Controlled assessment

In the poster women say go the British government particularly wanted to focus on married women  and their children. The government wanted to encourage women to tell their husbands to sign up to the army because in September 1914 people believed that the war was going to be finished before Christmas but it didn’t so less people signed up. About 3000 men signed up a day and 733,514 men died more men were dying than signing up the British  were losing a lot of soldiers so instead of just advising single me to join the army the government also wanted married men because they were running low on troops

In the poster a British woman and her two children look out their window and watch the army march away. The mother holds her older child’s hand over her chest, and the younger child tugs on his sister’s dress. Their eyes are filled with longing and anxiety, but at the same time, they are proud of the men so by showing how weak and vulnerable women and children are in society men would see the poster and feel the urge to protect the weak and enlist into the war and it would also highlight the men who haven’t not enlisted and it would make them feel ashamed of not enlisting. This is why the parliamentary committee created the poster to encourage people to enlist into the army

Source B shows a staged attack in battle of the Somme which the British and French took part in this was a major battle in the 1st world war because the British sustained heavy losses from German attacks due to the Fact that the British heavily underestimated the German army and believed that sending waves and waves of soldiers would slowly wear down the German defences this tactic was outdated and machine gun fire cut the enemy down so to improve morale the government showed a staged version of the war to keep the morale of the English population high in 1914 and its was also used to help men enrol  into the army it attracted over 20 million people in 6 weeks due to the fact that it was only film being aired at that time and family’s usually went more than once to see the film because they believed that they could spot their family members in the film  it helped boost the amount of men enrolling because the film gave the interpretation that hardly  anybody was dying and war was fun because the film showed soldiers playing cards and laughing  they were  running low on troops to fight in the war.

The propaganda was useful because after it got aired in Britain’s the film got distributed in 18 other countries but the film was heavily censored and edited by the government this takes away the reliability of the source due to the fact to scenes were staged and the bad bits were edited out and wasn’t a real representation of the war because at that time the British was losing badly and had heavy casualties but they told the complete opposite to the population  however the propaganda did boost morale in Britain and the amount of men enrolling into the army

Source c is a persuasive speech from Winston Churchill which was said in the houses of commons after the evacuation of Dunkirk it was aimed towards the English troops advancing into the Somme on the 4th of June 1940 it was important because it was also broadcasted to the British people via the BBC radio at a later time because the bbc had to have permission from the government because the government didn’t want them to broadcast something which would lower the morale of the English people this helped the government gain more popularity because at that time everyone listened to the bbc and believed that it was a reliable source but in actual fact the government controlled the bbc and used it for their propaganda campaign through world war 1 and world war 2 and this helped fuel the populations hate towards the German army so what I can infer is that Winston Churchill used the bbc to create an image to the  people of a strong leader who can win the war

This source is reliable because it came from the bbc however the government might have told the bbc to censor out some parts about the evacuation of Dunkirk because they didn’t want to lower the morale of the English people and cause widespread panic this was the exact same situation in world war 2 the government didn’t want to show the people the negative parts and only showed the positive

Source D is a mass observational source created to record people’s feelings on propaganda one member of the public describes  the government’s propaganda as taking over  daily life and everywhere she goes she sees propaganda “I counted 48 posters” this tells us that the government forced the idea of total war onto the population and they also wanted to control everything the posters in which the person from the mass observational study saw where to do with not wasting helping out in the war effort and building planes this source is reliable because it comes from someone who is witnessing the governments propaganda campaign first hand

How Far does sources e to k support this interpretation of the impact of war on civilians in the first and Second World War wars?

Source E is a secondary interpretation of total war done by Andrew marr in 2009 it was called the making of modern Britain but it was originally a book  and due to its success it also got a tv documentary this source tells us that both wars where total wars but world war 2 had more of an  major impact on civilian life because people had to create shelter’s in their gardens and have Anderson shelters or temporarily live in underground train stations to shield them self’s from air raids and rationing became more strict in fear of food shortages this wasn’t the case in world war 1 because air raids didn’t take place and rationing wasn’t as strict this source is useful because it shows a good comparison of the two wars however Andrew marr exaggerates the world wars for entertainment  purposes because he wants to boost the amount of people who view his show Andrew marr is not a historian he is a politician meaning some of the information he gives is very one sided and some information he gives are incorrect

Source F is from a cartoon from punch magazine called the airship menace published in November 1914 it shows a man on a roof writing a sentence with paint ’this isn’t the British museum’ he is doing this to try and trick the zeppelins into thinking that his house is the British museum so that they don’t bomb the real one it was meant to add humour to a serious situation it was published just after the British found out about the Germans having zeppelins and the British were scared of this because at that time the army didn’t have no weapons to tackle this problem this caused panic amongst the British people because they were left completely venerable to air attack and people also feared that iconic landmarks such as the British museum would be targeted for bombing by the Germans to lower the morale of the British people that’s why punch published the illustration to boost morale this source is useful because it shows how the fear of zeppelin attack has impacted the British population in negative way

Source G is a government booklet issued in 1917 called in the win the war cookery booklet on the front cover its advises people to “eat one pound less bread per week than you are eating now “and talks about how complete victory can be achieved if you eat less bread this can be seen on the front cover where it says “yes complete victory if you eat less bread “the governments ministry of food put this propaganda on the front  because they didn’t want people to over eat they  feared that they would run out of food inside the booklet it talks about how  men doing manual work were allowed 7lb per week but potatoes were an exception they could be freely used  Britain received most of their food through imports so the Germans decided to destroy any cargo boats carrying food to Britain in attempt to starve them into submission it wasn’t a big impact on civilian life in the first world war however in the second world war rationing impacted civilian life drastically official rationing began January 8^th 1940 and far more stricter this source is useful because it comes from the ministry of food who want to prevent the wastage of food

Source H is a description of life in the East end of London during the blitz it is from a report written by the English intelligence and It talks about how people in the poorest areas of London are suffering from fatigue and stress this due to the fact that London was under constant threat from German bomber planes dropping bombs on London and people were in constant fear of being attacked from the sky this lowered the morale of the people this can be seen in the source when he said, “paleness and tiredness of children and irritability of grown-ups this source is useful because it comes from the British intelligence and they kept it secret this shows that they wanted to withhold the information because they feared that it would lower the moral of the British people  even more and they didn’t want the enemy to think that they were winning

Source k is a painting by Laura knight called ruby loftus screwing a breech ring its was made in 1943 the picture shows a woman bending down working in a arments factory in the second world war the reason why the government employed Laura knight to create this piece of propaganda was because all the working men were fighting in the war so the government wanted to encourage women to take the work that men would usually do for example building fighter planes in factories this source  is useful because it shows a major advancement in womens equal rights and it also shows that they are actually capable of taking up mens jobs which require a lot of physical strength