2a) The nickname commonly used to describe the troops of the British Expeditionary Force was the “old contemptibles”.
2b) Source D helps me to reach my answer to (a), because the order of the day is from the Kaiser , who, when he mentions the English, calls them : “French’s contemptible little army”. General French was a British war leader, so I therefore conclude that the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was nicknamed the “old contemptibles”
3) Sources E and F can be very useful to historians of the First World War because they show that there was racial diversity in among the British troops, with Scotsmen wearing kilts, cavalry charges were used against the enemy, and there were big, heavy guns – the British had no light machine guns. Additionally, there were only a few of these guns for each regiment, however, everyone had swords. Retreats could often be very ordered, slow and steady. Many, many horses were used in certain attacks, depending on the terrain :- if the land was flat, then horses could and invariably would be used, however, if the terrain was hilly, and rocky, then horses were unlikely to have been used. No helmets were worn in 1914, instead, caps were worn. However both sides soon discovered that fabric didn’t afford much protection against exploding shells with shrapnel flying around, and so helmets were developed pretty quickly. Instead of having a long, thin horizontal formation, the soldiers and cavalry adopted a thin, vertically arranged formation, one behind the other. The land which the armies were fighting on was quite barren, arid, solid and compact. This may have happened to the ground as a result of the summer and autumn of 1914 being very hot and sunny, as Source F tells us, because in the top right of the picture there is a very bright sun. There was propaganda for enlisting recruits in Britain, as Source E shows. The soldiers look heroic, defiant, impatient, and eager to get the job done, fight the war and then scuttle back home for tea and cakes. This displays the attitude of most of the British population in 1914 – everyone was very patriotic, doing everything they could think of to help their country, and all desperately believing that the war would be over by Christmas.
4) I think that Source I will be a more reliable comment on the Schlieffen Plan because it was written after the war, with hindsight, and General Ludendorff was not in charge of the Schlieffen Plan, so it was easier for him to criticise it. Additionally, Ludendorff was writing up from notes, so with his hindsight he was able to incorporate more of the truth than von Moltke may have written, unintentionally, on the 4th September, 1914. In 1919, everyone knew that Germany had lost the war, and therefore no intelligence about what happened during the war need be censored, so Ludendorff could publish all of his memoirs without worrying about the secrecy of what he was writing. General von Moltke, as head of the German General Staff, would be slightly uneasy about admitting that the entire Schlieffen Plan was breaking up before his eyes especially as much of it was due to his amendments, however, he is truthful about one thing, when he writes: “today, we had a success, but not a victory”. Ludendorff was lower-ranking than von Moltke and this factor would probably allow Ludendorff to be frank about Moltke’s decision as a whole, and the failure of the Schlieffen Plan. I think that if you were to read all his memoirs, you would find a lot more information than you would ever find in von Moltke’s writing, especially as he had had a nervous breakdown by 1915. In Ludendorff’s memoirs, there would be far more reasons, in far more detail, about the failure of the Schlieffen Plan, and von Moltke’s decisions would be subject to much more fair, if not biased against him, criticism.
- These Sources D, E, F, G and H show this answer to be false, and instead, blame the failure of the Schlieffen Plan to be based on the German High Command’s underestimation of the enemy and ill-preparedness of the German army’s resources. Sources A and B, however, agree with the answer, that the offensive of 1914 simply failed because the German High Command did not keep to the Schlieffen Plan, because if the German front that was to encircle Paris in the 1905 Schlieffen Plan, and the three fronts that were to encircle Paris in the 1911 Schlieffen Plan had not been ordered by the German High Command to dig in, then they would have continued marching, slowly, but they would have continued on marching and eventually reached Paris, encircled it, starved it and defeated France. Source C also agrees with the answer that the offensive of 1914 simply failed because the German High Command did not keep to the Schlieffen Plan, because had the Germans not bothered to try and take Liege, and other Belgian forts, and marched on through the country if the railways were blown up, then they would have, again, reached Paris, encircled and defeated France, and then, with part 1 of the Schlieffen Plan completed, they could have turned round and fought part 2 of the Schlieffen Plan, on the Eastern Front, against Russia. Finally, Source I agrees with the answer, because if von Moltke had not changed Schlieffen’s deathbed orders and removed some of the divisions from the right wing of the German Army, the army would have been stronger and also longer therefore there was more chance of the Schlieffen Plan succeeding had Alfred von Schlieffen’s plans been strictly adhered to.
Source D disagrees with the answer that the offensive of 1914 simply failed because the German High Command did not keep to the Schlieffen Plan because it blames the defeat on German underestimation, because the Kaiser calls the British Expeditionary Force the “contemptible little army”. Here, he underestimated the army, and became over –confident, and his army became over confident, thinking that the BEF would be a push-over, and this lead them to make foolish mistakes. Source E, too, disagrees with the answer given for the failure of the Schlieffen Plan. It too blames it on the German underestimation of the BEF. The BEF were full of vigour, patriotism, spirit and valour, and this strengthened their hearts and weakened their fears of death and pain, so they were more able to run at the Germans even though they were being fired at. Source F disagrees with the given answer that the offensive of 1914 simply failed because the German High Command did not keep to the Schlieffen Plan because if the British hadn’t retreated, they could not have then broken through the German lines later on, and torn apart the German army, thus breaking up the Schlieffen Plan. It was here, that the Germans underestimated the cunning of the Allies. Source G, too, disagrees with the given answer, because in Ypres, the Germans were trying to follow the Schlieffen Plan through and encircle Paris. They were fighting very hard and desperately trying to get through the allied front line to Paris. It was, again, the underestimation of the allied staying power. Finally, Source H disagrees with the answer that the offensive of 1914 simply failed because the German High Command did not keep to the Schlieffen Plan because it says that the German army were not fully prepared – there wasn’t enough food or time to feed and rest both the soldiers and the horses. Neither Schlieffen, nor Moltke, expected the French army to slowly retreat and draw the German Army into France, and then force them to dig trenches. They underestimated, yet again, the force, will-power, and staying-power of the allied armies. So, in conclusion, I believe that the Sources do not show that the offensive of 1914 simply failed because the German High Command did not keep to the Schlieffen Plan, rather, they show a lack of preparedness, and a lot of underestimation on
the German’s behalf.
1,758 words
Richard Moore 4/3 GTD
