Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

The Armies of Europe were stirring.

The outbreak of war was met with fervent

excitement in the capitals across the continent.

Each nation rallied behind a cause they believed to be just.

In St. Petersburg, a massive crowd gathered, waving

flags, banners and portraits of Tsar Nicholas.

The Emperor, moved by the chance of his

people, emerged onto the palace balcony to address them.

In unison, the crowd knelt and sang the Russian national anthem.

Meanwhile, in Paris, a French officer, his regiment

ready for action, set out for Verdun.

The road ahead thick with the promise of battle.

Our great nation's heart was beating tumultuously as in days long past.

Crowds were gathered at every station, behind every

barrier and at every window along our road.

Cries of vive la France and vive l

'armée could be heard everywhere, while people waved handkerchiefs and hats.

The women were throwing kisses and heaped flowers

on our convoy and the young men were shouting Au revoir, à bientôt.

At one grade crossing, a young woman lifted

her baby towards us, shouting, he too, like

you, will go someday and do his duty.

It must have been like this in 1792.

The soul of France had again attained the

height of her greatest period in history.

(dramatic music)

In Berlin, the Kaiser stood before the Reichstag,

clad in a field grey army uniform, as

he addressed the roaring crowd that had gathered to hear him.

I have no knowledge any longer of party or creed.

I know only Germans and in token thereof,

I ask all of you to give me your hands.

Not only did they offer him their support,

but they also granted him an unprecedented war

credit of 620,000 marks, unanimous in their decision.

In London, Saturday, 1st August, was a quiet

day for the officer at the main recruiting office.

Only eight recruits showed up to volunteer.

But then came Sunday and with Monday being

an August bank holiday, the calm was shattered.

When he returned to his office on the 4th of August, he found a crowd so

dense that it took him 20 minutes and

the assistance of 20 policemen just to reach his desk.

From that moment on, he worked non-stop,

testing and swearing in recruits throughout the day.

The sergeant said, are you willing to join?

I said, yes, sir.

He said, how old are you?

I said, I'm 18 and one month.

He said, do you mean 19 and one month?

So I thought a moment, I said, yes, sir.

He said, right, I will sign here, please.

He said, you realize you can go overseas.

When Lord Kitchener's first appeal went out for

100,000 new recruits, the response was overwhelming

and relentless across Britain.

Men flooded in, 100 an hour, 3,000

a day and 6,000 in the first weekend alone.

So many volunteered that soon many had to be turned away.

In Munich, a crowd gathered in Odeonsplatz to

(dramatic music)

Amid them was a struggling Austrian artist named Adolf Hitler.

After leaving the plaza, he immediately petitioned the

King of Bavaria, seeking permission to volunteer for the Bavarian army.

In Paris, there was no monarch to rally the citizens.

Instead, it was the sight of the stations that stirred the crowd.

The trains, endless lines of them, began their

departures from stations across Europe.

The German Great General Staff's railway timetable alone

accounted for the movement of 11,000 trains during the mobilization period.

Feet, as much as trains, were crucial in

1914, both the horses and the soldiers.

After training in concentration areas, cavalry and infantry marched onward.

(dramatic music)

An infantry division on the move stretched across

14 miles of road, and the endurance of both horses and men was tested to the

limit as they raced to push the advance forward.

General von Kluck's first army, stationed on the

far right, faced a daunting 200-mile march

from their deep training positions to the French capital.

But before reaching Paris, they had to contend

with the formidable fortresses of Liège, Namur and

others along the Belgian rivers, which posed a

significant obstacle to any easy crossing into France.

(dramatic music)

Though it was Austria's quarrel, it was Germany's

war, and Germany struck first toward the west.

At 5 a.m. on the 4th of August, German cavalry crossed into neutral Belgium.

The invasion of Belgium was not just a

military move, it was a necessity dictated by the Schlieffen Plan.

The primary goal of the Schlieffen Plan was

to help Germany navigate the strategic nightmare of

a two-front war against both Russia and France.

Schlieffen calculated that if forced to confront both

powers, Russia would be slower to mobilize and

deploy its forces, giving Germany a crucial window

of about six weeks to swiftly defeat France

with a massive, fast-moving campaign.

Once France was neutralized, Germany could then redirect

the bulk of its forces to the east

to counter the advancing Russian war machine.

There was a critical risk.

The fortresses along France's northeastern border could severely

delay or even completely halt Germany's lightning-fast western offensive.

To counter this, Schlieffen decided that German forces

must first invade Belgium, trampling its neutrality, before

pushing into northwestern France.

The strategy relied on five armies positioned between

Metz and Holland, with a total of 35

corps.

The strongest forces were assigned to the extreme right wing of the offensive.

One army here was tasked with swinging around

the western side of Paris, executing a vast

flanking maneuver designed to hit the French forces

from behind, ultimately trapping them against their own border.

The entire operation was expected to be completed in just 40 days.

The changes Moltke made to the Schlieffen Plan

required the German right-wing armies to pass

through the Meuse Gap, a narrow corridor between

Holland and the Ardennes which was dominated by the fortress of Liège.

If Liège and its ring of 12 forts

were not captured swiftly, it would derail the

intricate German timetable at the very start of the campaign.

The formidable strength of the Belgian forts had

already raised concerns with Schlieffen and his general staff.

They were massive, subterranean, self-contained structures, surrounded

by a 30-foot deep ditch.

To break through, targeted artillery fire would be needed and quickly.

Any delay at the Meuse crossings would jeopardize

the entire flow of the Schlieffen Plan.

When Schlieffen retired in 1906, no gun powerful enough for the task existed.

By 1909, however, Krupp had developed a prototype of a 420-millimeter howitzer.

(dramatic music)

Meanwhile, the Austrian Skoda company was working on

a 305-millimeter model, which had the advantage of being road transportable.

The original Krupp howitzer, in contrast, had to

be transported by rail and deployed at the

end of a specially constructed spur track.

Austria provided Germany with several of its 305

-millimeter guns, only five of the Krupp rail

-mounted guns, and two of the new road transportable models had been completed.

Yet, Liege had to be captured.

The urgency of the situation was such that

the German war plan called for a special

task force to be detached from the Second Army to carry out the mission.

Led by General Otto von Emmich, the task

force's starting point was positioned between Aachen and

Eupen, located at the northern end of the

narrow corridor of French territory, lying between Holland and Luxembourg.

The mission was to be completed within 48

hours.

The Germans expected that Belgium would either offer

no resistance to an invasion, or, if it

did, that any resistance would be swiftly crushed.

Both of these assumptions turned out to be false.

One of the clauses in the oath sworn

by the Belgian sovereign upon ascending the throne

entrusted him with the defense of the territory.

Albert I, king of the Belgians, was a

man who took his responsibilities seriously.

On the evening of Sunday, 2nd August, the

Germans delivered an ultimatum, falsely claiming that France

intended to violate Belgian territory.

General Antonin de Cellier, the Belgian chief of

staff, acknowledged the army's weakness and suggested a

retreat to the River Velp.

Meanwhile, the sub-chief proposed a more aggressive

response, urging a spoiling attack into Germany, saying,

send them back where they belong.

This idea was quickly dismissed, as was Cellier's defeatism.

Eventually, a more pragmatic approach was agreed upon.

Belgium would not seek French or British assistance

until its territory was directly violated.

The Belgian response to the German

ultimatum was delivered at 7 a.m. on the 3rd

of August.

Later that evening, Kaiser Wilhelm sent a personal

appeal to King Albert, reiterating his friendly intentions

and justifying the invasion as a necessity of the moment.

Upon receiving the message, King Albert's frustration boiled over.

What does he take me for?

He exclaimed.

Without hesitation, he ordered the destruction of the

Liege, as well as the railway bridges and

tunnels at the Luxembourg border, in preparation for the German advance.

The Belgian army was not strong, but it

was determined to fight, bolstered by its hastily

constructed yet formidable forts.

(dramatic music)

King Albert I also succeeded in inspiring General

Gérard Lemont, the commander of the Liege fortress,

to hold his ground until the very end.

Lemont, a man of unwavering honor and courage,

despite his advanced age, became the first true hero of the Great War.

His bravery would soon be tested as he

faced the full might of the most powerful military force in the world.

The Meuse River, which he was tasked with

defending, was a formidable natural barrier.

At Liege, the Meuse River cuts through a

narrow gorge, 450 feet deep, making it nearly

impossible to cross in the face of determined defense.

This would soon become clear to General Otto von Emick.

His forces entered Belgium early on the morning

of August 4th, only to come under fire from Belgian cavalry and cyclist units.

As they pressed forward toward Liege, they found

the bridges above and below the city had been blown to pieces.

Emick's task force had brought along two batteries

of 210 millimeter howitzers, the heaviest available at

the time, before the massive Krupp siege guns could be deployed.

The bombardment of the eastern forts began shortly

thereafter, but when the German infantry and cavalry

attempted to advance, they encountered stiff resistance.

The garrisons manning the forts responded with a

steady barrage, while the Belgian troops in the

hastily constructed trenches fought bravely, repelling the German

advance at every opportunity.

Throughout the night of 5th August, German casualties steadily increased.

Early on the morning of the 6th of

August, General Erich Ludendorff, the liaison officer between

the Second Army and Emick's command, rode forward

into the chaos to discover that the commander

of the 14th Brigade had been killed.

Without hesitation, Ludendorff took command of the brigade,

leading it to a high vantage point where he could look down upon the city of

Liège itself.

Large in both stature and personality, Ludendorff made

the decision on the morning of 7th August

to push the 14th Brigade into the heart of Liège.

Driving up to the gates of the old citadel, he hammered on the door with the

pommel of his sword, determined to break through.

I arrived.

No German soldier was to be seen, and the citadel was still in the hands of

the enemy.

I banged on the gates which were locked.

They were opened from the inside.

The few hundred Belgians that were there surrendered at my summons.

The surrender of the garrison gave Ludendorff control of the city.

He immediately decided to return to Aachen and

press for the rapid advance of the Second Army to capitalize on his success.

The first road-transportable Krupp 420 howitzer finally

arrived within range of Fort Pontice on the 12th of August.

The crew positioned themselves prone about 300 yards

away, and the gun was fired electrically.

Sixty seconds ticked by, the time needed for

the shell to traverse its 4,000-meter

trajectory, and everyone listened in for the telephone

report of our battery commander.

The first shell, equipped with a delay fuse

to explode only after penetrating the fort's outer defenses, fell short.

However, the eighth shell struck its target.

The following morning, the Krupp gun was joined

by several others that had just completed their journey from Essen.

By 12.30, Fort Pontice was reduced to a wreck and surrendered.

The focus then shifted to Fort Embourg, which

capitulated at 5.30. Fort Chaudfontaine had already

been destroyed at 9 when its magazine exploded.

On 14th August, it was the turn of Fort Lyers, which fell at 9.40, followed

by Fort Flairon at 9.45. Finally, on

the 15th of August, the Howitzers brought Fort

Boncel to ruin, the very fort where General

LeMond moved his headquarters just nine days earlier.

After 140 minutes of relentless bombardment, the magazine

was breached and the fortress was obliterated.

Concrete was shattered to rubble, and the bodies

of the defenders were left bloodied in the debris.

(dramatic music)

Amid the devastation, General LeMond was found unconscious

and surrounded by the wreckage.

From the stretcher on which his captors had placed him,

General LeMond said to Emich, I ask you to bear witness that you found

me unconscious.

The last two forts, Hollone and Flamel, surrendered

without resistance on the 16th of August.

These two capitulations mark the end of a

300-year-old belief in the invincibility of fortresses.

Liège had fallen, but far to the south,

the French army was already on the move.

(dramatic music)

The French too had a plan, simple and direct.

Whatever the circumstances, it is the commander in

chief's intention to advance.

All forces united to the attack of the German armies.

Whatever the circumstances, the French army would advance in full strength.

Through the lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and on to the Rhine.

No matter the obstacles, the pride of France would march forward.

(dramatic music)

The French infantry marched on, still clad in

the red uniforms that had been worn half a century before.

Among the ranks of old France, there was

a touch of the empire's far-reaching past,

Zouaves from Algeria and Morocco and the iconic Polynesian soldiers.

The cavalry too advanced in uniforms dating back

to Waterloo, eager to charge and engage the

German enemy with a fierce determination.

While their appearance was steeped in history, their

artillery was decidedly modern.

Armed with the finest field gun of the

era, the 75-millimeter cannon, the French army

boasted firepower that could unleash 25 rounds per minute.

And they had them in abundance.

Europe's two greatest powers were on the verge of an inevitable clash.

The French war plan 17 was first put to the test on the 6th of August,

when General Bonneau's VII Corps advanced into the

verdant hills of Upper Alsace.

The French army succeeded in retaking Mollhausen and

for the first time in 44 years, it was once again called Mullhaus.

However, the victory was short-lived.

Forced to retreat by German forces advancing from

Strasbourg, Bonneau's troops withdrew in disarray and Mollhaus

once more became Mollhausen.

The French retreated in such a haste that we actually had to run out.

At first we found heaps of French army blankets which the soldiers were making.

Then we found French trekking boots.

Then we found French knapsacks.

Then we found French belts with ammunition pouches full of cartridges.

And finally in barns hidden or sitting just

on the roadside, we exhausted French troops.

On 14th August, Joffre ordered the army of

Alsace under General Pau to make another attempt.

Once again, Mollhausen fell into French hands, but

within hours it was back under German control.

As threats to the Allied left and center

intensified, Joffre had no choice but to pull

Pau's forces from the area to reinforce other parts of the front.

Mollhausen would remain firmly in German hands for the foreseeable future.

The initial movements left the French with little

more than a small corner of Alsace tucked

in the eastern foothills of the Vosges.

Meanwhile, the main push into Lorraine by Dubail's

First Army and de Castelnau's Second Army began on the 14th of August.

The man in charge of the Kaiser's vast army was one of uncertain temperament.

General von Moltke, cultured and thoughtful, was nonetheless

a man plagued by illness and doubt.

Though reasonable by nature, his frailty and indecision

had grown as the French prepared to advance

once again into Alsace and launch a major offensive into Lorraine.

In this crucial moment, von Moltke's uncertainty became ever more apparent.

The ambitions of other generals also played a key role.

When Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria proposed a

counter-attack with his Sixth Army and von

Heringen's Seventh Army, Moltke, enticed by the prospect

of enveloping both French flanks, allowed it to proceed.

The ensuing battles at Sauerburg and Moorhang on

the 29th of August quickly demonstrated that the

French infantry's offensive spirit alone could not overcome

modern artillery and machine guns.

Having vastly underestimated the extent to which the

Germans would deploy reservists, and still unaware of

the true scale of the German advance through

Belgium, Joffre misjudged the strength of the German center.

Ordered to advance northeast into the Ardennes, Ruffi's

Third Army and de Langlais de Carry's Fourth

Army blundered into German forces near Neufchateau and

Verton on the 21st and 22nd of August,

suffering bloody repulses.

(dramatic music)

We were shot down like rabbits, because for

them it was a real target, because we had red trousers and they were down in

the hole.

Then we had to retreat, of course, we lie down for a certain while, try to

make some holes, and after that when we

could do nothing, we had to retreat back.

If the French plan appeared to be thrown

into disarray, Moltke's overall management of German operations

was even more uncertain.

On 17th August, he made a misguided attempt

to improve coordination on the German right flank

by placing Kluck under the orders of the more cautious Bouleau.

(dramatic music)

By 19th August, the true scale of the

German strength and their movements became clear to

Langerzak, the commander of the French Fifth Army.

As he advanced towards the Sambre and Meuse,

between Charleroi and Givet, he found the German

Second and Third Armies advancing on him from

the north and east through Belgium.

Langerzak realized he had to act immediately to prevent disaster.

(dramatic music)

By the time Langerzak recognized the danger, the

British Expeditionary Force under Field Marshal Sir John

French had reached the Mauberge-le-Cateau area on the Allied left.

For once in British history, an army was mobilizing with remarkable efficiency.

A staggering 1,800 special trains had transported

them to their ports of embarkation.

In a single day, Langerzak had 80 trains rolled into Southampton docks.

♪ To go ♪

♪ It's a long way to Tipperary ♪

♪ To the sweetest girl I know ♪

♪ Goodbye, Piccadilly ♪

♪ Farewell, Leicester Square ♪

♪ It's a long, long way to Tipperary ♪

An average of 50,000 tons of shipping

each day, safely escorted by the Royal Navy,

transported the Expeditionary Force to France.

The landings began on the 7th of August,

shrouded in deep secrecy.

♪ Paddy wrote a letter to his Irish Molly O’ ♪

♪ Saying, "Should you not receive it, write and let me know ♪"

♪ If I make mistakes in spelling, Molly, dear", said he ♪

♪ "Remember it's the pen, that's bad, don't lay the blame on me" ♪

♪ It's a long, long way to Tipperary ♪

♪ But my heart's right there ♪

Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, appointed Secretary of State

for War on 5th August, feared that the

forward concentration of his army might leave the

BEF vulnerable to being overwhelmed by the German

forces amassing north of the Meuse.

While he couldn't alter the assembly area, the

looming threat of a German invasion led him

to delay the embarkation of two regular divisions.

At the outset of the campaign, the volatile

Sir John French had only four infantry divisions

and one cavalry division at his disposal.

His troubles and his temper were further inflamed

when the commander of the 2nd Corps, Grierson,

died suddenly from a heart attack.

Kitchener chose to replace him with General Sir

Horace Smith-Dorian, whose strained relationship with French

only added to the tension.

After an otherwise smooth assembly, the BEF moved

into the industrial region near Mons on the 22nd of August.

There, they expected to join an Allied offensive into Belgium.

Instead, it quickly became apparent that the BEF

was directly in the path of the German First Army.

Three quarters of a million men advancing from

the north-east, following Lanzerac's failure to halt them at the Sambre.

Each day the Royal Flying Corps conducted reconnaissance flights.

While some flights reported nothing, one scouting mission

over the historic battlefield of Waterloo had more success.

We found the whole area completely covered with

hordes of field grey uniforms and heavy stuff,

transport guns and what have you, coming towards us.

In fact, it looked as though the place was alive for the Germans.

Returning to base, the pilot was quickly dispatched

to Sir John French to report what he had observed.

And I showed him a map or map.

He said, have you been over that area?

And I said, yes, sir.

And I explained what I'd seen.

And they were enormously interested.

And then they began reading the figures that I'd estimated.

Whereupon, I seemed to feel that their interest faded.

They seemed to look at each other and shrug their shoulders.

And then French turned around to me.

He said, now, yes, my boy, this is terribly interesting.

But tell me all about an area.

What can you do when you're in these machines?

Aren't they very dangerous?

Are they very cold?

Can you see anything?

What do you do if your engine stops?

And all that sort of stuff.

And I couldn't bring him back to earth.

Because, obviously, he wasn't interested.

And then I again tried.

And he looked at me and he said,

yes, this is very interesting, what you've got.

But you know, our information, which of course

is correct, proves that you really, I don't

think you could really have seen as much as you think.

Of course, I quite understand you may imagine you have.

But it's not the case.

Despite his vulnerable position and the advancing German

army, Sir John French vowed to hold the line at Mons for 24 hours to support

Lancerac's left.

There would be no grand offensive.

The British army began digging in.

Second Corps took up positions along the Mons

Conde Canal and held a small salient around

the town, while Lieutenant General Sir Douglas Haig's

First Corps occupied the line to their right.

For a time, Cluck was unaware of the British deployment blocking his advance.

On the misty morning of Sunday, the 23rd

of August, his leading corps collided headfirst with the BEF's position.

Quite suddenly, out of the blue, we saw a cavalry coming towards us.

They'd come out of the right, on our right flank.

I said, good gracious, it's Germans.

So we immediately started to fire.

We fired Fusenort and they got about 300

yards, I suppose, from the guns and they wouldn't face it.

By nine o'clock, both sides were fully engaged.

The Germans launched a series of disjointed, poorly

coordinated assaults on Smith Dorian's position in the

salient and along the canal.

The British quickly learned the harsh effectiveness and

precision of the German artillery.

(dramatic music)

We were in the trenches waiting for them,

but we didn't expect anything like the smashing blow that struck us.

All at once the sky began to rain down bullets and shells.

I saw shells bursting to right and left of me,

and I saw many a good comrade go out.

Then, German infantry advanced in tightly packed blocks,

surging toward the canal and its crossings.

The BEF's unmatched rifle fire erupted, cutting down

wave after wave of the dense German formations with devastating accuracy.

They were in solid square blocks, standing out

sharply against the skyline, and you couldn't help but hear them.

We lay in our trenches with not a sound or sign.

(dramatic music)

They crept nearer and nearer, and then our officers gave the word.

(dramatic music)

Germans seemed to stagger like a drunk man

suddenly hit between the eyes, after which they

made a run for us, shouting some outlandish cry that we couldn't make out.

Poor devils of infantry.

They advanced in companies of quite 150 men in files five deep.

The first company was simply blasted away to

heaven by a volley at 700 yards, and

in their insane formation, every bullet was almost sure to find two bullets.

They had absolutely no chance.

It was a mad minute.

15 rounds of aimed rifle fire, a feat

the British infantry was uniquely trained to execute.

At Mons, it worked like a charm.

The Germans were left stunned.

Our first battle is a heavy, an unheard

of heavy defeat, and against the English, the English we laughed at.

Well entrenched and completely hidden, the enemy opened a murderous fire.

The casualties increased, the rushes became shorter.

With bloody losses, the attack gradually came to an end.

It was all for nothing.

On the left flank, German pressure began to ease.

The French Fifth Army was retreating, leaving the British flanks exposed.

While Haig's First Corps faced less intense pressure,

Smith Dorrian's troops held their ground for most of the day.

However, by late afternoon, the relentless German assault

and overwhelming numbers finally broke the British lines.

Orders were given to retreat.

The pullback from Mons had begun.

(dramatic music)

We were very disappointed when we got the

order that we have to break off battle and retreat.

To do this is not an easy thing.

It's quite easy to join battle, but it's not easy to break it off.

However, we put down a curtain of fire

between us and the Germans, which enabled the infantry and cavalry to get away.

Up to all the tricks of the trade

from their experience of small wars, the English

veterans brilliantly understood how to slip off at the moment.

As a result, First Corps withdrew about two miles to pre-arranged positions.

The BEF had performed admirably in its first

major engagement, holding Kluck's First Army at bay for most of the day.

Most of the 1,600 British casualties were from Second Corps.

The Germans pressed forward relentlessly.

The Schlieffen plan remained on track and on time.

That night, the threat to the French Fifth

Army's right flank near Dinant forced Lanresac to

withdraw, doing so without consulting Joffre or the British.

The BEF had no choice but to fall in line with Lanresac.

The entire Allied front was in retreat and

thousands of terrified homeless civilians flooded the roads

alongside the armies.

(dramatic music)

In less than a month of fighting, the Allies were retreating on all fronts.

Each day brought more setbacks.

Despite this, they largely fell back in good

order, setting up rearguard operations to cover their

withdrawals and launching desperate near-suicidal counterattacks whenever

they were trapped.

With the Germans pressing relentlessly forward and Plan

XVII in ruins, the stoic Joffre imposed his will on the entire front.

On the 24th of August, Joffre made a

fateful decision that would alter the course of history.

Determined not to abandon the idea of an

offensive, he established a new Sixth Army, placing

General Monnery in command on the vulnerable Allied left.

He did so by calmly reallocating troops from

his own reserves and the French right.

On the 26th of August, Joffre met with

Sir John French for their second meeting.

The scene was observed by a young liaison officer, Lieutenant Spears.

Joffre began to explain the purport of an order,

extremely important, he'd issued.

Whilst he was doing so, in walked Lanzac,

bustling in.

Then Joffre went on explaining this order of

his when Sir John French said, what about this order?

I had seen the order.

Whereupon, General Wilson, the sub-chief of staff,

explained rather awkwardly, I thought,

that some order had been received during the night,

but it hadn't been dealt with yet.

I got the impression it had been translated.

When General Joffre realised that his orders

hadn’t even been received and read by the British,

he seemed overwhelmed with discouragement.

It was the only time I've ever known that he seemed to lose heart himself, to

be completely deflated.

This was a humbling moment for General Joffre.

When I left British Headquarters in the early

afternoon, I carried away with me a serious

impression of the fragility of our extreme left,

and I anxiously asked myself if it could hold out long enough to enable me to

regroup our forces.

If this manoeuvre was to succeed, two essential conditions had to be fulfilled.

First, our 4th and 5th Armies must interrupt

their retreat with partial offensives and counter-attacks,

to give me time to assemble a new army on our left.

Secondly, the British would have to resist tenaciously

and yield ground only very slowly.

That is exactly what Smith Dorrian's British forces

was about to do at Le Cateau.

Joffre's calm and rational approach under pressure stood

in stark contrast to the growing anxiety of his opponent, Moltke.

(dramatic music)

The German chief of staff was allowing fleeting

operational opportunities to cloud the broader strategic objective.

The tempting prospect of a double envelopment of

the Allied armies had already led him to

give the commanders of the left-wing armies more freedom than was prudent.

On 23rd August, Moltke further undermined the Schlieffen

plan by diverting the 2nd Corps from the

crucial right wing to help stem the Russian advance in East Prussia.

With additional formations also reassigned to deal with

various fortresses, the three German right-wing armies

had by now lost more than a quarter of their strength and had yet to achieve

their primary objective.

For the Allied and German troops, forced to march around 20 miles a day in the

scorching late August heat, the immediate concerns of

thirst, fatigue, hunger and blistered feet far outweighed

the grand strategies of their commanders.

After the Battle of Mons, the BEF's 2nd

Corps became separated by the Forest of Mormul.

On 26th August, the anniversary of the legendary

English victory at the Battle of Crécy, Smith

-Dorien assessed that the Germans were too close

to 2nd Corps for a disengagement without another battle.

Contrary to Sir John French's wishes, he decided

to conduct a resolute holding action at Le

Cateau, where the Germans again suffered heavy losses

under the concentrated rifle fire of the BEF.

They come up like a football crowd leaving Hampstead Park.

They come marching up in droves, firing their rifles from their right hips.

They have absolutely no idea of aim.

Cavalry of course advanced ahead of the enemy

while the infantry swarmed behind enemy lines.

Yet the British held firm.

Once again, the British infantry and their field

rifles proved their resilience.

We'd hardly got our head covered before the

ridge about three quarters of a mile away

was literally swarming with Germans in their field grey uniforms.

And they advanced and we were receiving a rapid fire.

It was probably three quarters of a mile

away, an extreme range for a rifle, but we rapid fired at 15 rounds a minute

at these advancing Germans and they broke up

into smaller groups of probably six or eight

advancing through a cornfield where the corn was in stoops.

As we rapid fired, they took cover behind these stoops of corn.

The English infantry held their ground once more,

their resolve hardening.

The morning dragged on as more and more Germans joined the fray.

In response, the last of the British reserves

were committed to counter the growing threat.

The brigade was formed up and orders came that we were required on the left of

the line.

And we marched four miles up the left of the line, came to a village whose

name I don't really remember and found Smith

Dorian standing outside his headquarters and he waved

to us as we passed and said, I think we're holding them all right.

It won't be wanted here and everything's going fine.

The exposed artillery batteries on the right flank

took heavy losses that morning.

Men on the front line, exhausted and suffering

from the heat, began to drift away from the battle.

It was clear that retreat was becoming inevitable if it could be managed.

The greatest challenge was to remove the guns.

Limbers and caissons were shattered on the hillside

with dead horses and men scattered across the ground.

The remaining teams pushed forward, racing through the

jeering ranks of infantry.

Fisser in charge of the teams was killed.

One team shot down in a heap before the position was reached but two guns of

the 122nd battery were carried out without mishap.

The third was limbered up but the horses went down instantly.

The rest was left to the Germans.

Incredibly the three divisions of Smith Dorian's corps

managed to slip away and the Germans were

left clueless as to where they had gone.

It was the British army's first true battle and the cost had been high.

Second corps suffered 7,182 casualties, officers and men, and lost 38 guns.

Yet despite the toll, they were now retreating

again, tired, dirty, but thanks to their timely

stand, able to continue their withdrawal in relatively good order.

We marched, marched, day after day.

We got very little food.

We had, I'd eaten my emergency rations at

Bleeker too, which of course I shouldn't have done.

We had a tin of bully beef, I'd eaten that as well, and we were all

very, very hungry.

We certainly did get a cup of tea occasionally, or a canteen of tea, and we

marched through a forest which was very cold and dank.

We were marching during the daytime, very big forest.

It was very cold in this forest.

On they marched along dust-covered roads through

the scorching heat of the day, pressing on

30 miles southward all the way to the banks of the Seine.

I've seen infantry there with their feet bleeding.

I've seen infantry with their boots off and putties wrapped round them.

I've seen men sobbing and turning round asking

our officers, why the hell can't we fight?

Why won't you let us fight?

It was a grim sight, foot sore soldiers

and terrified civilians, a single desperate mass of humanity.

(dramatic music)

It was a very strange thing to see

a single man exercising his will over a

mass of about a million men, with the

fate of his country in balance, having to

satisfy the political requirements of his own government,

the British government, having to face a catastrophic

situation and never, never getting rattled.

Smith-Dorian's already strained relations with Sir John

French worsened beyond repair after Le Cateau.

However, the stand made by the Second Corps achieved its purpose.

Not only did it lead the Germans to

overestimate British strength, but it also forced Cluck

to hesitate, delaying his pursuit.

Moreover, Cluck's misjudgment that the BEF was retreating

southwest instead of south gave the British forces

an unexpected reprieve, allowing them to withdraw relatively

unhindered over the next few days.

(dramatic music)

The brief respite did little to lift Sir John's spirits.

Feeling betrayed by the French and deeply disheartened

by the BEF's heavy casualties, he became convinced

that the only way to save the expeditionary

force was to withdraw it from the Allied line and fall back behind the Seine.

It took the personal intervention of Kitchener, who

made a hastily arranged visit to France on

the 1st of September to prevent Sir John from pursuing this course of action.

Yet, even with Kitchener's intervention and Joffre's steady

resolve, it still seemed that the only thing

capable of saving the Allies in the west was a miracle.

♪ It's a long way to Tipperary ♪

♪ It's a long way to go ♪

♪ It's a long way to Tipperary ♪

♪ To the sweetest girl I know ♪

♪ Goodbye, Piccadilly ♪

♪ Farewell, Leicester Square ♪

♪ It's a long, long way to Tipperary ♪

♪ But my heart's right there ♪

♪ It's a long way to Tipperary ♪

♪ It's a long way to go ♪

♪ It's a long way to Tipperary ♪

♪ To the sweetest girl I know ♪

♪ Goodbye, Piccadilly ♪

♪ Farewell, Leicester Square ♪

♪ It's a long, long way to Tipperary ♪

♪ But my heart's right there ♪