1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:08,040 This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting. 2 00:00:15,960 --> 00:00:20,960 In 1918, the people of Britain were weary from four years of war 3 00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:23,680 and grief and deprivation. 4 00:00:27,200 --> 00:00:29,600 The news from the front was bleak. 5 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:37,920 One of Britain's allies, Russia, had already given up the fight. 6 00:00:39,200 --> 00:00:43,160 America had, at last, joined the Allied cause, 7 00:00:43,160 --> 00:00:46,080 but could the power it promised arrive in time? 8 00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:51,200 The German war machine was beginning to look unbeatable. 9 00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:59,000 The final year of the war would take Britain to the very brink of defeat. 10 00:01:02,360 --> 00:01:04,320 The British people needed hope. 11 00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:08,480 They needed inspiration. 12 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:13,160 They needed Sherlock Holmes. 13 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:19,400 There hadn't been a Sherlock Holmes story in ten years, 14 00:01:19,400 --> 00:01:21,720 but Britain was in trouble, 15 00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:25,080 so Holmes' creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 16 00:01:25,080 --> 00:01:29,320 decided it was time to bring his hero out of retirement. 17 00:01:32,080 --> 00:01:37,120 In His Last Bow, Holmes defeats a German secret agent 18 00:01:37,120 --> 00:01:39,680 bent on wrecking the British war effort. 19 00:01:42,920 --> 00:01:45,000 To try to reassure his readers 20 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,120 that all the sacrifice had been worthwhile, 21 00:01:48,120 --> 00:01:51,880 Conan Doyle ended the story by having his hero turn 22 00:01:51,880 --> 00:01:55,520 to his trusty companion and say this... 23 00:01:55,520 --> 00:01:58,720 "There's an east wind coming, 24 00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:02,600 "such a wind as never blew on England yet. 25 00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:05,520 "It will be cold and bitter, Watson, 26 00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:08,320 "and a good many of us may wither before its blast. 27 00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:13,120 "But it's God's own wind nonetheless, 28 00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:17,960 "and a cleaner, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine 29 00:02:17,960 --> 00:02:20,720 "when the storm has cleared." 30 00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:22,280 In fact, when the war ended, 31 00:02:22,280 --> 00:02:24,760 the Britain that emerged wasn't anything 32 00:02:24,760 --> 00:02:27,280 Conan Doyle could have imagined. 33 00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:30,280 What came out instead was modern Britain, 34 00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:35,280 a country any of us would recognise as the one in which we live. 35 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:16,080 BIRDS TWEET 36 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:26,880 Four years into the war, 37 00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:29,800 in quiet, respectable houses all over Britain, 38 00:03:29,800 --> 00:03:31,960 strange things were happening. 39 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:41,120 This is the former home 40 00:03:41,120 --> 00:03:44,560 of the distinguished scientist Sir Oliver Lodge, 41 00:03:44,560 --> 00:03:48,320 a world authority on everything from atoms to X-rays. 42 00:03:48,320 --> 00:03:53,840 He moved here when he retired on the advice of his son, Raymond, 43 00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:55,680 which was extraordinary, really, 44 00:03:55,680 --> 00:04:00,080 because by that stage, Raymond had been dead for four years. 45 00:04:14,800 --> 00:04:17,840 In 1915, the Lodge family had received the news 46 00:04:17,840 --> 00:04:20,440 they'd been dreading. 47 00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:22,400 Their son, Raymond, 48 00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:26,120 had been mortally wounded by shrapnel in Flanders. 49 00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:28,760 His father was devastated. 50 00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:32,440 All hope for the future seemed to disappear. 51 00:04:32,440 --> 00:04:36,080 And then something very odd happened. 52 00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:37,760 A medium contacted the family 53 00:04:37,760 --> 00:04:42,480 to say that Raymond wanted to reach them from beyond the grave. 54 00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:47,120 They arranged a seance. 55 00:04:47,120 --> 00:04:51,880 Raymond appeared and told them he was living with his dead comrades 56 00:04:51,880 --> 00:04:54,280 in a place called Summerland, 57 00:04:54,280 --> 00:04:58,680 where they could still smoke cigars and drink whisky. 58 00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:01,600 But his father was a hard-headed scientist. 59 00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:05,320 He wanted proof that this really was his dead son speaking to him. 60 00:05:08,560 --> 00:05:09,880 It came at a session 61 00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:13,720 in which Raymond talked about a particular photograph. 62 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:15,280 He described it. 63 00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:17,840 The family said they didn't know what he was talking about. 64 00:05:17,840 --> 00:05:21,600 He said, "Yes, the one where the officer behind me 65 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:23,840 "is leaning on my shoulder." 66 00:05:23,840 --> 00:05:25,760 Now, as Sir Oliver told the story, 67 00:05:25,760 --> 00:05:29,280 four days later, an envelope arrived in the post. 68 00:05:29,280 --> 00:05:31,520 It contained this photo. 69 00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:34,360 In the front row, there is Raymond, 70 00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:39,200 and the officer behind him does seem to have his hand on his shoulder. 71 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:45,000 For the Lodge family, this was all the evidence that was necessary 72 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:50,040 to confirm that Raymond was indeed talking to them from the other side. 73 00:05:57,080 --> 00:05:59,520 In a country consumed by grief, 74 00:05:59,520 --> 00:06:03,080 the idea that the war dead were not dead at all, 75 00:06:03,080 --> 00:06:06,840 merely physically absent, proved hugely comforting. 76 00:06:09,760 --> 00:06:13,240 When Sir Oliver wrote a book about his experience called 77 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:17,320 Raymond, Or Life And Death, it became an instant bestseller. 78 00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:23,560 Across Britain, the supernatural entered everyday life. 79 00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:30,000 People saw ghostly soldiers wandering the streets. 80 00:06:32,040 --> 00:06:36,320 The number of spiritualist organisations quadrupled. 81 00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:40,720 Some, at least, of the old certainties were crumbling. 82 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:51,320 The war had left people desperate for reassurance. 83 00:06:51,320 --> 00:06:55,440 But, in early 1918, hope was in very short supply. 84 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:14,720 Awful evidence of the war filled the streets of Britain. 85 00:07:16,560 --> 00:07:19,160 Men mutilated in battle were everywhere. 86 00:07:22,280 --> 00:07:25,880 Over 40,000 soldiers had lost a limb. 87 00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:33,640 Even more were coming back from the front blinded 88 00:07:33,640 --> 00:07:35,440 or with facial injuries. 89 00:07:43,520 --> 00:07:46,760 The trenches had been dug for protection. 90 00:07:46,760 --> 00:07:49,920 But the consequence of living in a hole in the ground 91 00:07:49,920 --> 00:07:53,520 was that when you tried to look and see what was happening elsewhere, 92 00:07:53,520 --> 00:07:58,880 you exposed your head and your face to new and terrible injury. 93 00:07:58,880 --> 00:08:02,280 If you were unlucky enough to have that happen to you, 94 00:08:02,280 --> 00:08:04,880 this was the best place you could hope to come. 95 00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:18,120 This country house became a refuge for those whose injuries 96 00:08:18,120 --> 00:08:20,600 had made them walking gargoyles. 97 00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:29,000 It was the creation of Sir Harold Gillies. 98 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:32,480 The New Zealand-born surgeon had found his calling 99 00:08:32,480 --> 00:08:34,840 while treating wounded soldiers in France. 100 00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:44,080 He saw the need for a new kind of surgery to rebuild faces 101 00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:48,400 damaged beyond nightmare by the effects of modern weapons. 102 00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:52,240 He called his work a strange new art 103 00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:55,120 and, sick of amputating limbs, 104 00:08:55,120 --> 00:08:59,800 an alternative to what he called the surgery of destruction. 105 00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:10,080 The task of turning men who looked like monsters 106 00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:13,720 back into human beings seemed overwhelming. 107 00:09:13,720 --> 00:09:16,880 "Day after day," he wrote, 108 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:21,240 "the tragic, grotesque procession disembarked from the hospital ships 109 00:09:21,240 --> 00:09:24,640 "and made its way towards us. 110 00:09:24,640 --> 00:09:27,800 "Men without half their faces, 111 00:09:27,800 --> 00:09:32,320 "men burned and maimed to the condition of animals." 112 00:09:37,400 --> 00:09:41,160 Dr Andrew Bamji is a former director of medical education 113 00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:43,640 at the hospital. 114 00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:47,880 In 1987, he discovered an extraordinary store 115 00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:51,800 of medical records associated with Harold Gillies' work. 116 00:09:53,040 --> 00:09:57,400 This is a chap called Stacey. 117 00:09:57,400 --> 00:09:59,400 He was in the Royal Naval division. 118 00:09:59,400 --> 00:10:02,280 He, basically, had a very simple repair. 119 00:10:02,280 --> 00:10:05,240 What Gillies has done is to use a technique 120 00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:07,880 that had been developed before by the French, 121 00:10:07,880 --> 00:10:09,920 which is to take a forehead flap 122 00:10:09,920 --> 00:10:12,280 and then slide it down over the nose. 123 00:10:12,280 --> 00:10:15,320 Here is a forehead flap that's been taken... 124 00:10:15,320 --> 00:10:19,080 He's taken a flap of skin from up here... From the forehead, mm. 125 00:10:19,080 --> 00:10:21,640 And rolled it up and laid it... 126 00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:24,480 And laid it down to fill over the gap. I see. 127 00:10:26,400 --> 00:10:30,200 What are the other ones you have here? 128 00:10:30,200 --> 00:10:34,200 Stan Cohen was a tank officer. Poor chap. 129 00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:38,040 Here is a man who is not only seriously burned 130 00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:40,240 but he can't close his eyes. 131 00:10:40,240 --> 00:10:43,520 One of the techniques that Gillies invented 132 00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:47,320 was a technique of eyelid reconstruction. 133 00:10:47,320 --> 00:10:51,720 Stan Cohen stayed working at the hospital until he died. Did he? Mm. 134 00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:53,360 He was a porter, and, 135 00:10:53,360 --> 00:10:56,640 more poignantly, he was a night porter. Mm. 136 00:10:56,640 --> 00:10:58,480 He very rarely went out. 137 00:10:58,480 --> 00:11:01,160 He had no friends other than the nurses. 138 00:11:01,160 --> 00:11:04,680 Very interestingly, he ran a Sunday school class. 139 00:11:04,680 --> 00:11:06,920 He said he never minded being with children 140 00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:10,800 because children didn't show disgust, they only showed curiosity. 141 00:11:10,800 --> 00:11:14,120 I can't imagine how these men with some of these wounds 142 00:11:14,120 --> 00:11:17,080 could ever have beared to look at themselves in the mirror. 143 00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:19,520 Some of them couldn't. 144 00:11:19,520 --> 00:11:22,120 Some of them, in fact, 145 00:11:22,120 --> 00:11:25,440 went on to hide themselves away from the world 146 00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:27,600 so that no-one would see them. 147 00:11:27,600 --> 00:11:30,840 One of the things they were trained in at Sidcup was cinema projection. 148 00:11:30,840 --> 00:11:33,160 In a darkened room? In a dark room. 149 00:11:33,160 --> 00:11:36,960 You arrived before the audience and you left after the audience. 150 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:40,160 It's quite something to have to live with, though, isn't it? 151 00:11:40,160 --> 00:11:42,840 Even reconstructed, it still wasn't right. 152 00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:45,880 You didn't expect perfection in those days. 153 00:11:45,880 --> 00:11:48,840 In fact, you probably didn't expect to live with an injury like that. 154 00:11:48,840 --> 00:11:51,120 So, most of these people were utterly grateful 155 00:11:51,120 --> 00:11:52,640 for what had been done for them. 156 00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:54,720 They would cope with it in different ways. 157 00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:56,960 There were those who would joke. 158 00:11:56,960 --> 00:12:01,880 One chap had a skin graft from his backside onto his cheek. 159 00:12:01,880 --> 00:12:03,920 It always amused him, then, 160 00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:07,200 when his mother-in-law kissed him goodbye! 161 00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:10,120 Some of them were quite happy to flaunt themselves, 162 00:12:10,120 --> 00:12:12,840 but some of them, like Stan Cohen, hid themselves away. 163 00:12:12,840 --> 00:12:15,080 There was this whole spectrum of people 164 00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:17,320 who reacted in a different way. 165 00:12:17,320 --> 00:12:19,440 How intense was his experience? 166 00:12:21,320 --> 00:12:24,400 Quite extraordinary by modern standards. 167 00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:26,880 Nowadays, I suppose any surgeon 168 00:12:26,880 --> 00:12:29,960 who's done 100 facial reconstructions 169 00:12:29,960 --> 00:12:31,880 would be considered an expert. 170 00:12:31,880 --> 00:12:35,960 Gillies and his colleagues got through over 5,000 patients 171 00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:38,280 from World War I. 172 00:12:38,280 --> 00:12:39,720 So, it was a huge number. 173 00:12:49,160 --> 00:12:52,960 The sight of so many wounded was a dispiriting reminder 174 00:12:52,960 --> 00:12:57,280 of a war which seemed to have no end. 175 00:12:57,280 --> 00:13:01,840 Some wondered why we seemed incapable of victory. 176 00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:05,960 Might it somehow be our own fault? 177 00:13:05,960 --> 00:13:07,800 Could there be something rotten 178 00:13:07,800 --> 00:13:10,120 at the heart of the British ruling class? 179 00:13:12,400 --> 00:13:18,080 One man certainly thought so - the maverick MP Noel Pemberton Billing. 180 00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:24,720 Billing was a colourful self-publicist 181 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:27,880 who believed Britain was being sabotaged 182 00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:31,080 by thousands of perverts in the pay of the Hun. 183 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:37,560 He alleged that powerful figures in Britain had been corrupted 184 00:13:37,560 --> 00:13:40,280 by perverted German spies. 185 00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:43,240 They had used, he said, 186 00:13:43,240 --> 00:13:47,040 "Practices which all decent men thought had perished 187 00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:49,200 "in Sodom and Lesbia." 188 00:13:50,440 --> 00:13:54,400 His astonishing allegations found a ready audience among a people 189 00:13:54,400 --> 00:13:58,160 frustrated by their failure to win the war. 190 00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:00,240 They would also land him in court. 191 00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:08,840 On the morning of May the 29th, 1918, 192 00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:11,880 a great crowd gathered here outside the Old Bailey 193 00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:15,520 for what promised to be the most sensational court case 194 00:14:15,520 --> 00:14:17,400 in Britain for many years. 195 00:14:17,400 --> 00:14:19,200 It was a newspaperman's dream. 196 00:14:19,200 --> 00:14:23,960 It involved an exotic dancer, high politics, enemy spies 197 00:14:23,960 --> 00:14:26,560 and sexual deviancy. 198 00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:30,000 It threatened to blow the lid off the British establishment. 199 00:14:33,920 --> 00:14:35,400 According to Billing, 200 00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:39,440 47,000 prominent British people had been corrupted. 201 00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:44,000 Their names were written in a secret dossier 202 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:46,240 which he called The Black Book. 203 00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:53,520 He claimed the book held the names of Cabinet ministers, 204 00:14:53,520 --> 00:14:58,040 Privy Councillors, poets, bankers, newspaper proprietors, 205 00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:01,160 even members of the King's household, 206 00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:04,240 and he said that the wives of senior public figures 207 00:15:04,240 --> 00:15:07,120 were in a special danger because, 208 00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:10,000 "In the throes of lesbian ecstasy, 209 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:13,680 "the most sacred secrets of the state were betrayed." 210 00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:20,360 So, where were these degenerative traitors to be found? 211 00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:22,760 At the theatre. 212 00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:25,240 Specifically, at a private production 213 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:28,320 of Oscar Wilde's banned play, Salome, 214 00:15:28,320 --> 00:15:31,280 starring the voluptuous actress Maud Allan. 215 00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:36,080 In an article entitled The Cult Of The Clitoris, 216 00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:39,120 Billing insinuated that the actress was having an affair 217 00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:43,120 with Margot Asquith, wife of the former Prime Minister. 218 00:15:45,920 --> 00:15:48,840 Billing was charged with criminal libel. 219 00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:56,520 Conducting his own defence, he used his trial as a platform 220 00:15:56,520 --> 00:15:59,840 to reveal to the nation how far the moral rot had spread. 221 00:16:02,480 --> 00:16:06,640 He called as a witness a woman who claimed to have seen the book 222 00:16:06,640 --> 00:16:11,640 listing all the people corrupted by the filthy German agents. 223 00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:15,080 "Is Mrs Asquith's name in the book?" he said. 224 00:16:15,080 --> 00:16:17,960 "Yes," she replied, "it is." 225 00:16:17,960 --> 00:16:20,480 "Is Mr Asquith's name in the book?" 226 00:16:20,480 --> 00:16:23,200 "It is." And he pointed at the judge. 227 00:16:23,200 --> 00:16:25,680 He said, "Is the judge's name in the book?" 228 00:16:25,680 --> 00:16:28,200 "It is!" she screamed. Complete chaos. 229 00:16:31,040 --> 00:16:32,960 It was nonsense, of course. 230 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:37,960 But the judge, Mr Justice Darling, was out of his depth 231 00:16:37,960 --> 00:16:40,920 and rapidly lost control of proceedings. 232 00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:45,920 This absurd trial lasted six days. 233 00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:52,960 On June the 4th, the jury returned their verdict. 234 00:16:52,960 --> 00:16:56,720 Pemberton Billing was not guilty of libel. 235 00:16:56,720 --> 00:16:59,520 He left the court to thunderous applause 236 00:16:59,520 --> 00:17:02,240 and when he got onto the street here, 237 00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:05,120 his supporters threw flowers at his feet. 238 00:17:07,840 --> 00:17:11,960 Pemberton Billing's ridiculous rantings had struck a chord 239 00:17:11,960 --> 00:17:14,520 because people were worried 240 00:17:14,520 --> 00:17:19,320 and, at this stage of the war, there was much to be worried about. 241 00:17:24,080 --> 00:17:25,920 The balance of power at the front 242 00:17:25,920 --> 00:17:28,960 had shifted violently towards Germany. 243 00:17:33,560 --> 00:17:35,720 Having made a peace with Russia, 244 00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:40,160 Germany could now pour troops onto the Western Front. 245 00:17:40,160 --> 00:17:44,880 They now outnumbered the Allies by over 200,000 men 246 00:17:44,880 --> 00:17:49,040 and they were massing for an attack they believed would win the war. 247 00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:58,080 With British troops stretched to breaking point, their commander, 248 00:17:58,080 --> 00:18:01,960 Sir Douglas Haig, asked the Prime Minister for reinforcements. 249 00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:06,600 It would not be an easy meeting. 250 00:18:06,600 --> 00:18:09,000 The two men loathed each other. 251 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:13,480 Lloyd George didn't trust Haig. 252 00:18:13,480 --> 00:18:17,240 He thought he was asking for more lives to be thrown away 253 00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:19,600 in another futile offensive. 254 00:18:19,600 --> 00:18:24,600 So, on March the 14th, 1918, Haig came here to beg for more troops. 255 00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:27,040 He was refused. 256 00:18:27,040 --> 00:18:28,720 Seven days later, 257 00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:31,960 the Germans unleashed the biggest offensive of the war. 258 00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:41,080 In the first five hours of the great spring attack, 259 00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:44,920 over a million shells were fired into British lines. 260 00:18:57,080 --> 00:19:00,560 In a conflict where success was measured in yards, 261 00:19:00,560 --> 00:19:04,440 the Germans advanced 40 miles in a single day. 262 00:19:06,960 --> 00:19:11,120 In his diary, the Secretary to the British War Cabinet wrote, 263 00:19:11,120 --> 00:19:13,960 "The Germans are fighting better than the Allies. 264 00:19:15,960 --> 00:19:19,560 "I cannot exclude the possibility of disaster." 265 00:19:21,080 --> 00:19:25,240 Haig made one last desperate rallying call. 266 00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:32,120 "Every position must be held to the last man. 267 00:19:32,120 --> 00:19:34,160 "There must be no retirement. 268 00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:35,920 "With our backs to the wall, 269 00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:39,760 "and believing in the justice of our cause, 270 00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:42,440 "we must all fight on to the end." 271 00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:51,760 The call to arms would be heard well beyond the trenches. 272 00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:59,120 The home front couldn't afford to buckle, either. 273 00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:03,840 The country's war machine had to be kept running. 274 00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:13,560 Lloyd George had once called the British workforce 275 00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:16,640 the least disciplined in Europe. 276 00:20:16,640 --> 00:20:20,480 Could they now be relied upon at this moment of crisis? 277 00:20:24,840 --> 00:20:28,320 Anyone searching for cracks in the nation's resolve 278 00:20:28,320 --> 00:20:32,680 might have come here, to the South Wales coalfield. 279 00:20:39,600 --> 00:20:42,240 In 1918, this place was considered 280 00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:45,680 the Wild West of industrial relations. 281 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:49,800 The Welsh miners had been a thorn in the Government's side 282 00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:54,120 throughout the war, calling strike after strike. 283 00:20:56,120 --> 00:20:59,920 This, the finest steam coal in the world, 284 00:20:59,920 --> 00:21:02,080 was a vital part of the war effort. 285 00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:06,040 It drove the foundries, the forges, the explosives factories, 286 00:21:06,040 --> 00:21:08,600 it powered the warships, 287 00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:12,240 and it gave the men who extracted it tremendous power. 288 00:21:15,000 --> 00:21:18,160 It was a power they were prepared to use. 289 00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:22,040 Striking miners had almost crippled the mighty British Navy, 290 00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:25,760 leaving it with barely enough coal to keep the fleet at sea. 291 00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:31,280 By 1918, there'd already been trouble in the pits 292 00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:34,600 over the practice of combing out, 293 00:21:34,600 --> 00:21:38,880 that was, forcing men out of vital protected industries like this 294 00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:41,560 and into the Army. 295 00:21:41,560 --> 00:21:44,760 With the country now facing the real possibility of defeat, 296 00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:49,400 further industrial unrest could have been catastrophic. 297 00:21:52,640 --> 00:21:55,960 In fact, just the opposite happened. 298 00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:59,360 When it came to it, even the most bolshie miner 299 00:21:59,360 --> 00:22:01,960 wasn't prepared to see Britain lose the war. 300 00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:07,600 When asked to pull together for the sake of the troops, 301 00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:11,760 the response of the British workforce was emphatic. 302 00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:14,840 In all industries, strikes were suspended 303 00:22:14,840 --> 00:22:18,800 and people even turned out to work extra shifts. 304 00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:22,040 On the Clyde, thousands of shipbuilders gave up 305 00:22:22,040 --> 00:22:24,920 their Easter holiday to keep working. 306 00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:31,280 Recruiting offices saw a rush from men in protected jobs 307 00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:33,600 coming forward to enlist. 308 00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:36,800 TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS 309 00:22:36,800 --> 00:22:39,520 The Minister for Munitions, Winston Churchill, 310 00:22:39,520 --> 00:22:42,000 could scarcely believe his eyes. 311 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:45,520 "The response to our appeal to work over the holiday," he said, 312 00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:48,680 "was excellent. Indeed, almost embarrassing." 313 00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:01,800 At the very worst point in the war, 314 00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:03,960 the home front had not only held, 315 00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:06,360 it had risen to the challenge. 316 00:23:06,360 --> 00:23:08,920 The forces didn't lack for supplies, 317 00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:11,080 for ammunition or for weapons. 318 00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:14,120 This was one time in the nation's history 319 00:23:14,120 --> 00:23:17,560 when we really were all in it together. 320 00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:30,920 In Germany, it was a very different story. 321 00:23:33,200 --> 00:23:36,680 With German ports blockaded by the British Navy, 322 00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:40,800 the country was being slowly starved out of the war. 323 00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:47,880 Angry crowds took to the streets, demanding peace. 324 00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:53,960 Anti-war strikes crippled German industry. 325 00:23:58,400 --> 00:24:01,840 When a horse dropped dead in a Berlin street, 326 00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:04,160 the locals fell on it for meat. 327 00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:09,880 On the battlefield, 328 00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:13,720 the huge German spring offensive had failed to break the Allies. 329 00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:17,920 If anything, it had broken the Germans. 330 00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:24,640 Their plan had devoured men and ammunition. 331 00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:28,880 Troops were left exhausted, demoralised and lacking supplies. 332 00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,880 And as the German war machine began to fail, 333 00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:36,520 Britain's was at full throttle. 334 00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:48,640 By the summer of 1918, weapons were rolling off the production lines 335 00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:50,920 in greater numbers than ever before. 336 00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:54,840 Shells... 337 00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:57,440 ..tanks... 338 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:01,080 ..guns... 339 00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:03,760 ..and aircraft. 340 00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:26,280 This was what constituted air power in 1914. It's a box kite. 341 00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:28,680 It could be used a bit for aerial reconnaissance 342 00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:31,880 and it was pretty good for scaring the German horses, 343 00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:33,360 but that was about it. 344 00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:41,000 In the early years of the war, 345 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:45,120 the skies above France were dominated by German warplanes. 346 00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:49,880 They were built better and flew better. 347 00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:54,040 They even looked more frightening. 348 00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:59,320 It took a long while for Britain to catch up. 349 00:26:06,840 --> 00:26:09,920 This is a Bristol F2B. 350 00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:14,520 It's bigger, it's stronger and it's easier to fly. 351 00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:16,920 It could also be fitted with wireless, 352 00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:19,080 which meant that you could coordinate attacks 353 00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:23,840 between aircraft and artillery, tanks and infantry on the ground. 354 00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:26,800 By 1918, the Allies were producing 355 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:31,360 four times as many aircraft like this as the Germans were. 356 00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:39,280 If you've got a faster aeroplane, you can run away. 357 00:26:39,280 --> 00:26:42,680 Dodge Bailey is one of the few pilots in Britain 358 00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,600 who regularly fly these antique planes. 359 00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:47,240 This aircraft was, if you like, 360 00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,080 the multi-role combat aeroplane of its day - a jack of all trades. 361 00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:51,520 It could do everything. 362 00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:56,480 It was used for bombing, artillery spotting, 363 00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:58,960 scaring off the enemy artillery spotters, 364 00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:02,640 which was very important, and just fighting other aeroplanes. 365 00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:05,400 It did everything well, the Bristol fighter. 366 00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:07,040 It was a jack of all trades. 367 00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:08,720 But, in the end, this is just... 368 00:27:08,720 --> 00:27:12,080 What is it? Canvas, or linen, or...? Irish linen. 369 00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:13,640 Irish linen. Yes. 370 00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:15,920 But it's... These are machine guns? Yes. 371 00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:18,880 This one has two Lewis guns for the gunner to operate. 372 00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:21,880 But you're incredibly vulnerable inside it. You are. Yes. 373 00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:24,880 If somebody can hit you, there's nothing between you and the bullets. 374 00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:29,080 This is just fabric. Yeah. What are they like to fly? 375 00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:30,960 Well, they're all a bit different 376 00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,080 because they hadn't really standardised things by this stage. 377 00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:36,400 But this aeroplane was nearly there 378 00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,760 and it's a really fantastic aeroplane to handle 379 00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:43,280 and it flies pretty much like a modern aeroplane. 380 00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:53,960 The danger and thrill of flying 381 00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:57,160 attracted a particular kind of person. 382 00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:00,920 The earliest military pilots came from the handful of aristocrats 383 00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,000 and playboys with planes of their own. 384 00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:09,960 Most were dead within weeks. 385 00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:25,040 But with better planes came better tactics. 386 00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:31,720 The romance of aerial dogfights 387 00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:37,400 gave way to a more hard-headed use of these new machines. 388 00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,000 As air cover for advancing troops, 389 00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,560 for filming enemy positions 390 00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:45,720 and guiding artillery strikes. 391 00:28:55,840 --> 00:29:00,720 After four years of war, the Allies now owned the skies. 392 00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:19,880 The point wasn't that new aircraft like this won the war, 393 00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:22,160 although they obviously helped. 394 00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,360 It was that Britain now had a tactically smarter, 395 00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:27,200 better organised Army 396 00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:32,080 capable of deploying men and machines to devastating effect 397 00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,640 and it had so reorganised industry 398 00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:37,320 that when one of these fell out of the sky, 399 00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,760 there was another one to replace it. 400 00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:51,040 By June 1918, the Allies knew that the tide was turning. 401 00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,320 The war was about to change beyond all recognition 402 00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,560 and at astonishing speed. 403 00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:10,640 Over a million American soldiers swelled the Allied armies. 404 00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:15,240 The agonising wait for reinforcement was over. 405 00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:23,920 On August the 8th, a huge force was unleashed on the Germans. 406 00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:35,320 The Allied advance proved irresistible. 407 00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:40,920 On that first day, around 30,000 Germans had surrendered 408 00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:42,320 or been killed or wounded. 409 00:30:51,160 --> 00:30:54,520 The German commander General Ludendorff called it 410 00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:58,320 the blackest day for the German Army in the entire war. 411 00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:05,920 With the outnumbered Germans in retreat, 412 00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:08,640 the stalemate of trench warfare was over. 413 00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:17,480 At last, after years of stagnation, 414 00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:20,240 the British soldiers were out of their trenches. 415 00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:24,440 They were now fighting a war of territory, of movement, 416 00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:26,560 of initiative, of opportunity, 417 00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,800 and they knew that victory was in sight. 418 00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:41,400 German forces did everything they could to slow the Allied advance, 419 00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:46,640 including blowing the bridges across the strategic St Quentin Canal. 420 00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,200 This was the last remaining bridge over the canal 421 00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:58,240 and, without the use of it, advancing British soldiers 422 00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:03,480 would have had to scramble down this incredibly steep bank, 423 00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:06,280 get to the canal edge, jump in, 424 00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:09,480 swim it and then climb up the other side, 425 00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:13,120 all the time under German machine-gun fire. 426 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,800 Bullet holes on the bridge mark the moment on September the 8th 427 00:32:21,800 --> 00:32:25,840 when British troops stumbled on a German demolition squad. 428 00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:32,600 A lieutenant from the North Staffordshire Regiment 429 00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,080 and his men reached this end of the bridge. 430 00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:39,640 They looked across, they saw a group of Germans wiring explosives 431 00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:41,680 ready to blow the thing up. 432 00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:44,840 They charged them, firing every weapon they had 433 00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:46,960 and they saved the bridge. 434 00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:55,880 It was a very significant moment 435 00:32:55,880 --> 00:32:58,560 and, as their commander addressed the troops on the banks 436 00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:02,320 of the canal, the occasion for an astonishing photograph. 437 00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:20,080 Captain TH Westmacott gave some sense of the excitement 438 00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:22,360 in a letter he wrote home. 439 00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:26,280 "It is difficult to realise what wonderful times we live in. 440 00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:30,120 "I could not have believed it unless I had seen it 441 00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:34,840 "that the same men who were driven back by the Germans in the spring 442 00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:39,160 "could have so completely turned the tables in the autumn." 443 00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:53,680 After four years of war, the end came remarkably quickly. 444 00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:01,240 It took the Allies only 100 days from their first attack 445 00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:04,000 to rout the demoralised German forces. 446 00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:10,120 The Germans had no choice but to agree to an armistice - 447 00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:14,400 officially a cease-fire but, in effect, a humiliating surrender. 448 00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:20,680 They signed on the 11th of November, 1918. 449 00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:30,000 "It was the day we had dreamed of," 450 00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:33,320 said a corporal in the Honourable Artillery Company. 451 00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:35,480 "We were stunned. 452 00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:38,880 "I should have been happy, but we were so dazed, 453 00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:43,040 "we didn't realise we could stand up without being shot." 454 00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:01,480 In London, expectant crowds gathered in Parliament Square 455 00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:06,360 and waited for the sound that would prove the war was finally over. 456 00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:12,200 Big Ben had been silenced at the outbreak of war. 457 00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:18,120 Now, at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month, 458 00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:19,920 it was about to strike again. 459 00:35:22,720 --> 00:35:24,080 BIG BEN PEALS 460 00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:25,600 CHEERING 461 00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:38,440 It was the signal for a roar of relief and joy 462 00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:41,720 and the start of celebrations which lasted three days. 463 00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:55,560 In the House of Commons, Prime Minister Lloyd George 464 00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:59,640 addressed the House, "I hope we may say that thus, 465 00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:04,240 "this fateful morning, came an end to all wars." 466 00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,520 In Trafalgar Square, revellers climbed on the lions 467 00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:19,760 and seized buses. 468 00:36:19,760 --> 00:36:23,080 Australians and Canadians led the way. 469 00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:27,240 They tore down the advertising hoardings in Trafalgar Square 470 00:36:27,240 --> 00:36:28,760 asking people to buy war bonds 471 00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:34,360 and they lit an enormous bonfire right here under Nelson's Column. 472 00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:38,120 The stones were left cracked and blackened as a consequence 473 00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:42,760 and you can see the damage still here today. 474 00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:47,000 The last physical reminder of that amazing day. 475 00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:16,160 Soldiers recovering in a country hospital were told the news. 476 00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:18,960 There, the reaction was rather different. 477 00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:22,960 One of the men said the announcement was met with silence. 478 00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:27,800 "Our world was gone," he said. 479 00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,400 "A bloody world, a world of suffering, 480 00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:33,200 "but also a world of laughter, excitement 481 00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:35,840 "and comradeship beyond description. 482 00:37:35,840 --> 00:37:39,960 "Now, we were just some of the wreckage left behind." 483 00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:49,200 A schoolgirl recalled happy children shrieking their way home 484 00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:53,520 and, as she left the school, she looked in on the geography room. 485 00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:57,960 There was the geography teacher who'd been widowed in the war, 486 00:37:57,960 --> 00:37:59,440 crying her eyes out. 487 00:38:08,240 --> 00:38:11,760 There could hardly have been a soul in Britain that day 488 00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:15,040 who wasn't torn by conflicting emotions. 489 00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:18,600 Relief, exhaustion and joy that it was over, of course, 490 00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:23,520 but tinged with a terrible sadness at the vast numbers of people 491 00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:25,080 who would never come home. 492 00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:28,120 The fighting might be over 493 00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,800 but the British people now faced the challenge 494 00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:36,120 of dealing with the tumultuous changes brought about by the war. 495 00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:48,480 Right, girls, off you go to your lessons. 496 00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:56,800 At Bournemouth High School For Girls, a senior mistress 497 00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:00,960 had gathered her pupils together to issue them with a solemn warning. 498 00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:11,440 "I have come to tell you," she began, "a terrible fact. 499 00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:15,960 "Only one out of ten of you girls can ever hope to marry. 500 00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:21,240 "This isn't a guess of mine, it's a statistical fact. 501 00:39:21,240 --> 00:39:24,920 "Nearly all the men you might have married have been killed." 502 00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:33,400 A horrifyingly large number of British soldiers 503 00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,640 had died during the war 504 00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:39,520 and it had started a national panic. 505 00:39:40,720 --> 00:39:43,240 The Daily Mail worried itself to a fever 506 00:39:43,240 --> 00:39:45,320 about the surplus of young women 507 00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:49,040 who'd be driven to become marriage wreckers or lesbians. 508 00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:54,160 It proposed exporting them to Australia or Canada 509 00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:56,280 where they could hunt down husbands. 510 00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:03,760 The senior mistress at Bournemouth urged her pupils 511 00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,200 to see the apparent shortage of men as an opportunity. 512 00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:12,640 "You will have to make your way in the world as best you can," 513 00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:13,880 she said. 514 00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:17,160 "The war has made more openings for women, 515 00:40:17,160 --> 00:40:19,720 "but there will still be prejudice. 516 00:40:19,720 --> 00:40:23,280 "You'll have to fight, you'll have to struggle." 517 00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:30,800 But the panic was based on a myth. 518 00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,440 The myth of a lost generation. 519 00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:39,160 Nearly three quarters of a million men had been killed - 520 00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:42,800 a massive and terrible toll, for sure. 521 00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,840 But five and a half million came back. 522 00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:48,960 Nine in ten soldiers survived, 523 00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:51,600 not one in ten, as the teacher had claimed. 524 00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:57,200 Emotion had proved more powerful than fact. 525 00:41:03,800 --> 00:41:06,240 The point wasn't that they were women 526 00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:10,080 alone in the world without men, because many of them weren't. 527 00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:12,720 The point was that the war had enabled them 528 00:41:12,720 --> 00:41:15,720 to change how they thought about life. 529 00:41:15,720 --> 00:41:20,040 It had forced them into occupations previously reserved for men 530 00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:23,840 and, now the war was over, they could make their own decisions 531 00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:26,440 about what they wanted to do with their lives. 532 00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:33,120 Women's expectations had changed. 533 00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:38,880 There could be no going back. 534 00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:59,560 The war would have far-reaching consequences for millions of people, 535 00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,120 including some of the most privileged in the land. 536 00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:14,440 At the end of the war, this was the largest estate in Cornwall. 537 00:42:18,520 --> 00:42:23,200 The man who stood to inherit was the Honourable Tommy Agar-Robartes. 538 00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:32,200 His was a gilded, privileged start in life. 539 00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:34,600 First Eton, then Oxford, 540 00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:37,360 and membership of the elite Bullingdon club. 541 00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:44,000 He was a Member of Parliament before he was 30. 542 00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,120 His habit of sporting a buttonhole of violets 543 00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:52,960 earned the title of the best dressed man in Parliament. 544 00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,680 But when war was declared, he told his friends 545 00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:59,080 he was desperate "To do my little bit." 546 00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:03,160 He gave up his seat and joined the Army. 547 00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:05,960 In 1915, he was sent to France. 548 00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:11,840 This is the case he took with him when he was sent to the front. 549 00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:15,080 They didn't travel light. As you can see, it's extremely heavy. 550 00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:20,200 It's full of wooden containers, metal containers, 551 00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,600 tools for pulling your boots on, 552 00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:25,360 a trench periscope for looking up over the top of the trench 553 00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:27,200 into no-man's-land. 554 00:43:27,200 --> 00:43:31,680 And here, a container of what's thought to be rouge, 555 00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:33,920 which you could dab on your cheeks 556 00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:37,160 to make yourself look less deathly pale from fear 557 00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,040 as you went out on an attack. 558 00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:41,920 It's all that's left of him now. 559 00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:51,960 On September the 30th, 1915, 560 00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:56,320 Tommy had been killed at the Battle of Loos - shot by a sniper 561 00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,600 while trying to rescue a wounded soldier in no-man's-land. 562 00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:06,800 At his memorial service, it was said of him, 563 00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:11,200 "No man in this adventure of life weighed danger more cheaply 564 00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:14,440 "against what he called the fun of it. 565 00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:17,840 "He went gallantly off to France, 566 00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:21,440 "just as if he were taking a fence on a horse." 567 00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:32,280 The terrible thing is that men like Tommy Agar-Robartes are seen 568 00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:36,760 so much nowadays as figures of fun - upper-class twits 569 00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:40,800 who went off to war because it seemed a bit of a lark. 570 00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:43,840 They are so far from our experience of life 571 00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:48,640 that it is much easier to snigger at them than to admire them 572 00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:52,960 but they, too, felt horror and they felt fear... 573 00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:54,680 and they faced them both down. 574 00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:04,360 The war took a heavy toll on the upper classes. 575 00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:08,240 Many of their sons were quick to volunteer. 576 00:45:09,280 --> 00:45:12,760 As officers, they were expected to lead from the front. 577 00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:18,560 As a result, they were five times as likely to die as an ordinary Tommy. 578 00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:24,640 There were times in the war when the life expectancy of a lieutenant 579 00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:26,960 was said to be six weeks. 580 00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:38,200 The death of Tommy Agar-Robartes seemed to break the family's spirit. 581 00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:41,720 It signalled the end of this great estate, 582 00:45:41,720 --> 00:45:44,480 which shrank to a fraction of its former size. 583 00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:49,480 Ancient families crippled by death duties 584 00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:53,400 and with a son who might have inherited killed in the war 585 00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,000 found themselves forced to sell up. 586 00:45:56,000 --> 00:46:00,480 By the end of 1919, it was reckoned that over a million acres 587 00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:03,400 of England and Wales had gone under the hammer. 588 00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:04,920 It was a sort of revolution. 589 00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:11,480 The sell-off brought to an end 590 00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:14,680 the almost feudal power of the landed gentry. 591 00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:21,880 But if the war created some unexpected losers, 592 00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:24,320 there were also some unexpected winners. 593 00:46:27,240 --> 00:46:30,680 The people who did best were the poor. 594 00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:32,360 Especially the very poor. 595 00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:40,320 The writer Robert Roberts grew up in a corner shop 596 00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:42,240 in a typical Salford slum. 597 00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:47,920 He saw first-hand how the very poor lived, or tried to live. 598 00:46:49,800 --> 00:46:55,360 To eat - bread with a scrape of margarine or jam or dripping. 599 00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:58,640 If it was a special occasion, perhaps a pot of tea, 600 00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:03,440 but hardly ever any eggs, any milk or any meat. 601 00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:08,120 To live - three damp rooms for a family of eight 602 00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:11,720 with children sleeping four to a bed. 603 00:47:11,720 --> 00:47:13,440 Hardly surprising, then, 604 00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:17,000 that the mortality rate among children was one in four. 605 00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,840 That was twice what it was among soldiers at the front. 606 00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:28,920 No wonder so many of them failed their Army medical 607 00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:30,960 when they tried to join up. 608 00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:34,880 Those that did enlist were delighted to find it meant a full stomach. 609 00:47:36,240 --> 00:47:37,920 "Meat every day," they said, 610 00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:40,760 just as the recruiting sergeants had promised. 611 00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,120 When they came back from the war, they were fitter, broader 612 00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:46,360 and stronger than when they'd left. 613 00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:53,960 Robert Roberts called the Great War the Great Release 614 00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:56,440 because, quite apart from the demands of the Army, 615 00:47:56,440 --> 00:48:00,320 there was a need for masses of labour 616 00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:02,520 and that meant that those who had previously 617 00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:06,520 been part-timers or casual labourers or unemployed 618 00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:10,560 could suddenly earn good money and feed themselves. 619 00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:21,120 Across the counter of his parents' shop, Roberts noted that, 620 00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:22,720 for the first time ever, 621 00:48:22,720 --> 00:48:25,560 the customers had money in their pockets all week. 622 00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:30,640 His respectable shopkeeper parents were appalled 623 00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:33,640 at the new wealth these people were enjoying. 624 00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:41,480 Robert Roberts' father described how, just before Christmas, 625 00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:45,200 a well-paid young woman from one of the local munitions factories 626 00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:49,160 came into his corner shop and asked him why he hadn't got, 627 00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:51,000 "Summat worth chewin'?" 628 00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:54,320 He was pretty annoyed and he asked her what she meant, and she said, 629 00:48:54,320 --> 00:49:00,280 "Well, tins of lobster or some of them big jars of pickled gherkins." 630 00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:11,960 Britain was beginning to look like a different country. 631 00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:17,800 Full employment had pushed up living standards. Fewer babies were dying. 632 00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:20,800 Men and women lived longer. 633 00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,920 Curbs on drink had cut drunkenness and domestic violence. 634 00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:31,280 A third of all workers had joined a union. 635 00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:33,920 And to repay its debt to the people of Britain, 636 00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:37,960 the Government had given all men and some women the right to vote. 637 00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:43,880 The anti-war Labour MP Ramsay McDonald decided that 638 00:49:43,880 --> 00:49:47,640 the demands of the war had done more for social reform 639 00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:50,240 than all the political campaigns before it. 640 00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:01,160 LAST POST PLAYS 641 00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:11,280 This corner of a foreign field 642 00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:14,320 belongs to the oldest regiment in the British Army, 643 00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:16,520 the Honourable Artillery Company. 644 00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:25,120 The regiment lost 1,600 men in the war. 645 00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:29,600 Today, it's burying four of them. 646 00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:37,280 They were killed in battle at Boulancourt, a mile or so away, 647 00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:40,560 and their bodies had lain in the field where they fell 648 00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:44,600 until they were finally uncovered nearly 100 years later. 649 00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:52,440 The bodies were discovered by a French farmer. 650 00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:54,880 It's not an uncommon experience 651 00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:58,440 if you live and work on the former battlefields. 652 00:50:58,440 --> 00:51:02,000 Every year, a number of corpses are disinterred 653 00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:04,760 and then buried in military cemeteries. 654 00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:13,640 There's often no way to identify these bodies. 655 00:51:16,200 --> 00:51:19,480 Two of the men buried here today remain unknown. 656 00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:23,080 On their headstones is written, 657 00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:26,320 "A soldier of the Great War known unto God." 658 00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:30,560 But two bodies were identified. 659 00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:40,800 31-year-old Lieutenant John Harold Pritchard 660 00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:45,040 had taken the precaution of wearing an identity bracelet. 661 00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:48,600 Private Christopher Douglas Elphick was identified 662 00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:51,040 because one of the fingers of his skeleton 663 00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:54,840 was still wearing a signet ring engraved with his initials. 664 00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:04,720 Almighty God, protect all who serve in the Forces of the Queen... 665 00:52:06,240 --> 00:52:08,040 ..strengthen us... 666 00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:15,640 Today, their relatives are guests of honour at the ceremony. 667 00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:19,080 ..through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 668 00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:24,840 Was he a sort of active absence, as it were, in your family? 669 00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:27,520 Yes, I think that's true, because we all... 670 00:52:27,520 --> 00:52:29,320 we had a photograph of him as a child 671 00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:31,600 from when he was at St Paul's Cathedral as a chorister 672 00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,000 and that was all the photographs that we knew we had, 673 00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:37,200 but my nan used to talk about him occasionally. 674 00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:40,800 It was very painful for her to talk about him. So, it wasn't... 675 00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:43,240 He wasn't very active, but he was there. 676 00:52:43,240 --> 00:52:46,120 And he was what relation to your nan? He was...? He was the brother. 677 00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:48,800 Her brother. Yes. He was her brother. He was her older brother. 678 00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:51,400 And did she know what had become of him? 679 00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:53,200 No, they knew he'd been killed in France. 680 00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:55,800 I'm not even sure they knew where he'd been killed, 681 00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:59,440 but we have subsequently found that out as a family. 682 00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:03,160 And the fact that, all that time, the best part of 100 years, 683 00:53:03,160 --> 00:53:07,440 there was no grave you could go to - what effect did that have? 684 00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:12,120 I think that it was a missing link, it wasn't a fully completed story, 685 00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:13,720 and I think what's happened today 686 00:53:13,720 --> 00:53:16,080 is that we have finally closed the circle 687 00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:19,840 and we've done it for my great-grandmother, who links us all, 688 00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:22,840 and, finally, everything has come to completion. 689 00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:25,480 I can't tell you how fulfilling that is, actually. 690 00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:27,480 And if people were to say to you, 691 00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:29,840 "Look, it's all just ancient history now..."? 692 00:53:29,840 --> 00:53:31,680 It's living history. 693 00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:34,520 It really is living history. It has brought history to life. 694 00:53:34,520 --> 00:53:37,440 For the generations that were here today, for those youngsters, 695 00:53:37,440 --> 00:53:41,240 they now have a real understanding of a person 696 00:53:41,240 --> 00:53:45,080 who fought for his country, he died for his country, 697 00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:48,680 and we now have somewhere that we can visit and remember 698 00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:50,200 and reflect upon that. 699 00:53:51,800 --> 00:53:53,680 LAST POST PLAYS 700 00:54:22,240 --> 00:54:23,800 GUNFIRE SALUTE 701 00:54:30,240 --> 00:54:32,120 Even before the war ended, 702 00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:35,480 cities, towns and villages all across Britain 703 00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:38,400 had begun to build memorials to the dead. 704 00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:53,080 Over 5,000 went up in the two years following the Armistice. 705 00:54:55,600 --> 00:54:57,960 Some, a few, celebrated victory. 706 00:55:05,200 --> 00:55:07,160 Most spoke of sacrifice. 707 00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:11,920 Men remembering their dead comrades, 708 00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:15,080 the ordinary soldier rather than the commander. 709 00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:24,200 In the village of Briantspuddle, Dorset, 710 00:55:24,200 --> 00:55:27,840 the war memorial was unveiled on November the 12th, 1918, 711 00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:29,840 the day after the war ended. 712 00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:37,240 At the dedication of this memorial, 713 00:55:37,240 --> 00:55:41,160 the Bishop of Salisbury wondered whether there was really any need 714 00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:43,760 for further reminders of the war, 715 00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:46,760 and he answered his own question, yes. 716 00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:49,000 Because there would be future generations 717 00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:52,640 who would lead lives crowded with happenings 718 00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:56,840 and they needed to be warned, lest they forget. 719 00:55:56,840 --> 00:55:58,560 Lest they forget. 720 00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:18,360 We haven't forgotten the horror or the grief of those terrible years. 721 00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:22,200 But there was another story too, 722 00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:25,320 of how the war changed the country we live in. 723 00:56:27,040 --> 00:56:30,200 It had forced Governments to take on responsibilities 724 00:56:30,200 --> 00:56:34,080 they would never have dreamed of before - 725 00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:37,960 for the conditions in which people lived, 726 00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:43,320 for the rents they paid and the food they ate, for the wages they earned. 727 00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:50,960 It left us a more equal country and a more democratic one. 728 00:56:55,720 --> 00:56:59,600 Later generations would contend it had been a futile war. 729 00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:04,480 The war was terrible, certainly, but hardly futile. 730 00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:11,640 It stopped the German conquest of much of Europe 731 00:57:11,640 --> 00:57:14,400 and perhaps even of villages like this. 732 00:57:22,120 --> 00:57:24,360 Never before in the nation's history 733 00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:28,120 had a war required the commitment and the sacrifice 734 00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:29,800 of the whole population 735 00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:32,200 and, by and large, for four years, 736 00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:34,840 the British people kept faith with it. 737 00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:36,960 It wasn't a war they had sought 738 00:57:36,960 --> 00:57:38,800 and, had they known how it would turn out, 739 00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:42,840 they doubtless wouldn't have joined in, but they hadn't known, 740 00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:44,120 they couldn't have known, 741 00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:47,640 any more than the politicians or the generals could have known 742 00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:50,720 and, once it had started, there was no way of stopping it 743 00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:54,920 any more than you could suddenly make the dead start to walk again. 744 00:57:54,920 --> 00:58:01,360 A century on, we should perhaps remember and respect that sacrifice 745 00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:04,520 and realise that, more than any other event, 746 00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:07,640 this was the one that made modern Britain.