The Somme - source related study.

 Source G is from the German official History of the First World War published in the 1930s. Firstly the source should be biased as it is the ‘German official history’ but the source seems to make more sense and be more reliable then source F. Compared to source F, Source G was written quite closely to the war whereas source F was from a ‘recent’ book. This shows that source G should be more reliable because when Source F was written the writers had had a long time to think about how things could have been done better so in the book they are probably criticising things that they have now thought could have been done differently. At the time of the war everyone must have thought they were doing the best they could including Haig so although it is easy to criticise it is not always fair.

 In source F the writer calls the battle of the Somme “criminal negligence” and says he “knew he had no chance of a breakthrough but still sent men to their deaths” which suggests that the writer believes that the battle didn’t help at all and Haig just wanted to send men to their deaths. Source G contradicts this by saying that “it gave the western powers confidence. Their armies had accomplished an achievement that gave good promise for the future. The confidence of the German troops in victory as no longer as great as it was before.” This shows that the Somme did help greatly because, as has been proved, the loss of German morale helped to break the stalemate and helped The British and French win the war. It also says “A great part of the best, most experienced and most reliable officers and men were no longer in their places”, and talks about “the heavy losses”. This shows that if Haig had “sent men to their deaths” then so had the German commanders as they also had huge casualties. As this is a German source it would be expected to criticise the British and French armies or make excuses for its own army but it doesn’t and instead has praise for the western powers. This shows that the Somme did have a point and both sides lost many men and officers but it does not prove that either side “sent men to their deaths”. Source G seems to prove Source F wrong and is more reliable.

 Source H is written by a British General that had fought in both world wars. By just reading this it shows that the source should be far more reliable then both the other sources even though it was written in 1973. This source supports Haig and says “had Haig not had the moral courage to shoulder the main burden of the struggle in the

Charlotte Blackburn            Coursework 2d

Somme battles of 1916, French resistance would have crumbled. Haig was one of the main architects of the allied victory.” This shows that the general obviously did not think that Haig had sent his men off to their deaths. It says that “Germany’s spirit of resistance was broken” which agrees with source G. The source also states that Haig “never wavered from his purpose of breaking down the powers of powers of resistance of the enemy, both morally and physically” and the men “were inspired by his determination.” This suggests that Haig was not as “unthinking as a donkey” and that his ‘strategy’ was not ‘slaughter’. Both sources G and H are more reliable then source F and also seem to prove it wrong. Source F was written how somebody had seen the battle of the Somme and because of the huge casualties many people would agree that it did look like ‘slaughter’ and there was no point to the battle of the Somme, but both these sources show that even though it was awful and the casualties were huge it did help the allied troops greatly.