The comic in source A is not very helpful for finding out what the soldiers thought of their generals. Punch was a magazine made for the public, therefore it had to appeal to the public. The cartoon was probably made with the ideas of the general public of that time otherwise it would not have sold many copies, punch is a company so money comes before most things, this shows that the punch magazine probably used the public view to attract more readers. Also it does not tell us the date on which the magazine was published so it could have been published after the war, this would mean that they would have used the bias of the population. As this source only shows the views of the public it is not very helpful for finding out the views of the soldiers on the generals. This source only tells us that the general public at the time either thought that or were under the impression that the generals were not very good.
Source C, a statement by Earl Haig, the son of Douglas Haig, although to some extent he is trying to protect his father he puts across some valid points. He says that the soldiers during the war never criticized the generals, it was only the people after the war that started to criticize them. He also said that serious historians were coming to the view that the war had to be thought to the end, people like Dr Gary Sheffield who wrote the book “Lions Led by Donkeys?” was one of the historians that that agreed with this. I know that some of this source is true because I know from my studies that only the people after the war began to criticize the generals. This is probably the most useful source that gives us an idea of what the soldiers thought of the generals. I feel this source links in nicely with source B.
Source B, a scene from the comedy “Blackadder” is much like source A in that it is designed to appeal to the general public, although for a comedy to be good it must be realistic so there is may be an element of truth to it. However, this program was made after the war which links in with source C, this shows that the BBC would have used the bias opinion of the public after the war to make their show appealing to them. The fact is though that this is a comedy, and although there may be a hint of it being based on reality it is probably hardly at all. At the end of the day this program was designed to make money and make people laugh otherwise it would not have been a success, they would have changed things and used the opinion of the public to get the laughs they needed.
Although none of these sources are really that reliable source, C is probably the most reliable. I already know from my studies that people after the war blamed the generals for the mistakes and loss of life, and that people during the war did not really complain, so this shows that source C is at least telling part of the truth. Overall these sources are not really that useful for finding out the opinions of the old soldiers. A part of a soldier’s diary would have been better or something else similar would have been a lot more useful.
