The war on the Western Front

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Basil Adamo

COURSEWORK FOR HISTORY SYLLABUS B

CSU 2: The First World War, 1914-1918

Coursework Assignment: The war on the Western Front

1. The photograph (Source B) was taken by someone who had seen the effect of         artillery bombardment at first hand.  Source A was written by someone who had         not.

        Does this mean that Source B is more reliable than Source A for a study of the         

        effect of artillery in the First World War ?

        Explain your answer using Sources A and B and your own knowledge.

Source B, supposedly the more reliable one is a photo showing the effects of the British artillery.  It is taken in September 1916 during the later months of the fighting near the Somme; it shows the remains of a German machine gun post near Guillemont after an artillery bombardment.  This source shows us that an artillery bombardment can be successful, the picture shows a devastated German trench, the walls of the trench have caved in, there are dead German soldiers and the remains of the machine gun post are non-existent.  Essentially the photo supports the statement that artillery usage was successful.  In theory its helpful when discovering the effects of artillery and in theory it should be reliable because 'a photo can't lie'.  However, this is not so, the reliability of the photo is limited by the fact that it only shows one moment in time.  This photo could show the worst or the weakest of the artillery bombardment, there is no way to tell.  Also the photo only shows us a small section of the Western Front, it doesn't give us a general picture of the extent of the damage made by the artillery.  The photo does not give us an overall picture (we can't tell whether every artillery attack was as successful as this) and because of this the photo's reliability is greatly limited.  

        It seems likely that this photo showed the worst of the British artillery damage because it was taken specifically for the use as propaganda to rally the moral of the British public after the huge deaths early on in the fighting on the Somme.

        Source A, a textbook source is written by Craig Mair in 1982 for use in British schools, it recounts the events from 1914 to 1919.  This source contradicts B, it describes artillery usage at the beginning of the Somme as a failure and blames its failure for the slaughter of the British soldiers.  Craig Mair makes his statement because of the casualties on the 1st of July 1916.  The British suffered 60,000 casualties 20,000 and more of these were deaths.  Mair has produced his textbook passage by putting forward a number of primary and secondary sources.  By doing this he has gained a more complete picture with different facts and opinions.  As a result this source seems to be more reliable even though it is a secondary source.  Also Craig Mair has no reason to lie about the artillery bombardments.  If Source B was used as propaganda then it would be likely that this photo didn’t show a complete picture.  The fact that Craig Mair had no reason to lie when writing his book and that he may well have wished to make clear to a generation of school children just how much the soldiers of the Somme suffered in 1916.  Therefore Source A would be closer to the truth of the artillery bombardments.  

        But, similarly to Source A this source is also limited.  This source tells about the failure of the artillery bombardment on the Western Front, how it didn’t manage damage or penetrate the fortified German trenches.  But, Haig had come across some German trenches in the area that were well fortified and resistant to artillery bombardment.  So why did Haig think these trenches could be destroyed by the artillery bombardment before the attack on the Somme? The limitation of this source is that it doesn’t provide any evidence or explain why Haig thought that he could break through the fortified German trenches.  Therefore it provides facts that showed how the artillery bombardments failed but doesn’t provide any evidence to back these up or to show why this happened.

        One final point to take into consideration is that we cannot really compare the sources fairly against each other.  The reason for this is that each source describes a different point in time of the Somme.  Battle A writes about the early days in July 1916 when the artillery was not successful.  Source B is about September 1916(the battle went on until November 1916).  This effects the sources because of the accuracy of the shellfire.  From personal knowledge I know that the artillery bombardment of WW1 was very inaccurate.  However, the accuracy of the shellfire did increase towards the end of the war.  This would mean that the period that Source A described would be around the time when artillery bombardment was less successful and Source B would describe the time when artillery was becoming more accurate and successful, this would obviously lead to a difference in perspective and opinion of the authors of each source.

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2. Study Source C.

         Is it likely to give an accurate impression of how soldiers in the trenches viewed

   their commanders ?

         Explain your answer using Source C and your own knowledge.

Source C is a poem written in 1917 by Seigfried Sassoon an infantry officer during the First World War.  This poem shows Sassoon's point of view, he is not actually a soldier but a infantry officer and in this poem he comments on how he thinks foot soldier's view their senior officers and also how senior officers view their foot soldiers.  Sassoon is writing ...

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