How useful are sources A, B and C to an historian studying the attitudes of British soldiers to their commanders during the First World War?

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How useful are sources A, B and C to an historian studying the attitudes of

British soldiers to their commanders during the First World War?

     When I evaluate and explain how sources A to C show how British soldiers reacted towards their generals and to find out what they thought of them. When evaluating the sources I will consider, who wrote it, when, for who and why they wrote it. I will also analyse the meaning of particular sources and assess the usefulness of them

     In source A you can see that it is not a real life picture and only a cartoon interpretation of what it might have been like. The soldiers disrespected their generals because the soldiers thought that they were scared to fight. In fact the generals were 35miles behind the front lines, and were well protected. Although if the generals fought with the soldiers on the front lines the morale of the soldiers would increase and they would feel privileged and more confident in winning if they fought with them. In the text a soldier is contradicting the general by saying that the generals absence in essential. A British cartoon company called “punch” made source A and it was made for the people of Britain and had no reason to not tell the truth. It was produced to tell the British public about the Generals being afraid to fight on the front lines. Although this could be a good source in deciding if the soldiers respected their generals, it is only a cartoon so additions to make the generals look bad or soldiers look like that they hated the generals could be exaggerated. Also an important point is that this is only one soldiers view towards their generals so not every soldier would have hated them.

     From source B we can learn that Captain Blackadder has no respect for his general because he calls him “general ‘insanity’ Melchitt”. This source also shows that he disrespected his general because he calls going over the front lines “a mass slaughter”, meaning that no one will survive. This had limitations and positives of a 1980’s programme because there was no actual information to relate to saying that this programme was not true. This could be good for finding information on soldier’s attitudes because there is no one to contradict what they are saying and is not biased towards anyone in any way.

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     In source C it doesn’t necessarily tell you anything that is true because it is about Haig’s leadership in the war, written by his son and he tried to make his father look like a hero. This is not a very good source to get information from because he would most likely be biased towards his father. It was produced in 1998 in the Daily Telegraph so it was not censored and could be seen by mass public. The fact that it was produced in 1998 would mean that most soldiers were dead so there was no argument ...

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