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World War 1 Dbq Essay

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During World War I, many different countries were involved in the fighting. Some countries were involved by the choice of their rulers and others were forced because they were colonies. Their experiences may seem different but the similarities are unignorable. On page 22 of The First World War: A Brief History with Documents, it gives an example of how soldiers were being treated, especially colonial soldiers. The British Military used troops from India, but they did not use all Indian soldiers in the same manner. Some were classified as being from a ‘martial race’ and were fit for fighting, while others were not fit to serve in battle. This simple act of classifying them served to make the Indian’s feel unwanted unless they could perform great …show more content…

Each of the documents is either a letter or postcard from a soldier writing home to a loved one.They describe how each soldier were treating each other. In Document 13, for example, Julian Grenfell, a British Officer, is writing a letter back home to his parents and describes seeing many soldiers coming towards him. He states, “[...] I picked out one I thought was the officer, or sergeant. He stood facing the other way, and I had a steady shot at him behind the shoulder. He went down, and that was all I saw.” This shows that the fighting was not always fair. Grenfell picked out the leader, the person that was the most influential for the others, and shot him in the back. They were not necessarily engaged in a battle, but he took the opportunity anyway. In Document 18, Behari Lal, an Indian soldier, describes, “[The] cold was terrible, and it was raining hard; not being able to sleep on the ground in the open, I had to pass the whole night sitting on the outward lorry seats.” All soldiers went through similar experiences. They were cold, tired, and wet. No matter who you were fighting, war was not pleasant. Even though they fought on different sides, the treatment was the …show more content…

Even though both Document 15 and 16 are soldiers describing the Battle of Somme, they both have different views on how they were being treated. For example, in Document 15 Christian Carver states, “Presently one saw great clouds of gas sweeping across and I must say I felt we were looking into hell indeed.” This is a clear description of how the soldiers in the Battle of Somme were being treated. However, not all the soldiers saw it that way. In Document 16, Karl Gorzel had more of a less dramatic view of the Battle. He states, “Anyone who reaches our line is at once polished off in a hand-to-hand bayonet fight, and now our bombs fly with redoubled force into the enemy’s ranks.” This quote seemed like he was the one who was doing the killing where in Document 15 Carver describes the Battle as if he was the one being shot

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