All language subtitles for BBC.The.Great.War.07of26.We.Await.The.Heavenly.Manna.divx.mp3

It was 1915,
the beginning of a new year,

the beginning of new hopes.

The old hopes, the glorious ones
of 1914, were buried in the mud
and clay of trench warfare.

The Schlieffen Plan,
Plan 17, the Russian Steamroller -

in the hangover
of this cold dawn of 1915,

they were only memories of the time
when all Europe had been drunk
on the wine of quick victory.

It was stalemate, puzzling
to generals reared on the concept
of the sweeping manoeuvre,

frustrating to soldiers
trained for wars of movement,
disillusioning to new arrivals.

We'd been brought up on histories
of the Boer War and patriotism

and...heroics and everything.

And we thought the war was going to
be over before we could get there.

However, in about half a minute,
all that had gone

and I wondered what the devil
I'd got into, because it was nothing
but mud and filth.

And all the chaps who were already
there, they looked like tramps -

they were all plastered
in filth and dirt, unshaven.

During the long winter, General
Joffre, French commander-in-chief,

pondered the new problems
of trench warfare.

"The enemy had been driven back,
but he had firmly fastened himself
upon our soil

"and we had been obliged
to leave in his hands for a length
of time no-one could estimate

"a rich part of our country. It was
not enough that we had prevented
the enemy from winning the war,

"it was essential to achieve a
complete victory over him, reconquer
Belgium, the north of France,

"and our precious provinces
of Alsace and Lorraine.

"This was the heartbreaking problem
which faced me."

To hold their conquests, the
Germans were building a fortress.

They threw up earthworks,

dug defensive
interlocking trench systems,

they strengthened their lines
with barbed wire and machine guns.

Wire and guns saved men -
men to form a new striking force.

Falkenhayn, chief of the German
general staff, wanted to use it
to smash the British into the sea

while they were still weak
in numbers. But Germany had
two fronts - west and east.

In the east, the Russians pressed
Germany's Austrian allies back and
back into the Carpathian passes.

Beyond were the rich plains
of Hungary's homeland.

Falkenhayn had to give up his plan
to attack the British.

"The need for some relief to
the Austrians by means of an attack
in another spot became imperative.

"With a heavy heart, I had to
make up my mind to employ my only
available reserves in the east."

For this relief attack,
Falkenhayn chose the Masurian Lakes
region of east Prussia,

where the Russians still occupied a
wide area of pine forest and lakes,

carved out by the glaciers
in the ice ages of long ago.

Now it was winter, January 1915.

Through blizzards
and temperatures below zero,
men and beasts of two German armies

moved up to their assault positions
opposite the Russian 10th Army.

The German plan was bold
and simple -

outflank the Russians
from the north, curl round them

and herd them into the Forest
of Augustow and destroy them.

By the beginning of February,
just as the Germans were ready,

fresh blizzards screamed
through the endless forests,

piling snowdrifts
across the roads and tracks.

Movement became almost impossible.

But Hindenburg, the dour
and massive commander-in-chief,
gave the order to attack.

On February the 8th,
the two German armies struck.

Behind fire from batteries
of Howitzers, they stormed forward,
driving the Russians before them.

Once more, a great Russian army
was retreating,

like a clumsy, helpless, bewildered
beast under the blows of a drover.

For ten days, 350,000 men
floundered through the snow

to escape the German pincers,
but always they were remorselessly
shepherded south and surrounded.

By the 21st of February, the German
victory was complete and terrible.

The corpses of 100,000
peasant soldiers of the Tsar

lay frozen and forgotten.

The horror of the campaign chilled even Hindenburg himself

The name of the winter battle in Masuria
charms like an icy wind or the silence of death

Men will ask themselves:
"Have earthly beings really
done these things

or was it all but a fable or a phantom?
Are not these marches in the winter
nights that camp in the iciest snow storm

that last phase of the battle in the
forest of Augustow but the creation
of an ispired human fancy?"

The people of Petrograd were told
the stark facts of the disaster -

100,000 dead, 110,000 prisoners

and 300 guns lost.

But the reason for the defeat
was concealed from them.

The Russian army was starved
of weapons and ammunition.

In December 1914, the Russian
chief-of-staff at the front had
written to the Minister of War...

"The men are saying, 'Why should we
perish of hunger and cold without
boots? The artillery are silent

" 'and we are killed
like partridges.' "

Russian prisoners liberated by
the Cossacks abused their rescuers.

"Who asked you to rescue us?

"Fools! We don't want to
hunger and freeze again."

The Russian guns needed 45,000
shells a day. In February 1915,

Russian factories were supplying
them with only 20,000.

This was not a war for soldiers
alone, but a war for industry too.

And only Germany, the most modern
industrial power in Europe,
was equipped for it.

Yet short of heavy guns and
ammunition, short even of rifles,

the Russian army
in Galicia continued

with indomitable peasant courage
to force the Austrians back.

Before them stood
the Austrian fortress of Przemysl,

the last rock against
the Russian tide that
threatened to engulf Hungary.

Behind the shattered forts of the
perimeter, the Austrian garrison
had been cut off for three months

and food was now so short that
the population were eating cats
and dogs, as well as horse meat.

The Austrian commander
decided on a last, desperate
attempt to break out.

It failed and on March the 22nd,
the great fortress surrendered.

107,000 men and 20,000
sick and wounded fell into
Russian hands at Przemysl.

Croats and Ruthenians
and Hungarians and Germans,

the unwilling and willing soldiers
of the emperor, Franz Josef.

The feeble state of the
Austrian army haunted Falkenhayn.

"The appeals of the Austrians
for assistance never ceased.

"Symptoms of disintegration
became more and more evident

"in formations of Czech
and southern Slav recruits."

Once more, Germany had to help
Austria against the Russians.

But how? Hindenburg and Ludendorff
still passionately believed that
the war could be won in the east.

They repeatedly told the Kaiser that
if enough forces were given them,

they'd destroy the whole Russian
army by huge pincer movements.

But in the end, the Kaiser rejected
their grandiose ideas and accepted
Falkenhayn's less ambitious plan.

Falkenhayn proposed a breakthrough
between Gorlice and Tarnow,

followed by a lightning pursuit
across the communications of the
Russian armies threatening Hungary.

It wouldn't win the war, but
would be a smashing blow that would
paralyse the Russian army.

April brought Europe
her first wartime spring.

The grim Russian winter melted into
a landscape of astonishing beauty.

The troops of Falkenhayn's
striking force settled down

for the long train journey
to the wide horizons of the east.

This was an army made for victory.
Only the Marne and first Ypres
marred a record of success

stretching back
through Sedan in 1870 to Waterloo.

At fixed intervals,
the packed trains rolled eastwards.

Speed - 19mph.

180 trains to each army corps.

With the army went the now familiar
German battering ram -

medium and heavy Howitzers, huge
stocks of shells to sweep away the
Russian defences like a cyclone.

The breakthrough was to be made by
the 11th Army under von Mackensen.

His orders were clear.

"The 11th Army must make quick
forward progress. This is important.

"Only in speed lies the guarantee
that we shall be able to stop the
enemy bringing up its reserves."

By the 28th of April,
170,000 men and 1,000 guns had been
slotted into an 18-mile front.

No shortage of ammunition here.

Falkenhayn wrote...

"By the spring of 1915, GHQ was
relieved of any serious anxiety
with regard to munitions supply."

May the 2nd.

From 6am to 10am,
1,000 guns, half of them heavy,

smashed the Russian defences
to shreds.

Then the attack went in.

"Neither fire, trenches, nor barbed
wire could stop the assault, and our
ranks became thinner and thinner.

"After 35 minutes, and despite the
tropical heat, we reached the enemy.

"The Russians clung ferociously
to their trenches, but in another
10 minutes, the job was finished."

Von Mackensen signalled
to the Kaiser...

"I report that the order to make the
enemy's position in the Carpathians
untenable has been carried out.

"The enemy is in retreat
along the whole line."

Against the weight and power
of the German pursuit,

the Russians could do nothing.
A Russian commander wrote...

"The retreat from Galicia was one
vast tragedy for the Russian army.

"No cartridges, no shells, bloody
fighting and difficult marches
day after day.

"No end of weariness,
physical and moral, faint hopes
followed by sinister dread.

"For 11 days, the German heavy
artillery swept away whole lines of
our trenches and their defenders.

"We hardly replied.
There was nothing to reply with."

A Russian general had sent
an urgent message to Petrograd.

"There are no rifles.
150,000 men are without rifles!

"From hour to hour, it is worse. We
await the heavenly manna from you."

At the end of May, Mackensen's
troops marched in triumph
into the fortress city of Przemysl.

It had been in Russian hands
for only two months.

Victorious Germans and Austrians
had marched over 100 miles through
the heat of the Galician summer.

They forced the Russians to retreat
along the whole Carpathian front.

As they entered Przemysl, their
triumphant progress was celebrated
450 miles behind them in Berlin,

with flags and bell-ringing
and the cheers of a proud
and grateful nation.

The fall of Przemsyl
marked yet another stage

in the dumb but terrible agony
of the Russian peasant armies.

The Russian soldier
was a very good soldier,

provided he was properly led.

But without officers, the officers
were wounded or killed...

...the simple Russian muchik
had not much initiative.

After all,
they were mostly peasants,

very simple, good-natured men,
very big and tough.

But without guidance,
they were lost.

And very often, they, um...
to our great surprise,

they surrendered in droves.

By the time they were captured,
some Russian soldiers
had been retreating for a month.

Over 100,000 of their comrades
had been killed.

"The Russian army
was at the end of its power.

"The uninterrupted fighting in the
Carpathians cost it heavy losses.

"The deficit in officers and men
was terrifying.

"The lack of arms and ammunition
was catastrophic."

For the Russian prisoners,
the unequal struggle
against Germany's might was over

and they celebrated the miracle
of still being alive.

On the western front,
spring brought new hope.

It was the time for battle again
and the Germans knew it.

Their 400 miles of trenches,
behind barbed wire
sometimes as thick as a thumb,

walled the French off
from their lost lands.

As the weather improved, the French
would be coming to take them back.

The Germans watched and waited for
the attacks they knew must come.

Opposite them, sometimes half a
mile away, sometimes only 20 yards,
the Allies also waited.

The temporary lines
where the balance of war
had settled at the end of 1914

were acquiring
a squalid permanence.

Haphazard sections of trench were
deepened and joined to each other.

Drains were scooped in the mud
and holes converted to dugouts.

They were at least splinter-proof,
which meant much to an army
fighting an artillery war.

The soldiers knew
something must happen soon.
A French dragoon wrote...

"In spring, the army stirred itself,
stretched its legs and awoke to the
fact that a new era was beginning.

"The change took place with the
greatest mystery. Rumours, coming
no-one knew wherefrom, circulated."

The basic question of 1915 was -
could the Allies break through
the German defensive works?

Lord Kitchener expressed
the widespread doubts.

"We must recognise that the French
army cannot make a sufficient break
through the German lines

"to cause a complete change
of the situation.

"The German lines in France
may be seen as a fortress
that cannot be carried by assault."

But the Germans left
General Joffre, the French
commander-in-chief, with no choice.

"The best and largest portion
of the German army was on our soil,

"with its line of battle
jutting out a mere five-days' march
from the heart of France.

"This situation may be clear
to every Frenchman

"that our task consisted
in defeating this enemy
and driving him out of our country."

But how?

French observers peered at the
German front line. Week by week,
month by month, battle by battle,

the Germans had strengthened and
deepened their defensive position.

From behind the trenches,
the gun flashes told the Allies

of the power and numbers
of the artillery supporting
the German soldiers.

The answer, the French concluded,
lay in artillery
and high-explosive shell.

Given enough, the infantry would
occupy German defences already
ploughed up and made harmless.

In the words of Sir Douglas Haig,
commanding the British 1st Army...

"With sufficient shells,
we could walk through
the German lines in several places."

But were there sufficient shells
and gun power?

When war broke out,
France had only 300 heavy guns

to oppose 3,500 German
medium and heavy guns.

Since then, only 48 new heavies
had been delivered

and 18 of those had blown up
in the gunners' faces.

Now, in a desperate attempt to
catch up, they pressed into service

the old, slow-firing big guns
stripped from fortresses
like Verdun and Tulle.

The BEF, by the first half of 1915,
had only 10 heavy guns per
division, against the German 20.

Every time our artillery opened up
on them, they'd come back tenfold.

If we fired five or six rounds,
they'd fire 50 to 60 back at us.

But always, it was that unequal
bashing that got the infantryman.

That if we got a gun at all...
We had a machine-gun, it's true,
but that was only a puny effort.

It was these colossal shells
that rained on and on
and we could do nothing about it.

The earthworks and barbed wire,
such as they were,
had been blown to pieces long since.

And the result was that practically
the whole of the front line,
around the town of Ypres...

...was a series of holes,

in which men crouched
and waited for the end.

In February, Sir John French
rationed heavies to 8 rounds a day

and his field guns to 10 for
ordinary purposes. A British gunner
wrote to Lloyd George...

"We don't know or care who is
to blame, we only know we are being
starved to death for want of shells

"and our infantry
are being fated daily
to a more and more terrible task."

Trench mortars and mine-throwers
were lacking too.

The soldiers of the country dubbed
"the workshop of the world" were
reduced to home-made equipment.

They invented a hairbrush grenade -
a slab of guncotton fastened to a
piece of wood and lit with a match.

There was also a jam tin filled
with shredded guncotton and nails.

Some units improvised
trench mortars.

A corporal said to me, "Come here,
we're going to let our mortar off."

It was a home-made mortar. It looked
to me like a bit of rainwater pipe

bound all round with a leather
thong to take the resistance.

There was a plate bolted on the back
and a touch hole with a fuse in it.

The charge was a screw of gunpowder
in a paper screw

and the bomb was a jam tin
filled with explosive.

They lit the fuse
and all stood well away.

The bomb went off, whizzed over,
dropped somewhere near the German
trench and went off with a big bang.

The French improvised too. In some
parts of the country, manufacturing
munitions was a cottage industry.

As the day of the Allied offensives
approached,

the shell shortage remained
desperate at the British depot.

It was the base ammunition depot
for the southern armies and it was,
I suppose, an ex-builder's yard.

It consisted of a couple of sheds,
room to put a couple
of railway trucks or wagons in,

and the total stock couldn't have
exceeded about 2,000 rounds
of ammunition of all kinds.

We used to issue it in half dozens,
dozens

and sometimes single rounds
to some of the bigger batteries.

I suppose one day's loading
would be a couple of railway trucks.
Of course, it was perfectly absurd.

The ammunition we had was treated
as if it were gold ingots.

It was laid out in very neat rows,
cos it had to be counted every day,

aligned every day
and dusted every day.

Early in 1915, the Allies began
a series of attacks to wear down
and soften the German defences.

"Suddenly,
a thunderclap right beside us.

"An enormous fountain of black smoke
seems to spring out of the ground,

"hurling hundreds of clods
up to the sky, and they rained
like hailstones on our heads.

"It's a heavy melanite shell a few
feet away. We run in all directions.
Then, one by one, we recover."

The French spring offensives
cost them 240,000 men,

killed or wounded.

On March the 10th, the British
attacked at Neuve Chapelle.

There were enough hoarded shells to
smash the German front-line trench.

But the German second line
was not destroyed.
The attack could go no further.

On April the 6th,
the French attacked at Saint Mihiel
to pinch out the German salient.

They failed. But these were only
preliminary attacks.

The real attempt to break through
the German defences
was planned for May.

But it was the Germans who attacked
on April the 22nd.

Their purpose was to cover up
their troop movements
away from the western front.

Against the French at Ypres, they
let loose a hideous new weapon,

which science had added
to the German soldiers' armoury -
poison gas.

At about 4pm,
a very heavy bombardment started

and a little later on,
we saw the effects of this.

The first thing was hundreds
of French troops running away.

They were just like ants.

They weren't sticking to roads
or paths or anything else.

They were in the fields,
breaking through hedges.
No arms, they'd all gone.

And clutching their throats,
saying, "Gaz!"

We tried to rally them as they got
to us and they wouldn't stay.

All we got from them was, "Allez,
bombe, bombe! Malade, malade!"

They kept going and we got orders to
turn and shoot them, which we did.

And momentarily, we looked
and we saw this green cloud
coming along the ground.

The gas attack made a gap in
the Allied lines 4.5 miles across.

The Canadians were thrown
into the breach,

and for three weeks they held on,
alongside British and French troops
and braved the new horror.

One chap had his hand blown off
and his wrist was fumbling around,
tearing at his throat.

The effect of this gas was to form a
sort of foamy liquid in one's lungs.

And more or less in time,
drowned one...

if you were unlucky.

Of course, a lot of the men died
pretty quickly.

Others were soon down, dying.

They were in fact drowning
from this beastly foam
coming up from their lungs.

There must have been 200-300 men,
wriggling and wreathing in all
positions, tearing at their throats,

their faces black,
and an RAMC sergeant stood there...

I've never seen a man so despondent.
He said, "Look at the poor bastards,
I can't do anything for them."

A young German officer wrote...

"The effects of the successful
gas attack were horrible.

"I do not like the idea
of poisoning men.

"Of course, the entire world
will rage about it at first...
and then imitate us."

This was the day
when the last vestige of glamour
and glory went out of war.

Behind its ancient moat
and ramparts,

Ypres itself became a symbol of
resistance and unstinted sacrifice.

The great German shells
set the town ablaze.

Centuries of history
crumbled at each blast.

"But on a sudden, fierce destruction
came, tigerishly pouncing.

"Thunderbolt and flame
showered on her streets

"to shatter them and toss
her ancient towers to ashes."

The shelling had started again
in Ypres and by the time
we'd got marching up to the town,

it looked as though
the whole place was on fire.

Buildings right and left of us
were blazing away.

And the heat was so intense
in some of the narrow streets

that as we were marching up
in column of four,

the men on the flanks
had to creep into the middle
to avoid the blistering heat.

And one could see
the haggard desolation...

...on their faces, as they also
surveyed the havoc around them.

The German attacks at Ypres
rammed home the terrible lesson -

this was a new kind of war,
a war of engineering and chemistry

and industrial power.

The German successes at Ypres and
in Russia were gained in the Ruhr.

Lloyd George, the British
Chancellor of the Exchequer, saw
what the Allies were up against.

"The Germans and Austrians
between them had,
even at the commencement of the war,

"much larger supplies
of war materiel

"and more extensive factories
for the turning out of supplies
than the Allied countries.

"And they have since
made much better use

"of their manufacturing resources
for the purpose of increasing
that output.

"Germany is the best-organised
country in the world,
and her organisation has told."

In Britain, guns and shells were
still being produced by a system
designed for small armies and wars.

The main supplier
was Woolwich Arsenal.

Woolwich was an arsenal,
not a factory, like Krupps,
geared for mass production.

By the spring of 1915, the War
Office had placed munitions orders
with over 2,500 firms in Britain.

But there is a long gap
between demand and delivery.

Less than a quarter
of what was contracted for
was delivered in time

and no attempt had yet been made to
mobilise all of British industry.

For Lloyd George, a crusader
by nature, here was a cause.

Soldiers were dying in France
and muddle and inefficiency at home
were letting them down.

On February the 22nd, he wrote
to Asquith, the Prime Minister...

"I sincerely believe that we could
double our effective energies

"if we organised our factories
properly.

"All the engineering works of
the country ought to be turned on
to the production of war materiel.

"While this process is going on,
the population ought to be prepared

"to suffer all sorts of deprivations
and even hardships."

On May the 9th,
the French and British armies
launched a new offensive.

The British artillery had shells
for only 45 minutes of bombardment

and nine out of ten shells
were shrapnel, useless
to smash deep, defensive works.

Once more, the Allied soldiers
opposed their muscles and flesh

to the cruel lash of German steel.

Half of us were knocked out,
either killed or wounded.

And going across a meadow,
there were a lot more killed.

And we all stopped and laid down...

...trying to get what shelter
we could from the tremendous
rifle fire coming over.

Then a sergeant just in front of me
jumped up and said,
"Come on, men, be British!"

We jumped up, followed him. He ran
about six yards and he went down.

We ran on about another 20 yards
towards the German trenches
which were literally packed.

They stood four deep, firing machine
guns and rifles straight at us.

The attack on the Aubers Ridge
had been stopped in its tracks.

But the worst of the shell
and gun shortages was yet to come

in the offensive at Festubert
a week later.

We were in a battery of 15-pounders,
four guns

and consistently
short of ammunition,

being allowed four rounds per day
for registering, etc.

As the intensity of the battle grew
to May the 24th, we ran completely
out of ammunition

and were left absolutely helpless.

Silent guns, a mutilated army,

spring hopes dashed.

Yet all this was still hidden
from the British people at home.

In their censored newspapers,
they read comforting accounts
of devastating British gunfire.

"At 5am, the bombardment began.
Then the infantry swept forward.

"The dazed German soldiers in their
front-line trenches were helpless

"under the intense bombardment and
determined attacks of the British."

Sir John French, commander-in-chief
in France, put an end to the
conspiracy of silence over shells.

He told the story of the shortages
and their effects to the military
correspondent of the Times.

On the 14th of May,
the truth was out.

"The infantry did splendidly,
but the conditions were too hard.

"The want of an unlimited supply
of high explosive

"was a fatal bar to our success."

The reality of the war was at last
coming home to Britain, as it had
already to the French and Russians,

the reality of a new kind of war -

a war of industrial might, in which
Germany was so far overwhelming.

This was a war which France and
Britain had hardly begun to fight.