The Impression of Life on the Western Front in the Blackadder Goes Forth series

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To what extent does the 'Blackadder Goes Forth' series give an accurate impression of life on the western front?

In this essay I will be writing about life on the western front and the trenches in The First World War and how accurately the 'Blackadder Goes Forth' series portrays it.

The First World War started on 4th August 1914 because the Archduke of Austro-Hungary, Franz Ferdinand got shot by a Bosnian named Gavrillo Princip. Austro-Hungary declared war on Bosnia and all the allies got involved and it turned into a huge World War which lasted longer than expected. The war then finished in 1918.

Blackadder goes Forth was written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton in 1989. Both of them have historical backgrounds. Blackadder is a BBC comedy series set in the trenches of the Western Front in The First World War. It starred Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie, Tony Robinson and Stephen Fry. It was filmed in a studio in front of an audience. It was intended for an adult-thinking audience. It was made to entertain and also give the audience some historical knowledge about the trenches. I will be evaluating the last episode ?Goodbyeee? to see how it compares to real life on the western front.

On the western front the soldiers had to build trenches to provide defence for the army and hold their position to show their opponents they weren?t going anywhere. The trenches were built in a crocked line next to each other because if the line was straight and a shell landed on it the explosion would kill and injure much more people then if it was straight. They had barbed wire and Sandbags at the top of trench to protect them from enemies coming in and attacking them. The trench had many layers and at the bottom there were dug outs were the sold...

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...ries. There was lots of useful information to a historian about recruitment, the tactics and if they were changed the casualty rate could have decreased, and that there was a huge presence of death in the trenches. There was also some information about the weather and the trenches but it didn?t seem too wet and cold in the dug outs, which it would have been because of the awful weather at that time. Some things were imprecise about the trenches like there wouldn?t have been a sink, the dug out was too big and it looked too warm in there. The inaccuracy is because of the filming conditions and they wouldn?t have been able to fit a camera crew and the actors into a smaller dug out and they couldn?t have made it too wet as they were filming in a studio. I would still rely on the episode ?goodbyeee? to tell me what life was like in the trenches and on the western front.

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