Source B is an article taken from the news of the world in July 1916. The article is about the progress of the British army and how much ground they have gained and how many German trenches they have stormed. I think this article is evidence of propaganda during the war as if the British army was doing poorly they still would right positive comments about how well they were doing to keep the public at home happy.
Source C is a cartoon from the magazine punch, which was mainly read by the middle class. The cartoon shows generals rehearsing an attack, telling the soldiers that the two differences between a rehearsal and the real thing is firstly the absence of the enemy and secondly the absence of the generals. This source helps us support the fact that the lions were led by donkeys as when the time came to fight the generals would disappear and leave the soldiers on their own. To fight with no orders on what to do therefore leaving them to improvise on what they were going to do. This shows that the British army was not putting up much of a fight and was not very organized as everyman was fighting by himself and not as a team. Making it easy for the German army to kill them as they were well organized and had good leaders how would not run away when war started.
Source D is a piece of writing by Private P. Smith who fought on the western front in 1916. From this source we can tell that everything was not going according to plan as the piece of writing tells us that the cream of British manhood was shattered in less than six hours. We see from this quote that the British army was in big trouble but was this all the doing of the generals disappearing. It was not all the doing of the generals. The piece of writing tells us that Douglas Haig was to blame for this slaughter of British man hood. The soldiers had very strong views on what should have happened to Haig for what he had done. Private P. Smith said he should have been hung drawn and quartered. The source also tells us that the soldiers at war were not very happy.
Source E is an extract from the diary of Sir Douglas Haig. The extract from his diary tells us that the soldiers are in splendid sprit, all the commanders are full of confidence and the whole operation is going according to plan and very well. We know these statements are not true just by looking at sources A, C and D as most of the men that were alive were very angry with Haig and thought that he should be hung and were not in much of a splendid spirit. The statement about the commanders could be true as they were not even fighting so they most of been full of confidence and finally things were not going to plan as the lost most of there army on the first day. Douglas Haig has written in his diary like he is writing a news paper article as he has told so many lies and like he knew that people would read his diary so he wrote what he thought they wanted to hear. This source tells us that the army generals were not the only donkeys around but the biggest one of them all was Douglas Haig as he destroyed the cream of British manhood.
Source F is a description of battle by a war hero A. O. Pollard who won the Victoria Cross in 1918. The source shows us about how disorganized the British army was as they were falling into there own traps and there method of reloading on weapons was also found out by the army and the British could do nothing about it. This show that the army was not ready to fight as they were so disorganized at was just a matter of time before the whole army would have been killed.
Source G is a simple part of list of how many soldiers were killed or wounded from the Sheffield Pals Battalion on the first day of the Somme.
Source G is a from the war memories of Lloyd George. It says that it was not his fault in putting Haig in charge of the army as he did not know that he was unequal to command an army of billions. George is also blaming Haig for what happened. As he killed off most of the British army and nearly ruined the whole country.
I have come to the conclusion that the lions were led by the donkeys from what I have seen from the sources above. Haig had his own ideas of doing things but they went terribly wrong he was too arrogant to see it, which cost most of the lives of many British soldiers. The soldiers had the confidence to fight but the generals made it very hard for them to do anything constructive which would help them make progress.
