Coppard mentions the barbed wire, and how it was not destroyed as the officers assured them that it would be, and it was intact more tangled then it was before. I know that this was the case because shell fire would not destroy barbed wire because there is nothing of barbed wire to be destroyed. And when the barbed was lifted up it would of moved so that any gaps that were there would of disappeared.
In the source Coppard also mentions that the Germans were very well prepared for the attack that the barbed wire had been reinforced. . I know that the Germans were better at creating trenches to defend, they reinforced their trenches with concrete which meant that the snipers could stay in the more forward trenches so that when the British did attack they could take them out with a machine gun or a rifle.
Coppard also hints at the fact that the Germans may have been spying on them. I know that this is a possibility because we learnt that both sides tried to intercept messages from the other side to try and find out what they were doing or if they where planning an attack.
We can trust Coppard’s account because he has no reason to be biased toward the generals because he was a lowest ranking soldier. However he may have been slightly biased against the generals, because he would of lost friends an comrades in the battle and may have felt a lot of anger towards the generals who cam e up with the plan. The source is taken from his diary this mean its is more likely to be an accurate account of what happened as opposed to someone who wrote about the battle many years later.
Frances Tugwell
3. How useful is source C as evidence of the use of gas in world war one?
Source shows the use of gas in world war one and the number of casualties and deaths it caused. The table starts from 1915, which means that there was no recorded use of gas before this year, up till the end of the war in 1918.
The first thing that can see from looking at the table is that the number of casualties greatly out numbers the deaths this shows that the gas was not very effective at killing soldiers so the gas was not used as frequently as the big guns which killed more soldiers then all the other weapons. However because of its affects, depending on the gas, how strong it was and how prepared the soldiers where for a gas attack, on soldiers it did incapacitate them for fairly long periods of time this means that army funds are being wasted on hospital care fro soldiers who may not be able to fight again.
The table shows that the year in which gas was being used was 1916 were for every 6 people injured one was killed. From source c I can see that in 1918 the gas was being used more frequently but was less effective as the table shows that the ratio of people dieing from gas had decreased greatly but the number of casualties was much higher.. This was most likely because by this time most of the soldiers had gas mask to protect them from getting gas in their lungs which would normally result in their deaths.
The source can give us an idea on how gas was used in the war but it cannot tell us exactly how many casualties or deaths were caused because not all the soldiers’ bodies have been found. At Menin Gate for example there are over 50.000 names of soldiers whose bodies were never found.
Frances Tugwell
4. How far does sourced show the battlefield in an accurate way?
The diagram that is shown on the source page shows an air view of a battlefield. The first thing I notice about this source is that there is not geographical detail on this drawing it doesn’t say what area it was from. The picture shows no mans land, and the trenches. On this drawing it shows the communication trench. I know this is accurate because in France and Belgium you can go and see the communication trenches. It also shows that the trenches aren’t straight lines that they were actually more zigzagged this was so that you could never see the full way down a trench this mean that you could turn around a corner and find an enemy soldier facing you. I know that the trenches were zigzagged because when I have seen them in France and Belgium. The picture then shows row of barbed wire in large coils in front of the trenches. We now that barbed wire was used in the war because it is mentioned in most eyewitness accounts it also appeared in photos taken during that war, and some the actual barbed wire is on displays in museums, you can also see parts of barbed wire in source A, and it is mentioned in sources b. The diagram also shows that there where gaps in the wire. We know that there where gaps in the wire because the soldiers would have needed a means to get through the barbed wire in order to attack the opposition. In source B the gaps are mentioned, because it says that when a battle starts and the big guns are being fired the barbed wire is lifted up and become tangled so that the gaps are no longer there. Then in the actual no mans land you can see large craters caused by the shells from the bug guns. We know that these were present in no mans land in world war one because the craters still remain in some areas in France and Belgium, I also no that at some point during the battle it would rain and the craters would fill with water. The craters where one of the biggest problems for advancing soldiers. In source a there are examples of craters being filled up wit water Also labelled on the diagram are the machine gun points, we know that they used machine guns in world war one because they find parts of them as well as them being mentioned in source b.
This diagram cannot give us an accurate account of the battle field because it only a drawing. Source A is an actual picture which shows what was actually happening during part of the war, it is not however a picture during the battle because if it was the soldier in it would have been dead. Source B gives us an eyewitness account of someone who was actually in the battle of the Somme, so he had actually been in the trenches and new first hand what it was like. Source c gives us an account of the deaths that took place during the war. These sources focus more on what it was like to be there but to get an accurate account you would need lots of sources describing every aspect of the battle.
Frances Tugwell
5. Do sources E and F prove that Haig is an incompetent general?
Source E was written by Haig, so Haig will have not purposefully admitted to being an incompetent in 1926, so the source is not going to say that he is incompetent. The source was written 8 years after the war had ended. This statement is mainly Haig saying that he still believes that using horses in wars is a good idea and that they can be very successful. In world war one; horses were not used successfully, as they could not match up to the Germans superior weaponry and defence. Horses where easy targets for snipers and would get court up in the barbed wire and where only used during the beginning of the war before the officers realised they would be unsuccessful. Horses where not used offensively in world war after 1914. I know that Haig was trained as a cavalry soldier so he would be biased towards letting horses into the war this doesn’t make him incompetent. This source shows that Haig was perhaps not paying attention to what was going on in all areas of the war. I know from sources and text books that Haig did not actually go down into the trenches to see what was going on so he never had a first hand experience of what was going on. An officer would report back to him on what was happening and sometimes these officers would change the truth to make it look like they were about to win if they just kept attacking for a little longer. Haig does not seem to like modern technology as he shuns tanks and planes saying that they are accessories.
Source F is written by a modern historian who is biased against Haig’s competence as a general. The source is mainly focused attrition, the strategy used in world war one which was to basically to kill more of the enemies soldiers then they could kill of your men. This source does not really show whether Haig was a good general or not. The strategy which he is basically blaming on Haig was the same idea as what every general on both sides was using, and the strategy did eventually do as they said it would and won the war. This source is based around Haigs work as a general in the battle of the Somme which had the biggest death of soldiers in any other battle in world war one. This was not the only battle that Haig was general during; he had success at points in his career this source is only looking at the negative.
Source B also gives an insight into Haig’s competence as a general. Source b was written by a soldier who fought for Haig during the Battle of the Somme, and although the source doesn’t mention Haig by name it does talk about the generals, being unattached from what was actually going on in the battle. However this is only one soldier’s view of Haig, we have seen interviews of other soldiers who thought that Haig was a good commander.
The two sources do not give enough detail by themselves to make it clear whether Haig was an incompetent general, however combining the sources with my own knowledge I have come to the conclusion that all the Haig was not the best general ever he did have moment when he was more then capable of doing the job.
