All language subtitles for BBC.The.Great.War.21of26.It.Was.Like.The.End.Of.The.World.divx.mp3

Winter.
The fourth winter in the trenches.

The battles of yet another year
had passed -

Arras, the Nivelle Offensive,
Messines, Malmaison,

Passchendaele, Cambrai -

hopes of 1917 that had fallen
and withered with the autumn leaves.

The Western Front remained. But now
it was becoming only a facade.

Three and a half years of battle
had crumbled away the living walls

that had once lined the front
from Switzerland to the sea.

The French army could only replace
a third of its monthly losses.

Its divisions were skeletons
of only 6,000 men.

The British Army in France
in January 1918 was 80,000 men
below its strength.

In every country, the generals
pleaded with the politicians
for men, more men and ever more men.

Haig confided to his diary -

"We have plainly told the Cabinet
in writing

"that they may lose the war
if the armies are not brought up to
and kept at strength."

In the place of the armies vanished
into gun smoke, there now stood

thinned ranks of shaken survivors
and recruits raw from the depots.

Such was the Western Front
of January 1918.

EXPLOSIONS

In the east,
there was no longer a front at all.

In September 1917, the final
defeats of the Russian army.

In October, revolution
and a Communist government.

In December,
an armistice and peace talks.

Hindenburg wrote -
"Under our last blows,

"the colossus not only trembled
but split asunder and fell."

After four titanic campaigns,
the Eastern Front was silent.

The peasant millions of the Russian
army would march no longer
as allies of the French and British.

From now on,
there was only one major front -

the west.

Russia's fall
had transformed the war.

Germany's problem of manpower
was solved, for the time being.

Now the Allies,

not Germany,
were struggling against odds.

Hindenburg rejoiced.

"For the first time in the whole
war, the Germans would have the
advantage of numbers on one of their
fronts.

"We were now in a position
to concentrate an immense force

"to overwhelm the enemy's lines
at some point of the Western Front."

Every German instinct
was in favour of attack.

Ludendorff wrote - "The army came
victoriously through 1917.

"But it was clear that to hold the
Western Front purely by defensive
action could no longer be counted
on.

"The troops no longer showed their
old stubbornness. They thought with
horror of fresh defensive battles

"and longed for a war of movement."

The Germans had fought the Russians
at Tannenberg and Gorlice-Tarnow...

...the French on the Marne, in
Artois, in Champagne and at Verdun.

They'd fought the British
on the Somme and at Ypres.

They'd been skilful in attack
and steadfast in defence.

But four years of war had crumbled
and shaken the German army.

It was beginning to lose
its discipline and self-confidence.

The words "Gott mit uns" -
"God with us" -

were inscribed on the buckle
of every German soldier's belt.

Did he still believe it?
Ludendorff wrote -

"Loss through desertion
was uncommonly high.

"The number that got into
neutral countries like Holland
ran into tens of thousands.

"Even more lived at home, tacitly
tolerated by their fellow citizens
and unmolested by the authorities."

Only a great victory could halt
the slow disintegration.

In Ludendorff's words,

"In the west,
the army pined for the offensive."

Week by week,
Allied intelligence officers

verified the remorseless increase
of German divisions

in France and Belgium, as crowded
trains rolled in from the east.

It was estimated that, by spring
1918, the Germans would be stronger

than the French and British
by 200,000 men.

These were the statistics
of catastrophe.

In December 1917, the French
commander in chief, General Petain,

calculated that, in 1918,

the Allies would face
200 German divisions in the west.

"Germany will be able
to hold her line with 100 divisions.

"She will have another 100 available
for a great spring offensive.
We are on a tightrope."

Only the Americans could fill
the colossal gap in Allied ranks
opened by Russia's collapse.

In December 1917, there was
only one US division in the line.

It was hoped there would be 18
in seven months' time.

Could the British and French -
tired, thin on the ground - hold
off a desperate German onslaught

long enough for the Americans

to tip the balance for ever
against Germany?

The Germans too asked this question.

Only time -
time that none could measure -

stood between them
and the United States Army.

Hindenburg weighed
the sombre chances.

"We had a new enemy, economically
the most powerful in the world -

"an enemy possessing everything
required for hostile operations,

"reviving the hopes of all our foes
and saving them from collapse,

"while preparing mighty forces.

"It was the United States of
America,

"and her advent was dangerously
near.

"Would she appear in time to snatch
the victor's laurels from our brows?

"That, and that only,
was the decisive question."

Time was Germany's enemy - time was
her enemy because of the Americans.

It was her enemy because her allies
were on the verge of collapse.

Time was her enemy because hunger,
blockade and illness were doing
their work behind the German armies.

The pre-war death rate of German
children under 15 doubled. German
society was beginning to break up.

On 24 January 1918,
250,000 workers came out on strike

in Berlin and other towns.

Time hounded her on to a colossal
gamble.

She must have swift victory
or she was finished.

She staked every last ounce of her
power on a spring offensive in
France.

Every last ounce, every last hope.
Hindenburg wrote -

"I hoped that,
with our first great victories,

"the public would rise above the
seeming hopelessness of our struggle

"and impossibility of ending the war
except by submission."

Ludendorff flung
all his restless energy
into planning the "Kaiserschlacht",

the Imperial Battle
that would win the war.

The blow would fall on the British,
astride the Somme
on a 40-mile front.

It would split the British from the
French and sweep them into the sea.

December, January,
February, March -

every man, every gun, every lorry,
every horse that could be spared

flooded into France and Belgium.

From generals to privates,

the army was trained
for breakthrough and pursuit.

"The objective of the first day must
be at least the enemy's artillery.

"There must be no rigid adherence to
plans made beforehand. The fastest,
not the slowest, must set the pace."

Behind the front-line divisions,

47 specially equipped
attack divisions

and 6,000 guns
were stealthily slotted into place.

On 10 March, Hindenburg issued the
final order for Operation Michael.

"His Majesty commands the Michael
attack will take place on 21 March.

"Break in to the first enemy
position at 9.40am."

Haste. Desperation. Supreme effort.
The German soldiers

were infused
with a sense of destiny.

"The brazen spirit of the attack,
the spirit of the Prussian infantry,

"swept through the massed troops."

"One is amazed at the preparations
being made, down to the last detail.

"That is, after all,
the source of our greatness."

"The men were in good form.

"Hearing them talk of the coming
event as the 'Hindenburg Stakes',

"one knew they would fight
as they always did -
with absolute reliability."

"The great attack will succeed.
It MUST succeed.

"It will free Germany
from hunger and suffering.

"It will bring us victory.
So, over the top and forward!"

"This was the decisive battle -
final reckoning - culminating
attack.

"The atmosphere was extraordinary,
heavy with tension and excitement."

"We are really conscious
of the greatness of the hour."

On the other side of no-man's-land,
there was also desperate haste.

The British and French trenches
had been only jumping-off lines
for past offensives.

Now, under threat of the German
onslaught, they had to be converted,

within weeks, to defensive systems.

Not enough men to dig trenches,

lay out barbed wire
and fill the defences.

Not enough time to rest the
survivors of the battles of 1917.

Not enough time
to train the scanty reinforcements.

The French and British
looked towards Germany

and wondered
how long they would be given.

In the trenches at night, when
the wind was in the right direction,

we could hear the German
transport trains rumbling up
their great army from the east

that was going to sweep us
into the sea.

We were grim. We were determined.

Behind us lay
the old Somme battlefields,

every yard soaked with British
blood.

They were determined,
but they were tired - deadly tired.

"5 March 1918. The battalion wants
a rest. It had been up 42 days

"when, last night, it was relieved
and, even now, I doubt whether
a rest is in sight,

"since an order has just come in to
go up tomorrow for the day and dig.

"I leave you to imagine the state
of the men's bodies and clothing

"after so long a time
almost without a wash."

The British knew the German plan -
a blow against the British Army.

They comforted themselves
with the belief -

"If Germany attacks and fails,
she will be ruined."

The British 5th Army,
holding the longest
and weakest sector in Haig's line -

12 infantry divisions to 42 miles -
lay in the path of the German mass.

Behind the 5th Army was Amiens,
the rail centre that linked
the British and the French.

20 March 1918 -

a cold evening,
mist forming,

apprehension prickling
along the forward defences.

Night fell.

I couldn't sleep.

A quietness I knew so well falls
over fronts before an attack.

The quietness was on.
I fell into an uneasy sleep.

EXPLOSIONS IN QUICK SUCCESSION

On the stroke of 4.40am,
21 March 1918,

the German guns fired together
all along the fronts
of the British 5th and 3rd Armies.

4,000 field guns, 2,600 heavy guns,

3,500 trench mortars,

high explosive shell,

shrapnel,

mustard gas, phosgene gas -
the bombardment

had been orchestrated into
a great symphony of destruction.

It swept away guns, HQs,
telephone exchanges, trenches.

The amount of firepower by the enemy
was so great

that those who weren't gassed,
or suffering the effects of gas,

would be numbed

by the shock
of the continual bombardments.

The bombardment was concentrated
into only five hours.

The German gunners worked
with the speed of frenzy.

"It was like the end of the world.
The gunners have their shirt sleeves
rolled up. They are bathed in sweat.

"Never have they fired faster."

In the forward area, the British
waited for the hurricane to cease -

waited for the German battle groups
to loom through the enveloping fog.

"The moment arrived
and we rushed out of our trenches.
A wild exultation seized us -

"anger, drunkenness and blood lust
all rolled into one.

"We crossed the enemy's barbed wire
easily and were in his first line.

"The wave of men seemed to dance,
a row of ghosts in the white mist."

The British in the forward area
were swamped by the German advance.

By the end of the day, the Germans
had smashed gaps through the
British defence into open country.

British heavy artillery was dragged
from static positions in the rear

and hauled away westwards.

The British front trembled,

or crumbled, beneath the weight
and force of the German tidal wave.

22 March - disintegration
and collapse. The Germans flooded
through the British defence system

all along the front of the 5th Army
and on part of the front
of the neighbouring 3rd Army.

Haig wrote in his diary -

"At 8pm, Gough telephoned.

"Parties of the enemy

are through our reserve line.

"I concurred on his falling back and

"defending the line of the Somme."

The impossible,
the incredible had happened.

The Western Front had been broken.

As in 1914, a great army was
treading the bitter road of retreat

with an exultant pursuer
at its heels.

Haste, confusion,

rumours, orders, counter-orders,

and always the menace
of German fire close behind.

One of our staff officers rode up on
his horse and said, "Men, I want you
to stand firm on this hillside.

"It's a good position. You should be
all right." But the men took
no notice and began to stampede.

They said, "We've got no chance,
sir. The Germans are coming with
tanks."

He started to appeal to our regiment
and he said to me, at his side,

"Men of the East Lancashire
Regiment, you've got a good
reputation."

I said, "It's not much good here."

Just at that moment, a German tank
came up the hill and started firing.

The staff officer on his horse got
off his marks as quick as he could.

23 March - the retreat went on.

Peronne fell.

Behind the slow procession
of defeat,

the sound of German guns came
ever nearer.

"Along the road,
a slow stream of traffic was moving
towards Bapaume and beyond,

"first waves of a tide which rolled
westwards for days and days.

"Here and there a battery
in column of route,

"walking wounded in twos and threes,
a lorry or two.

"A staff car carrying,
with undignified speed,
the dignified sign of corps HQ.

"A column of horse transport.

"I stood watching the unforgettable
scene for ten minutes.

"It was too sad for words."

24 March - Bapaume fell. A gap grew
between the 3rd and 5th Armies.

The 5th Army was now
only a thin screen of stumbling,
exhausted troops.

The Allies faced disaster.

That day, Haig met Petain.

"Petain told me that he'd directed
General Fayolle, in the event of the
German advance being pressed
further,

"to fall back south-westwards

"to cover Paris.

"It was clear to me that the effect

"of this order must be to separate

"the British from the French

"and allow the enemy to penetrate
between the two armies."

To the Kaiser, this was victory.
He awarded Hindenburg

the Iron Cross with golden rays,
last given to Blucher
after Waterloo.

The German press echoed
the Kaiser's pride -

"The great battle in the west is
won.

"A large part of the English army
is beaten."

But Hindenburg realised the Germans
were only halfway to victory.

"Whole sections of the English front
had been utterly routed

"and were retiring, apparently
out of hand, towards Amiens.

"If the town fell into our hands,

"the strategic and political
interests of France and Britain

"might possibly drift apart.

"So, forward against Amiens!"

The Kaiserschlacht -
the Imperial Battle - raged on.

The line of gunfire crept
ever nearer Amiens. Each side threw
every man and gun into the struggle.

The Allied air forces flew
to the limits of endurance,

machine-gunning and bombing
the advancing Germans.

"Only time to refill tanks and guns
and re-bomb when we land from a
raid.

"Then all machines off again
on the next."

Only the airmen could scan
the whole panorama of battle.

"The country presents
an extraordinary sight from above -

"columns of dense smoke going up to
8,000ft from every town and cottage.

"Enormous fires from burning stores
and dumps.

"Shells bursting every few yards.

"Columns retreating along main roads
and stragglers crossing fields."

Still the retreat went on.

"I think we were past hope
or despair.

"We regarded all events
with an indifference of weariness,

"knowing that dawn would bring
another attack."

Once again, civilian refugees left
their homes and fled from the enemy.

"On the road, the flood
of refugees was tramping along
amidst a cloud of powdery dust

"that settled on every one of them.

"The air was filled with the squeaks
of carriages, the smack of whips
and the jingle of cow bells."

Haig and Petain strove
to rebuild their shattered line.

Hindenburg realised the battle
was becoming a race to Amiens.
"English reserves from the north,

"French troops drawn from the whole
of central France, were hastening
to Amiens and its neighbourhood."

More reinforcements
were on their way from England.

"Under my office window in the City,

"there passed this morning as fine a
body of men as one could wish to
see.

"They were a draft, marching
to the station en route to France.

"The wives and sweethearts of some
marched with them.

"One couldn't watch these fellows
marching to face the terrors of war
without an inexpressible pride."

25 March. To the men
on the crowded roads, it seemed
the retreat would never end.

In the words of a gunner,

"We were on the move again
with real dismay in our hearts."

Officers were ordered to use their
revolvers to check panic if need be.

26 March.

Now the armies were fighting
in the wasteland of the Somme
battlefield of 1916.

On 26 March we dropped into a
trench.

It was a trench we knew of old.

We had started to retreat
on the 21st of March, 1918.

And here we were, back in the trench
we had started the attack from

on November the 13th, 1916.

In the shadow of catastrophe,

the British high command

looked to the Channel ports.

The French looked to Paris.

A gulf was opening

between the Allies.

In Doullens,
in the path of the German attack,
the Allied leaders gathered

in an atmosphere of crisis.

Haig believed Petain
had lost his nerve. Petain believed

the British would be herded
into the Channel.

French Prime Minister Clemenceau
was appalled at Petain's pessimism.

But General Foch was resolute -

"We must fight in front of Amiens.
We must fight where we are now.

"As we have not been able to stop
the Germans on the Somme, we must
not now retire a single inch."

This was Haig's chance to have
the pessimistic Petain overruled.

He took it.

"If General Foch will consent
to give me his advice,
I will gladly follow it."

The conference broke up.
Foch had been made supreme
Allied commander in all but name.

But the crisis of the Imperial
Battle had already passed.

The tidal wave - the rolling force
of 21 March - had spent itself.

Five days of marching and fighting
without relief,

short of water,
without proper sleep,

with the heaviest air attacks ever
yet suffered by fighting troops.

The German soldiers knew the life
and death of the Fatherland
were in their hands,

but they could do no more.

"The power of attack was exhausted.

"Our spirits sank to zero."

Day by day, the advance went slower,
grew narrower.

Hindenburg read the signs of
failure.

"With us,

"human nature was urgently voicing
its claims.

"We had to take breath.
The infantry needed rest

"and the artillery, ammunition.

"We were lucky in being able to use
the supplies of the beaten foe.

"Otherwise, we should not have been
able to cross the Somme."

British canteens and supply dumps
helped hinder the German advance.

The Germans had not seen
such riches for years.

"We came across a richly furnished
provision and kitting-out depot
the British had abandoned.

"We rushed for the provisions.

"There was thick, brown beer
that cooled our parched throats.

"We were so desperate for good food
that we forgot about the enemy."

Suddenly they realised
what paupers the Germans had become,

how little the British had been
injured by four years of war.

You know that the German army
and the German doctors didn't have
any bandages.

What we used was crepe paper to wind
round the wounds of the soldiers.

And one can imagine
how long that lasted.

They just dissolved
as quickly as many of the greatcoats
our soldiers had to wear.

The proud German army
looted British depots
like peasants in a palace.

On 28 March -

"Today the advance of our infantry
suddenly stopped near Albert.

"Nobody could understand why.
Our airmen

"had reported no enemy
between Albert and Amiens.

"I jumped into a car with orders
to find out what had caused the
halt.

"As soon as I got near Albert,

"I began to see men dressed up
in comic disguise, men in top hats,

"men who could hardly walk.

"The advance was held up

"and there was no means
of getting it going again for
hours."

"That our troops did not achieve
all possible success

"was due to a lack of firm control
by their officers.

"They had been checked by finding
food depots, and valuable time
had thus been lost."

The Germans grew weaker.

The Allies grew stronger.

Since 25 March, a French army
of seven divisions

had entered the line
and another was marching up fast.

"A fleet of trucks was sent
to carry off the division.
There could be no doubt

"we were about to go to battle.

"Our life was a turmoil
for the next two days.

"We were going day and night,
halting, then moving on again
shortly afterwards."

Haig used the rest of the British
front to bar the road to Amiens.

By the end of March,
the retreat was over.

We got to Ham, eventually. That was
the biggest town outside St Quentin.

When we got into there,
nobody knew anybody.

There was no such thing as
a battalion. We were a non-descript
pile of all sorts of regiments.

Bits and pieces - anybody at all.

Sanitary people, cooks - everybody.
They were all in it.

5 April.

Disappointment in German hearts.
Weariness in German bodies.

They strove for the last time
to break through.

They failed.

The Imperial Battle was over.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff
ordered another offensive
against the weakened British,

in Flanders, where the British line
ran close to the sea
and Haig dared not give ground.

9 April 1918.

Three hours of bombardment
so terrible that it drove men mad.

Then the attack - only half
the number of men of 21 March,

only half the width of front.

CONTINUOUS GUNFIRE

But the German storm groups struck
not British defenders

but raw Portuguese. They broke.

Once again, the Allies trod
the humiliating road of defeat.

There seemed to be nothing to stop
the Germans reaching the sea.

We reached a village called
Estaires.

When we reached it it was like the
Bank of England on a busy morning,

or Staines Bridge
on a Sunday afternoon -

hundreds of vehicles
and nothing moving at all.

One of the drivers in one of
the wagons behind me was crying.

We expected to be taken prisoner -
the Germans were coming on. Their
batteries were leapfrogging forward.

Haig had very few reserves. They
had been sent to the Amiens front.

Only the British soldiers' fighting
spirit could stave off catastrophe.

Censorship reports
on soldiers' letters home

reveal the effect of the retreat
on the morale of the army.

"No-one believes we're winning.
The Germans have gained more
in a month than we have in 18."

"There are a good many out here
like myself - fed up and don't care
a damn which side wins."

"I'm surprised you've joined the
Women's Land Army. Do you realise

"you're helping to prolong the war?

"We shall never get it over
so long as the women keep relieving
men for the army.

"Only when there are no men left
will the war finish. That's the way
the lads out here look at it."

"The men's nerves are gone and not
one has any stomach for this game."

Haig appealed to the doggedness
of the British soldier.

"There is no other course open to us
but to fight it out.

"Every position must be held
to the last man.

"There must be no retirement.

"With our backs to the wall
and believing our cause to be just,

"each one of us
must fight on to the end."

The British fought it out.
By the end of April, the Germans
were again brought to a standstill.

The greatest of all attempts
since 1914

to win the war by purely military
victory had failed.

The very size of the Imperial
Battle had doomed it.

It could not be nourished,

despite Ludendorff's mobilisation
of every horse and lorry and wagon.

The German failure cost 350,000
out of their last reserves of men.

Men were the fuel of war.

As the manpower of Europe
became exhausted,

the war began to burn itself out,
like a forest fire starved
by its own appetite.

Only America could pour fresh fuel
into the diminishing flames.

Since 21 March, nearly 200,000
Americans had landed in France.

Germany's chances
of snatching victory dwindled
with every tick of the clock.

Ludendorff was forced to stake
Germany's waning power

on another gamble.

With desperation in his heart,
Ludendorff swung his armies south.