Does the film All Quiet on the Western Front tell us what all soldiers thought of the war

1
Does the film All Quiet on the Western Front
tell us what all soldiers thought of the war?

• Evidence for soldiers attitudes to the First
  World War from poetry, letters, diaries, memoirs
  photographs

2
Why did soldiers write poetry?

• A good way to describe and understand your
  emotions and experiences.
• A way of passing the time, like telling jokes or
  making up songs it could also cheer up or
  encourage others good for morale
• Can be done almost anywhere only need a
  notebook.
• Many of the officers were well-educated (public
  schools) they simply believed this was a good
  thing for a civilised man to do.

3
The Soldier, Rupert Brooke a British Officer
(1914)

• If I should die, think only this of me
• That theres some corner of a foreign field
• That is forever England. There shall be
• In that rich earth a richer dust concealed
• A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
• Gave once her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
• A body of Englands, breathing English air,
• Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
• And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
• A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
• Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England
  given
• Her sights and sounds dreams happy as her day
• And laughter, learnt of friends and gentleness,
• In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

4
Dulce et Decorum est, Wilfred Owen a British
Officer (1918)

• Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
• knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed
  through sludge,
• Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
• And towards our distant rest began to trudge
• Drunk with fatigue deaf even to the hoots
• Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
• Gas! Gas! Quick boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
• Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
• But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
• And floundering like a man in fire or lime

• If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
• Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
• And watch the white eyes writhing in his face
• If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
• Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
• My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
• To children ardent for some desperate glory,
• That old lie Dulce et decorum est
• Pro patria mori.
• (It is sweet right to die for your country.)

5
The Hero, Siegfried Sassoon (A British officer -
he received the Military Cross for the bravery he
showed in battle)

• Jack fell as hed have wished, the Mother said,
• And folded up the letter that shed read.
• The Colonel writes so nicely. Something broke
• In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.
• She half looked up. We mothers are so proud
• Of our dead soldiers. Then her face was bowed.
• Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
• Hed told the poor old dear some gallant lies
• That she would nourish all her days, no doubt.
• For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes
• Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,
• Because hed been so brave, her glorious boy.

• He thought how Jack, cold-footed, useless
  swine,
• Had panicked down the trench that night the mine
• Went up at Wicked Corner how hed tried
• To get sent home, and how, at last, he died,
• Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
• Except that lonely woman with white hair.
• (Letters were written to the families of all
  soldiers who were killed in action, explaining
  how they died. They almost always said the
  soldier died fighting bravely and was killed
  instantly.)

6
In Flanders Fields, John MacCrae an army doctor
(1915)

• In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the
  crosses, row on row,That mark our place and in
  the skyThe larks, still bravely singing,
  flyScarce heard amid the guns below.
• We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt
  dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved and were loved, and
  now we lieIn Flanders fields.
• Take up our quarrel with the foeTo you from
  failing hands we throwThe torch be yours to
  hold it high.If ye break faith with us who
  dieWe shall not sleep, though poppies growIn
  Flanders fields.

• This poem was published during the war and was
  the main reason why the poppy later became the
  symbol of remembrance for the soldiers of the
  First World War.

7
Marching to the Front, 1915
8
The Battle of Passchendaele, Ypres, 1917
9
The Battle of the Somme, 1916
10
Chateau Wood, the Battle of Passchendaele, Ypres,
1917
11
Letter written by Will, a private soldier, August
1915

• Dear Mr and Mrs Dean and the girls,
• Just a line to thank you very much for your
  splendid parcel. It came at the most opportune
  moment as we have now moved up to the line again.
  As you may guess it is not exactly a health
  resortSome of the chaps are in houses but
  another chap and myself discovered a very decent
  dugout in which we have got a bed, 2 tables and
  several chairs...The houses are badly knocked
  about. The Germans gave us quite a long edition
  of hate this morning but I dont think they
  managed to hit anybodyOur artillery retaliated
  by dropping about twice as many as we had
  received into their trenchesWe are going to have
  a high tea with the contents of the parcel and
  then I shall be on guard tonight watching the
  fireworks
• Well I think this is all. Thanking you for the
  parcel and good wishes. I remain,
• Your sincere friend
• Will

12
Letter written by Jesse Spicer, September 1915

• We were told on Friday last, September 24, when
  we were still in billets about 8 miles from the
  firing line that we were to take part in a great
  advance, which was to start next morning at dawn.
• Even then we could hear the guns firing a very
  heavy bombardment. Naturally everybody was
  somewhat excited and very delighted. What
  actually happened I am afraid, did not come up to
  expectations. That Friday we marched most of the
  night, bivouacked about 3 or 4 a.m., lay there
  till about 7 a.m., hung about till noon, when we
  pushed on and got pretty close up. We could now
  see and speak to some of the wounded, the
  advance having already started, and we heard
  glowing accounts of what had happenedWe were due
  to make an attack of some kind at 11 a.m.What
  exactly happened after that I dont knowI spent
  my day collecting small bodies of men, putting
  them into trenches, getting them out again,
  generally because we were shelled out of them and
  losing the men I had already collected and then
  collecting fresh pushes.

13
Extract from Jesse Spicers personal diary,
September 1915

• The Battle of Loos was my first experience of
  action and I shall never forget it. It fell to my
  lot to have to go over the battlefield of the day
  before dead and wounded were lying everywhere.
  Many called out for help (some had been there for
  24 hours) I went to one man, but then realised
  that if I was to respond to all cries for help I
  should never do my job, so heartlessly I had to
  press onOfficers and men were streaming back
  from the front line and I was told to take my
  platoon and stop them drifting back and keep them
  in a trenchit seemed to me that these men were
  retreating without reason or orders. The Loos
  battle was a fiasco.

14
Extract from the Jesse Spicers memoirs written
in 1979

• After only about two weeks in France we took
  part in the Battle of Loos, an ill-managed
  affair, in which our role was not particularly
  distinguished. It was our first experience of
  shot and shell and therefore memorable, but
  even more not to be forgotten was the sight of
  the dead and dying, lying in large numbers on the
  open battlefield. That was a sight and experience
  sufficiently harrowing to make one respect the
  ideals of the pacifist.

15
Three accounts of the Battle of Passchendaele
(1917)

• The blow has been struck as surely and with
  results as decisive, as any of the former
  blowsThe story is the same story I have told so
  many times, the story of an attack pushed with
  perfect determination and gallantry to final and
  complete success.
• Report in The Times newspaper
• Still the guns churned this treacherous slime.
  Everyday conditions got worse. What had once been
  difficult now became impossibleNo battle in
  history was ever fought under such conditions.
• General Goughs Memoirs after the war
• The slope was littered with dead, both theirs
  and ours. I got to one pillbox to find a mass of
  dead, and so I passed on to the one just ahead.
  Here I found about 50 men aliveNever have I seen
  such broken and demoralised men. They were
  huddled up close behind the box in the last
  stages of exhaustion and fear. Fritz had been
  sniping them off all day and accounted for 57
  that day the dead and the dying lay in piles.
• An officers official report on the battle

16
Interviews with former soldiers for Peoples
Century (BBC), 1999

• Edward Smout (Australian) talking about joining
  the army in 1914
• In Australia at that time we were part of the
  British Empire and very loyal to British and felt
  that it was our warApart from that if you stayed
  for a year or two longer youd get a white
  feather from the girls. No, it was the thing to
  do.
• Cha Kunga (Indian) talking about joining the army
  in 1914
• I wanted to take part in the British
  governments war. I wanted to see western
  countries for myself. We were told they were
  healthy places.
• Walter Hare (British) talking about the first day
  of the Battle of the Somme (July 1916)
• We kept going to the German trench. I got to
  the barbed wire. I got through that alright and
  jumped into a German trench. We stayed there all
  day and all night, with no food and no water,
  getting short of ammunition His battalion was
  then ordered to retreat. I finished up where
  Id started. Id lost a lot of my pals which we
  neednt have done. We never gained an inch of
  ground. I thought how stupid it was.

• Tela Burt (American) talking about joining the
  army in 1917
• Id never heard of democracy before. I never
  knew what the hell I was fighting for. All I knew
  was that I liked the uniform and wanted to be in
  the army.
• Albert Powis (American) talking about joining the
  army in 1917
• I liked America. I guess I was patriotic
  because every time I heard the band playing a
  good marching song Id have cold chills run up
  and down my back.

17
Assessment Assignment Does the film All Quiet
on the Western Front tell us what all soldiers
thought of the war?

• Explain what attitudes towards the war are shown
  in All Quiet on the Western Front.
• Explain what other soldiers attitudes you have
  found in other sources (poems letters
  photographs diary entries TV interviews with
  old soldiers).
• Explain why soldiers may have had different
  attitudes and why you may not able to trust
  completely All Quiet on the Western Front and
  other sources as evidence for what soldiers
  thought.
• Write a conclusion which explains which answers
  the question and shows how useful you think the
  film is as evidence compared to other sources.
• Due

18
How will my work be marked?

• This assignment is to be word-processed.
• You will then EITHER print off your work and hand
  it in OR e-mail it to your teacher
• You will complete the assignment to a deadline
  set by your teacher.
• Your teacher will comment on this work, giving
  you advice on how to improve it, so that you can
  raise the level you have reached. You will also
  have the opportunity to discuss ways of improving
  your first drafts with other students before
  writing your second draft.
• You will amend the assignment to a deadline set
  by your teacher.
• Your teacher will comment on this work and give
  you a level for it.
• The level you are given will be based on the
  level descriptions on this site. Use them as a
  checklist while you are writing the assignment to
  see which level you are working towards.

19
Level Descriptions

• Level 5
• The answer includes some explanation of what All
  Quiet on the Western Front tells us about what
  soldiers thought about the war.
• The answer may also compare what it says to
  other sources and use TANK or TANPLAK to discuss
  how trustworthy some sources are.
• The answer is organised to produce a structured
  piece of work which uses appropriate background
  knowledge, dates and technical terms, such as
  propaganda, censorship, bias, euphemism or
  gallows humour.
• Level 6
• The answer is a detailed explanation of what All
  Quiet on the Western Front tells us about what
  soldiers thought about the war.
• The answer also compares what it says to other
  sources and uses TANK or TANPLAK to discuss how
  trustworthy some sources are and to reach a
  convincing conclusion about how useful the film
  is as evidence.
• The answer is organised to produce a structured
  piece of work which uses appropriate background
  knowledge, dates and technical terms, such as
  propaganda, censorship, bias, euphemism or
  gallows humour.
• Level 7
• The answer is a thorough explanation of what All
  Quiet on the Western Front tells us about what
  soldiers thought about the war.
• The answer also compares what it says to other
  sources and uses TANPLAK to explain how
  trustworthy some sources are and to reach a
  convincing conclusion about how useful the film
  is as evidence.
• The answer shows independent thinking which
  shows what the evidence is actually able to tell
  us has been considered. It is organised to
  produce a structured piece of work which makes
  considerable use of appropriate and relevant
  background knowledge, dates and technical terms,
  such as propaganda, censorship, bias,
  reliability, patriotism, euphemism and gallows
  humour.