Compare and contrast the soldiers experiences of the Great War 1914-18

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Compare and contrast the soldiers experiences of the Great War 1914-18 with the official newspaper reports from the German and British sources; which is the most reliable account of the war?

Source 1A portrays the ugliness of conditions of the war at the Western Front. The soldier has committed suicide in his trench to escape the horrible conditions. Rather than continue to fight, the soldier preferred to kill himself which shows how far some men would go to escape the horrors of the war. He has shot himself probably with his own rifle; he has got the gun pointed to his skeleton face which reveals he wanted his death over with quickly so he would not suffer a slow painful death. Furthermore, he has hidden himself in a corner so he cannot be seen. Source 3E illustrates why someone might want to commit suicide and it backs up this source here.

Source 1B is more abstract than 1A. It is a picture of British casualties who had suffered gas attacks. There is a line of blind men with their arms on each other’s shoulders showing that men were all in it together. We know that they are blind because they have bandages over their eyes.  It seems that the men were blinded for life by the gas showing how savage the war became. This source is linked to source 3A “Dulce Et Decorum Est” as they both represent revulsion.

Source 1C is a picture of repelling German counter attack. The picture is very graphic and portrays a typical depressing battlefield. Again, there are many casualties in the picture showing how murderous and bloody warfare can be. There is barbed wire covering the barren No-Man’s Land and on one side the army men are hiding behind sand bags and are using their machine guns to shoot the other side. It looks to be sheer murder. This horror is backed up by source 3G which also expresses the brutal attacks

 

        Source 2D reveals how frightful the Great War was for these men who were on top of the trenches ready to go over to No-Mans Land with rifles in one hand and gas masks covering their faces. Mustard gas would be very dangerous and severe and without them wearing gas masks these soldiers would have died painfully as source 3A shows. These men are walking over ready to attack the opposite trenches which would be hell for anyone crossing over to No-Mans Land because shells would be exploding in the air and on the ground, machine gun bullets would be knocking down  whole rows of men and killing nearly all of them.  This was a horrible experience for all the soldiers and these circumstances are also shown in source 3A.

Source 2E illustrates another grim picture of the conditions these men faced everyday. In front of these trenches there would be dense barbed wire defences covering the whole area. No Man’s Land would have been muddy and miserable and nearly all the soldiers would not have even got as far as the barbed wire because it was impossible to get through all the shells and bullets from rifles. At the same time heavy machine guns would be towards them five hundred bullets a minute. The barbed wire as well as machine gun nets provided extra protection from enemy attackers, yet on the other hand it became murderous barriers.  The troops faced these grim and dreadful conditions. This Terror is also shown in source 1C and supports this outrageous attack.

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Source 2F is a photograph of a German corpse showing the aftermath of a British attack in 1916. Large numbers of decomposing bodies would be found below the surface. These corpses, as well as the food scraps that littered the trenches, attracted rats and the trenches were soon swarming with them. An artillery shell must have hit this German corpse  before he got to the other side because there is a huge hole in front of the body which shows how large the shells were and how much damage they caused. This photograph explains how much these troops suffered ...

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