Section one
1. Primary sources are written or an object created in the period in which one is working. Primary sources provide raw information and first-hand evidence. Primary sources may include photographs, diaries, records, and autobiographies. They offer a direct insight
into what happened since they are created at the time, and they are still fresh and closely related. Secondary sources are works that analyze, assess, and interpret a historical event using primary sources. Secondary sources provide second-hand information and
commentary from other researchers. Secondary sources include; articles, textbooks, magazines, encyclopedias, and almanacs (Richeson 87). History is studying past events, especially human affairs such as interactions, behaviors, actions, and societies. Historiography is the writing of history based on the critical analysis of the primary and secondary sources, selecting specific details from the originals, and synthesizing the elements into a narrative that tests crucial examination. History is the study of past human events, while Historiography is history (Groce and Benedetto 24).
2. The attached text is a primary source. It provides raw information and the first evidence. It is a record of the narrator who witnessed everything and documented them. It has some implicit biases. The source reveals that the writer was a soldier and the hardships soldiers
experience while on the battlefields. The writing demonstrates a close friendship between the writer and the person being written to. The text also reveals the significance of every historical period.
Section two
Some of the main themes and trends in the first-world War historiography are; understanding the outbreak of the war and shifting towards troops’ experiences and commemoration. The consensus view has been challenged over the years by some historical argument such as those that Historians like Fischer claim that Germany deliberately sought war while others did not. I don’t view who is to blame most for the outbreak of the world war. Many arguments, books, and history do not only point to a specific country or people or groups to be the cause of the first world war. Different opinions, books, and articles point out other countries and their allies to
cause the outbreak of the first world war.
Section three
The two films we have watched have some similarities; first, the movie shows the devastating effects of war. Some of the characters suffer immense injuries, and some end up dead due to conflict. Many French soldiers are killed in Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957). The two films Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion (1937) and Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957), give us an image of denunciations of the violence, warfare and military injustices, barbarity, class differences, and devastation of war. The two films are against war. Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion (1937) shows French officers imprisoned during the first world war and plotting to escape. They were detained after the French plane was shot by German police. Marechal is placed in solitary confinement, where he suffers seriously from lack of human contact and hunger. In an attempt to escape from the camp, Boeldieu is shot by Rauffestein in the stomach with his pistol. Boeldieu
pities Rauffenstein and assures him that their usefulness will end with the end of the war. The French officers undergo various mistreatments and challenges in prison. All this depicts denunciations of violence and the devastation of war, as was witnessed in the first World War. Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory from (1957) film is set against World War One’s trenches. It tells the story of a French army officer ordered to lead his men to gain control of the German-held in France on the hill. Execution is done to men as a trial on cowardice grounds; it is a perfect tonic for the entire division. Many soldiers are shot, and some are injured while others are killed as
Germans were already shooting and shielding when the army officer and his men advanced in the No Man’s Land. French men were slaughtered. French general ordered his artillery to fire his soldiers when they refused to advance at Souain. Also, there was a distinct class difference between officers and men, and Mireau’s stroll around is an excellent dark snapshot of the class difference. He asks the soldiers, “Ready to kill more Germans?”. He then loses his rag at a shell-shocked soldier and thinks sufferers are just wimps. However, this is a fictional story, but the information is based on the first World War’s real events. The two films depict trench warfare
and military injustice in the first world war. Both films are anti-war films. The two movies portray the devastating effect of war. In the films, many people lose their lives as a result of the war. In Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957), many French were slaughtered as they tried to advance in the no man’s land. As a result of the war, Boeldieu lost his life when he was shot. Yes, there are political meanings to the choices the directors made.
