of blood down his leg... to please his Meg" the poem showing at a stroke how effective the recruiting offices were in their quest for blood that would be "poured down shell-holes."
4) The postcard in source E, is atypical of the type of censorship that existed at the front to maintain morale later in the war, as propaganda was used more extensively in order to bolster morale on the home front. The censorship of letters sent by the soldiers could be used by the government to control the reception of the war on a generally more literate population than ever before, as well as the prevention of prior warning of attempted attacks or troop movements, should the letters be intercepted. Unfortunately for the propagandists, this reason may be belittled, ...
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4) The postcard in source E, is atypical of the type of censorship that existed at the front to maintain morale later in the war, as propaganda was used more extensively in order to bolster morale on the home front. The censorship of letters sent by the soldiers could be used by the government to control the reception of the war on a generally more literate population than ever before, as well as the prevention of prior warning of attempted attacks or troop movements, should the letters be intercepted. Unfortunately for the propagandists, this reason may be belittled, as the massive effort needed to arrange attacks, concealment of the movement of men and supplies to the said section of the line, through something considerably worse than a ploughed field, was almost impossible. Therefore, most attacks were recognised long before they took place, while trench "raids" tended to reveal more than any writing by a 'patriotic' soldier from the front. Surprise attacks were thus rare, especially early in the war, infantry tactics being far from competent. However, when surprise was utilised in areas such as Vimy ridge, 1917, where the Canadians achieved total success and took hill 145 commanding the area, casualty figures were much lower. In this case, a light railway concealed through a cut almost a mile long, delivered supplies at night and probably created the impetus for the successful attack that triumphed where the French had failed, taking massive casualties the previous year.
Source D, the postcard allows sentences to be erased (blacked out) by the writer, only the signature and date were to be written, any other writing making the card automatically void. The card itself is impersonal, emanating a positive style, the soldier being forced to choose "I am quite well" or that he is "sick/wounded", the postcard not allowing the discussion of the pain or suffering of the writer, and while it was left to individual officers to censor letters in general going home, these would probably not permit such emotional weaknesses either. Thus the horrendous conditions faced in the trenches remained unspoken of, withheld from the public, while the cowardice or fear they must have felt, homesickness et cetera were all cut, anything contradictory to the pro war governmental campaign being seen to undermine their position.
All that remained in the messages, would be the positive, from articles in the newspapers on the continent that the men read, for example The wipers Times and magazines such as King and Country, together with drama and bands that took place behind the lines. Letters from the front were received regularly, the hobby of writing relieving the boredom felt in many of the quieter parts of the line, both letter writing, and poetry helping to pass the time, while helping their families to feel more secure in the knowledge that they were OK and in good spirits. Poems written like Rupert Brookes' The Soldier and the one in source F also helped to maintain morale, civilians imagining their kin as "gallant soldiers (who) drive (through) the fear of death (it becoming) but an empty name," this source, written after the appalling casualties of July 1st 1916 paints a victory after 57,000 British soldiers were killed wounded or missing, mostly before breakfast, in return for 8000 German casualties and some 800 - 900 yards of bombed out wasteland. Such is the effectiveness of propaganda.
The effectiveness of censorship, however, was not absolute, however, many contemporary accounts written in newspapers published both accounts, a particular example being the First battle of Gaza (a British defeat) that Murray announced as a victory "we inflicted heavy losses and have taken upwards of 900 prisoners... owing to the fog and waterless nature of the country, Gaza fell just short of a complete disaster for the enemy." However, The Times, equipped with a reporter in the area, reported back the actual result on 6th April 1917, together with the Turkish exposition "The fight that developed in the neighbourhood of Gaza terminated in a brilliant victory... the enemy suffered heavy losses and retired in a south-westerly direction." Indeed, a British combatant involved later declared it a "ghastly fiasco."
Reasons for failure of censorship were many: from the horrendous conditions of the trenches, they were probably not the greatest consideration of many, while the individual officers' conscience in many cases prevented them from interfering in what was, after all, private mail. The failure of censorship in some cases led to difficult circumstances, for example, Wilfred Owen wrote a piece on the conditions in the trenches and his feelings about the matter, which was published, and raised a public outcry, as an officer, gentleman, and receiver of both the MM and MC, it would have been impossible to accuse him of cowardice. Despite this, Owen later admitted he had expected to be "shot by firing squad" instead, they pronounced him as mad, and sent him to Craiglockart, Scotland, where he met Siegfried Sassoon and consequently both wrote what could arguably be described as the best anti-war poetry ever. The government surely must have had the last laugh however, as Owen was eventually killed on 4th Nov 1918 by machine gun fire, trying to construct a bridge over the Sambre Canal.
5) There are definite differences between the varying sources from the war, much of this created by the various ages of the pieces, as well as their individual style that varied with the course of the war, for one reason or another. From the sources available, the greatest, most noticeable factor that differentiates between them is simply the amount and level of propaganda used in the pieces, in particular, for the official releases issued for the public. The level of patriotism (positive spin towards a country, usually increasing in time of war) was increased to compensate for the losses from Kitchners' volunteers, the first mass-volunteers to the British army for over a hundred years. Inadequately trained, indifferently equipped, and ineffectively led, they paid with their lives by the thousand, merely because of the illogic reservations in the higher echelons of command, that they would not fight, and would run at the first sight of danger. The result of such lack of faith in the ability of volunteer troops was to cloud the judgement of many commanders, the horrendous casualties being caused by the incredible bravery and naive foolishness of the green troops. Such losses were, in my opinion, caused by the ineptness of the volunteers, together with the lack of proper education about conditions in the trenches. Time in England being taken up with march and drill, not the tactics of trench attack and defence, result being that the troops moved forward, achieving the impossible simply because they failed to recognise what was impossible. However, the penalty of glorious valour, created by utter stupidity, the threat of firing squads, together with sources like F and G, created a situation where whole regiments were destroyed, ordered to 'walk' towards the opposing trenches, methods such as movement and fire reckoned to "impede the advance." Indeed, source F is useful for reference at this point, and despite being drawn in England as propaganda for the general public, the losses portrayed, are probably fairly realistic, while the rate of fire, although already shown as strong, is almost certainly underestimated, or underplayed. In areas around the Belgium town of Ypres (Ieper in Flemish) salients created vicious cross-fire by both machine-guns and artillery, (the latter known as "enfilading" = to sweep a line length to length with fire) created very heavy losses against concrete, attacks against the virtually invincible bunkers, reinforced with 2/5 inch thick iron rods, coming to very little movement in either the first, second or third battle of Ypres, for the loss of between 240,000 and 400,000 men, German casualties being a third of that number.
Anyway, getting back to the primary strand of thought, and the argument for an entire paragraph on the art of warfare was to emphasise the horrors of the Western Front, was to force the idea that public opinion for the war after such a disastrous year, was that the public would not and could not stand the truth (see Q8) thus propaganda was used to cover up the reality, questions about the 'butcher of the Somme' not emerging until later.
Enter sources F and G. Both sources are patriotic and refer top the antics of East Surrey Captain Neville, who, at 7.30 on 1st July 1916, kicked four footballs 'over the top'. Source F showing the bobbling footballs as the men move forward, shells landing all around the Surries, together with the dead, shown, perhaps as this could not be concealed from the public for long. The heroism of the East Surries is conveyed by their poses, arms positioned across the face, all wounds having been taken by presenting ones' front to the opposition, backed up by source, G proclaiming that every man from the East Surrey regiment were "gallant", who therefore could not be hit in the back, thus deserving of their "corner of a foreign field" (Brookes' The Soldier). To suggest that that either report is even wildly optimistic, would be a massive understatement, source G reporting that "the Surries' dribbled the four footballs for a mile and a quarter into the enemy trenches", the net gain by the end of November (attack started July 1) was 5 miles deep at the greatest point, and 18 miles wide. Advance on July 1st however was just "a mile deep and three and a half miles wide" (official Dispatch to Haig).
Source H contrasts with the other strongly patriotic, pro-war pieces, it ironically giving some humour, in a sick sense, clashing source G's "the game" (i.e. team sports e.g. rugby) with the actual feelings of the soldier towards playing as a team "My plan was to walk alone... not get bunched up with the others" and when the advance had taken place, the position taken, though in insufficient strength to hold it, the 'gallant' soldier "ran for it." Indeed, this merely proves what one can already guess; these are real people not 'heroes' while he also tongue-lashes the political commentaries produced at the time (sources F and G) exclaiming that the actual attack on July 1st was made by "overladen porters" this being borne out by the massive equipment lists that the soldier carried as well as his rifle and ammunition. B.A. Steward also talks how these 'gallant heroes' had "turned and shot... two frightened and unarmed Germans." It is very clear that this piece is later, which indeed it is, as such candid speech at the time, many families having lost relations, would have been frowned on. The two newspaper pieces being primarily positive in their stance, their opinion on the attack being that it had been a difficult and hard won victory, not defeat, the newspapers no longer allowed in most circumstances to print anything other than the official version of events, or even have any way of finding out differently about the turn of events.
6) Sources I and J paint different pictures of the trenches, partly because one is simply a cigarette advertisement, aiming to sell as many of their brand as possible to the people at home, as the kind of simplistic approach they had taken towards conditions in the trenches would not, I believe, persuaded men from the front to buy them. The other account is by Siegfried Sassoon, a Jewish semi - pacifist, at least by this stage of the war. The conditions portrayed differ so greatly because the two sources are created by different people for vastly different reasons, Sassoon used to trench warfare, and highly skilled in writing brilliant anti-war poetry (The Redeemer, Attack- which ends "O Jesus make it stop" and How to die.), Sassoon using creative, figurative language manipulatively in order to portray the trenches through his eyes, at least. The "morass of glue-like mud" seeming sinisterly different from the simplistically ideal situation in source I, while the colour picture of that source (in our books) makes an even more interesting comparison, with no shell-holes, and the only mud being the trenches. The heroic pose as the officer prepares to go over the top, with no pack, his handsome youth disagreeing terribly with Sassoon, who remembers faces from the battle, one in particular, "the mask of a human face detached from the skull." Sassoon does not allow the reader to escape from his sentiment, describing in great and in unnecessarily hideous detail, the said situation. The reader is unable to avoid being affected by the piece, in which "a pair of hands (are) stuck out from the soaked soil... one hand seemingly pointing at the sky in an accusing gesture." Source I creates a rather lame sense in comparison, the war being a happy place, the blissful scene adding to the overall picture of beautiful surroundings in which troops would prosper, not be massacred by incompetent generals and be dissected by shrapnel, all the while "trudging through mud." (Dulce et Decorum Est). Indeed, the fact that one of these sources is merely an advertisement, while the other is the diaries of an extremely significant character from the conflict, Sassoon being an eyewitness of the conditions at the front, I tend towards believing Sassoon, however, one must be careful when taking such a stance as Sassoon will obviously use the worst of conditions to illustrate his point as he does in his poetry. As far as source I is concerned, the picture that is drawn of the front will have been produced at home, or very (very) early in the war before conditions at the front deteriorated to the point where a general, visiting captured territory at Passchendaele, broke down and cried "Oh god... did we really send men to fight in that?"
Indeed, a further point to note is that Sassoon finally released his memoirs in the late 1920's, and the accounts produced after the Locarno honeymoon, in which all 50 countries of the League of Nations agreed to put the usage of war to achieve an ends behind them. This may well have coloured Sassoons portrayal of events, while the natural ability of humans to remember not the best may well also have coloured his appreciation of the situation. He does not mention in his pieces the positives, at least the things that made life in the trenches anyway near bearable; from the drama laid on by the army to the rest periods before return to the support lines then the front.
7a) The first three sources I will investigate are E,F and G. I believe that sources F and G are basically manufactured governmental propaganda designed to mislead the public and smooth over the implications of the war, and were published to achieve this end. The sources portray the battle as the triumph of gallantry over the foe, the soldiers dribbling a ball across the battlefield, towards the enemy trench and on, presumably towards Berlin. The truth was a little less use to the propaganda machine: Captain Neville was killed, almost immediately as soon as he popped his head over the parapet, while one of the four footballs was completely destroyed by a direct hit by a shell. This is especially apt in this case, as some 19,000 dead in one day. The bravery portrayed in F and G really worried the machine guns, I'm sure. The term PBI was influenced by such results, and although the attack on the Somme looked reasonable on paper, the numbers of "ifs" meant that the human wave was flattened literally. In hindsight we can say that the artillery should have concentrated on the German line until the British troops were right on top of them, that the lengthened line should not have been used (although this created far fewer casualties than is generally believed because most company commanders disregarded the order) that some parts of the line should have been focused on more strongly (how do you know where the strong points are?) or that more artillery should have been used (despite the fact that Haig and Rawlinson used every piece available).
All of the sources are subject to the Defence of the Realm Act or DORA which enabled the government to dictate what could or couldn't be said about a particularly embarrassing reverse, like the Somme or Passchendaele and also enabled the censorship or monitoring of letters home, together with things like source E, the most reliable of the sources, but the one of the three which tells us absolutely nothing about the conditions at the front, but as a source, it tells us a great deal about the establishment of censorship, the length it reached and so forth, the prohibition of additional information helping to explain the general context of censorship during the war. The lack of information even about the nature of the soldiers injury makes the postcard into a mockery, basically only telling the family that he was not dead, which although obviously of some help or use, does not go anyway near what the relatives deserve to hear from the soldier. It is also possible to point out the reason we cannot ascertain anything about the trenches from source E is directly because it is not supposed to give any information about the front to those at home, the conditions of the trenches being a strictly controlled secret between the front and the government.
The types of censorship applied to the war are considerably more complex than one may automatically assume, and despite the immediate assumption that sources F and G were to cover up a defeat, they could in fact be inferred to aid recruitment: they appeared at a time when recruitment was down and before conscription was introduced, and while it is farcical that recruitment actually rose by a considerable amount after the British army suffered its' greatest defeat since Hastings in 1066. Surely, if these sources are intended to mislead the public, they certainly succeeded in their purpose, the bravery and enthusiasm allowing the recruitment stations a considerable upturn in fortune.
7b) Sources H and J were written, by veterans of the war, Sassoon and Steward, although they were, for obvious reasons, not allowed to be published at the time, thanks to the DORA. The sources paint a vivid incredibly negative impression of the war at its worst, not what the propaganda at the time had said it was like, or even what people thought it was like. The bias of the sources can be argued, sue to the individual cases, Sassoon in particular unlikely to have anything positive to say about the war, while one may also consider the inaccuracy that both time and memory play. The overall effect on the veterans however is not positive, their accounts not making particularly pleasant reading, their situations, like all of those involved, difficult. The sources are certainly not positive, and it is possible for one to say that generally, almost all veterans were totally against the war by the end, and it would be fair to say that the anti war press after the war had taken place, changed many peoples perception of war itself. The images that war should convey, skill vs. skill and man vs. man were not only no longer true, but that these images were played on unashamedly to enable recruitment en masse to the armed forces. This together with the idea of a just war (source C) played on peoples' conscience, and many people at the start of the war did things of which many should be ashamed. As many of the Anti war poets said immediately, Owen for example in In defence of my Verse which, written by Owen in real anger, attacks those who told the youth it was "good and right to fight" unlike Jesse Pope's The Game which suggested that war was merely like a slightly more vicious game of rugby, in which a soldier would return victorious with at worst a broken arm.
The two pieces are obviously the worst memories of the war, published at a time when the reception for such material was positive i.e. the Locarno honeymoon, while the events in the pieces themselves are biased towards the events that are most poignant in their minds, perhaps exaggerated, but probably not, as the veterans from both World War One and World War Two, tend to be similar, of real fear, pain and anguish. However the events depicted are not the general, but the individual, as they are designed to shock, to change peoples opinions from the initial thought that war is good, or to that effect anyhow. There is evidence that the appalling conditions that Sassoon examines are indeed as bad as "a pair of hands... pointing at the sky with a defiant gesture" as our trip to the battlefields, the graveyards Etc. agrees, pictures of the war, be they in black and white, are many, and give useful help towards establishing an overall picture.
8) I believe that the government wilfully and intentionally misled the general public, and even soldiers bearing arms, about the nature of the war, its costs and even its outcome. The usage of propaganda in World War One was, I feel the equal of that used by the third Reich in Nazi Germany, while also considerably more effective, dealing with the opponents of such heavy handed tactics in an equally appalling way. The overall opinion I have come to, has been massively changed by the sources I have investigated, and was totally different to that at the start of this coursework. From the accusatory posters demanding "What did YOU do in the war?" to the propaganda delivered in source C announcing that the Germans were deranged gorillas who were not to be trusted, and then the newspaper articles that paint a victory from the most grievous and terrible day of the war, certainly for Britain, and as July 1st was the greatest number of casualties taken on one day by one side in the war, and could conclusively be argued that therefore this was the greatest defeat also, the flower of England lost due to miscalculations in high command together with their inability to admit that they had failed to cut the wire in no-mans land. I also believe that via DORA, the government destroyed all accounts leaving the trenches which did not complement the war, and only allowed information, which it knew would strengthen the pro-war euphoria, to be published in newspapers and magazines. DORA also enabled the government, however unimportant, to trample over the privacy of the volunteers, they not being allowed to include anything negative, or pictures of their families etc. Indeed, source E is almost an exact copy of the 'telegram' system that was used by the government in World War two, when the relatives received a standardised piece of paper in return for their son, brother, father, cousin or other relative. This censorship was compounded by the horrific conditions that the troops were living in at the front, and also the insulting reference by the then commander, Haig, that "he was worried that they wouldn't fight". Indeed, if the people at home had known the truth, I doubt very much that they would have fought, yet their innocence and naivety to reality meant that almost every family in Britain lost a member, while the failure to train men in how the trench warfare system worked also caused a grater number of casualties than could be reasonably expected, callous comments like "the nation must be taught to bear losses" (Haig) adding to the general tone of the war. From the reaction to conscientious objectors to the methods of solving desertion (death by firing squad), together with pro-war releases which defy belief, see sources F and G, painting a picture of the brave heroic Tommy, who guns down prisoners (source H) who were trouncing the opposition, completely at loggerheads with the real turn of events, as written by those actually involved in the war, e.g. Sassoon and Steward.
Indeed, the most horrific thing is that it worked. I mean REALLY worked. Two and a half million men volunteered in the first two years of the war, decimating many towns or cities due to the pals system that was operated. As an individual battle the Somme was devastatingly effective. The aim of Haig had been to relieve pressure on Verdun and also to wear down the German army. In terms of the following years of the war, the Somme was a success for the allies, 615,000 casualties being traded for between 400 and 650,000 Germans, and it may be decisively argued that none of the countries, let alone their armies, were the same after the Somme.
What the government did I certainly consider unacceptable, while their handling of crisis was merely to execute a 15 year old deserter. That they recruited underage "troops" goes almost unsaid, but for the above one can be certain that it was maliciously and intentionally misled the public. The war was not going to be over by Christmas, as it took them three years to defeat chicken farmers in the Cape, while the promotion of incompetents to commands above their deserved station led to the almost continual bungling of attacks, Gallipoli for example.
9) A Historian writing in 1918 about the trench conditions would almost certainly had a different account than one writing later. Part of the reason for a difference of opinion about how the war was conducted comes from the fact that we today are in possession of a great deal of material that would not be released due to the Official Secrets Act, although even now some sensitive issues EG executions of deserters, which those from the time would not have had to use or to decipher which we have today. Due to the nature of the conflict, many of those who took part would have painful memories and would thus probably not relish the prospect of speaking about a truly terrible time in their lives: that the memories are still painful today show the depth of anguish felt by the majority, shown most poignantly by Owen and Sassoon in some of their poetry which we cannot even begin to comprehend.
A historian writing at the time may well not be so critical of the government, as they had, after all, won the war, after four years slogging through mud to their necks. They may well have swallowed the lies and deceptions written by the government to cover the reality and truth, and would probably be quite proud of the fact that they had, after all, won. The writer at the time would also come up against sources like I which, not published b y the government, towed the official line. Although I doubt they would be fooled by I, which is obviously too good to be true, or whether they would recognise it for what it undoubtedly is, I don't know, though I would like to believe that they would. They may however not realise that sources H and J were true, or that the trenches were as bad as they have suggested. The truth about the war was, of course finally realised, if only for the reason that it was a political weapon and was used as such by the labour party to considerable effect. Basically, I believe the pieces would be different because we have had time to pause, take stock and question the truth of the matter.
Materials Used
Sources A-J "Britain and the First World War"
Britain and the Great War - G. Hetherton
World War facts and figures - P. Haythornthwaite
914 - 1918 In Poetry - anthology by E.L. Black
History Channel.com
They Called it Passchendaele - Lyn MacDonald
The Great War Generals on the Western Front - R. Neillands (facts + figures about Somme, Yepres etc.)