Year 12 blogs

Some excellent work from our Year 12s so far. Here are a selection of the blogs started - please have a read and comment on each others! (and on mine too of course!)

http://thethinredlinehistory.blogspot.co.uk/ (Morgan)

http://colleenloveshistory.blogspot.co.uk/ (Colleen)

http://historysloth.blogspot.co.uk/ (Sam T)

thetrumpcardigan.tumblr.com (Kyle)

http://samgray97.blogspot.co.uk/ (Sam G)

http://jesstortoise.blogspot.co.uk/ (Jessica)

Back to Flanders and the Somme..

I'm feeling hugely excited this weekend, as on Friday I am lucky enough to be taking part in the pilot project of the government initiative to take two KS3 students from every school in the country to the battlefields of the First World War.  It was a difficult choice deciding who to take - I decided to run a competition in which students had to argue why they would like to go, and how they thought the First World War should be remembered. In the end, I selected two Year 8 girls who impressed me with the effort they had put into a display convincing me to take them, which included sources from the various important figures of the war including Lloyd George!  I was also impressed that one of them brought along her family album which included a fascinating collection of photographs and postcards connected to her relative who had served throughout the war.

The itenary of the trip looks amazing; it is a four day trip, taking in the key British sector of Ypres and Poperhinge, and the sites connected with the battle of Passchendaele such as Tyne Cot.  We will also be visiting Essex Farm dressing station/cemetery, famous for its association with John McCrae who wrote his famous poem 'In Flanders Fields' there.

After that, we head on to Vimy Ridge - site of one of the decisive Canadian victories of the war - before taking in the monumental Thiepval memorial, which looks over the battlefields of the Somme inscribed with its sombre roll call of the names of thousands who have no known grave.

I hope the two students find the First World War as interesting as I do.  I often reflect that one of the turning points for me when I decided History was the subject I wanted to focus on, was visiting Ypres as a Year 9 student back in the late 90s.  The power of the place overwhelmed me;  I felt that the ghosts of the past were so close that you could almost touch them.  The unexploded shells at the side of the road, waiting for bomb disposal experts to collect, and still being unearthed 80 years after the guns fell silent; the ponds that dot the landscape, caused by distant artillery barrages and mine explosions; even the steel rods that hold up the humble farmer's barbed wire - survivors from the Great War.

Perhaps the places that had the most powerful impression on me of all was Langemarck German cemetery.  I know that I am not the first to comment on the eerie atmosphere of the place; particularly the 'comrades' stood at the end of the cemetery, which one observes upon entering, standing watch with bowed heads over the mass grave of thousands of German soldiers, interred without ceremony into essentially a huge flower bed.


I wonder how much longer such places will hold a sway over the popular imagination. I had an interesting discussion with some of my Year 9s this week.  We have just started studying World War One, and I find it completely fascinating, but quite a few students seem to be completely obsessed with World War Two, and repeatedly ask when we are going to start studying it.  This confuses me;  I wonder it is because World War Two on the whole is more familiar to them, occupying as it does a more visible place in computer games, films, and the primary school curriculum.  Also, I suppose in many respects it is a 'sexier' subject, with its abundance of film, fast moving tanks, aircraft, music etc.

However, as I tried to explain to them, the Second War can only really be understood as an extension of the First, and in my view occupies a place in the British psyche that remains haunting to this day.

Have you been to the battlefields of the First World War? Did you have a similar experience to my own? What impressions were you left with?

Some links to help you research the Crimean War for independent study

Dear students,

I hope that you are enjoying getting to grips with 'The Experience of Warfare in Britain'.

Remember that you are required to regularly undertake independent study over and above the homework and reading that I set you in class. This is to help extend your subject knowledge and make the topic more accessible for you.

You'll be glad to know that Sawtry Library has purchased many of the books on the reading list for your consumption. The books with an asterisk to the left are available in the library. I've asked that they be made reference only so they should always be available to read in your study periods.

READING LIST FOR ‘THE EXPERIENCE OF WARFARE IN BRITAIN’ UNIT 2

 

*Badsey, Stephen — Crimean War (War Correspondents), Bramley Books 1997

Beckett, Ian — Home Front 1914-18 (National Archives, 2006)

Byrne, Mike — Britain 1895-1918 (Hodder and Stoughton 2005)

*Kelly, Christine (ed) — Mrs Duberly’s War (Oxford University Press, 2007)

*Lynch, Michael — An Introduction to 19th century British History 1800-1914 (Hodder Murray,

1999)

Macdonald, Lyn — 1914-18 Voices and Images of the Great War (Penguin Books, 1991)

Morgan, K O — The Boer War and the Media in the Journal 20th Century British History Vol

13 No 1 March 2002 (published by Oxford Journals)

Marwick, Arthur — The Deluge (Macmillan, 1965)

Marwick, Arthur — The Home Front (Thames and Hudson, 1976)

*Packenham, Thomas — The Boer War (Abacus, 1991)

*Ponting, C — The Crimean War Chatto and Windus, 2004)

Rappaport, H — No Place for Ladies: the Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War

(Aurum Press, 2007)

*Rees R and Stewart G – AS Edexcel GCE History: the Experience of Warfare in Britain, 1854-

1929 (Heinemann, 2008)

*Robinson, Jane — Mary Seacole (Constable and Robinson, 2005)

Sibbald, Raymond — War correspondents: the Boer War (Jonathan Ball,1993)

*Small, Hugh — Florence Nightingale: Avenging Angel (Constable, 1998)

Van Reenan, R — Emily Hobhouse: Boer War Letters (Human and Rousseau)

W*ilson, K M — The International Impact of the Boer War (Acumen, 2001)

Winter, J M — The Great War and the British People (Macmillan,1985)

Winter, J M — The Experience of World War I (Oxford University Press, 1989)

 

Internet links to help you find out more about the Crimean War:

A site containing most of Roger Fenton's Crimean War photographs
http://www.allworldwars.com/Crimean-War-Photographs-by-Roger-Fenton-1855.html

Full online archive of 'Punch' magazine - a periodical containing many of the famous cartoons we will be looking at for the Crimea, Boer War and WW1.
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=punch

Mary Seacole's autobiography 'Wonderful adventures of Mary Seacole in many lands' , which describes her experiences in the Crimea, is widely available as a free ebook online, good if you have  a tablet or Kindle. Here is one such link:
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/seacole/adventures/adventures.html

Also, with your library card you can gain access to a range of online resources, including the British newspaper archives. It is fascinating to look at contemporary newspaper coverage - for instance, you can read first hand William Russell's reports back from the Crimea. You can log in from home here:
http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/leisure/libraries/online-db.htm

The Crimean War Research Society links - includes links to a Channel Four documentary on the Crimean War which you could watch as part of your independent study.
http://cwrs.russianwar.co.uk/cwrsentry.html

You are spoiled for choice when it comes to reading for this topic. If you are not sure what or how to research please ask me and i will show you how.  Also, if you are using an online blog, please let me know when you have updated it, and comment on my own blog so that i can see you are reading it!