Original subtitles

Narrator: An epic terraced construction

Once at the heart of a mighty asian empire.

You see this overgrown structure kind of tumbling

Down the mountain and then reaching away

From it are these long pipes

Stretching out over the hills, almost like tentacles.

Narrator: A forbidding ukrainian palace shrouded in intrigue.

Nusbacher: It's brooding.

Every one of those windows looks like it ought to have a ghost

Hiding in the draperies.

Narrator: Mountainside ruins

Forged in one of humanity's darkest hours.

Auerbach: Emerging from the tunnel, you see a grey stone building.

Grass and vegetation are starting to climb up the walls

And nature is beginning to reclaim it.

Narrator: And a massive facility that powered america

To the forefront of aviation technology.

It's an eerily deserted town.

Selwood: The houses are all boarded up,

There's an old theater, and the focal point

Is these three huge hangar like structures.

♪

Narrator: Decaying relics,

Ruins of lost worlds,

Forged through years of toil,

Now haunted by the past,

Their secrets waiting to be revealed.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

♪

On the rugged coastline of jinguashih in taiwan

Where mountains rise out of the ocean,

An imposing structure breaks the otherwise lush green vegetation.

Bell: There looks to be some kind of fortress

Built into the mountainside.

Fortress or castle, it's not really very clear.

Barratt: So as you look at it,

It's hard to make out what it's actually for.

It's terraced and it's magnificent

In its monumental scale.

Meigs: It looks like some old fortress or palace

Tumbling down the hillside,

Or maybe some overgrown tibetan monastery.

Barratt: But it's not luxurious, it's not ceremonial

But nor is it domestic,

There are no doors or windows that are apparent.

Narrator: Clues as to its function

May lie in the surrounding infrastructure.

Meigs: Reaching away from it are these long pipes,

Almost like tentacles disappearing

Over the nearby ridges.

They're like veins protruding out

From this main fortress structure.

Narrator: On a hill overlooking both the main complex

And these giant pipelines is something altogether different.

Bell: It looks quite grand and intricate

Compared to the other structure.

Maybe a sign of a more luxurious period of time for this area.

Or perhaps the influence of a different culture or ruler.

Narrator: What kind of facility was this

And why would hundreds of americans

Find themselves working here?

For local resident, mr. Cheng, this place is in his blood.

Interpreter: I've been through so much at this place.

I was born, educated, worked here.

Even after I retired, I'm still living here.

Narrator: Now in his mid 80s,

He remembers this facility in full flow.

Interpreter: I was involved with an experiment

With sulphides and copper.

If the density of the sulphides were too high,

You weren't able to extract the gold and copper from it.

So we'd have to grind it in order to extract them.

Narrator: This is the shuinandong smelter,

Known locally as the remains of the 13 levels.

A processing plant for refining and smelting copper and gold.

Interpreter: The tunnel is a transportation system for mining.

The rocks are transported out from here.

This is tunnel six.

The miners used to work here but there's no work anymore.

It's dangerous, so they shut it down.

Narrator: Once the high grade gold ore was extracted

From beneath the mountains, these tunnels and railway lines

Took the rocks to the smelter for processing.

The way they'd process the ores,

They would bring it in at the top

And there were a series of processes

And getting the ore to be refined

In a pure and purest state

As they worked their way down to the bottom.

Bell: The reason it has these large arches without any windows

Is that's where they loaded the rocks and the ore in and out.

And the same goes with the ceiling,

It was all about efficiency.

Barratt: The smelter is a chemical process

That involves huge amount of heat

And also a massive amount of power

To split the component parts of the raw ore into pieces

And it's done through a process of reactions,

With trying to separate and oxidize out

The metals that you want.

Narrator: Yet none of the valuable gold remained here.

When this compound was constructed in the 1930s,

Taiwan wasn't part of china.

At that time mr. Cheng's father was working in brutal conditions

Under the gaze of a different overlord.

The ornate details and kanji writing around the site

Reveal their identity.

The empire of japan.

Meigs: Wherever the japanese went they expected to stay.

They thought they were building a grand empire

That would last forever, and so they built not just

Factories and smelters but shrines.

Here in taiwan they built the shinto shrine

To the mountain god.

Narrator: Originally built to bring peace and stability,

The health of local workers became secondary to gold,

As mr. Cheng's father discovered.

Interpreter: He worked in the mines as a mine worker.

He was digging in the fields.

I was four years old when he passed away.

I was raised by my mother and brother.

Narrator: Japan was an empire on the rise.

Having emerged out of an era of isolation,

The country had entered a period of rapid transformation

And taiwan was incorporated into the empire of japan in 1895.

It was the start of a chain reaction

That would have devastating consequences for the region

And for many young americans.

Taking over taiwan was one of the first steps

In japan's expansionism,

Where they would ultimately takeover much of asia

And finally attack the u.S. At pearl harbor.

Narrator: After taiwan came korea.

Then they turned their gaze back to northern china

With the invasion of manchuria in 1931.

Meigs: Japan really conducted itself like great britain at its prime.

They had a powerful navy, they set up colonies,

They took over territory,

And wherever they went they wanted to extract resources,

They wanted to accumulate wealth.

Narrator: The taiwanese people here in jinguashih

Would enjoy little of this wealth.

Interpreter: They exploited most of the gold when it was under japanese rule.

They sent all of it japan for their national celebrations.

Narrator: The exploitation extended into all aspects of life.

Interpreter: Since we were ruled by the japanese,

We became second-class citizens.

It became much tougher.

Even with schools, there were different schools

For the japanese and the locals.

We were segregated.

Narrator: By the time mr. Cheng arrived here as a young man in 1943,

The pacific war was raging.

Japan's desire to dominate the pacific

Had brought them into direct conflict with america,

And that meant a new labor force was arriving on the island.

Bell: Prisoners of war caught by the japanese

Were sent to this mine,

Now the biggest copper mine in the japanese empire

And they were predominantly british and american soldiers.

Narrator: In total, 1,100 allied prisoners of war

Served time here.

Many brought in on hell ships from singapore

And the philippines.

Bell: Most were forced to work here for almost three years

And faced conditions as bad,

If not worse than on the railway of death in burma

Made famous by movies like "bridge on the river kwai."

Narrator: Many died of disease, and a prisoner of war

Memorial erected here in 1997 pays homage to their memory.

The japanese surrendered and left in 1945,

So who was behind the mammoth pipelines

That extend out of the facility?

♪

Narrator: On the coast of taiwan, a former gold and copper smelter

Built by the japanese empire tumbles down the mountainside.

After the country's restoration in 1945,

The taiwan gold and copper mining bureau was established.

But it soon faced new challenges.

With gold deposits depleted, the focus was on copper refining

And then purification.

Interpreter: They started purification in 1965.

There was a 65 meter high chimney,

But it was really close to the factory.

The sulfate levels were high.

And the residents and workers couldn't take it.

Narrator: Safely disposing of these toxic emissions

Required a marvel of engineering.

Barratt: What they ended up doing was building a massive chimney

Or flue system to take the gases up

And away out of the valley

And over the ridge of the mountain.

Meigs: It's actually, they say it's the longest

Concrete pipeline ventilation system in the world.

Narrator: Despite this, with dwindling profits

And compensation claims hanging over their heads,

The company soon shut down operations.

♪

The japanese shrine still looks over this dramatic scene,

A remnant of an empire that emerged at an extraordinary pace

And crumbled away even faster.

Barratt: The ornate, well-built, carefully-crafted shrine.

Stands in great contrast to the brutality of the smelter,

But it shows exactly how much the japanese

And the local people valued

The raw materials buried under the earth here.

Once under the grip of imperial japan,

Even today taiwan continues to be at the heart

Of complex regional politics.

Some people here are still fighting for independence,

This time from china.

Out in rural champagne county, illinois

Lie a group of massive abandoned warehouses.

But they're not alone.

Mitchell: It's a huge area with buildings

That look in fairly good condition.

It looks sort of like its own self-contained town.

Corum: Fire station, warehouses, housing, stores,

It's all shut down, everything's overgrown.

Selwood: The focal point is these three huge hangar like structures.

Quite clearly the hangars tell you what this site was

But yet when you look at the other elements,

There's something else going on here.

Narrator: Clues inside suggest these hangars weren't just for storage

But for something rather different.

The large hangars give you the impression that when this place

Was operating it must have been filled with machines,

Aircraft, equipment and people.

Something that really makes it feel rather ghostly

Is its vastness and its emptiness,

And a sense of something having just gone away,

Almost inexplicably.

You have a sense that the answer to this place

Lies at the bottom of the stairs,

Here is where you're finally going to understand

What this is for.

But in fact what you're confronted with

Is a lake of water, it's entirely unpassable.

You can go no further.

Narrator: In its day, this place was at the forefront

Of technological change.

But it was also at the heart

Of a ground breaking social transformation.

The war department authorized the formation

Of the 99th pursuit squadron,

Which was the first all-black squadron.

Narrator: This vast site would become the birthplace

Of an african american air squadron

Who went on to become world renowned.

The clue to the origins of this site in rural illinois

Are found outside.

The air strip.

The first one built here was completed in the early 1900s.

Aviation in the early 20th century

Was an incredibly exciting new adventure.

This was all about boundaries and how to break them.

John pratt worked at this site for 22 years.

I probably would have retired here.

I was that close to it.

But the walk around now is very painful.

It's hard to see this.

It was a beautiful installation.

This place was vital to the protection of the united states.

At the time of the site's inception,

The u.S. Military was facing a problem.

Even though aviation was really sort of born

In the united states,

The united states was sort of slow

To take advantage of that ability.

Selwood: The wright brothers may have started it all,

But by 1917 the americans had fallen behind

In terms of aviation technology.

So this place was specifically created to remedy that.

Corum: There was a vast amount of money,

Over $600 million appropriated by the congress in 1917

Solely for building up u.S. Aviation infrastructure.

Narrator: A suitable site had to be chosen for the u.S.

To develop their air power.

It was an isolated situation, it's flat lands out here

And it was a good flying place,

It was centrally located in the united states.

Narrator: But testing aircraft was only the start.

As the site soon became a vital cog in the u.S. War machine

And ultimately a training site for operators

Of one of the largest nuclear weapons in the world.

♪

Narrator: During the 1930s, air force pilots

Were taking to the skies above this site in illinois.

But back on the ground, pilots were not the focus.

When you think of airplanes, you think of pilots

But actually that's only a small part of the story.

What it takes to keep airplanes in the air

Is a vast number of different skills, ground crew, engineers.

Mitchell: It's absolutely critical that people are trained

In various aspects of maintaining the planes,

And so it's really about building

And training a crew in all aspects of maintenance.

Narrator: This is the chanute air force base.

Chanute field, as it was first known,

Was used for technical training

And to instruct cadets in the rigors of flying warplanes.

The first real challenge for this place

Came with the outbreak of the second world war.

Selwood: Everything changed for the united states with pearl harbor.

After that attack, america was on a war footing

And knew it was about to engage and so this place became

Absolutely key to the air effort.

Corum: The u.S. Army air corps expands from perhaps 20,000 in 1939

To several million by 1943, 1944.

Now this expansion requires a training infrastructure

That is enormous.

Well, this place is huge.

It's bigger even when it's empty.

There was all kinds of training that went on in here

And all kinds of activity from wall to wall.

There would be planes and activity and classes

Going on all the way through here.

Corum: Let's take a b17 bomber,

A b17 bomber carried a flight engineer

Who would have been trained here at chanute field.

The b17 also carried the radiomen,

They had radio courses and then radio repair courses,

Radio specialist courses here at chanute field.

Pratt: There were four places similar to this

And they were filled with activity everyday.

There were students coming and going all the time.

Narrator: To support these large-scale training programs,

A vast infrastructure emerged.

It had its own food, it had its own road department,

It had its own water system, it had its own heating plants.

Chanute was almost its own city.

It was totally self-supporting.

Narrator: But it wasn't just the kind of training taking place here

That was groundbreaking.

It was also who was being trained.

At the beginning of world war two,

The society in the united states is thoroughly segregated.

Narrator: In 1940, the u.S. Census recorded

Only 140 african american pilots

Across the nation.

But this would soon change.

There were black airmen that came here

And then they were trained as mechanics.

But some of them had prior flying experience,

And they were doing exceptionally well

In the classes

And so some of the people in the base

Decided that they would make them into actual pilots.

Narrator: Fighting a war against the fascist

And racist regime in europe,

Suddenly the united states own policies were under scrutiny.

Mitchell: So it's a moment that united states realizes that

Having this squadron, this 99th squadron,

Training these black pilots, is a way to indicate an opening,

A commitment to democracy, a commitment against racism.

Unlike some of their peers in the army for example,

They're being trained equally, and so this is a breakdown

Of segregation in the united states military.

Narrator: That unit would evolve into the tuskegee airmen,

Who would become world famous.

And so the 99th pursuit squadron became the tuskegee airmen

And they moved them to tuskegee, alabama

From here and became pilots.

So they were trained initially at chanute.

The forming of the tuskegee airmen,

A very important part of the chanute's history.

Mitchell: These first black military aviators

Had a really critical role to play.

They flew over 15,000 individual sorties

Over north africa and europe.

So they really had a wide ranging impact

And sphere of influence.

And for their skill and bravery and commitment,

They received 150 distinguished flying crosses,

Which is a very significant record.

Well, chanute's favorite saying was we were the pace setters.

We were willing to stay up front of everything that was going on.

The people that were trained here

Were the top technicians in their fields.

Narrator: Whilst the work being done here during world war two

Was vital to the u.S. War effort,

Much of what remains lies empty,

Yet the interior of one hangar suggests

The site still had a crucial role

To play later in the nuclear age.

♪

Narrator: In illinois, the chanute air force base

Played an integral part

In the u.S. Efforts during world war two

But just a few years later a new threat was on the horizon.

Corum: We're talking about a very powerful,

Aggressive, totalitarian soviet union on one side

With a vast number of nuclear weapons.

Mitchell: There was a new type of aerial warfare during the cold war,

During this nuclear age and chanute

Was at the forefront of offering this training in a situation

Where mistakes could cost american lives.

Narrator: These new weapons were titan intercontinental

Ballistic missiles,

Some of the largest ever deployed.

Selwood: But that spirit and legacy of innovation

And training and reliability,

When the time came for the titan missile program,

Chanute was the obvious place to host it.

Pratt: Well, in the 1950s it was decided

That all seven different missile programs

Would move here to chanute and the training was conducted here.

This was the primary training facility

For especially missile launch and missile maintenance.

Narrator: The titan missile housed a nine megaton nuclear warhead,

Making it america's single most powerful nuclear weapon

At the time, and at chanute the titan missile silo

Was housed inside a vast hangar so missileers

Could train in the latest deployment techniques.

They were fully prepared to go out into the field

And take the order if necessary to fire a missile.

Narrator: The crews trained at chanute through the years

Had to be vigilant and alert for whatever threats were coming.

Corum: So chanute is one of the pillars of the success of western power

In the cold war and we're free today

Because chanute did a very good job in training its people.

Narrator: Chanute provided training

For thousands of u.S. Air force airmen

Until the government downsized the armed forces

And it was closed in 1993.

♪

Selwood: The slightly melancholy aspect to places like this,

The sad reality is that whilst war is live,

Places like this are of a supreme importance.

But when the war is over, there's no real need for it.

Their legacy is one that is so powerful

But so quickly forgotten.

This was like a family, there were a lot of people

That just really enjoyed working with each other,

And they enjoyed their jobs,

And they really enjoyed what they were doing.

It gave their life a meaning to work here.

And, at least for me, that was a very important thing.

Narrator: Beyond its invaluable contribution

To the defense of a nation.

Chanute air force base is at the heart

Of an important and an enduring legacy.

It's in the buildings of chanute where integration

Actually starts to occur,

Meaningful integration, in terms of training

Of black pilots with white pilots,

Black crew with white crew,

And so there's a real moment in terms of something happening

Within the buildings, an erosion of segregation.

A segregation that was really part and parcel

Of the american fabric at this time.

♪

Narrator: In a remote region of western ukraine,

Stands an imposing building with an unusual charm.

Meigs: You're out in this rural area

And here's a hulking, massive castle.

It looks almost like an english manor house

Out of a tim burton movie.

In examining this palace,

You know, you're struck by its grandeur,

It's munificence and yet something really bad

Has happened to it.

Nusbacher: It's brooding.

Every one of those windows looks like it ought

To have a ghost hiding in the draperies.

You can see how people could find this kind of spooky

And unsettling.

Narrator: All across this grand building

Are confusing design aspects.

Meigs: This has kind of a split personality.

On the one hand, it looks like a sprawling english country estate

With grand windows and ballrooms.

On the other hand, it has a military quality,

It's got a moat and then placements for cannons.

Narrator: Throughout its life,

This building went through so much turmoil,

But what finally struck this place down was a bizarre

And unexpected twist to its story.

♪

The foundations of this castle are buried in the 17th century

When this area was part of the polish lithuanian commonwealth,

A territory that stretched over 400,000 square miles

In eastern europe.

Wawro: Palace was built by a guy

Named stanislaw koniecpolski who was a grand hetman,

Meaning a senior advisor to the king and a guy that,

You know, exercised a lot of power

And wanted to build a house that reflected his personal role

In this polish lithuanian commonwealth.

Narrator: Historian, ivan dudych has explored

Every room in this building.

Interpreter: Hidden behind the fortress walls

There is a real royal luxury inside.

There are bright grand rooms that display wealth.

There were balls and thematic evenings here,

Both theatrical and poetic.

There were also musical performances.

Life raged within these walls.

Narrator: But this building doesn't only feel like a luxurious palace,

The parties came later,

Something else was going on here before.

It's not exactly a palace for a aristocrat

To enjoy all the pleasures of life

Because it has some real military features.

It's up on this hill, it has a moat around it,

It has a couple of fortified bastions on it

To repel attackers.

Nusbacher: When you look at this place from the air,

You see the long pointy corners of what's called

The truss italian, the italian shape of fortresses.

And this is designed to repel cannon fire.

Meigs: To the extent that koniecpolski built

A military structure, one that could be defended,

That turned out to be smart, because in fact,

This palace was the focal point of a number of battles

And attacks over the years.

♪

Narrator: Reflecting the violent times it was built in,

The result was a unique hybrid design.

An opulent grandiosity on the inside,

But a brutally efficient military structure

On the outside.

This is pidhirtsi castle.

♪

Interpreter: What were the defensive advantages

Of this type of castle?

At close range it was easy to fire effectively from the castle

And the fact that it had a bastion and pentagon towers

Made it hard to breach.

Nusbacher: Here is a strategically important valley.

If you come charging up this valley

And if you can get up there with impunity

Then you can make inroads

Against the polish lithuanian commonwealth.

Narrator: Across the first 150 years of its existence,

The castle saw battle after battle,

But the warring wouldn't last forever.

Wawro: It suddenly arrives in an era of peace from the 1770s onward

Because of the partitions of poland.

So now this is a golden age for the castle

Because now it's in a region that's characterized by peace,

It can develop all of its economic assets.

Nusbacher: As the austro-hungarian empire

Starts to exert control over galicia,

This part of the world, it becomes a lot more peaceful

And as austro hungarian empire

Policies start to make this place wealthy,

This fortress becomes a jewel of a country house.

Narrator: Designed with opulence in mind,

Pidhirtsi castle now reverts to its original purpose.

Interpreter: The second floor was occupied by the royal rooms.

There were several halls, crimson hall, yellow hall

And the european throne room.

They all helped influence the decorative style

Of other palaces and castles in the region.

There were highly artistic parquet floors,

Marble window sills

And all the walls were covered with precious tapestries.

Nusbacher: This castle becomes a place of ostentation.

It becomes a place to show off wealth.

But for all its glamour,

There was something troubling lingering in the background.

A gruesome tale that still haunts the castle's empty rooms

And dark corridors.

Interpreter: We're currently standing in the dungeons of the castle.

This place gives you the shivers.

It's cold and damp.

The 18th century was a strange, bizarre epoch

And there was no better place

Than the basement to hide your secrets.

Narrator: The second owner of the castle was waclaw rzewuski,

And dark legends surround him.

Interpreter: His fiancée, maria rzewuska,

A beautiful 16-year-old girl who constantly cheated on him.

Rumor has it that driven by suspicion and jealousy,

He murdered her.

Her body has never been discovered.

It's believed that her spirit never found peace

And she is buried somewhere within these walls.

Narrator: Maria's spirit however,

Wouldn't be the only one to haunt the castle's corridors.

For in time a different use would soon see

Other lost souls join her.

♪

Narrator: In a remote area of ukraine,

The dramatic ruins of pidhirtsi castle

Are giving up their ghostly tales.

Soon after the turn of 20th century,

War had returned to the castle.

So this era of prosperity and peace

Which ensued after the partitions of poland,

Ends, obviously, with world war I

When the austrian army collides with the russian army.

Narrator: And the castle soon found itself

On the front lines.

The first world war rages around this house.

As the austrians retreat, the russians come in,

They loot the place, they use it as a field hospital

And it becomes a shell of its former self.

Narrator: The fragile peace of the interwar years

That followed were soon shattered

By the outbreak of the second world war,

And the rapid nazi advance through eastern europe.

Not wanting to take any chances

As the rampaging forces approached,

The castle's owners removed the last of the trasures

And fled to brazil.

The germans overrun the place

In their invasion of the soviet union,

And they use it as a military hospital.

Narrator: Yet, the castle soon changed hands once more

As hitler's invasion plan failed.

When the russians took control of this territory

Late in world war two,

They didn't care about the opulent past of the castle.

They turned it into a hospital for tuberculosis patients.

Interpreter: They divided all the halls into narrow corridors

And tiny hospital wards,

Which significantly changed the layout of the interior space.

Narrator: As the second world war ended,

Finally there was hope for peace and calm again at pidhirtsi.

But in 1956, a finishing blow was struck.

Wawro: And just when the palace had emerged from centuries of war

And looked like it was going to reclaim its old luster,

Somebody was working up in the roof with a blowtorch

Doing some repairs, started a fire.

So a lot of the damage to the palace that we can see

With the naked eye today,

You know stems from that big fire.

This place that was so strong for so long,

This fortress that existed for hundreds of years,

Built to last,

Was so absurdly destroyed by a simple house fire.

Meigs: Think about how much history happened inside

And around this castle over its long life.

The different armies that passed through,

The different languages that were spoken within its walls.

That it's still standing at all is really quite miraculous.

Narrator: And plans are now afoot for the next stage of its life.

Interpreter: The actual goal is to rebuild this place

And open a museum about pidhirtsi castle.

We are hopeful that this castle will attract visitors

And will have another chance to shine.

♪

In spite of everything

That was thrown at this place for centuries.

The walls are still there, the new roof is up,

And maybe this place has got the staying power

To continue to dominate this valley

For a long time to come.

Narrator: In the mountains of slovenia are a set of crumbling ruins

Perched above a precipitous gorge.

You might think of this at a distance as an old monastery.

The thing that strikes you is it's a very calm,

Tranquil place.

Narrator: But scars on the mountainside hint

That the serenity is not what it seems.

Selwood: There's a whole series of stone walls

Tunneling through the earth,

And something about it doesn't feel quite right.

Narrator: Structures scattered around this whole area point

To a history of conflict.

Corum: These are trench systems that somebody went to enormous effort

To actually cut through rock and excavate trench systems.

Auerbach: This building hasn't just decayed,

Massive damage was inflicted upon it.

Whole walls have been brought down.

Narrator: And on the plains below this place,

Half a million men were slaughtered.

This site saw one of the most futile and deadly battles

In one of history's most catastrophic conflicts.

Narrator: What kind of savage war was waged

In this chillingly beautiful landscape?

Narrator: At the turn of the 20th century, the region this site is located

Lay under austrian rule

At the edge of the austro hungarian empire

On the border with a newly unified Italy.

Italy wanted the austro hungarian land

Just across its border in the julian alps,

In what was at the time, austro hungarian territory.

Narrator: With the threat of war looming,

In 1900 the austrians finished building this, fort hermann.

The purpose of fort hermann is to mount heavy guns

That will control the valley and the pass below.

At every key pass and valley,

There are military fortifications

That are very, very tough to take.

Narrator: Local historian and tour guide, vladimir lipovec is an expert

In the austrian border defense system.

Auerbach: Fort hermann really commanded this valley region

With particularly good viewpoints

And you can imagine this fort perched on this mountainside

And glaring down at troops marching towards it.

Selwood: There was an awareness

That if something was going to happen,

It would take place at the border,

And that's why structures like this were needed.

Narrator: Everything was designed in preparation

For an italian attack.

Narrator: But no amount of mountain defenses

Would prevent the carnage

That was about to play out in the valley below.

♪

Narrator: In the first decade of the 20th century,

In the mountains of western slovenia,

The austrian fort hermann was ready for action.

Across the border, their italian rivals believed this land

To be rightfully theirs.

Selwood: When world war one started,

Italy should have sided with germany and austria-hungary,

But in fact Italy decided to be neutral.

That meant that it was courted by both sides.

And ultimately it was the allies who were able to offer

Italy the greatest prospect of success.

Narrator: The allies promised Italy

The prize of these disputed lands,

And in 1915 the italians joined the war

Led by the notorious general luigi cardorna.

Selwood: One commentator described him

As an old roman cast in the big simple mold of antiquity.

Corum: Cardorna as the italian chief of staff

Is the picture of the officer who has a headquarters

17 miles far behind the front,

Almost out of hearing of any artillery fire.

Selwood: He was an authoritarian, he was old fashioned,

He was a strict disciplinarian.

He ran the army like a dictator.

Narrator: One of the first prizes in cardorna's sights

Was fort hermann.

In anticipation of this,

The austrians reinforced their defenses on the plains below,

An area known as the bovec basin.

There's a whole series of stone walls

Snaking across the mountainside, and as you look

It becomes apparent these are trenches.

Narrator: This is battery cello, a 650 foot long trench

Connecting two artillery positions.

The austrian defenses continued below ground

Where shored up caves would act as bunkers.

On may 29th, just six days after the italians joined the war,

Luigi cardorna gave the order for his troops to attack.

Fort hermann held its own,

But luigi cardorna was far from done.

He throws away large numbers of troops in pointless attacks

And then criticizes his commanders

Who have had their units decimated

By austrian artillery and machine guns,

And for minimal gains,

Keeps doing the same thing over and over again.

Narrator: The italian attack on fort hermann

Heralded the start of cardorna's ill fated campaign

Along the infamous isonzo front,

Which ran south from fort hermann.

Here some of the bloodiest battles of the first world war

Were to be waged.

Corum: This is a front of only 60 miles.

On a 60 mile front, we have 300,000 dead italians

In the course of the war, 200,000 dead austrians.

This is one of the bloodiest battlefields anywhere.

Selwood: This is the place where everything ended with

Just one battle, but not before

Half a million men had lost their lives.

Narrator: Eventually, in 1917 cardorna's men

Were nearing the bovec basin

And the mountain town of caporetto.

Narrator: Instead of defending, the austrians called in help

From a specialized german military unit.

Selwood: They proposed attacking the front

With an unusually deadly plan.

They had 894 metal tubes

Which they implanted into the rock,

Each one loaded with an electronic trigger.

Narrator: The germans came armed with a controversial weapon.

Auerbach: A cloud of poison gas enveloped the italian lines.

These are terrible weapons.

Phosgene gas causes blistering where it touches the skin.

It causes lesions, and if you breathe it in,

It burns the inside of your lungs.

Corum: The italians taken by surprise break very rapidly

And the entire front collapses in a two week period.

Narrator: The italian loss at the battle of caporetto

Is one of the most comprehensive defeats

In italian military history.

General luigi cardorna is finally sacked.

Despite their victory at caporetto,

The austrian-german alliance lost the war

And the vast austro-hungarian empire collapsed.

Corum: And at the end of the war,

Italy gets this piece of land that they had wanted,

But it's certainly not worth

The price of several hundred thousand dead

And the virtual ruination of the italian economy.

♪

Narrator: Today, the crumbling structures that litter the bovec basin

Are all that's left of a bitter conflict.

Selwood: These days, the military roads have found a new life

As hiking trails, creating a network

Between the alps and the adriatic.

Auerbach: Now the region is known for the beauty

Of the landscape and hiking.

There's even a path of peace created that connects the forts

And the old trench system.