All language subtitles for Apocalypse World War I - 1x01 - Furie S01E01

France, 1918. For four years
cameramen from around the world,

risk with their lives to film these images.

Sometimes they re-created scenes afterwards,
in order to preserve them in our memory.

We have enhanced their
images with color and sound.

November 11, 1918, 11 in the morning;

suddenly silence,
the armistice has been signed.

Bugles and church bells
sounds cease-fire.

Moments before, Private George
Lawrence Price, a Canadian, is killed.

He is the wars last fallen soldier.

APOCALYPSE

World War I

From 1914 to 1918, nearly 80 million
people were plunged into the war.

10 million soldiers died; mowed down
by bullets, blown to pieces by bombs,

incinerated, starved,
devoured by rats and lice,

and killed by the epidemics
that thrive on misery.

20 million more were wounded.

What lunacy took hold of the Austrians, Serbs,

Russians, Germans, the French,
with their colonies,

the British with their empire,

the Italians, the Japanese,
the Turks, and the Americans?

The survivors can count themselves lucky.

But they have lost their youth

or their face

or their sanity.

How did the world unleash this fury?

1914, who are the men of this period,

so carefree yet so close to war?

Many of them are peasants,
attached to their land,

their traditions, and the religions.

They feel safe.
It’s been almost half a century

since the last large
European conflict.

The well-to-do enjoyed
a fine summer of 1914.

René Ferrari, 34,
from a line of Italian immigrants,

who made their fortune in heating,
is one of the first home-movie enthusiasts.

He believes the film will preserve
the image of his happiness,

not realizing how fragile it is.

René is married to Jacqueline.
They have three children,

Pierre, Claude, and Alain,

and a faithful maid Alphonsine.

They live a short distance
from the railroad.

Trains are so modern and practical,
they go everywhere now.

Soon they will transport armies.

The train takes them to the French Alps

where they go ice climbing with only
a cane and the dress shoes,

and a sense of balance.

Vienna, 1914.

The great writer Stefan Zweig recalls the
capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire:

“New theaters, libraries,
and museums were springing up everywhere.

There was progress everywhere”.

“What could interrupt this rapid ascent;
dampen the élan,

which constantly drew new
force from his own soaring?”

"A wondrous carefree spirit
brings the world over".

"Never has Europe been stronger,
richer, more beautiful,

or more confident of an even better future".

It is still “la Belle époque” of
the early 1900s but not for all.

Workers, putting twice the hours as
those of today, yet earn half as much.

Women earn a mere half
of the slave wages.

In theory,
children under 12 do not work in mines.

In France, Jean Jaures is the
great leader of the working class.

He is worried.

He knows that among Europe's elite,
many captains of industry speak openly of war

that will end the movement
for workers’ demands.

Jaures writes: “Your violent and chaotic
society, even when it pretends to seek peace,

carries within it war,
just as rain clouds carry the storm”.

“The arms race is very good for business,

the great European powers prepare for war,

for endless military service
trains men for war”.

“War and death hover over the planet”.

For centuries the rival empires have been
divvying up the world with their swords.

Britain's conquest reaches’ as
far as Australia, and Canada;

Frances from Indochina to Africa.

Germany also has colonies but
wants a larger slice of the pie.

Prior to 1871, Prussia was a divided state.

By crushing France and annexing the
French provinces d'Alsace and Lorraine,

it has become the German Empire.

The Emperor of Germany, Wilhelm II, 55,
surrounds himself with his military leaders.

He orders the building of a Navy
that will surpass England’s fleet.

He wants to give Germany
its place in the Sun.

June 15, 1914.

Wilhelm II celebrates the
25th anniversary of his reign.

He loves to parade but can mount his horse
only from a stool because of his handicap.

An accident of birth left them with a withered
left arm that he usually poses a tapas sword.

After years of failed treatments,
he has developed an unstable character

and is prone to violent outbursts of anger.

He is married to his
cousin Augusta Victoria.

They have the same grandmother,
the British sovereign Queen Victoria.

She characterized Wilhelm as a hotheaded,
conceited, and wrongheaded young man.

Wilhelm has a conflicted relationship
with his English Royal family,

so powerful and dominating.

One day, while hunting,
he hurts himself and screams revealingly:

“This damned English blood”.

For Wilhelm II the United
Kingdom has been a threat,

ever since it formed the triple
alliance with France and Russia.

As a result, Germany feels
surrounded and thus vulnerable.

Its only true ally is the
Austro-Hungarian Empire,

an amalgam of smaller nations,
which is been rained over for 60 years

by Franz Joseph I, 84.

His long life is been punctuated by tragedy;
the suicide of his son,

and the assassination of his wife,
Empress Elizabeth,

CC, as she was known,
as the sweetheart of his youth.

He is now an old Emperor,
many of whose subjects demanded independence,

he rules a tinderbox,
but Franz Joseph and his arrogant officers,

and politicians oppose reform of any kind.

His empire is referred to
as the joyful Apocalypse.

The waltzing and festivities continue
unabated as at the marriage of the Zita,

lovely Princess to Karl,
to Emperor’s grandnephew.

But it is his nephew; Franz Ferdinand,

he was the heir,
presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne.

Franz Ferdinand is married to
the Countess Sophie Chotek,

an aristocrat but not of royal blood.

Franz Joseph does not approve, nor does he
approve of the reformist ideas of his heir.

June 28, 1914, the infernal
war machine is set in motion.

It’s Sunday and Kaiser Franz Joseph
travels to his country estate to hunt.

There he learns that the heir to the throne,

his nephew Franz Ferdinand and his wife
have been assassinated in Sarajevo.

Showing no trace of emotion,
the Kaiser coldly announces:

“A higher power has reestablished the
order which I alas cannot preserve”.

Sarajevo, the name echoes
like a scream across history.

It is in Sarajevo that the
world's destiny changes forever.

In Bosnia which Austria-Hungary
has annexed recently.

But Serbia had opposed this move,
it wants to expand

by uniting the Slavic peoples of the Balkans.

June 28, 1914, Sarajevo.

Franz Ferdinand,
the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Crown,

together with his wife, has just escaped
the first assassination attempt.

They stop at City Hall
to protest vehemently.

These are the last images of the couple.

When they leave the building a little
later, they are shot dead with a pistol.

The assassin, Gavrilo Princip,
is a 19-year-old Bosnian nationalist.

It was the Serbians who
provided his pistol.

This assassination in Sarajevo will
have unimaginable consequences

though it first it is covered
as a minor news story.

Along the Thames,
the future Queen of the mystery novel,

Agatha Christie, then 24, notes:

“When in far-off Serbia an
Archduke was assassinated,

it seems such a faraway incident".

"In those countries people
always being assassinated”.

The British paid scant attention
to the black hole of Europe,

known as The "Balkan powder keg".

In 1912,
two Balkan wars had left 200,000 dead.

By 1914, in Great Britain,
those distant tragedies have been forgotten.

The English monarch George V, 49,

is also the King of Ireland
and the Emperor of India.

His realm is huge but his powers limited.

His foremost preoccupation is Ireland,
struggled for independence.

On June 28, 1914, he writes:
“The assassination in Sarajevo

is one more shock for the
old Emperor of Austria”.

George V has no sense of
what is about to explode.

Any more than the president
of France who has come to London

on an official visit to reaffirm
“The Entente cordiale”,

the new friendship which after
centuries of a deadly rivalry

now links Great Britain and France.

Poincaré, 54, may be a moderate
but he comes from the Lorraine region,

that Germany annexed and that
all France now dreams of re-conquering.

July 3, 1914, with the funerals of
Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek,

the countdown to war begins.

Austria's generals have long sought of
the excuse to subjugate Serbia.

They cannot prove the country's responsibility
for the Sarajevo assassinations

but they managed to convince their Emperor.

The Austrian Chief of Staff declares:
“We must rid ourselves of the Serbs,

for they are forever biting the
heel of the Empire, like snakes”.

But such a stance overlooks Russia;
protector of the Slavs.

St. Petersburg,
the capital of the Russian Empire,

is the seat of Czar Nicholas II, 47,

who was rained over his
170 million subjects for 30 years.

He celebrates the Tri-Centennial
of the Russian Dynasty

amid the pomp of the Orthodox Church.

Parading alongside him Czarina Alexandra
and their son, czarevich Alexey.

And close behind their four daughters,
the Grand Duchesses Olga,

Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia.

In 1905 Russia lost the war against Japan
and experienced its first revolution.

Since then the country's economy has improved,

despite the burden of high
military expenditures.

In early July 1914,
amid Europe's looming misfortunes,

the Czar takes a cruise on the
Baltic Sea aboard his yacht.

Despite these images of carefree gaiety,
the Czar feels a deep sense of insecurity.

Peace is under threat
and so is his dynasty.

His heir, the sole son, the 10-year-old
czarevich Alexey is a hemophiliac.

His blood does not clot;
the slightest injury may be fatal.

To ward off the yield fortune that
is plunged her into depression,

his mother, the czarina,
seeks help from a faith healing monk Rasputin,

whose influence is on the rise.

Rasputin may help the czarevich but he
also metals in the affairs of the Czar.

Czarevich Alexey on whom is parents' doubt,
as to convince them

by throwing another tantrum,
to allow him to go for a row

but he is not allowed to swim.

The faithful seaman Derevenko,
so strong and reassuring,

has protected the czarevich
as he took his first steps.

He is constantly on guard but like so many
sick children the czarevich is unruly.

Will he ever be allowed to play?

Believe and get the chance to grow up.

His hereditary illness comes from his English
maternal great-grandmother Queen Victoria,

who carried the fatal gene.

At her death, Queen Victoria's descendants
occupied many of Europe's thrones.

The Europe of kings and
emperors is one big family.

The British sovereign, George V,
and Czar Nicholas II are cousins

and could be taken for twins.

The German Kaiser is also their cousin
and the czarevitch's’ Godfather.

Peace should rein in the family.

But in each country, strong nationalist
factions see war as the opportunity

to finish off a dangerous rival.

And the assassination of Franz Ferdinand,
the heir to the Austrian throne,

is for Wilhelm II the most
serious threat of all;

an attack on the divine right of Kings.

Wilhelm II had often hunted
with Franz Ferdinand.

The Archduke was part of his world and for
the Kaiser, a naive and even impulsive man;

the assassination is
nothing short of sacrilege.

Wilhelm II, his generals, and the German
Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg,

all agree; Germany must not waver,
but must seize the opportunity

of the assassination in Sarajevo,
to demonstrate Germany's will.

Together they decide to support their
ally Austria in its plan to invade Serbia.

The threat of war doesn't keep
Wilhelm II from leaving on July 6, 1914,

for a summer cruise on his yacht,
an 8,000 ton, 130-yard long Leviathan.

Wilhelm is confident that
the conflict will not spread.

He says: “It will be all over in a week".

"The Czar won't enter the war,
because Russia is unprepared

and its ally, France, has no heavy artillery”.

July 20, 1914.

The president of the French Republic,
Raymond Poincaré, arrives in Russia.

Poincaré, a secular Republican, has no
qualms about supporting an absolute monarch

and profoundly religious
man, like Nicholas II.

The visit has been planned long ago.
For the crisis, the timing is perfect.

Poincaré wants to assess the solidity of the
alliance and the readiness of Russia's Army.

The French president issues
a cautious statement:

“The current crisis must
remain limited to Serbia”.

But as France's leaders
prepare to return to Paris,

the government cancels all
leave for military personnel

and calls all generals back from holiday.

While the wealthy enjoy their Seaside
vacations and ignore concerns about Sarajevo,

the continent continues its
inexorable descent into the war.

The Austrians prepare.

July 23, 1914.

The government in Vienna send’s
Belgrade an ultimatum with a provision

that its Imperial police be allowed
to investigate on Serbian territory.

The Belgrade answers back: “Serbia is not
a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire”.

Austria's ultimatum to Serbia
means war for the entire world.

The president of the United States,
the Democrat Woodrow Wilson, 58,

is an intellectual and a pacifist. He
wants to preserve America's neutrality.

He says: “I want to keep the United
States out of the European war”.

In Canada, fear of war is headline news.

Herbert Asquith, the British Prime Minister,

fears an escalation of
unforeseeable dimensions.

He says:
“We are on the brink of the apocalypse”.

Its ultimatum having been rejected.
Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.

July 28, 1914,
the Austrian artilleries "Skoda" cannons

enter into action against the Belgrade.

Then Russia, given its alliance with Serbia,

sends his troops to the
Austro-Hungarian border.

July 30, 1914,
Wilhelm II cut short his cruise.

The Kaiser comes ashore with his
dachshund who proceeds to them everywhere.

Given his alliance with Austria, he issues
an ultimatum to his cousin Nicholas II,

ordering him to withdraw his
troops from the Austrian border.

Nicholas on the contrary mobilizes.

He writes to his cousin and
allies George V of England:

“I do not know what may happen;
Austria has gone off upon a reckless war

which can easily end
in a general conflagration”.

Wilhelm II, not having received a
response to his ultimatum, hesitates.

He speaks of "saving the peace",
but around him,

military leaders and industrialists
urge them to declare war,

blaming Russia for expanding the conflict.

August 1, 1914, Germany mobilizes
and declares war on Russia.

Young German recruits examine the
contents of their infantry kits,

which included the indispensable
extra pairs of socks.

Barely out of boyhood,
they have issued razor-sharp bayonets,

and the symbol of the German army -
the odd spiked helmet,

meant to deflect saber blows.

Most are eager to defend
our threaten homeland.

As the future writer Ernst Jünger notes:

“We had come from classrooms
and factory workbenches

and a few brief weeks of training had bonded
us into one large and enthusiastic group”.

In St. Petersburg, Russians, now at war,

sing the Imperial anthem that begins:
“God protect the Czar”.

The French ambassador is present; he writes:

“The Czar is overcome with emotion, his people
have invested them with a divine mission,

he is the absolute master
of their bodies and souls”.

The czarina, appears of German descent,
she is worried;

her brother will no doubt be
fighting in the enemy's ranks.

Rasputin cables Nicholas II:
“With war will come the end of Russia

and yourselves and you will
lose to the last man”.

The moment of parting is nigh,

You look into my eyes with alarm,

And I sense your dear breath.

In a final carefree moment, for reasons
await the arrival of the Tour de France.

The race begins on the same day,
as the assassination in Sarajevo,

as the cycling champions cover
3,400 miles in one month,

finishing just before the war scuttles
the tour for the next four years.

The winner is the Belgian great
Philippe Thys of the Peugeot team.

August 1, 1914, Les Halles,
the legendary food market,

the heart and soul of the French capital,
wakes up in morning.

They murdered Jaures!
They murdered Jaures!

Not far from here,
Jean Jaures has just been assassinated

by an ultranationalist supporter of the war.

Pacifism’s leading spokesman, Jaures,

had tried to convince German
workers to refuse to fight.

He had predicted: “At a time when we are
threatened with murder and butchery,

there is but one hope of saving the peace,

and that is for the
proletarians to join ranks”.

“Workers of France, England,
Germany, Italy, Russia,

let us implore these millions of men to unite,
to dispel this horrible nightmare”.

August 2, 1914, the order for general
mobilization is posted across all of France.

On holiday in Brittany,
Louis Maufrais, a medical student,

describes the moment:

“It is a fine late summer afternoon”.
“I hear the tiny bell of the cathedral,

ringing insistently. Everyone stops.
We have understood.

The women weep, the men frozen, look at the
cathedral spire, dazed and speechless”.

“Its war”.

“In the distance,
we can hear the bells of Vivier,

Mont-Dol, Carfantin, and Baguer-Morvan.
It is heart-wrenching”.

On August 3, 1914, Paris learns that
Germany has declared war on France

because France is an ally of Russia.

That same day Jaures is buried,
in with him all hope for peace.

In France, Germany, and Russia workers
rallied, to defend their homelands.

In France Poincaré baptizes this triumph of
the nationalist forces, "Union sacrée".

3 million Frenchmen are mobilized,
following 5 million Russians,

4 million Germans, and 2 million Austrians.

“About all these men called up”,
Stefan Zweig writes,

“In 1914 what did they know of war,
after nearly half a century of peace?”

“It had become heroic and romantic legend;

people saw it through the perspective of the
schoolbooks and the paintings in museums”.

“Brilliant cavalry attacks
and glittering uniforms,

a resounding march of victory with nary
a victim, a wild, manly adventure,

a wonderful and exciting experience”.

“That is why they shouted and sang in the
trains, carrying them to the slaughter”.

If they are not happy,
they prefer not to show it.

In Toulouse,
a young farmer Henri Desperrieres writes:

“Any sign of sadness was banished;
we swaggered before our fellow countrymen”.

From the French colonial empire,
those then known as the natives,

and the Foreign Legion,
embark in Algiers or Dakar.

On boats, almost as crowded as the
slave-ships of the past, resigned,

dancing for the camera,
they sailed toward a world of the unknown.

In the villa outside Paris, the Ferrari family
comes face-to-face with the reality of war.

The men have been mobilized, as have all
Frenchmen between the ages of 20 to 48,

but in her rose garden, Jacqueline is
confident that René will soon be back.

That before the roses have withered,
the war will be over.

These farmers, off to defend their country,
expect to return before the harvest is over.

August 3, 1914, the Germans attack.

They count on a rapid
victory in a brief war.

Their plan, known as the Schlieffen Plan,
after the German general who devised it,

consists of crossing Luxembourg and Belgium,
before the Russians attacked from the east

and forced the Germans to fight on two fronts.

Belgian neutrality had been instituted
after the defeat of Napoleon

to create a buffer between Britain,
France, and Germany.

Its violation now provokes an
immediate reaction from London.

England declares war on Germany.

August 4, 1914,

in London on the balcony at Buckingham Palace,
King George V says:

“It is a terrible catastrophe, but it is not
our fault, please God it may soon be over”.

The German high command
calculates that the British

won't have time to reach the continent;

the Belgian campaign will
be over very quickly.

But the Belgian stands firm.

Albert I, their valiant king,
tells to his people:

“A country that defends itself cannot perish”.

The Belgians have armored trains and
strong defenses protecting their cities.

For the Germans,
it is an unpleasant surprise.

They fall several days
behind on their battle plan.

To crush the fortresses,
they must bring in their huge crop cannons

that fire one ton shells.

So the Belgians destroy their train tracks

by crashing their own
locomotives into each other,

forcing the Germans to lose
time on lengthy repairs.

While the Germans marked time in Belgium
and the Russians prepare their offensive,

the Austro-Hungarian's,
who expected to punish the Serbs in a week,

are stopped in their tracks.

The Serbs proved to be
fearsome combatants.

After two weeks, the Austrian death
toll has already reached 25,000,

and the Serbs celebrate
their victory, for now.

All this gives the British
Empire time to mobilize.

The world's largest
Navy goes into action.

At its head, a young cabinet
minister named Winston Churchill.

Great Britain does not have an obligatory
military service and needs volunteers.

This poster of Field Marshal Kitchener,
the hero of Khartoum, proclaims:

“Your country needs you”. A cry echoed
by the country's recruiting officers.

The modest British Army of
the hundred thousand men

expands into an expeditionary
force of 1 million soldiers,

drawn from the Empire's huge reserves.

In Québec recruits kiss the
Scriptures and say their prayers,

thinking about the long sea
crossing that lies ahead.

These departures will become the inspiration

for the heart-rending novel
“War Horse” by Michael Morpurgo.

It recounts the battlefield
Odyssey of Joey, the farm horse.

Joey, who can speak, says; he was chosen

because he was judged “sound and about”,
fit for anything - cavalry or artillery.

10 million horses from as far away
as Australia and New Zealand,

will serve in the British Imperial forces,
to suffer and die like the troops,

without ever suspecting what awaits them.

Many of the horses are
not even „saddle broken".

Joey, the warhorse, declares confidently:

"The soldiers are buoyant with optimism,

as if they were embarking on
some great military picnic”.

Joey and his cavalrymen quickly
discover the reality of war.

The first casualties.

The first German prisoners.

And the Belgians,
so courageous to the end.

The French also have a resolutely
offensive plan, known as plan 17.

Takeback Alsace-Lorraine, march on Berlin,

their first objective - Mulhouse in Alsace.

August 7, 1914, the French take Mulhouse.

This triumphant parade
is staged for the newsreels.

It features schoolchildren
who carry the flowers

and patriotic outworns for people
traditional Alsacean guard.

The French Army of August 1914.

The infantry is made up mostly of large
battalions, as in the time of Napoleon,

with uniforms unsuited for modern warfare,
with conspicuous red trousers, and no helmet.

They swelter under thick wool and great
coats in the stifling August heat.

They must log a heavy haversack; in the
famous Labelle rifle, weighing 11 pounds.

But the Labelle, like the German Mauser,
and the British Lee–Enfield,

has a firepower never before seen.

These repeating rifles, with a range
of over 1,200 feet, render archaic,

and criminal,
the bayonet charges in closed ranks.

With these outdated tactics,
taught in military academies, continues

and end up costing hundreds
of thousands of human lives.

Three days after the filming of these scenes,

the French troops are driven out
of Mulhouse by a counteroffensive.

The Germans then turn their machine
guns on the local populace,

whom they accuse of “committing hostile
acts towards the Kaiser's troops”.

In Belgium too, the Germans have
launched their strategy of uprisals.

The Germans are afraid of
the civilian marksmen.

Their atrocities escalate.

Anyone captured,
who was believed to be a sniper, is shot.

As with the soldiers everywhere,
alcohol assuages the horror

and helps spread tall tales, including
the one about the German infantryman,

stabbed by the Belgian priest.

Fear of reprisals sends hundreds of
thousands of civilians into flight.

Belgians, French, and British accuse the Hans,
as they call their enemies,

of rape, of cutting off women's breasts,
and children's hands.

August 20, 1914,
general Von Moltke captures Brussels.

He explains:
“Our advance in Belgium is certainly brutal,

but we are fighting for our lives,
and all who get in the way,

must suffer the consequences”.

The Germans destroy historical monuments,
lay waste to Louvain,

the city known as the Belgian Oxford,
and burns its medieval University

and irreplaceable library.

After only three weeks of the war,
all the adversaries

are in the
grips of indescribable hatred.

In Belgium, a French cavalryman writes:

“I enter a house,
climbed the stairs, and discover -

a German pig relieving himself in a drawer,
full of delicate lace”.

“I shoot him, he dies in his own filth,
everything is been ransacked,

the lowest instincts have awoken in
these Germans, these music lovers”.

In the East, contrary to German plans,

the Russians have crossed the
border and entered East Prussia.

And now it is the Germans who begin to flee
what they call the Russian steamroller.

August 22, 1914.

Panic sets in, these German refugees
also tells of destruction and pillaging.

People are afraid, uncertainty rains.

Kaiser Wilhelm II vacillates between
despondency and martial enthusiasm.

His paranoia worsens, he insists:
“England, France, and Russia

have agreed among themselves to wage
a war of extermination against us”.

But the Germans are confident;
they have just won two major victories

at Mons and Charleroi,
capturing thousands of prisoners.

On August 22 alone 27,000
French soldiers were killed.

It is the single deadliest day in
all the French military history.

Wilhelm II addresses his subjects,
he says:

"We will defend ourselves
to the last breath

of man and horse".

"And we shall emerge victorious
from this battle,

even against a world of enemies".

"A united Germany
has never been defeated!".

The German army marches on Paris.

Despite delays,
the Schlieffen Plan is succeeding.

The French government
has fled the capital.

The Germans are now only 30 miles from Paris,

victory is near.