The British Sector of the Western Front, 1914-18: Injuries, Treatment and the Trenches | Edexcel GCSE History (1HI0)
The British Sector of the Western Front, 1914-18: Injuries, Treatment and the Trenches
- 92 questions
- 6 subtopics
- Paper 1
- Paper 1
The British Sector of the Western Front, 1914–18: Injuries, Treatment and the Trenches is examined in Paper 1, Thematic study and historic environment.
It covers the British sector of the Western Front and the trench system, conditions requiring medical treatment on the Western Front, medical treatment on the Western Front, experiments in surgery and medicine on the Western Front, medicine in the early twentieth century and sources for a Western Front enquiry.
Sample questions from The British Sector of the Western Front, 1914-18: Injuries, Treatment and the Trenches
Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
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The British sector of the Western Front and the trench system
Why did the Somme fighting of 1916 matter so much to the medical services?
Show the answer
Wounded men arrived in numbers nobody had planned for, which overwhelmed the evacuation chain and forced it to be reorganised. -
The British sector of the Western Front and the trench system
What was no man's land?
Show the answer
The open ground between the two front lines, cratered by shellfire and strung with barbed wire. -
Conditions requiring medical treatment on the Western Front
What is shrapnel, and why did it cause such terrible wounds?
Show the answer
Metal balls and jagged fragments flung out by an exploding shell, which tore through flesh and bone and carried filthy cloth and soil into the body. -
Conditions requiring medical treatment on the Western Front
Why did head wounds become more common, and what brought them down?
Show the answer
Men in trenches were shot or hit by fragments when they raised their heads above the parapet, and soft caps gave no protection; steel helmets issued from 1915 greatly reduced them. -
Medical treatment on the Western Front
Why was stretcher bearing so slow in wet weather?
Show the answer
The mud was so deep that six or more men might be needed for one stretcher, and a single journey could take hours. -
Medical treatment on the Western Front
What treatment did a man receive at a dressing station?
Show the answer
His wounds were cleaned and dressed and urgent operations could be carried out, and he might be kept there for about a week before moving on. -
Experiments in surgery and medicine on the Western Front
Who pioneered plastic surgery for the wounded, and what did he develop?
Show the answer
Harold Gillies, who developed skin grafts and reconstruction to rebuild the faces of men disfigured by shrapnel. -
Experiments in surgery and medicine on the Western Front
Why were x-rays so valuable at the front?
Show the answer
They showed exactly where bullets and shell fragments lay inside a man, so surgeons could cut them out before they caused infection.
The 6 subtopics
One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.
| Subtopic | What it covers | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| The British sector of the Western Front and the trench system | Flanders and northern France, the Ypres salient, the Somme's first day, Arras and Cambrai, the three trench lines, communication trenches and zigzags, no man's land, Flanders mud, manured soil, the roads, light railways and barges. | 17 |
| Conditions requiring medical treatment on the Western Front | Trench foot and its prevention, trench fever, shell shock, shrapnel and bullet wounds, why wounds became infected, gas gangrene and tetanus, head wounds and steel helmets, and the chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas attacks. | 13 |
| Medical treatment on the Western Front | The RAMC, the FANY, the army's trained nurses and the VADs, stretcher bearers, horse-drawn and motor ambulances, the chain of evacuation from regimental aid post, field ambulance and dressing station to casualty clearing station and base hospital, triage, and the underground hospital at Arras. | 15 |
| Experiments in surgery and medicine on the Western Front | Wound excision, the Carrel–Dakin method, amputation, Gillies's plastic surgery, Cushing's work on head wounds, the Thomas splint and its effect, x-rays and mobile x-ray units and their drawbacks, and Robertson's blood bank at Cambrai in 1917. | 11 |
| Medicine in the early twentieth century | Pasteur's germ theory of 1861, Lister's carbolic acid of 1865, antiseptic and aseptic surgery, sterilisation by 1900, Röntgen's x-rays of 1895 and their dangers, failed transfusions, Landsteiner's blood groups of 1901, and how the clotting problem was overcome. | 10 |
| Sources for a Western Front enquiry | Service and medical records, medical cards, unit war diaries and casualty returns, newspapers and censorship under the Defence of the Realm Act, government reports, medical journals, diaries, letters, memoirs and photographs, hospital records, the limits of army statistics, using national and local sources together, and how to plan a follow-up enquiry from a detail in a source. | 26 |
How the guide is worked
Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.
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Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
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Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
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Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.
Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.
Nearby options
Edexcel GCSE History Active Recall Guide
Every option, not just this one. 2,881 questions with their answers.