All language subtitles for BBC.The.Great.War.24of26.Allah.Made.Mesopotamia.And.Added.Flies.divx.mp3

2,000 miles away
from the trench stalemate in France,

another war was being fought in the
desert wastes of the Middle East.

An old-fashioned war
of small armies and large spaces,

where manoeuvre counted and success
depended not on millions of men,

not on the products of industry,
but on the leadership of generals.

Where cavalry wasn't an out-of-date
spectator of vast killing matches,

but a vital instrument
of fast offensives.

Where rivers were lifelines,

like in the campaigns of Alexander
The Great and Napoleon Bonaparte.

This region
bridged Europe and the East,

the East and Africa.

In the rich soil
of its river valleys - the Nile,

the Tigris, the Euphrates -
human civilisation had been born.

Down the centuries,

tide after tide of conquests
had flowed over the Middle East -

the Babylonians,
the Assyrians, the Egyptians,

the Persians, the Greeks,
the Romans, the Arabs and the Turks.

Under Turkish rule, life stagnated.

Poverty and disease
afflicted the people.

The 19th century brought the Arabs
ancient memories of nationhood.

Men prophesied a free and united
Arabia rid of alien Turkish rule.

In 1883, a French traveller noted -

"Everywhere, I came upon the same
abiding and universal sentiment -

"hatred of the Turks.

"The notion of concerted action
to throw off the detested yoke

"is shaping itself. An Arab
movement is looming in the distance,

"and a race hitherto downtrodden

"will claim its due place
in the destinies of Islam."

Towards the end of the 19th century,

the Jews were also
reviving memories of nationhood.

They had scattered after Emperor
Titus captured Jerusalem in AD 70.

Now there was a movement to bring
the Jewish race home again,

and build in Palestine
a new, Jewish state.

The Jews began to return.

The races of the Middle
East were stirring

against the bonds of the
senile Turkish empire.

But the Turks still ruled
over the crossroads of the world,

collision point of the imperial
ambitions of the European powers.

The Middle East was the key to the
British hold on her Indian Empire.

To keep the Middle East from France,

Nelson had sunk Napoleon's fleet
at the Battle Of The Nile.

To keep it safe from Russia,
Britain had fought the Crimean War.

Since its opening in 1869, the Suez
Canal had become the direct route,

linking Britain to India,
Australia and New Zealand.

And since 1882,

the British had been
the paramount power in Egypt.

The early years of the 20th
century gave the British

added concern about the
Middle East - oil.

In 1908, oil had been discovered
in Persia, near the Persian Gulf.

With aircraft and motor transport,
oil was becoming vital for Britain.

The Navy, too, was changing over
from coal to oil.

Unlike coal, which lay safe
under British fields, this new fuel

was in lands that might be menaced
by hostile powers.

From London and from Delhi,

the British continued to keep watch
on the Middle East.

MACHINERY CREAKS

The eyes of the German empire

were also fixed
on the head of the Persian Gulf.

Through the Balkans and Turkey,
and across the sands of Mesopotamia,

there lay Germany's road
to the East.

A road for her busy salesmen
and industrialists.

The Berlin to Baghdad railway.

By 1914, all but 400 miles
had been completed.

Germany's interest
had been proclaimed

by the Kaiser's visit to Turkey
and the Holy Land in 1898.

"His Majesty, The Sultan and
the Muslims who revere him as caliph

"may rest assured they will always
have a friend in the German emperor."

When the Kaiser
visited Turkey again 19 years later,

the war
between the nations of Europe

had engulfed Turks, Arabs, Jews
and Egyptians alike.

But he had redeemed his promise.

In 1914,
Germany gave Turkey the warships

Goeben and Breslau
to replace two Turkish ships

being built in Britain
and seized for the Royal Navy.

Britain's act of seizure

and Germany's friendship
pulled Turkey from neutrality.

In Constantinople,
the crowds were in holiday mood.

DRUMS BEAT AND MEN CHEER

But the Kaiser saw them,
and their fellow Muslims everywhere,

as a means of destroying
Britain's Indian Empire,

that Empire which tormented him
with envy.

"We must inflame all the Mohammedan
world to frantic rebellion

"against this treacherous,
conscienceless nation of shopkeepers.

"For if we are to bleed to death,

"England shall, at all events,
lose India."

Turkey went to war with a German-trained,
German-equipped, German-advised army

recruited from some of the toughest
fighting stock in the world.

Which way would the Turks march?

Across the Sinai Desert
to the Suez Canal?

Down the Tigris and Euphrates
to the oil fields of Persia?

For the British, the loss of either
would have been a catastrophe.

In London and Delhi,
orders were given.

Troops sailed to parry
the Turkish threat.

Indians, Australians and
New Zealanders to Egypt,

British and Indians
to the Persian Gulf.

The expedition from India landed
at the head of the Gulf.

They captured Basra,
the Turkish port

where the Tigris and
Euphrates flowed to the sea.

The army discovered Mesopotamia,

where even the towns
were crumbling heaps of mud-houses.

An Arab proverb said,

"When Allah had made hell,
he found it not bad enough.

"So he made Mesopotamia

"and added flies."

Gradually,
a primitive base was built up

amid the palm groves of Basra.

More troops arrived to share
the flies and the dysentery.

The oil fields were safe.

There seemed nothing more for the
army to do. But its new commander,

Lieutenant General Sir John Nixon,
would not rest on the defensive.

"General Nixon had
a well-earned reputation for dash.

"He himself thought he was selected
for command on account of it."

Nixon dispatched a British
and Indian force north-westwards

to find and defeat the Turks.

Through the spring floods of 1915,

between and along the great rivers,

the army laboured slowly forwards
towards Baghdad.

In country where an army
must provide for itself,

everything had to
be improvised.

It was the rainy season
and the rivers were in flood.

For transport, the British
used small, native boats.

Gunboats protected the advance,
as they had

for Kitchener's
advance up the Nile in 1898.

But, unlike Kitchener,

the British were not building
a railway line behind them.

By June, the army was at Amara,

200 miles from its base in Basra.

So far,
the Turks had been beaten easily.

Should the British press on?
Nixon asked the Government at home

for instructions.

The Government were dazzled
by the easy successes.

They told Nixon to march on,
if he thought the risks acceptable.

Nixon ordered the force commander,
General Townsend, to advance.

Townsend, too, was a man
with Napoleonic aspirations.

While his troops marched, rested
or battled with the flies,

he decided to try
a stroke of daring.

"I told Nixon,
if I routed the Turks,

"I might follow them to Baghdad.

"I was told if I went into Baghdad,

"it would have the same importance

"as entering Constantinople. The
news would go through all Asia."

Constantinople. Baghdad.

Cities of legend.

The lure of Baghdad blinded
soldiers and politicians alike

to the squalid reality of 20th
century Mesopotamia in midsummer,

to the weakness of the link
with far-off Basra.

It was a link strained
to breaking point

by the hoards
of filthy and hungry refugees

fleeing from the clamour
of a foreigners' war.

It was 1915. The summer of the Battles
of Artois and Neuve Chapelle in France.

The sun glared down
on the troops round Amara.

Water that teemed with germs

had to be purified
before it could be drunk.

And in the heat,
men and beasts craved for water.

The day temperature reached
125 degrees Fahrenheit.

Disease swept the army.

With contaminated water
came dysentery and cholera.

With rats and lice came
plague and typhus.

With insects came sandfly
fever and malaria.

Above all, there was the crushing,
annihilating heat.

I had malaria, and I was looking
in this window at the back of me,

a room full of strong young men,

all dying slowly of heatstroke.

Further and further
up the turgid rivers,

further and further
into the heat and emptiness,

Townsend's men advanced.

Now Townsend himself
began to feel qualms.

"The army commander does not realise

"the weakness and danger
of his line of communications.

"We are now 380 miles from the sea."

With the capture of Kut al Imara,

just another Arab mud town
on the river,

Townsend halted to rest
and build up supplies.

In Basra, Nixon was still confident.
He telegraphed to India -

"I consider I am strong enough
to open the road to Baghdad."

November 1915.

Once more, Townsend's weary men

plodded north along the river.

Behind them
ambled a transport column

that belonged
not to the 20th century,

but to the campaigns
of Alexander or Xerxes -

620 camels, 240 donkeys,

1,000 mules, 660 carts,
a collection of bullocks and cows

and a strange regatta

of river-craft.

At last, Townsend
came up with the main Turkish army.

Only 16 miles from Baghdad,

but nearly 500 from Basra.

The Turks lay entrenched
in the plain,

where only the great ruined arch

of the ancient Palace of Ctesiphon
broke the flat horizons.

But when we come into
the 300 yards mark,

they opened a pretty heavy
lot of shooting.

Quite a lot of our fellas got it.
About half the regiment wiped out.

Well, we carried on.
We captured that first line -

the Turks had all gone away from it.
We captured the place we was after.

We couldn't go on no further.

It was a victory,

but it cost nearly half
the British infantry.

The Turks had been reinforced.

Townsend was 500 miles
from his base.

Outnumbered,
cumbered with sick and wounded,

he faced disaster.

The army fell back.

The sick and wounded
now began a journey

whose horror recalled the Crimea.

Jolted over the rough desert
in the cushionless transport carts,

wounded men crawled across
the desert on hands and knees

rather than endure the shaking,

or used dead bodies as cushions
between them

and the bottom of the carts.

Worse was to come.
Packed into riverboats,

the wounded lay without medical aid
until they reached Basra.

"The patients were so huddled they
couldn't defecate clear of the ship.

"The whole of the ship's side was
covered with stalactites of faeces.

"We found a mass of men huddled up,
some with blankets and some without.

"They were lying
in a pool of dysentery,

"covered in dejecta
from head to toe.

"The first man I examined
had a fractured thigh,

"perforated in five or six places.

"He had been writhing about on
deck."

On 3rd December 1915, Townsend
found shelter in the town of Kut.

Soon he was cut off
and besieged by the Turks.

"I have shut myself up in Kut.

"The state of extreme weariness
and exhaustion

"of my men demands instant rest."

On Christmas Eve, there were quite
a number of troops in front of us

and they started at dawn
on an attack.

They blew different holes
in our walls.

They got in. We counterattacked
and drove them out again,

I suppose about half a dozen times.
They broke in at different places.

In January 1916,
fresh troops from Basra

fought desperate battles to try
to break through and relieve Kut.

Instead of the summer's heat,

winter brought floods,
torrential rains, bitter cold.

Once more,
supplies and medical care

were improvised, inadequate.

The months dragged on.

The relief attacks failed,
with heavy losses.

In Kut itself, hope grew dim.

The rations came down finally

to 3oz of bread
and 12oz of horse meat.

The horse meat was difficult to eat

because some of these mules
we ate

had been fed on mules themselves

and the meat was very lean
and hard to digest.

After five months,
on the 29th April 1916,

Kut surrendered

and General Townsend and 13,000 men,
British and Indian,

went into Turkish captivity.

Capture did not end the sufferings.

Painful marches, thirst and hunger,
brutal treatment lay ahead.

Two thirds of them
were to die in captivity.

The fall of Kut released
Turkish reserves.

In 1915, feeble Turkish attacks on the
Suez Canal had been easily repulsed.

Now, in August 1916,

the Turks launched
a major offensive in Egypt.

HORSES NEIGH AND MEN SHOUT

SHELLFIRE AND SHOUTING

MACHINE-GUNFIRE

Half their force was destroyed and
the rest retreated into Palestine.

Egypt and the Suez Canal
were secure.

The British commander in Egypt,
Sir Archibald Murray,

wanted to crown his success
with a counterstroke.

Gradually, the British
in Egypt were drawn

into a major campaign for the
conquest of the Holy Land.

Across the Sinai Desert they marched,
a route taken by Bonaparte in 1799.

Like him, the British Government
allowed themselves to be dazzled

by the names of fabulous cities,

holy places that had lured European
soldiers since the Crusades -

Jerusalem and Damascus.

This, too, was a war
for old-fashioned objectives.

But it was fought with modern means.

A wire-netting vehicle track
was laid across the sand,

and a pipeline
to bring up the water

without which
the men and beasts could not live.

A railway was laid
behind the Army,

linking it with its
base in the Nile delta.

By March 1917,
Murray was through the desert

and at the gates of Palestine.

Murray's mounted regiments, British,
Australian, New Zealand and Indian,

were the key to his plan of attack
on the Turks.

Our job was to follow through
with the Light Horse,

get the other side of Gaza
and come round towards the sea

so the Turks were enclosed,

with the sea on one side
and troops all round.

EXPLOSION

In the confusion of battle,
the British thought they had failed,

whereas the Turks
were near defeat.

There was a withdrawal and we went
back a short way for the night,

much to our disappointment, because
the objectives had been reached.

But the dismay and bewilderment
was all the greater the next morning,

when we had to do it all over again.

The second battle of Gaza
was a British repulse.

As Kut had ended Nixon's command,
Gaza ended Murray's.

The Turks still barred the road
to Jerusalem and Damascus.

CAMEL GRUMBLES

MEN SHOUT ORDERS

The British and Australian troops
settled down for a long wait

in the empty, scorching wastes
of the Sinai.

Our biggest problem was monotony.

You'd see the sun get up,
a big, red ball in the morning

and go down a big,
red ball at night,

and that was your only
sense of time.

And nothing but sand dunes
as far as the eye could see.

You had the heat in the day,
lying in the sand,

the glare of the sun
and the glare of the desert.

Your rifle barrels would get so hot,
you had to hold them by the wood.

In Mesopotamia,
there was now a new commander -

Sir Stanley Maude.

He was an organiser - not a gambler.

The base at Basra was reorganised,
re-equipped.

So were the Army's transport
services and communications.

There was abundant modern equipment
of every kind. By the end of 1916,

Maude commanded an army four times larger
than the Turkish force in front of him.

Maude was ready. When the British
advanced this time,

there was no gamble,
no drama, no adventure.

Maude's personality stamped
the expedition

with cool professionalism.

Yet the objective remained
the same - Baghdad.

Carefully, irresistibly,
Maude swept the Turks

northward out of Kut,
on up the River Tigris.

On 11 March, the British at last

entered the city of the caliphs.

"Nothing could have been
more casual and easy

"than our entry into Baghdad.

"Four of us - the colonel
and the adjutant of the King's Own,

"a gunner officer and myself
would be in first.

"The weariness of the long pursuit
was forgotten.

"Here they were in Baghdad -
the goal of their desires."

At the gates of Palestine,

the forces south of Gaza
also had a new commander -

General Allenby -
sometimes known as the Bull.

Allenby's leadership transformed

the bored troops in the Sinai
desert into an army eager to attack.

Preparations for a great offensive
gathered speed.

Allenby wrote home -

"I shall not attempt anything big
until I have what was promised me.

"I've made a lot of changes since I
came here and have now a good staff

"and some capable commanders.

My army is in good spirits
and is confident of success."

The objective remained
the Holy Land and Syria,

Damascus and Jerusalem.

In September 1917,

Allenby was ready.

It was the year of the Russian
Revolution and of Passchendaele.

Britain needed a prestige victory.

Lloyd George told Allenby he was
expected to give the British nation

Jerusalem as a Christmas present.

Cavalry was the instrument
of victory.

Allenby tricked the Turks
into thinking

he was going to attack Gaza again,

while his horsemen launched a surprise
attack on their flank at Beersheba.

The cavalry charge
by the Australian Light Horse

was made with fixed bayonets
on rifles in three lines of horsemen.

Well, they charged through.

As the first line jumped over
the first lot of trenches,

the Turks didn't
put up a fight.

That was the finish.

Out-fought, outmanoeuvred,
the Turks fell back

with Allenby in relentless pursuit.

In ten days,
the British advanced 50 miles.

Arab fishing boats carried
essential supplies to beaches

close behind the
advancing Army.

While the Arabs hauled their craft
ashore, Allenby's pursuit swept on.

The Turks were split in two,
one group amid the orange groves

of the Plain of Sharon and
the other in the hills of Judaea.

Allenby swung his main weight east,
towards Jerusalem,

racing to beat the onset
of the winter rains.

Then we began to approach
the Judaean hills.

Here we met deluges of rain.

And as we went up those hills,
it became colder and colder.

We had our jackets, but we were
wet through from morning till night.

With it came troubles
with the camels.

The camel is no mountaineer

and the Judaean hills are not high but
consist of ridge after ridge after ridge.

You know you have a destination
which will take some hours to reach.

You hope each ridge will be the last,
but there's always one more ridge.

On 11 December 1917,
the Allies took Jerusalem.

Allenby entered the conquered city
humbly, on foot,

in contrast to the Kaiser who,
in 1898, had ridden on horseback

through a gap specially made
in the ancient walls.

Jerusalem was the first famous city

to fall to the Allies
during four years of war.

For the first time, an Allied army
received the keys of such a city

and posted proclamations
of military government

on the walls of a captured capital -

a spiritual capital, the holiest
city of three religions

- Christian, Jewish
and Mohammedan.

The British nation had received
its Christmas present.

After going through Jerusalem,
we passed the Garden of Gethsemane

and went up the Mount of Olives,
where we camped for quite a few days.

From the Mount of Olives, one gets
a wonderful view of Jerusalem town.

We were all very impressed with that

and couldn't help thinking of our
Bible stories we'd read in the past.

The Turkish empire,
so long senile and decadent,

was crumbling into collapse.

Her Arab lands
had already been the subject

of secret bargaining
between France and Britain.

But other parties were involved now.

Britain had encouraged Arab hatred of the
Turk, sending Sherif Hussein of Mecca

and his son, Faisal,
money, weapons and explosives.

She had sent the Arabs a leader -
Colonel TE Lawrence.

"I was a stranger to these Arabs,

unable to think their thoughts
or subscribe to their beliefs,

"but charged to lead them forward
and develop any movement of theirs

"profitable to England in her war."

British help, together
with hatred of the Turk,

ostered the Arab revolt.
The Arab irregulars

moved swiftly and secretly through
the desert east of Jordan on camels,

blowing up Turkish railway lines,
attacking isolated posts

and even capturing
the holy city of Mecca.

12,000 Turkish troops were
tied down by the Arab irregulars,

a valuable diversion of strength

away from the decisive battles
in Palestine.

The Arabs believed that,
as a reward for their help,

Great Britain would
only conclude peace

on terms that gave freedom
to the Arab peoples.

The Jewish hope of founding
a new state of Israel in Palestine

grew brighter
in the shadow of Turkey's defeats.

The Allies needed the help and
support of Jews all over the world.

They bought that help, as they had
that of the Arabs, with promises.

"His Majesty's Government view
with favour

"the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people

"and will facilitate the achievement
of this object,

"it being understood
that nothing shall be done

"to prejudice the civil or religious
rights of non-Jews in Palestine."

The war between the Europeans

was bringing mighty changes
to the Middle East.

New hopes,

new and massive human forces
had been set rolling

among peoples long
sunk in apathy.

Clashing ambitions and promises
carried the threat of new conflicts

at a time when the conflicts of the
old order were still being resolved.

While Allenby prepared
for the 1918 offensive,

a new German commander had
arrived in Palestine -

Liman von Sanders. Before the war,
he had trained the Turkish armies.

He had led the successful defence
of Gallipoli.

But now, his Turkish troops
were slinking away to their homes.

Only his German contingent
could be relied on.

The Turkish empire was near to death.
But, in the collapse of imperial Russia,

Turkish leaders saw an opportunity

to carve out a new empire
in the Caucasus and Persia.

While the Turkish troops marched
and fought

in the Caucasus
in pursuit of this fantasy,

von Sanders faced Allenby,
outnumbered by two to one.

WAGON WHEELS RUMBLE

EXPLOSION

Early in the morning
of 19 September 1918,

Allenby struck under cover
of a hurricane barrage.

His troops tore a gap in
the Turkish positions on the coast,

wheeled right and pushed the Turks
into the hills.

Allenby's cavalry swept forward
across the Turkish communications.

Co-operation between
cavalry and aircraft,

the oldest and the
newest striking forces,

brought Allenby a brilliant victory.

Ceaseless air attacks isolated
von Sanders from his troops

and blocked the crossings
of the River Jordan.

The Turkish army strove to escape.

Only the German soldiers remained steady
in the welter of confusion and disaster.

The cavalry rode 70 miles
in 24 hours

to cut off the Turkish retreat
to the north.

In three days, Allenby destroyed
two Turkish armies.

Beyond the Jordan, in the barren hills,
a third Turkish army was cut to pieces

by Arabs avenging the cruelties

of centuries of Turkish rule.

On 2 October 1918, another of the
legendary cities of the Middle East

fell into British hands
- Damascus.

Allenby was the hero of the Arabs.

But the moment of Arab
liberation was poisoned

by conflict between the
different Allied promises.

The problems of victory remained
for others to solve.

Victory had not been cheap. The
Middle East campaigns had drawn in

over two million soldiers
of the British Empire.

They had cost
over 160,000 casualties.

Painful marches and stern battles

had barely affected the issue
of the world struggle.

But the Turkish empire
had been destroyed.

To Allies and Arabs alike,

for the moment, this was enough.