Do sources D (i) and D (ii) provide any useful information for the historian studying Haig’s decision to attack Ypres in 1917? Explain your answer.

Source D (i) is a very bitter account written by Trevor Wilson about a man who has told him his views and opinions about the situation in hand. He has written about the bad conditions that his men have to perform in mud, rain; these are not the conditions of an army that wants to win the war. He can see that the allied army is very unorganised because they can’t even keep there trenches dry so they can stand in them without being wet from the thighs down. And because of this he has seen the Germans situation and is criticising his own side for everything that the Germans have as an advantage e.g. Dry trenches, ferro-concrete boxes and machine guns. He is also looking from the point of view as a man who knows he is probably going to be killed during one of these supposed useful attacks that Haig wants. But he cannot see the big picture so this means that his views on the situation are limited and are going to be very different to the one’s of General Haigs because Haig can see the whole plan from his point of view.

Source D (ii). This source is much shorter that n the first source but this does not mean that it is not as reliable as the first source. It talks about the men all taking pride in what they are doing and are all pulling to together to put there utmost effort into the jobs they have been given. Even though we may believe that this is a source that can be relied on but then again Philip Gibbs ha probably not been up to the front line and this is why I feel that he ha had to base his account on the evidence that he has got from soldiers that have been to the front line that he has spoken to in the reserve trenches.

And after looking at this evidence I can see that the information from both sources D (i) and D (ii) is not actually relevant to the decision that Haig hade to make during the war, and that all this source can do is help you get a better idea of the atmosphere, conditions and generally give you a better picture of the trenches through the use of text.