Source B is a picture of British ally (Australians or New Zealanders) in a German trench, which suggests they captured it as one soldier is at stand-to position on the wrong side because the fire step is on the left, and so are the barbed wires so therefore they must be in the German front line. I know it’s a German trench because it id deep and wide. The trench would have been captured at night as source A suggests, ‘night was time of major activity’. And the picture is taken at dawn because one of the soldiers is at stand-to position, and it says in source A, ‘men manned the fire-step in case the enemy mounted a dawn attack… known as stand-to’. In source A, it says ‘relaxation was difficult’ but source B shows the men sleeping, but it does look uncomfortable as source A suggests ‘trench life followed a daily routine of bleak discomfort’. Source B only shows a certain amount like the success of ally and doesn’t show fighting so therefore this picture could have been used for propaganda, to keep up moral and get more men to go to war (conscription). In source B it shows an ammunition box on the side, which is broken maybe by a shell or by the Germans so that the ally doesn’t get use of it. Soldiers in the picture have raincoats maybe left by Germans when they leave in a hurry. Source C doesn’t support source A as much as source B because it seems that many people died in source C but source A doesn’t mention deaths of people. Source C is only British casualty rates, not allies or Germans. The death rates start from 1915 because the British did not fight there before 1915, only the French did. There were missing soldiers maybe because some soldiers might have been blown to pieces and cannot be found or buried by shell explosions.
The sources D, E and F are all published, written or shown in 1916.source D is an extract and it is for the children of the Empire (allies). The purpose of the source is to boost moral and get around that allies are united against the evil Germans. This source is not really objective as it shows allies as doing God’s work. We could say the book was published to justify going to war. Source D is not very accurate because it’s not a true reflection of what happened and there’s no criticising of the war. Germans are put down in this source as they said to be ‘cowardly hun’. The source suggests that God is the allies’ side and if the Germans win the world would be evil so it’s a just war. This source is useful in helping me understand why people support the war as this source helps raise moral and people at home would think God was on their side so they would support the war before the world is taken bye the Germans and turned evil.
Source E is a letter written by a soldier called John Raws who writes about his brother’s death so we must question the objective of this source, as John could be irrational. The source does not say who published it or who it was addressed to, but we must assume it was to a relative or friend of his brother as he writes his brother’s nick name, Goldy, which makes it informal. We assume he was killed soon after this letter as it says ‘last letter’ so sometime in August. The source tells us that Goldy dies by general’s order or by own fire as john says he died because ‘of those in high authority’ so generals could have got him killed because of cowardly actions or sent him over and got shot in the back by own fire. The source tells us that both brothers fought together. This source criticises the war. The source is very useful for Australia perspective as they saw what was really happening and voted against conscription. It isn’t very useful in helping us under stand why the public at home supported the war because this source shows us death by our own side, which says that the war is wrong if people are dying from their own fire. I visited a website about Raws and I found that john died 4 days after he wrote the letter.
Source F is a silent film. The film shows allies capturing trenches, firing, going over the top etc. It shows cutting edge technology (at that time) to show the people at home that we got the best resources and this boosts moral. People at home think this is realty because it reinforces their thoughts and understanding of how the war was going, and they have never seen war before so they do not know the realty. People at home watch this and support the war so they make more ammunition and more men are willing to fight for their country and conscript due to pride, so this tells us the film is for propaganda. Some parts are even staged as it would be too dangerous for real battle to be filmed at different positions. Hardly shows any injuries or deaths apart from 3, one of which a injured man being saved by a friend which shows people at home that they support each other. This source is useful in helping us understand why the public supported the war at home because it shows that people at home were not shown exact reflection of war due to D.O.R.A, instead parts were shown to suit what response the government wanted from their public. D.O.R.A stand for Defence Of the Realm Act and one of the things this does is prosecute anyone that shows newspapers, films etc that supports Germans their allies.
Source G is a primary photograph and can only give us a flavour of why such huge casualty figures appear because there is no indication of how they died and only a small proportion is shown. The stretchers in the photograph must be there because they might have been used to move the bodies there and the bodies might be covered for respect or cover the wounds. Some men are wearing kilts so maybe Highlanders or Irish regiments and some men don’t have shoes so others might be using them. Source H is sanitized as we do not see actual dead bodies and this source shows us that they’re many deaths because there are many graves and yet many are still being found. The graves were not put there during the battle but in 1919 when the process of digging up and placing individual soldiers in single graves began. The death rates were very high due to bombardments resulting to huge German deaths and the destruction of barbed wire because some men failed to bring there wire cutters so therefore they got tangled in the wire and got shot as they were easy targets. The other reason for such huge deaths is that the Germans knew that the advance was starting so they get into there deep dugouts so that they would not be affected by the bombardments and when it had finish they would run out and shoot down all the British troops and allies, and to make things worse the troops would not be expecting the Germans to be alive they would walk calmly as the generals told them to slowly leading them to their death. Conscription meant that new soldiers would come to fight and these men would not have been battle hardened so they would not know how to fight or how to cope and that would have lead them to death. Germans were also in high ground so it was easier for them to kill so there were more deaths that way as well.