All language subtitles for BBC.The.Great.War.20of26.Only.War.Nothing.But.War.divx.mp3

The war was four years old and
still the Western Front remained,

like a chronic disease that men had
become accustomed to live with, but
conveying a daily reminder of death.

This ragged line etched into
the broad surface of the earth

was the focus of the largest effort
ever generated by the human race.

More than 1,000 million people were
staking their lives, their treasure,
and their happiness

to upset the equilibrium of power
traced out by the Western Front.

The Western Front dominated
the thoughts of generals.

Only here, they were certain, could
the issue of the war be decided.

Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig
believed -

"We cannot hope to win until
we have defeated the German army."

Defeat the enemy's army -
Falkenhayn had tried.

Joffre had tried.

Nivelle had tried.

Haig had tried.

The human cost
was appallingly evident.

For the dead, the war was over.

For the maimed, the
shell-shocked of all the armies,
the war would never be over.

They had been through horrors
whose memory would never fade -

horrors that obliterated
even the mind.

MUSIC DROWNS SPEECH

War had made soldiers into children.

Children into soldiers.

This was a new kind of war,

whose scale dwarfed the traditional
means to victory - victory
by success on the battlefield.

This was a conflict
of armies and peoples -

peoples armed with all the powers
of modern industry and invention,

and obsessed
by a vision of total victory.

They wished to stand triumphant
over a smashed, crushed,
humiliated and prostrate foe.

Desire for total victory rode
the human soul and spurred it on.

The mainspring of the world's
catastrophe was the mind of man.

Victory lay
with he who conquered it.

Propaganda became the deadliest
weapon and truth the first casualty.

One got the impression, from reading
the papers and hearing the talk,

that the Germans, or the Huns,
as we called them then, were a horde
of barbarians descending upon Europe

and were about to plunge Europe
into the dark ages.

I read about how they slaughtered
women and children

and threw babies up in the air
and caught them on their bayonets.

I didn't believe all that.

In fact, I wondered,
if the Germans were such barbarians,

why we hadn't heard more about it
before the war.

Government censorship in every
country made sure that all news
was slanted or suppressed.

Read all about it! Paper! Paper!

Read all about it!
Evening Standard! All the news!

Paper! Standard! Standard!
Read all about it!

A British instruction laid down:

"No suggestion of offensive actions
by the captains of merchant ships
should be made.

"Statements in regard to the use of
neutral flags by British merchantmen
should not be published."

"The press are requested to make
no mention of the use of dogs

"as messengers with armies
in the field."

Government propaganda machines
disseminated mental poison
by the newest inventions -

the cinema film, wireless,
telegraphy, faked photography.

The unproven atrocity story was one
means by which hatred was nourished
among the home populations.

The world was told that the Germans
made candles and fats

out of bodies
taken from the battlefields.

Such malicious inventions
were widely believed.

Relentlessly, the enemy was
portrayed as a monster of savagery,

worthy only of hate.

The message never varied.
Hate. Total hate.

It was total hate that sustained
the demand for total victory.

"What is the war itself but
the outcome only of British cunning,
lying, hypocrisy, cant and treachery?

"No means can be too unholy
to combat this hideous octopus,

"whose tentacles have too long
encircled the peoples of the world."

"The Huns, vicious in victory,
cowardly in defeat,

"deserve no more consideration
than a mad dog or a venomous snake.

"It is our duty to take devastation
into the heart of their country.

"We're out for war.
Let it be war to the death."

"There are only two divisions
in the world -

"human beings and Germans."

The conflict became, for both sides,
a holy war to rescue civilisation.

"I believe in the powers of right
and the crusade of civilisation,

"in the purity of our cause and
the stainless glory of our flag."

"Such a war is a heavy price to pay

"for our progress
towards the realisation of Christ's
Christianity, but duty calls."

"One thing is clear -
God must stand on Germany's side."

"We fight for truth, culture
and civilisation, human progress
and true Christianity."

Few were immune from the contagion
of this universal hysteria.

Even the novelist Arnold Bennett
wrote with sincere conviction
after a visit to a war cemetery:

"And then a tomb with a
black cross. Very disconcerting,
that black cross.

"It is different both in colour
and shape from the other crosses.
Sinister.

"The whole devilishness
of the Prussian ideal is expressed
in that black cross."

Mercy, truth and love had died,

along with respect for the ancient
decencies of civilisation.

People had obediently followed
the leaders without questioning the
harsh requirements of their cause -

victory by any means.

Now, for the first time,
the starvation of whole nations
became a weapon of victory.

The Allied blockade of Germany
was complete.

Germans were eating less than half
the daily food necessary for health.

In four years of war,
more than 700,000 Germans -

men, women and children - died
as a result of the Allied blockade.

The young and the weak
suffered most.

Our diet consisted of turnips one
day and barley and prunes the next.

Then it started again - turnips and
barley and prunes. There was no fat.

Potatoes were roasted in a little
water. Bread got worse and worse.

German bread was made with grass,
tree bark,

turnips, or even a flour
made from dried blood.

Coffee was made from walnut shells,
tea from raspberry or nettle leaves.

There were 7,000 food substitutes
in German shops.

The food situation got worse.
We were always very hungry,

especially those
who didn't get anything else.

I remember my mother
was so thin that I, a small child,
could easily lift her up.

A great nation was being ground
down to soul-destroying poverty.

A German soldier on the Western
Front was being struck at through
the sufferings of his family.

In a forlorn attempt to break the
ring of warships that were starving
her industries,

Germany built the first submarine
merchant ship in the world -
the unarmed Deutschland.

Before America's entry into the war,
the Deutschland made two successful
voyages to US ports.

Her crew were feted
for the daring of their enterprise.

She could carry some chemicals
and metals, but she could not solve
the problem of the blockade.

Only ruthless counter-blockade
of Britain could do that.

The German government announced:

"From 1st February 1917,
sea traffic will be stopped
with every available weapon

"in the following blockade zones -
around Great Britain, France, Italy,

"and the eastern Mediterranean."

Henceforth, any ship, even neutrals,
in these waters,

would be sunk by German submarines.

The vessel that, in 1914,
had been thought too frail
to venture far from Germany,

became their greatest
hope of victory.

The great battle fleets of Britain
and Germany were impotent onlookers

on this unforeseen struggle at sea.

There were no stately deployments
into line ahead,

no thundering broadsides,
no victory bells in this continuous,
pitiless war of starvation.

Two great nations had each other
by the throat with a grip that
tightened in convulsive desperation,

and one must die.

January 1917 - 150,000 tonnes
of British shipping lost.

February - 300,000 tonnes.

March - 350,000 tonnes.

April - nearly 550,000 tonnes.

Then, slowly,

month by month,
the U-boat was mastered.

Convoys, counterattacks

by convoy escorts and by
merchant ships now armed with guns,

new hydrophone listening gear,
depth charges - each step made the
British counterattack more deadly.

Aircraft searched the seas
ready to bomb and machine-gun.

Even apparently helpless victims
were used to tempt U-boats
to destruction.

These were the famous Q-ships.

Lloyd George wrote:

"It was Britain's grandest
struggle at sea,

"in its magnitude, in its intensity,

"in the issues
that depended upon it.

"The battle was fought in every
ocean, and on every trade route.

"Never were the skill, the daring,
and the endurance of British sailors

"put to so stern a test."

The sea war went on. The submarines
went still further afield for gain,

refilling their tanks
with captured oil

and their galleys
with captured eatables.

British survival still depended on
the courage of her merchant seamen.

"I have heard of one man who has
been in no less than seven vessels
that have been torpedoed.

"Many, last winter, experienced
days of agony in open boats.

"Many have had to have
limbs amputated."

Although the British had averted
outright starvation, food became
scarcer and scarcer.

Compulsory rationing was hateful
to British traditions.

Instead, the nation rationed itself
using a published weekly scale.

"I know that in Government circles,
deep anxiety prevails.
Famine is feared.

"Stocks of wheat
are down to nine weeks' supply."

On 25th February 1918, compulsory
rationing was introduced in London
and the Home Counties,

and in April to the rest of Britain.

"Meat - approximately 2lbs a week,
sugar and fats - 0.5lbs each a week."

Rationing did not
put an end to shortages.

I remember going into a shop after
not having milk for several days,

and they said, "If you can produce
a baby, you can have some milk."

That was out. I went to a butcher's
shop to get some meat because we
were beginning to be rationed...

...and I said, "That looks
like cat." He said, "It is."

The fight against food shortages

fell upon a nation short of
fertilizers, animal feed and labour.

In 1917,
the Women's Farm Labour Force -

over 230,000 of them by 1918 -
put on their uniforms

and the fight for higher food
production was carried into the
fields by the Women's Land Army.

The "lilac sun-bonnet brigade"

overcame the scepticism of farmers

and formed a vital replacement
to farm workers

drafted, by the inexorable
demands of war, to the Front.

Timber - a vital commodity in a war
which demanded more and more
for pit props,

for ammunition boxes, for huts,
duckboards, trench works,
and for building -

called for more and more labour.

Again, women came to help and
invaded a man's world with energy
and unexpected skill.

Nations came to accept the breaking
down of traditions and firm beliefs,

intrusions upon old ways,
personal liberties.

Motor vehicles, when requisitioned
for Government purposes,

rolled impressively
into military depots.

Compulsory rationing, requisition,
national control of industry,
shipping and railways,

conscription, women in work
normally done by men, national
scientific research,

now even Britain with her
traditional dislike of large-scale
organisation and state direction

had yielded to the shrill
imperatives of total war.
Lloyd George wrote:

"The scope of Government control
widened steadily and ineluctably

"until it covered practically the
whole industrial life of the nation.

"The nation concentrated all its
great strength and skill on victory."

In each country, the individual had
become a cog in a huge war machine.

Whole new industries
had been created since 1914 -

for making aero engines,
for making all the instruments
required by modern aircraft,

a small chemical industry
had become a national asset.

Prefabricated ships slid down
the slipways one after another.

Steel for guns, or steel for shells.
Steel for ships, or steel for tanks.

There was not enough for all.

Engines for tanks, or engines for
lorries, or engines for aircraft.
Not enough for all.

Britain was now the war factory
of the Allies.

In France, the losses of four years
had drained the land of fit men.

Her farms needed labour
as much as her factories.

She worked and strove for victory
to the limits of her strength.

So did Germany.

Endlessly, the trains
rolled away from her factories
loaded with war material.

In every country, the worker
was a cog in the machine,

often better looked after as a cog
than as a citizen in peacetime -
a strange irony of total war.

Factory canteens became
commonplace instead of showpieces
of a few progressive firms.

National kitchens were set up
in industrial areas.

"The purpose of this movement
organised by the Ministry of Food

"is to instruct the poorer classes
how food by proper cooking

"can be made to yield the most
nutrition with the least waste.

"The food's distributed to the poor
residents - women and children - who
come in large numbers with dishes."

Better working conditions,
medical centres, housing
for workers, high wages -

these also were the fruits of war.
Lloyd George told an audience:

"It is a strange irony,
but no small compensation,

"that the making of weapons
should afford the occasion
to humanise industry,

"yet such is the case.

"Old prejudices have vanished,
new ideas are abroad.

"This opportunity
must not be allowed to slip."

It could not be allowed to slip.
Victory depended on industry.

The enemy knew this too.

"His Majesty the Kaiser hopes

"the air war against England
will be carried out with energy.

"He has designated as attack targets
all war material, barracks,

"oil and petroleum tanks,
and the London docks."

Scientists and engineers
had created a new dimension
in warfare - the air.

The demands of total war
changed the marvellous toy of 1914

into an instrument to carry death
to the enemy's unarmed civilians,

and destruction
to his war factories.

In the autumn of 1916,
as many as 14 zeppelins at a time

set out for England. 200,000
cubic feet of hydrogen lifted them.

The zeppelin crews were pioneers
in the upper air.

Each mission was an epic of danger.

For the attacking aircraft,
and also for the anti-aircraft guns,

a zeppelin of that size
was a sitting target.

About, er...over 300 feet long,

50 feet in diameter,

and a speed of 60 miles per hour.
That was all.

It was a very cold affair
to go across to England.

It was so cold that, er...if you
forgot that you didn't wear a glove,

and you touched any part
of the aluminium structure,

you would burn your fingers.

The sandwiches, which were kept
in a container in the gondola,

were absolutely frozen stiff.

You had to melt part of it in your
mouth until it could be bitten off.

German science gave her airmen
triumph over England.

British science made that triumph
brief.

The incendiary bullet transformed
a zeppelin

into a blazing funeral pyre
in the sky.

The death of a great airship
was terrible, even to the men
who destroyed it.

I approached it from the stern,
300 feet below,

and fired four drums of explosive
ammunition into its stern,

which immediately started to light.
At the same time,

one of the other pilots was flying
across the zeppelin from the top.

And to his horror, he saw
a man in the machine-gun pit

at the top of the zeppelin
run to the side and leap overboard.

I saw that this zeppelin had been
picked out by the searchlights.

Then there was a small glow which
gradually spread the whole length,

and afterwards the whole thing
burst into one big conflagration.

There was a gasp of...

I don't know if it was abhorrence
or whatever it was from the...people.

Very much like the sound you get
when there's a big firework display.

And as it came down,
very very slowly,

I heard my mother say,
"Oh, those poor men up there."

But there was an old
Boer War veteran next door

who said, "Let 'em frizzle."

And so it came gradually down,

but someone, I don't know whom,

started to sing
Land Of Hope And Glory,

and it was taken up
one after another

by the people
that were congregated there,

until the whole place seemed
to be resonant with this singing.

However terrible his death, there
was no pity now for the enemy.

"Since an airship raid on London
is impossible,

"the air service is required to make
a raid with Gotha bombers soon."

On June 13th, 1917,

14 Gothas went on the first
daylight bomber raid on London,

twin-engined aeroplanes,
each carrying one tonne of bombs.

Out of science and total war,
strategic bombing had been born.

Wherever an aircraft could fly
was now part of the battlefield.

Cities resounded to the roar
of the barrage.

Each raid left
its tragic human litter.

162 dead and 432 injured in London
in June,

54 killed in August.

The British public was moved
to deep anger,

anger at a terrifying ordeal, and
the feebleness of London's defences.

The Government reorganised
the defences at frantic speed.

An air raid warning system began.

Whistles and the firing of maroons
heralded the coming of the Gothas.

Bugles sounded the all clear.

In the autumn of 1917,
the Gothas flew by night.

The terrifying noise of air raids
frayed the nerve of a population

born in the safe tranquillity
of the Victorian and Edwardian age.

War production began to suffer.
General Robertson warned Haig:

"Continuous air raids
are interrupting munitions work

"and having some effect
on the public."

At Woolwich Arsenal, production
fell to one fifth after an air raid.

The British and French air forces
hit back at German industry.

As Allied bombers ranged over
industrial towns of the Rhineland,

the Germans proved no more steady
under bombardment than the British.

Everybody was frightened.

We had to go to the cellar,

and we had no electric light
in our flat.

All clothes had to be put on a chair
so that one could dress in no time

and rush down to the cellar,
where the whole house met.

Air raids mainly occurred
on cloudless nights.

We heard the planes coming,
we heard the anti-aircraft guns,

and everybody got more and more
frightened.

The bombers turned cities into
a battlefield strewn with dead or
maimed civilians. Women, children.

There were no non-combatants in
a total war. Everyone was drawn in.

Everyone was doing their bit.

The war was insatiable.

The men had marched and died
in millions.

Now, women had to don
service uniform.

"Today, we had a unique and inspiring
war pageant.

"A procession of 3,000 young women,

"representing branches of war work
in which female labour is employed,

"each section distinguished
by its own uniform."

The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps,
the WAACs, serve as cooks, typists,

telephonists and transport drivers.

Some decode messages
in every modern language.

The Women's Royal Naval Service,
the Wrens, clean torpedoes,

signal, make mine nets, gas masks,
depth charges, and sails.

The Women's Royal Air Force,
the WRAF, fit aircraft and airships.

Women gained an importance in war
they had never enjoyed previously.

Total war, rather than
Mrs Pankhurst and her suffragettes,

gave women the right to vote.

The Representation Of The People
Act of 1918 went even further.

Women could now stand for election
to Parliament.

Everywhere, the most ancient
of privileges and prejudices

were swept away by the ruthless
struggle for victory.

The needs of war, so simple in 1914,
so demanding by 1918,

had been met by the scientist
and the engineer.

The small of 1914 had become mighty.

The few of 1914...had become many.

The novelties of early days
had become vital weapons of war.

Modern war changed continuously.

Refinements of invention multiplied.

The most significant war innovation

was achieved
by man's most urgent need -

to break the deadlock
of the Western Front.

The glowing hatred of the nations

put no bounds to the ingenuity
and horror of their inventions.

Gas that choked was not good enough.

In summer 1917, a new gas appeared.

It smelled of garlic, some said,
or mustard.

It was an oily liquid,
which evaporated very slowly.

Because it had such a faint smell,
troops tended not to notice it.

When they did feel their eyes
smarting, they were too late.

It was a dreadful substance. If it
got on the soles of their boots, it
would penetrate and burn their feet.

If they went with it on their boots
into a dugout,

and slept there, they would
gas everyone in the dugout.

A man could even go with
some on his boots into a hut,

and gas everyone in the hut.

What total war demanded, scientists
and engineers diligently provided.

Paris, twenty past seven
in the morning, 23rd March, 1918.

EXPLOSION
An explosion. And another.

And another, at intervals
of 15 minutes.

Yet no German aircraft was nearby,

and the nearest German lines
were 75 miles away.

A new fear came to a great city.
What had caused these explosions?

Rumours, speculations seethed
through the streets of Paris.

Then the French authorities
announced:

"The enemy has fired on Paris
with a long-range gun.

"There are about a dozen dead,
and about 15 wounded."

A gun with a range of 75 miles?

Allied experts believed it
beyond the scope of technology,

but Germany had made it.
She had made three.

Each gun weighed 154 tonnes.
It rested on a 26-tonne cradle,

on a railway wagon of 210 tonnes.

The most colossal gun ever made.

When the French railway guns began
to counter-bombard the Germans,

the war of artillery and technology
reached its fantastic climax.

The city and the trenches
shared the same conflict.

Man cringed beneath the weight of
the horrors he'd made for victory.

Yet victory belonged to no-one,
the horrors, to everyone.