One of the reasons why the Great War is such an excellent area for study at A level is that it brings together political, social, economic and military history. The challenge for the student is whether they can master the subject sufficiently in order that they can retain an overview, whilst marshalling the detailed evidence available from these different areas of historical research.

The majority of military historians working on this period would see the revolution in gunnery as key to the final victory, when combined with the 'bite and hold' strategy followed in the '100 Days'. The student is then challenged to balance this against the economic organisation necessary to achieve this military situation. Therefore the following material offers evidence both to support and refute the idea that the war was won on the Western Front.

Task 1
The aim of the tasks is to support and challenge students. The pedagogical thinking which underpins task 1 is essentially to break down a complex operation (deciding the relative importance of different factors) into its component parts. Task 1 aims to make the students read the article critically. Students must range across the listed factors, which are arranged alphabetically rather than in the order in which they occur in the article. They must then decide whether each is a Home Front or a Western Front factor. Following on from this, they must explain why or how each factor played its role in victory (an element of explanation which students often omit in examination essays). Finally, they support their assertion with hard evidence and examples, available in profusion in the text.

There is much scope for differentiating the task. At its simplest level task 1 can be used as a device simply to make sure that students read the article thoroughly. This could be achieved by dispensing with the requirements to categorise the factors and to provide convincing evidence and examples to support the contention that the factors were significant.

However, there is enormous potential to make the task more challenging. In discussion, students might be able to reach the view that Home Front and Western Front are too simplistic as categories. They may be encouraged to devise more sophisticated categories which capture the importance of the interrelation between the factors. Another level of challenge might be added by not giving students the initial categories, forcing them to devise their own on the basis of what they have read. It is in these areas that the really high level conceptual thinking takes place. Once these thinking frameworks are established then the acquisition of information and its allocation to an appropriate place is relatively straightforward.

Task 2
Task 2 is simply a framework to extend the process begun in task 1. It provides a structure in which students can bring their ideas together. They might see the bullet-point list as a paragraph structure for an essay. It could be used to divide labour in a group presentation, with each student taking one bullet-point. As a revision tool, it could be used as the basis for a venn diagram - an easily remembered device to encapsulate the key points in the article. A simple version might look like this, but students with a more sophisticated understanding could well construct more complex diagrams.