In conclusion, I think that source B supports source A as it is a visual depiction of what is described in A and like A, B only hints at the dangers of trench warfare. They both give us an idea that it was mainly manual labour and that it was hard work and there were horrible conditions. Source C, on the other hand contradicts them both and gives a very dangerous impression of trench warfare. But it must be noted that all the sources are rather sketchy and so they are hard to compare. It is not clear whether source A refers to the Somme or not, B only shows us a quiet day and therefore it gives a wrong impression and C gives only British casualties and tells us that large percentages were actually missing.
3) How useful are sources D, E and F in helping you to understand why the public at home supported the war?
When the war started in August, 1914, 100,000 volunteers were expected in 6 months. 500, 000 joined in 1 month! There are many reasons why the public at home supported the war. Sources D, E and F are different in their utility to explaining why this was.
Around the country, millions of posters were hung up, pamphlets were handed out and newspapers were printed, all propaganda in support of the war. These kinds of things showed the war to be just and the Germans to be evil. This was patriotic propaganda. They also made out that a soldier was the pinnacle of manhood. This idea was already believed by young men at that time so the media tried to build that up as much as possible. Young British men already dreamt of being soldiers and being heroes for their country, effective recruitment campaigns just helped them on their way to volunteering.
The British public had reasons for supporting the war and hating the Germans without propaganda being used. One of the main reasons was that the Germans had attacked an ally first. Another reason that made the public hate the Germans was that the Germans had attacked British civilians when their warships had bombed Scarborough in December 1914.
A further reason why the public supported the war was that they were not informed of the casualty rates properly. They were only revealed in little-known local newspapers rather than national newspapers so that only a few names from the newspaper’s area were listed rather than a huge list on a national scale. This kind of thing was the work of an organisation called ‘Defence of the Realm Act’ (DORA). They were allowed to do anything to help the war effort and keep it popular. This meant that they could censor newspapers or letters from soldiers to their families that might reveal tactics, dampen spirits or turn people against the war. They could also take over industries and land if they needed to and they put up around 50 million posters to recruit soldiers.
Source D is secondary, it is an extract from a children’s book about World War One titled-‘The First Years of the Great War: being the story of the great world struggle for honour, justice and truth. Told for boys and girls of the Empire.’
We are not told the author of the book, but the title suggests that he was British or from a country with the Empire, so he and the book were probably biased. Also, many famous authors had signed a ‘Declaration by Authors in support of the War’ so if he had signed it, then the book probably had to show the war as just. This also gives us a clue as to the purpose of the book; it might have been published as propaganda in support of the war aimed at youths and maybe even the adults that read it to them.
The tone of the extract is very proud and pompous. There is a lot of biased language in favour of the Empire opposed to the Germans:
‘‘Forward went these brave fighters…
…Heroes all!’’
This gives us a good idea of why the public supported the war. If everything they read was written in this way, describing the soldiers as brave, courageous and most of all heroic, it is understandable why the war was popular.
As well as praising the Empire soldiers, it also de-humanises the enemy, calling them ‘the cowardly Hun’. This makes the Germans seem barbaric and uncivilised.
On top of that, it glamorises the war:
‘‘…moving steadily as if on parade before the King.’’
This makes the war seem even more heroic and since being a hero was seen as the best a man can be, young men didn’t have to think much before volunteering and their families would be proud of them and support the war.
The writer mentions other countries:
‘‘As ever the Australians and New Zealanders were to the fore.’’
This must be because the book is for ‘‘boys and girls of the Empire’’. This includes Australia and New Zealand and since it was in the interest of the government to gather support for the war all over the Empire, this would have helped.
Source F is similar to source D in that it is propaganda and it makes the British army look brave and sometimes glamorises the war. It is a video showing primary footage of British soldiers called ‘‘The Battle of the Somme’’ but some scenes were fake so it is partly secondary.
It was seen by audiences in about 4500 cinemas around the country in September 1916- during the latter stages of the Somme. And since it was mostly propaganda, it gave countless people the idea that the British were doing really well and that the war was being won. But it must be said that this film was said to be the most realistic of the films released in that period of time and around 13% of the film showed casualties to British soldier(nothing too shocking though) so some people may have gone away feeling bad towards the war.
Once again, like source D, the film had many heroic scenes of British soldiers triumphing in the trenches and sometimes even helping injured Germans. The latter making the war seem a bit more civil.
The utility of both sources in helping me to understand why the public at home supported the war is very good, but source E is very different.
Source E is a primary authentic part of the last letter written by an Australian, Lieutenant John Raws before his death. It was written during the battle of the Somme on 19th August 1916 and he died a few days later. The tone of the letter is very harsh, mournful, emotional and bitter. This does not in any way support the war. If anything, it would reduce support for the war if read by the public so this source is not useful in helping me to understand why the public supported the war.
The letter was sent to Australia so DORA could do nothing to censor it and it was published by the family members. He had told them to do that if anything happened to him:
‘‘Please be discreet with this letter-unless I should go under.’’
Raws mentions in his letter someone who he calls ‘Goldy’. After my own research, I have found that he was referring to his brother, Robert Goldthorpe Raws. This is what John Raws wrote about him:
‘‘…Goldy and the other officers were murdered through the incompetence, callousness and personal vanity of those in high authority.’’
This is clearly very emotional language; notice how he uses the word ‘murdered’. Details of Robert Raws death are quite mysterious; some say he got shot as soon as he came out his trench while attacking a German trench while some say he was killed by friendly fire. A possibility is that he had made good progress down the German trenches but bad communication meant that the generals didn’t know where Goldy and the other men were and so they were shot down by their own artillery. That could be what J.Raws is mentioning when he writes-‘incompetence, callousness…’ but he could be referring to the tactics of those in high authority and R.Raws just got killed by the enemy in action.
I can infer that John Raws was obviously very disturbed and emotional when he wrote this, so it is possible that he was so overcome by emotion that he was exaggerating and that casts the reliability of this source into doubt. Maybe it wasn’t actually as bad as he writes. Most letters probably weren’t like this and the ones sent to Britain were censored by DORA anyway.
Sources D and F are very useful in explaining why people supported the war whereas E is totally different and may well have put people off war if they read it.
4) Use sources G and H, and your own knowledge, to explain why the battle of the Somme resulted in such high casualties.
World War One and especially the Battle of the Somme resulted in an enormous amount of casualties. I believe there are numerous reasons for this. Sources G and H help to explain this.
Source G is an authentic, primary photographic image showing the Somme battlefield at Pozieres in September 1916, as written in the provenance.
The picture is unclear but we can make out many dead bodies on the ground and four soldiers standing above them. In the background is a sign, which when closely looked at, reads-‘British Military Cemetery-Windmill’. This suggests that a windmill was once there and that there must have many more British Military Cemeteries to have to name them. (Windmill etc…)
Pozieres was a key village that lay between the Somme and Ancre Rivers which the Germans had fortified. It was originally a first-day objective to take over and since the date in source G’s provenance is September, we know that this did not happen. Time must be a big reason for all the casualties. Everything took a lot longer than the British would have wanted. Logically, the more time a battle takes, the more casualties there will be and the Somme was a very lengthy battle.
The source also gives us an idea of the terrain and the conditions in which the men had to go ‘over the top’ and fight in. It is very muddy and bumpy, so it would have been difficult and tiring to walk over while being shot at as well.
This source is good in informing us that there were a lot of casualties, but it is not particularly useful in telling us why there were so many casualties.
Source H is primary, it was our field trip to the Somme battlefields as they are today as Thiepval, Mill Road and Newfoundland Park. The source cannot be completely reliable because obviously the habitat would have changed somewhat in that time, for example the terrain and the weather conditions.
On the trip, we realised the harsh reality of war as we went around the cemeteries and looked at all the graves, of which many were unknown. This backs up source G about the high deaths and missing numbers, but again it only gives clues as to how and why they died.
The trip gave us a good idea of the topography that the soldiers had to fight in. From my memory and the photographs that I took, I can tell that the ground was very bumpy and uneven. Also, British soldiers had to travel uphill when going ‘over the top’. This makes it a whole lot harder and even more so since the British were attacking. This means that they were under pressure to make progress, whereas the Germans just had to stand their ground. The old phrase-‘an uphill battle’ comes into use here. Going uphill would have been tiring, especially since they were carrying extremely heavy packs and trench repair equipment.
Another thing that was noticeable was that the German trenches were a whole lot more deep and probably developed at the time. This is because the Germans had actually had been there for two years before the Allies and had time to build redoubts that would not be affected greatly by the artillery barrage, but the artillery was still the weapon that caused the most damage throughout the war.
We could see the great big shell-holes which could have caused some damage to both sides maybe. It was easy to see why this would have caused so many casualties through the war. I think that the development of weapons was a massive reason for all the deaths in the war.
Artillery had never been used before in this way and so no-one knew how to deal with it. It was inaccurate at first but improvements were made later on as the war progressed.
Another effective weapon to make a big impact on the war was the machine gun. It fired around 600 rounds a minute and would just drill down the walking British. This was underestimated by the British so their tactics were catastrophic against it and this was one of the reasons that it turned into a war of attrition. The more men that were sent in, the more that died.
Something that surprised me was the success of barbed wire:
‘‘Quite as many died on the enemy wire as on the ground, like fish caught in the
net.’’
This quote is from a book written by a British machine-gunner, George Coppard, who fought at the Somme.
In a war where development of weapons was crucial, it is ironic that barbed wire was one of the most effective things. It would be placed everywhere in front of the German trenches, sometimes 50 feet wide. How could they get through this? The British had hoped that their week long artillery barrage would have destroyed the barbed wire. Around 1, 508, 620 shells were fired of which around two thirds contained shrapnel to cut the barbed wire. But all that this would have done would be to fling the barbed wire into the air and have it land somewhere else and maybe get even more tangled! They could do nothing to get rid of it.
If the soldiers got to the barbed wire then they would have to cut through it. This would take ages, what with the wire being laid so thick. This gave the Germans a lot of time to ram them down with machine guns.
This brings us to the tactics. How the generals wanted the battle played out was very different to what actually happened.
First of all, they thought that the week long artillery bombardment would have destroyed the German trenches. This did not happen though; most of the German trenches were too built up for the shells to have much impact on them and most soldiers were unharmed having gone down into deep-dugouts.
The artillery barrage was also meant to cut the barbed wire and demolish the German artillery. This did not happen either. Unfortunately for the Allies, weather was less than perfect that week, low cloud and mist made it near impossible for aerial spotting to take place and so they didn’t know where everything was which made the artillery inaccurate.
Most soldiers thought that nothing would survive that kind of onslaught.
But this was not so and it meant that when the soldiers went ‘over the top’, they faced overwhelming difficulties. The German artillery and machine guns were free to shoot at them.
When it was time to go ‘over the top’ and the artillery stopped, the Germans would have heard a long anticipated silence. On the school trip, we took a moment to listen to the silence. We knew then that it would have been obvious to the Germans that the silence meant the Allies were about to attack. We can infer that the Germans would have got ready to defend immediately.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, the British soldiers then had to walk uphill, on the bumpy terrain, in horrible conditions. The commanders believed that there would be chaos if the soldiers were told to run, it would have been hard to anyway with their heavy packs and trench rebuilding equipment, which weighed around 66 pounds. The walking was also needed to timetable the British artillery so it could back the troops up properly .This gave the Germans enough time to get all their defences ready. If the soldiers had run, would there have been as many casualties?
If the soldiers had got through unscathed, they would then have met the barbed wire and would have stood there trying to cut it while being shot at by machine guns.
It is obvious that all this could have no other consequence than mass casualties. There were other factors too in the high number of casualties. This was the first time that gas had been used in a war as a weapon. It did not have maximum effect though because gas masks were handed out as standard issue. Only 3000 British soldiers died of poisonous gas in the war.
To stay in touch with the base, soldiers had to carry long cables and other equipment. This made communication extremely difficult. Even if soldiers made progress, the generals may have never heard about it and wouldn’t have known where they were. This could have lead to friendly fire and the soldiers being killed by their own artillery.
It was a combination of many factors that lead to so many casualties at the Battle of the Somme. I think the main ones were bad tactics, the length of the battle, weapon development and failure to deal with the enemy’s barbed wire.
5) ‘‘The soldiers who fought on the Somme were lions led by donkeys.’’ Use the sources and your own knowledge to explain whether you agree with this point of view.
The Battle of the Somme is seen today as the worst battle in British history, a catastrophic disaster. Much of the blame was directed to the generals and especially General Haig. He was even given the unforgiving nickname of ‘the butcher of the Somme’.
The statement ‘lions led by donkeys’ was first said by the German general Ludendorff in reference to the British army. It is a very strong and extreme statement and must be looked into before making a judgement about it. Personally, I think that the statement exaggerates but there is a slight accuracy about it.
What the general meant by the statement was that the soldiers were courageous and respectful but they were led by unwise men whose tactics were useless and that they failed to change them despite the lack of effectiveness.
It is a very clever animal metaphor. The typical image of lions is of fearless, tough, deferential animals, whereas donkeys are seen as dim-witted, obstinate things! The idea of lions being led by donkeys is silly, like strength and courage being used in vain. This is similar to the opinion of Ludendorff and others that agree with the statement about the British army.
There are many arguments for both sides. I think the main one supporting the statement and against Haig are the high casualty rates. The numbers in Source C illustrate this fact. Source G gives us a sanitized visual image of these deaths. Both sources agree with the point of view.
It is safe to say that the man who wrote the letter in source E, John Raws would probably have gone along with the statement. He had first hand experience of the Battle of the Somme and his words for the generals were ‘‘incompetence, callousness and personal vanity’’. His belief was that it was the fault of the people in high authority that his brother and other officers died. This suggests that he thought the tactics were not working and that they should have been changed by the generals.
The death rates were extremely high and Haig knew that was to happen. He had warned the country and the politicians that if they wanted victory, they had to be prepared for heavy losses.
Despite this, he was still criticized heavily by everyone after the war, not least the Prime Minister. Lloyd George was the PM then and his opinion obviously mattered greatly. He went against Haig and let it be known publicly. He actually blamed himself for not stopping Haig going on with his attack at the Somme:
‘‘Should I have resigned rather than agree to this slaughter of brave men?’’
He wrote this in his war memoirs. This is a good point. Rather than condemning him after the war, couldn’t he have done something during it?
Haig did not get all bad publicity though. He was actually made Earl Haig in 1919 and then Baron Haig of Bemersyde in1921. This shows that he was merited for his achievements in the war.
I cannot help but agree that the numbers are devastating and do not reflect well on the leadership of the troops. This is what incensed most people. On the first day, he knew that there were around 65,000 casualties but he didn’t change his tactics.
This is not entirely true though. He was the first person, on 15th September 1916 to use tanks in a war. It introduced a new era of warfare. Although they were not very effective, it does show that he had it in him to change his tactics and try something new.
Also, after three years of ‘the Big Push’, in 1918 he used a different offensive tactic. At first, he would use the artillery, which had been improved in accuracy and power, and then his tanks would go in and try to overwhelm the German defences. The infantry would then follow (still walking) and then the cavalry would make a speedy charge.
Many military historians say that Haig’s tactics showed a learning curve, especially in his artillery, which may have led to the victory in 1918. Their opinion is that he was not stubborn and did learn from his mistakes.
Haig’s tactics were severely criticised by a lot of people, but some thought they were effective:
‘‘sensible strategic rationales and qualified as British strategic successes.’’
That was the description of the Battle of the Somme by Dr Gary Sheffield, a war lecturer.
Sources B, G, J and E give us different opinions of Haig’s tactics.
Source G totally supports the statement. It shows dead bodies, which suggest that the tactics were not working and it also shows some standing soldiers who look like they’ve been through a lot of pain and hard work which corroborates the idea of lions.
Source B is different; it shows us a captured German trench occupied by tired British soldiers. This suggests that Haig’s tactics were successful. This goes against the statement about the generals. But it does support the ‘lion’ theory. The soldiers look like they are drained from their capture and this shows bravery and strength. It also shows the bad conditions that they had to endure.
Source J is primary, it is a poem made during the time that supports the statement. It portrays the soldiers as brave and the generals as incompetent. Source E is similar but it is a letter and it is very emotional. It may have been exaggerated by the writer.
The fact of it is that most of what happened was not even up to Haig. First of all, he did not even want to use the Somme area to attack the Germans. It was only under desperate French pressure that the politicians decided to go there. The French were suffering weighty losses in Verdun, which they did not want to lose because it was a symbol of France’s power of resistance. It had been attacked many times in the past but the French still held it.
He could be criticized on how he followed the advice of his second-in-command, Sir Henry Rawlinson. It was he who planned most of the battle and came up with the idea of the British advancing in long walking lines and the long artillery bombardment. Haig should have thought for himself. Perhaps he wasn’t imaginative enough and just selected the most obvious plan suggested by Rawlinson.
They both depended way too much on the artillery. Although it may seem plausible that a week long artillery bombardment would destroy everything in it’s path, the results suggest that they had not tested it out much. The accuracy was terrible, even if it did improve later on in the war. There were also a large number of dud shells which did nothing unless it hit a soldier straight on!
He was oblivious to him how advanced the German trenches were, if they had been like the British trenches then maybe the artillery would have been more effective and destroyed them.
They also should have known that the barbed wire would just hurl up in the air and drop down even more tangled up. More research should have taken place.
A vital mistake the generals made was to underestimate the effectiveness of the machine gun. Haig thought it was over-rated and could be overcome by sheer grit and determination. This frame of mind was perhaps fatal for the British troops and perhaps what created the war of attrition, which could have no other outcome than so many deaths.
It was meant to be a French led attack with British Empire forces support, but because of the bloody battle in Verdun, the French could not supply many troops.
Despite this, Haig had done a very good job with his logistics and preparing for the battle. He had planned everything very well but he and everyone else were completely new to this kind of war and didn’t know quite how to deal with it.
Technology was obviously not very developed then and communication provided a massive hurdle for Haig and the other generals. To keep in touch with the base, soldiers had to carry heavy equipment and wires that could easily be lost or destroyed in the midst of battle. This meant that inaccurate reports were given to them about what progress was being made. This also meant that friendly fire could take place if the generals didn’t know that their own soldiers were there. Source H, the trip, gave us a good idea of why communication was such a problem. We could see that it would have been risky to carry all that equipment across the bumpy terrain and uphill.
What also didn’t help was the weather in the week the artillery shower took place. It was very cloudy and misty. This meant that the general’s plan to find out where the enemy’s artillery and other defences were by sending aircraft over the German trenches was used in vain. Nothing could be seen properly and inconsistent reports were produced. This meant that the British artillery was made even more inaccurate as they didn’t know exactly where to fire.
The commanders were frowned at for their lack of front line experience. Neither Haig nor Rawlinson ever actually went to fight. But maybe this is unjustified criticism. They were generals and their job was to think up tactics. Maybe they thought that preparation and groundwork was more important than simply more men fighting.
Sources A and B give us a description of trench life and the horrible conditions that the soldiers lived in. When you think of it, maybe if the generals had gone in to fight then they would have had more understanding of the war and could have prepared better.
Both sources A and B support the part in the statement about lions because A describes harsh conditions and B gives an ocular account of A. It makes us think that the soldiers must have had to be strong-minded to live in that for so long and prepare to fight for their country. The tension and workload must have been hard to cope with. Source A is neutral on the donkeys comment, it doesn’t really give a mention to the generals. Source B though, disagrees with the donkeys comment as it shows that their tactics were working (Capture of a German trench).
The fact that he was still in charge at the end of the war suggests that his superiors at least thought that that he was doing a decent job. But it could also mean that there was no-one better than him for the job, he was the best man. If someone else had led the army, maybe it could have been a whole lot worse! The death rates might have been higher and the objectives might not have been achieved.
Also, he did not lose his nerve; he didn’t quit and went ahead with his plan despite all the pressure and the criticism.
It is true that all his main objectives were accomplished at the end of the battle of the Somme. They were to
-gain territory in the area of the Somme
-relieve pressure at Verdun by drawing troops away
-kill more German soldiers than British
At the end of the battle, the British had advanced just 5 kilometres. This is not an impressive figure but at least they did advance a little.
The second objective was successfully achieved, German troops were drawn away from Verdun and pressure was relieved on the French army there.
The third objective was also completed, albeit at a heavy price with the British casualties extremely high as well. Official numbers were not released on the German casualties at the Somme but newspapers and inside sources estimated up to 680,000 losses. This was described by German newspapers as a serious and maybe fatal blow to them. The campaign of the Somme and the weakening of the German forces could actually have been instrumental in the victory of 1918.
Success in the Somme and the war was often over-emphasized in books and films. Sources D and F are examples of this.
D is a book about the war for children. It disagrees with the statement in that it suggests success and so the generals’ tactics were effective, but it does portray the British soldiers as valiant (Lions):
‘‘Heroes all!’’
A lot of the media was patriotic propaganda. It half supported the statement, it agreed about the lions but not about the donkeys. Source F is exactly this. It shows mainly heroic scenes of triumph and where it shows casualties, they are not too horrific.
Another form of propaganda, the government recruitment campaign is demonstrated in source I. It is primary; it’s a poster showing an old woman with a young man and in bold white writing is written:
‘‘GO! IT’S YOUR DUTY LAD. JOIN TODAY.’’
This is like D and F in that it supports the Lion theory but not the donkey one.
After looking at the sources and other evidence, it has confirmed my opinion that the statement that ’the soldiers who fought on the Somme were lions led by donkeys’ is exaggerated but that there is a hint of truth about it. It is exaggerated because Haig really had his work cut out during the Somme. It was a new kind of war; he had to improvise a bit with his tactics. He did not even choose the Somme to attack, the politicians did and most of all, his objectives were achieved albeit at a huge price with the deaths of his soldiers. The hint of truth is that there were way too many casualties and maybe Haig should have backed out of the Somme or changed his tactics earlier. He relied too much on the inaccurate and unreliable artillery, which he should have tested out more and he under-estimated the effectiveness of the machine guns.
Bibliography
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2000
