Were the British Generals like Sir Douglas Haig responsible for the high casualty figures?
Were the British Generals like Sir Douglas Haig responsible for the high casualty figures? '1916 was a year of killing' - Malcolm Brown, The First World War, 1991. World war one began on August 4th 1914. 'The Great War' lased an unbelievable four years, so it did not end until the winter of 1918. No one expected it to last so long people believed that it would all be over by Christmas. Another thing people did not expect was the fantastically high casualty figures. By December 1914, 90,000 British men had been killed. That resulted in the British army being left with only 10,000 men to win the war. An average of 5509 men from all the forces were being killed each day during world war one. That is over 10 times more men being killed than in the American civil war each day. By the end of the war the British army had lost over 3/4 million men. The exact figure is 761,213 men. Although this is an extremely high figure other countries lost substantially more. The german army had lost almost 2 milliom men by the time the war finally came to a close. After the first day of the Somme over 57,000 British soldiers had lost their lives or been seriously wounded. That is 75% of the British army. Were the British Generals like Sir Douglas Haig responsible for the high casualty figures or were other factors to blame? Was it the lack of training? Was it due to the fact that it was almost
Analyse the two poems 'Dulce et Decorum est' by Wilfred Owen and 'Charge of the Light Brigade' by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Then, compare their differing views on warfare.
Rebecca Newiss GCSE English Coursework 1O2 Miss Walsh Analyse the two poems 'Dulce et Decorum est' by Wilfred Owen and 'Charge of the Light Brigade' by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Then, compare their differing views on warfare. In this essay I intend to discuss the two passionately opinionated war poems, 'Dulce et Decorum est' by Wilfred Owen based on WW1 and 'Charge of the Light Brigade' by Alfred Lord Tennyson which portrays the Crimean war against Russia. Both poems are heart wrenching, emotional and thought provoking, and expressively highlight the issues of war, glory, death and heroism, all in explicit detail and compelling imagery. I shall compare how one author can see war as glorious and exciting whereas the other empathises on suffering, injury and loss and tells us the reality in gruesome and uninhibited detail. I shall study how different authors present and explore the brutal realism of war, death and glory within the context of a poem. I shall investigate if first hand experience of war differs the authors view and how they portray the suffering and grievance. I will find the effects that mood, tone, the raised and ignored issues have on their targeted audience and the vivid
'Fools rush into my head, and so I write' (Satire II.i, l.4). Discuss the role of satire in the work of Pope and Swift.
'Fools rush into my head, and so I write' (Satire II.i, l.4).Discuss the role of satire in the work of Pope and Swift. Satire can be defined as trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly, it seems a contradiction in terms to say that satire need have no moral lesson or didactic purpose, for the essence of satire seems to be aggression or criticism, and criticism implies a systematic measure of good and bad. An object is criticised because it falls short of some standard which the critic desires that it should reach. Inseparable from any definition of satire is its corrective purpose, expressed through a critical mode which ridicules or otherwise attacks those conditions needing reformation in the opinion of the satirist. 1 The genre of satire is arguably different from most other criticism in that satire's ultimate aim is to improve human institutions or humanity through a combination of criticism and humour. As the text of Gulliver's Travels reveals, Swift is self-consciously aware of this higher moral purpose. His intent is explicitly laid out in 'A Letter from Captain Gulliver to His Cousin Sympson,'2 which introduces the novel. In this document, the fictitious Gulliver airs some of Swift's own dissatisfaction with the changes made to his original manuscript by his publisher Benjamin Motte, who did so in the interest of political
Explore the Portrayal of War in the pre 1900 poetry -
Explore the Portrayal of War in the pre 1900 poetry - "Before Agincourt" by William Shakespeare and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson and also in the post 1900 poetry of Wilfred Owen - "Dulce et Decorum Est", "The Send Off" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth". Before 1900, war was always seen as a glorious thing. People truly believed in the words of the ancient writer Horace, "Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori." This phrase can be translated, as "It is a lovely and honourable thing; to die for one's country". Pre 1900 war poetry was strongly patriotic and glossed over the grim reality of death, preferring instead to display the heroic aspects of fighting. If death was mentioned, it was only in a noble and glorious context. As there was no media coverage of war, the non-combatants did not know the true story. Poets like Alfred Lord Tennyson, who never actually participated in any war, did not portray a realistic outlook of combat. However after 1900, as media coverage increased, non-combatants finally began to learn of the true story of war. Although there were still poets who wrote of the glories of fighting, poets such as Wilfred Owen, who fought and in the end was killed during the First World War, began to write realistically, showing war in a true light, removing any romanticism. In the poems I am going to look at, we can see a clear divide
World War I: Propaganda
World War I Ema McKenzie At the beginning of World War One the British army was very small and relied on volunteers to keep them involved in the War, and because more men were dying than there were new recruits signing up to fill their places, and men didn't want to enlist because no one wanted to die, the government introduced conscription in 1918. This meant that it was made compulsory for any man between the ages of 18 and 41 who was unmarried to enlist into the army. By May men were still dieing fast on the front and conscription was changed so that any men between the ages of 18 and 41 had to enlist regardless of whether they were married or not. Two years after conscription was introduced, so many men were being slaughtered the conscription started taking boys and old men. To try to make up for the number of men being lost, the age boundary was getting farther apart. Once again in January 1918 the ages changed again so that any man, married or otherwise, had to enlist if they fell into the new age boundary of 17 to 55. One may question at this time that even though it was recognized that so many men were dying, why then were the British sending more? It seemed idiotic to keep sending in more and more men when it was obvious so many were dying for no clear reason. It wasn't just one generation that the war was wiping out it was several. Grandparents, young boys
War Poetry.
War Poetry When the First World War commenced in 1914 many young men couldn't wait to sign up and cross the channel to what they thought would be an epic adventure. They believed that it would be an exciting experience and that they would be hailed as heroes when they returned before Christmas after a resounding win. Posters, Propaganda and Poems contributed to this glorification of war. Rupert Brooke was the most famous poet of the first part of the First World War. One of his well known poems was "Peace". The poem is a sonnet and has a typical sonnet rhyming pattern, very structured as though there is a structure and completeness about the act of fighting. It is a poem that glorifies war in a number of ways. Firstly it says that one should leave one's trivial life behind one and go to war. The poet makes war seem very admirable, "there is no ill, grief, but sleep which is mending". It is saying that there is no pain or suffering in war, there is only an honourable death. This is a false image of what the trenches were like. The poet describes civilian life to be cold, boring, dreary, empty and even dirty, "Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary". The poet is saying that if you go to war, you've been "awakened" from a dull "sleep". War will cleanse you "as swimmers into cleanness". The poem raises many questions such as, isn't the love of your country far more
The causes of world war one
This is a map of Europe before 1914, as you can see the Austro-Hungarian Empire dominates what is now much of southern Germany and the Balkans. Germany is what we know presently as northern Germany and Poland. You may also have noticed that England, Scotland, Wales, and Eire made up the United Kingdom. Russia has a vast empire, a massive army (even though it is extremely poorly equipped, and trained). This was all changed by the First World War. The causes of world war one There are many reasons as to why the First World War actually took place, hardly any of them seem of great consequence when examined individually, however when examined together they do seem fairly major, but in my opinion don't merit a world war. Germany and France had a great rivalry after the wars of 1871 in which France lost the colonies of Alsange and Coraing to Prussia. France and it's people bitterly wand to have their revenge over Germany. Great Britain and Germany were also engaged in a hostile race to have the larger navy. This was heightened when Britain released a fleet of dreadnaughts which were the most lethal ships of warfare that the world had ever seen. The five major powers Great Britain At the start of the twentieth century Great Britain had the richest and largest empire in the world. Britain had the most trade and the largest navy on the planet. This had all happened under the
Why was Trench Warfare so terrible
Why was Trench Warfare so terrible? The first thing to do is to define 'terrible' because it helps to answer the question with full meaning. The dictionary definition of the word is; "causing fear, dread or terror, exceptionally bad or displeasing or intensely, extremely bad or unpleasant in degree or quality." Most of these suggest conditions were almost impossible to bear and it was hard to 'see the bright side'. World War 1 was like nothing that had ever happened in the world before. Almost no-one except the ruling politicians agreed with it, which has been proven by soldier's diaries, and most famously the football match between the British and the Germans on Christmas Day 1914. What began as a rapid war of movement soon settled down to static trench warfare and became a brutal war of attrition. Both the Germans and the French and British began digging trenches to stay alive. Eventually parallel trench systems stretched from the Swiss border to the English Channel. There were about 40,000 kilometres of trenches on the Western Front alone. And so Trench warfare became a huge part of World War 1. What did the trenches look like? How did this make conditions terrible? The trench environment affected the way in which a soldier was able to deal with life during the war. The company in a man's battalion, the danger risks and the access to basic humanities could greatly vary
Compare and contrast the work of Owen and Heller in their treatment of war.
Compare and contrast the work of Owen and Heller in their treatment of war The war poetry of Wilfrid Owen and the novel Catch 22 by Joseph Heller contain many creditable and individual features that have helped cement their reputation as two of the most illustrious 'anti-war' writers of the 20th century. However, I feel in order for one to thoroughly acknowledge and appreciate the remarkable attributes that both works accommodate, one firstly needs to develop a clear understanding of their origin and how both context and persona have helped shape each piece. In my opinion, if we were to conscientiously evaluate Owens statement in the Preface to his poetry 'My subject is war and the pity of war; this will perhaps create a platform from which to locate the distinctions and analogies between the two writers. Owen's Preface is catalytic, for its universality allows it to travel, providing one of the many alliances between both Owen himself and Joseph Heller. However it must become clear to the reader that judgement lies in the progression of humanity, the impact of both cannot be dated and enclosed in the time-period of publication, as insisted on by Siegfired Sassoon who wrote of Owen 'The importance of his contribution to the literature of war cannot be decided by those like myself, who admired him as a friend and a poet'. Significance lies in the dictation of the future.
Compare and Contrast 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' with 'Dulce ET Decorum Est.'
Compare and Contrast 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' with 'Dulce ET Decorum Est.' The Charge of the Light Brigade is written by Lord Alfred Tennyson and describes the tragedy of six hundred heroic men on 25 October 1854.. We get the impression it was an Officer of high rank who relayed this story to the poet due to the constant detailed strategy. The second poem, Dulce et Decorum Est, is written by Wilfred Owen, detailing a scene from World War 1. This poem details the cruel suffering these heroic men experienced seen through the eyes of the Commanding Officer on scene. There are 60 years between these two poems which is immediately obvious with cannons and sabres in The Charge of the Light Brigade and the use of gas in Dulce et Decorum Est. Although these two poems are 60 years apart, the horrors and tragedies are similar but it is the poets who paint them in different colours. Lord Alfred Tennyson paints his poem in radiant colours with shining brass as this elite British cavalry force attempt to recapture the guns. They are proudly and heroically charging as a unit "Flashed all their sabres bare" into a situation that we, the reader, know can only end in tragedy and suffering. Wilfred Owen's palette consists of the more murky colours of mud and blood running into each other detailing the actual suffering of the individual soldiers as it happens. There is a fast, charging
