All language subtitles for BBC.The.Great.War.23of26.When.Must.The.End.Be.divx.mp3

July 17th, 1918.

The wheel had come full circle.

Once again, as in 1914,
all the war,

all its potential, all its hopes
and fears and deceitful promises,

were centred on the River Marne.

On the Marne, the war had reached
a moment of equipoise.

The last of the great German
offensives on the Western Front
had been launched three days before.

By July 17th, it had been halted
by French, British and American
troops combined.

General Ludendorff gave orders
for the attack to cease.

"A continuation of the offensive
would have cost us too much."

General Foch, commander-in-chief
of the Allied armies, asked:

"What had been the results
of this Friedensturm which,
it had been proclaimed,

"was to bring peace by
one victorious rush?

"Nothing but bitterness and
deception, forerunners of defeat."

On July 17th, Ludendorff travelled
north to the headquarters of
Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria

to discuss the final offensive
against the British Army,

which had always been
his main intention.

For the few hours while
the equipoise lasted,

the Germans remained unsuspecting.

Field Marshal von Hindenburg
described their awakening:

"Suddenly, a violent hail of shells
descended on the back areas.

"The enemy was undoubtedly
attacking on the whole front,
from the Aisne to the Marne."

350 French tanks rolled into
the attack.

American divisions spearheaded
the main French onset.

Really, we started out recklessly,
like a holiday, it was.

We didn't know,
we didn't see any dead people yet.

We started out,
followed the barrage,

and the first Germans we saw dead
were in the first line.

We leapfrogged that line,

the barrage continued,
we followed it,

to the second line of
German trenches.

There, a lot of Germans
were killed by our barrage,

and there wasn't much opposition
the first half-hour or so.

When the Germans recovered,
resistance stiffened.

It was never easy
to defeat the German army.

On July 29th, Mangin wrote:

"The struggle is very hard.
We've had some success,

"but the Boche is holding on to the
swing door I am trying to close."

Steadily, reluctantly,
fighting stern rearguard actions,

the Germans were forced to withdraw.

Once again, the tide had turned

and the German army was
retreating from the River Marne.

Hindenburg wrote:

"It was a grievous decision.

"How the enemy would rejoice if the
word Marne were to mean a revolution
in a military situation again.

"All France would breathe again.

"What would be the effect of
this news on the whole world?

"We realised how many eyes
and hearts would follow us
with envy, hatred and hope."

The Germans bowed to the inexorable.

On August 2nd,
they evacuated Soissons.

By August 5th, the Second
Battle of the Marne was over.

The Allies had taken over 29,000
prisoners and nearly 800 guns.

The German high command understood
the significance of what had been
done. In Ludendorff's words:

"The attempt to make peace
by means of German victories

"before the arrival of American
reinforcements, had failed.

"The army's impetus had not sufficed
to deal the enemy a decisive blow

"before the Americans were on
the spot in considerable force.

"It was quite clear to me
that our general situation
had thus become very serious."

What would be the effect of this
news on the world? Asked Hindenburg.

This indeed was a key question.

In France, a surge of relief
greeted the retreat of the Germans

and the end of the threat to Paris.

In America, there was pride in
the young Army of the Republic.

These July battles were
America's first awakening
to the harsh truths of the war.

American losses had been heavy, as
their high-spirited, inexperienced
soldiers stormed into the attack.

General Mangin,
who commanded them, said:

"You rushed into the fight
as though to a fete.

"American comrades, I am grateful to
you for the blood so generously
spilled on the soil of my country."

In Britain, the news of victory,
after months of anxious waiting,

and awareness of German strength,

was treated with care.

On August 4th, as the battle
was ending, Lord Rothermere wrote:

"We are still very far from our
goal.

"And we ought soberly to confront
the situation as it now exists."

Germany in 1918 had displayed
to the world such ruthless force

that men might well doubt
the possibility of its waning.

Yet, in Germany, as the
Battle of the Marne developed, and
the news of it reached the people,

uneasy voices were heard,
and would not be stilled.

The Cologne Gazette reported:

"Reviewing events at home
in the fourth year of the war,

"the inference is that a true
offensive spirit is lacking at home.

"In this connection, there is no
more instructive comparison

"than that of our arch enemy -
Great Britain."

"For Britain's home front has
no loopholes and no weak spots."

The British government might
ruefully smile to learn that
Britain had "no weak spots".

Munition workers in Coventry and
Birmingham went on strike at the
climax of the Battle of the Marne.

There was a strike of women
operating London buses and trams,

followed by the threat of another
by women workers on the Underground.

There was a strike
in the Yorkshire coalfields,

coinciding with the disclosure of
a serious Allied shortage of coal.

There were searching queries by
an ex-minister, Lord Landsdowne,

about the object of the war itself.

There were continuing shipping
losses, in excess of new building.

There were food shortages, and a
frightening influenza epidemic.

There was ferocious agitation
against "enemy aliens" in Britain,

a petition with 1.25 million
signatures demanded the internment
of every alien forthwith.

The largest mass meeting in
Trafalgar Square since the outbreak
of war urged the same thing.

This rage displayed
the hysterical element in
Britain's will to victory.

A letter to the Times said:

"At last, the view of Germany
as she really is

"is dawning on the British people.

"They are beginning to think
that with a nation so polluted,

"whose ideals are so false,
and whose human feeling is so dead,

"no people acknowledging the morals
of Christianity,

"or even of civilisation ought,
as it values its own soul,

"to have truck,
or dealing or even speech."

On August 8th, the London Times
reported an article in
the Frankfurter Zeitung.

"There is little sense in yielding
to illusions about what is before
us.

"We shall have to go on fighting
during the winter, and doubtless
during next summer also.

"The troops which are crossing the
ocean from America must feed the
war,

"like fresh logs
thrown upon a dying fire.

"And this will not
make the fighting easy."

On this day, August 8th, fresh logs
were, indeed, thrown on the fire.

On July 17th, the eve of Foch's
counterstroke on the Marne,

the British commander-in-chief,
Sir Douglas Haig,

had suggested to
him a joint French-British attack

to relieve
the important rail centre of Amiens.

"This proposal," said Foch,
"was perfectly in harmony with my
way of looking at the matter."

On July 20th, he wrote to Haig:

"Having reached the point we now
are, it is indispensable to
seize the enemy and attack him,

"wherever we can do so.

"The combined attack
should be carried out at once."

Haig had been preparing this stroke
for over two months.

He entrusted it to General
Rawlinson's Fourth Army.

The British Army was now different
from the one which emerged

from the costly defensive battles
of March and April.

Haig recognised the transformation.

"Two months of comparative quiet
worked a great change in the
condition of the British armies.

"The draft sent out from England
had been largely absorbed,

"reinforcements from other fronts
had arrived,

"and the number of effective
infantry divisions had risen
from 45 to 52.

"In artillery, we were stronger
than we had ever been.

"The British Army was ready
to take the offensive."

By 1918, British war production
was truly organised on the scale
of these tremendous needs.

In March and April,
under the German hammer blows,

the British lost over 1,000 guns
and vast amounts of war material.

British production was able to
replace these losses
before the battles were over.

In late April, the King addressed
a message to munitions workers.

"The King has learned that almost
all the losses and expenditure of
munitions during the battle

"have been made good without any
undue depletion of normal reserves,

"out of the resources which have
been held in readiness,

and the additional effort which has
been made.

"There are now more serviceable
guns, machine guns and aeroplanes
with the British armies in the field

"than on the eve of
the German attack."

Thus fortified, Haig completed
his preparations to counterattack.

But, as 1916 and 1917 had shown,

something more was needed than

filled ranks and vast stocks of
war material -

secrecy. By every trick in the book,

the British 4th Army worked to
achieve surprise.

Every soldier had a notice pasted
into his pay book. It said:

"Keep your mouth shut.

"The success of any operation
we carry out depends on surprise.

"Do not talk. When you know your
unit is making preparations for an
attack,

"don't talk about them to men
in other units, or to strangers.

"And keep your mouth shut
especially in public places.

"Do not be inquisitive about
what other units are doing.

"If you hear or see anything,
keep it to yourself.

"The success of the operations,
and the lives of your comrades,

"depend on your silence."

On July 28th, Foch placed
the 1st French Army under Haig's
command for the forthcoming battle.

This was kept secret.
Haig wrote to the French commander:

"...to tell him I would not call
at his headquarters until operations
had started,

"in order to not excite suspicion."

Behind the Australians was massed
another formidable fighting unit -

the Canadian corps,
nearly 100,000 strong.

This, too, was kept secret.

Behind them all, to exploit success,
the cavalry corps was brought in

with over 15,000 horses to hide
on the empty Somme uplands.

Over 2,000 guns were assembled,
also in secrecy.

And since this was 1918,
and a different style of war,

Rawlinson had under his command,
silently gathered, 800 aircraft

and 534 tanks.

Of this, the Germans knew nothing.

On August 4th, Ludendorff
composed an order of the day.

"I am under the impression that the
possibility of an enemy offensive

"is viewed with some apprehension.

"There is nothing to justify
this apprehension,

"provided our troops
are vigilant and do their duty."

The battle of Amiens opened
at 4.20am on August 8th.

"We are the dead

"Short days ago, we lived

"Felt dawn, saw sunset glow

"Loved and were loved

"And now we lie in Flanders fields.

"Take up our quarrel with the foe.

"To you from failing hands
we throw the torch

"be yours to hold it high.

"If ye break faith with us who die

"we shall not sleep.

"O guns, fall silent
till the dead men hear

"above their heads
the legions pressing on

"O flashing muzzles, pause,
and let them see the coming dawn
that streaks the sky afar

"Then let your mighty chorus
witness be to them, and Caesar,
that we still make war.

"Tell them, O guns,
that we have heard their call,

"That we have sworn,
and will not turn aside,

"That we will onward
till we win or fall,

"that we will keep the faith
for which they died."

"Hero hour, 8th of August.
400 tanks along the Amiens front.

"Is there a man alive of us
who forgets?

"What a day.

"400 tanks in line of battle.
Good going, home ground.

"The air grows electric.
Two minutes to go.

"Watches tick, hearts beat.
One minute to go.

"Then the whole world upheaves.

"No words can describe it.

"Just the whole world heaves,
rocks, tumbles,
turns upside down, ricochets.

"We can see, hear and feel nothing.

"The driver's on his seat,
his hand on the clutch.

"Soon she's humming, sweet and low.

"I depress the pedal
and she roars, magnificently,

"like the great man-eater she is.

"She gives a lurch and a roll,
the gunners spread their feet
for balance, and we're off."

The going was marvellous.

The grass was just like
Cumberland turf, springy -

you felt you were in for a joyride.

"The whole plateau seen from the air
was dotted with infantry, field
artillery and tanks, moving forward.

"Many staff officers were riding
horses in battle for the first time.

"No enemy guns appeared to be
firing,

"and no co-ordinated defence
was apparent."

Only the RAF lacked a sense of
overwhelming victory that day.

During the hours between
the opening of the battle and
the lifting of the morning mist,

the Germans had time to summon
air reinforcements.

As the British planes took off
to bomb bridges, communications
and troop concentrations,

German squadrons
assembled against them.

The Richthofen squadron appeared.

Baron von Richthofen,
the most famous air ace of the war,
was dead now, but his squadron,

led by Captain Hermann Goring, was
still a fearsome opponent to meet.

The RAF lost 44 machines in battle,
and 52 more were wrecked.

On the ground, the battle flowed
towards its unmistakable meaning.

The tanks were going forward,
and taking position after position,
the infantry following up behind,

and though the Germans had brought
their artillery out of their pits,

it was of no avail - the Australians
were all around them.

While this took place, the horse
artillery galloped into action.

In the meantime,
German prisoners were coming up -
it was a morning of victory.

You could feel the excitement,
because we knew that would be
the end of the war.

By 1.30pm, the Australians
were on all their objectives.

They'd captured over 7,800
prisoners, and 173 guns.

The Canadians made
the deepest advance,

nearly eight miles,
and took nearly 5,000 prisoners.

Altogether, the British
and French armies captured
some 15,000 Germans that day.

Was this the reward at last
of patient years of endeavour?

Was this what Vimy might have been,
what Messine should have been,
what Cambrai could have been?

Field Marshal Haig wrote:

"The situation has developed
more favourably for us than I,

"optimist though I am,
had dared to hope."

Ludendorff wrote:

"August 8th was the black day
of the German army in this war.

"This was the worst experience
that I had to go through."

The battle of Amiens
was a new beginning,

the glint of a new hope.

The advance slowed, but the feel of
a great occasion did not diminish.

German resistance stiffened,
and each mile gained

brought the British nearer
to the devastated wilderness
of the Somme battlefields of 1916.

But Amiens, on August 8th,

struck such a blow at German morale
as it had never sustained before.

As the German support divisions
moved up, they met men who shouted:

"You want to prolong the war?
If the enemy were over the Rhine,
the war would be over!

"We thought we'd set
the thing going.

"Now you fools are corking up
the hole again!"

Ludendorff was appalled
at the reports which reached him.

"Everything I had feared had here,
in one place, become a reality.

"Our war machine
was no longer efficient.

"The 8th August put the decline of
our fighting power beyond all doubt.

"The war must be ended."

More slowly now, but steadily,
the Allies pressed forward.

On August 11th,
the German Supreme Command met.
Ludendorff offered his resignation,

but it was not accepted.

The truth could not be disguised.

The Kaiser told his generals:

"I see that we must strike a
balance.

"We have nearly reached the limit
of our powers of endurance.

"The war must be ended."

"The war must be ended." At last,
the realisation came home.

The leaders of the German army,
the mightiest instrument of power
the world had seen,

knew they could not win.

The London Times wrote:

"The new Franco-British offensive,
initiated by Sir Douglas Haig,

"is one of the most gratifying
surprises of the war.

"It surprised the British public
just as much as the enemy,

"for never has a secret
been better-kept."

Daunted by the collapse of
so many false hopes in years past,

the British public hesitatingly
comprehended what had been achieved.

In Germany, and among her
weakened and wearied allies,

realisation came more swiftly.

A Vienna paper wrote:

"The German retreat on the Marne
concerns us just as much as if our
own troops had been fighting there.

"And the beating hearts with which
we followed the battle at Amiens

"are inspired by a comprehension
of the extent to which our destiny
is interwoven with these events."

Austria needed peace.

Bulgaria needed peace.
Turkey needed peace.

Now Germany was learning
that she, too, needed peace.

But what sort of peace?

The voice of the Junke insisted:

"I should like to say to our people:
do not lose your nerves
or become sentimental.

"Show a hard face to your enemies,

"and say plainly to them
that you need this, and that.

"and therefore will keep that much
of what you have taken from them,

"because YOU are the conquerors."

Germany realised there could be no
negotiating of peace, or compromise.

The righteous wrath of
the American people,
embodied in President Wilson,

the determination of Britain,
asserted by Lloyd George,
would not contemplate such a thing.

And Clemenceau had spoken
for France:

"I, gentlemen, I wage war.

"In domestic policies, I wage war.
In foreign policies, I wage war.

"Always, everywhere, I wage war.

"And I shall continue to wage war

"until the last quarter of an hour.

"How long, oh, Lord, how long
before the flood of crimson welling
carnage shall abate?

"From sodden plains in west
and east,

"the blood of kindly men streams up
in mists of hate,

"polluting thy clean air.

"And nations great in reputation
of the arts that bind the world
with hopes of heaven,

"sink to the state of brute
barbarians

"whose ferocious mind gloats o'er
the bloody havoc of their kind,

"not knowing love, or mercy.

"Lord, how long shall Satan
in high places

"lead the blind to battle
for the passions of the strong?"

Peace was still a distant vision
in August 1918.

In the mood of all
the warring nations,

there was still a debt to be paid,
in blood and destruction.

The fight went on.

Foch - who became marshal of France
on August 6th -

widened the battle front southward,

drawing in new French armies.

Now Haig widened
the British front of attack also.

On August 21st, his 3rd army
opened the battle of Bapaume.

Bapaume fell to the New Zealanders
on August 30th.

In this battle, the British
captured 34,000 men and 270 guns.

Before it ended, Haig flung in his
1st Army, attacking still further
to the north,

along the River Scarpe.

Their fight produced
16,000 prisoners and 200 guns.

And so into September,

and yet another battle
by the 4th and 3rd Armies.

12,000 prisoners and 100 guns.

It was a majestic progress, after
long years of waiting and enduring.

But the cost was high
for men who had fought so long.

At home, the British people
began to have the sense of victory.

One by one,
the headlines stilled their doubts.

"August 23rd. New British advance."

"August 24th. British front ablaze."

"August 26th. Pressing the advance."

"August 27th.
Battle front spreading."

"August 28th. Allies sweep forward."

"August 30th. The flowing tide."

The Times commented:

"The arrival of our forces at
Bapaume set the seal on a wonderful
weekend.

"and brought into view possibilities
not in sight a week ago.

"The Germans are retreating so fast

"people are beginning to ask
whether they'll be able to stand
on the Hindenburg line!"

The sense of victory gripped the
Allies. Haig told his generals:

"Risks which a month ago would have
been criminal to incur

"ought now to be incurred as a
duty."

Yet there remained between
the Allies and the growing vision
of victory a formidable obstacle -

the Hindenburg line.

Here, the Germans, dispirited,
tired, weakened in numbers,
might be expected to make a stand

and display that
courage in adversity,

which had sustained them
so often before.

By the end of September, it became
clear that only the whole strength
of the Allies on the Western Front

could guarantee Germany's overthrow.

Marshal Foch coined a slogan:

"Tout le monde a la bataille" -
everyone go to it.

The Americans joined in, fighting
as an army in their own right.

Already on September 12th, they'd
cleared the St Mihiel salient near
the fortress of Verdun,

taking 15,000 prisoners
and 450 guns.

It was a fine achievement
in their first great offensive,

but now, for the whole alliance,

the direction of the American
effort had to be changed.

By a tremendous feat of
organisation and administration,

the American army
was shifted to the Argonne

to strike northward while the
French and British marched east.

And in the north,
the Belgian army also would attack

beside the British 2nd Army,

fighting under the orders of
King Albert of the Belgians.

By September 26th, all was ready.

The French and Americans
struck hard. Then, the haste of
the attack told against them.

The Americans suffered heavy
casualties,

they could have borne these due to
the enthusiasm that impelled them,

but their transport broke down.

Supplies could not be got
to the troops in action.

The wounded could not be removed.

The American onslaught slowed,
and stopped. It didn't matter.

On September 27th, the British 3rd
and 1st Armies struck at the
Hindenburg line itself,

and made a breach 12 miles wide
and six miles deep.

When we got to the wire,
it was terrific.

It was about four foot high,
and I would say about 15 yards wide.

But the tanks
who'd gone in front of us

had ploughed through it
like a ship in the sea

and we had no difficulty in walking
in their tracks through the wire.

We also got over
the Hindenburg front line.

On the 28th, the 2nd Army and the
Belgians took up the tale at Ypres

and crossed the entire battleground
of Passchendaele,

where the British had fought
for three bloody months in 1917,
in one day.

And on that day, too,
the 4th Army, with Americans
fighting with Australians,

joined in to the south.

In obstinate rearguards
and heroic groups,

parts of the German army battled on,
by virtue of soldierly instinct
and tradition.

But others, chalked on the railway
wagons that took them to the front,

slaughter cattle for Wilhelm & Sons.

Hindenburg wrote:

"What terrible demands were made
in these few weeks

"on the strength and resolution
of the officers and men of all
the staffs and formations.

"The only order issued was often:
'Hold out to the last, hold out'.

"What a renunciation after
so many glorious victories.

"I was faced with
the worst of all questions -

"when must the end be?"

The end of slaughter, the end of
lunatic damage, the end of hate.

The end must be now, at once.

But how could it be achieved?

Victors and defeated alike met
the problem with bewildered stares.

War is easy to declare,

but peace -

peace in 1918 was an elusive prize.