made it quite clear that the government didnt want any chance of morale loss at home.Aswell as morale loss,if the soldier sent home a dredful letter full of the details of the trenches, their friends and family wouldnt want to sign up , because they would know the truth.
If they didnt say the dates on Sources G and H , I could tell that Source G was with Source F in the Daily Mail together because they are about similar ideas.Source H is very different to the other two.
Sources F and G would have put out during the war because the government censored anything about the truth in the trenches.It showed that life in the trenches at war cant of been all bad if you could muck about with a football.The people at home would see it and think its not harsh out there.The provenance of Source F has 'The surreys play the Game!' as if it was a game, and the Source G also mentions the Surrey regiment. Source H is very different to these two. It would have been brought out after the war had finished, where censorship did not matter, the truth of the reality was uncovered in such like things like Source H. It gives the impression that it was almost impossible to survive when you went 'over the top' and its complete hell, 'Through a man made thunderstorm'.
The purpose of it is to show what life was really like in the war and to tell the whole truth with out covering it up with censorship.Sources F and G's purpose is to keep the spirits up at home once again.
Sources I and J give totally different impressions of the war for a purpose. Source I, had soldiers looking happy and all smart in their perfect uniforms in the trench,that looks nice and hospitable.It has a soldier handing out cigarettes saying 'Time for one more' as if they had all the time in the world to go over the top.It also looks as if the soldiers are quite looking pleased and looking forward to going over the top. The soldier handing out the cigarettes is standing up with all of him to show, this would definetely not happen because he would be blowned up in an instant.
This advertisment for cigarettes has been censored but most of all using the idea of propoganda- to sell the image that the war is noble and peaceful and a jolly nice time.It creates an extreme fake image, again it would be like a recruitement poster, and I would think people signed up when they saw this asvertisment
On the other hand, Source J is very different to Source I in comparison. It was written by Seigfried Sassoon,it says in the provenance that 'His experiences turned him against all war' which implys that any thing from him about war will be persuading people how bad the war was and making people not go to war.This was written after the war , so therefore there was no censorship and he could say what he wanted to .This source gives a reall picture of extremely poor conditions in the trenches
'We looked and saw the mangled bodies of the dead.' The purpose of this is very different to Source I, because Source I wanted to sell a fake image, and Source J is trying to tell the truth and written by a man who is against all war.
Sources F and G were written and drawn at the time of the war and was published in the Daily Mail newspaper. There was censorship controlling what the papers could put out to the public, they showed the people what thet wanted to see, so they see a fake image. Both sources are primary sources meaning that the peole who wrote and drew them were there when it happened so they might be reliable in that way.
I think that the sources are unreliable because its very unrealistic that you would be playing with a football on the first day of a battle,which its says in the provenance.F shows soldiers with their guns and a football coming out of the trenches. G is a poem, and is slightly more realistic and realiable then Source F because it talks about ' The blood poured like water' shows that it was a terrible place to be.The idea of playing football seems stupid to me after reading other sources explaining in details about the harshness of the trenches.This makes the Sources F and G seem unreliable.
The Sources H and J were written the war had finished.Therefore there was no censorship by the government, so they could tell the people what they wanted to tell them.
Source J tells a detailed description of the terrible injuries and mess made by the war. Seigfreid Sassoon explains in great detail 'I rememeber a pair of hands which stuck out from the soaked soil like roots of a tree upside down.' Source H has a first-hand account, according to the provenance, as is Source J but this written over 60 years after the war which maybe loose its reliability because of memory loss. The account tells you tells you about when B.A. Stewart went 'over the top' and explaining his tactics and attacks and that it wasnt easy stayimg alive 'Two young soldiers turned, and shot them'
These are quite reliable sources because I think they are telling the truth. But Source J by Seigfreid sassoon could have been biast against the war and made it more graphic and gruesome then it actually was.The provenance tells you he is against war.So the purpose of this would be to get people to be against war too,telling people about the extreme injury cases .
Source H is telling you about that the conditions are terrible to go out in.
The reliability of the sources seem uncertain to me because J says that he was against the war but it was written closer to the time, so memory loss wouldnt be a problem, and in H the problem is the opposite.
Yes, the British Government did every thing it could to mislead the British people about the trenches.I know this through my own knowledge of the first world war and a number of sources to support it from during and after the war.During the war, the British Government censored every thing from the newspapers to the radio, and even the letters that the soldiers sent home to their families about the trenches.
Source E is a good example of censorship' If any thing is added to this , it will be destroyed' Even the families didnt know what the conditions were like.This government did this so Britains thought it was fine in the trenches and it was in bad conditions. Source I is an excellent example of the British Government, and other people misleading the British population.This uses the trenches as a 'happy' but fake image but the people thought it was real. The Propoganda that they used to sell cigarettes and what
I think is a good recruitement poster for the men to see because nothing in Source I suggests bad conditions and unhappyness, which would encourage the people who smoked theese to join.This source was released during the war so censorship came in to play, which if there wasnt, sources like this wouldnt be able to mislead the British people with unreliable sources such as Source I-which the people believed.
I know it is unreliable because the provenance states it was during the war when it was released and from my own knowledge,the soldier standing out of the trench would be killed in seconds.
Sources such as Sources J and H were not allowed to be issued to the britains because it would be giving them a the real picture or at least a more accurate opinion.In Source J, Seigfreid Sassoon, talks about the terrible conditions and the injuries in graphic detail
'Floating on the flooded surface of the trench was the mask of a human face which had detacthed itself from the skull' he may have been biest against the war , misleading people how bad it was.But the government was not allowing this sort of material to get out-if it was written during the war, in this way they were misleading the public.
The government also fooled the British people by making clever recruitement posters making out that the war was a noble place to go to and was a great place to go.Another example of an after the war source where there was no censorship is Source H. This was written by B.A.Stewart,60 years later in his memoirs he wrote about the reality of his experiences or at least his side of the truth-which may or might not have changed over the 60 years.'What I had in mind was to go as quickly as possible in the opposite direction,as soon as possible.Leaving the dugout, I ran out.'
One extreme to another which shows how badly the government tryed its hardest to mislead the people by using the false 'extreme'
