How to weigh conflicting firsthand military accounts

When firsthand accounts conflict with later senior-officer narratives, how should a historian decide which is more credible?

Match each witness to the scale of events they could actually observe, then cross-check every account against other sources.

A general with reports from across a battlefield may offer the more useful account of the wider action. A participant in one street or building may be better placed to describe that immediate event. Neither perspective should be accepted without comparison with other sources. Writing soon after an event does not give a junior participant knowledge of everything that happened. The same limit applies to veterans who become journalists or politicians: expertise beyond their own experience requires further study.