The Battle of the Somme - source related study.

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The Battle of the Somme

Coursework

Question 1:

Source a shows us the life of the men in trenches during a war. The source is

a secondary sourced book by an English (not British) historian and published

in 1976. the extract does not at any stage write about a particular war or side            

but one can assume from the year of the battle of Somme and the year of the

book, the aim of the author was to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the

battle of Somme.

Source a describes life in the trenches as silly and repetitive, the author

writes that night time was more busier than daytime which means it was

more hazardous. The author attempts to describe that general day to day

situation in trenches. He talks about the trench life of being a daily routine

and of bleak discomfort for the soldiers. This implies that there were often

great periods of quiet.

Source a fails to describe the fighting in trench life and does not mention the

diseases such as trench foot, the soldiers were faced with. It does not clarify

what techniques of fighting used by the soldiers or how they coped when

they had to face horrible situations.

Questions 2

Source b is primary evidence which supports and backs up source a. the

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picture is taken during day time and shows a scene or a quiet trench with

soldiers lying down and one looking towards no-mans land. Source b

supports source a as the guards are relaxing during the day means that most

of the major activated were at night.

The heading of source b tells us the photograph is of British soldiers in

Somme, September 1916. it was photographed by British military. We can

see by the angle of the photograph that the guard is over looking no-mans

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