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A summer Sunday, 1914.
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All across Europe, the bells were
peeling, calling men and women to church.
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00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:32,685
Sunday - the Lord's day and a day of rest.
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00:01:34,380 --> 00:01:39,410
It was a world of firm beliefs. The established
order was not widely questioned.
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00:01:39,940 --> 00:01:45,940
Father at the head of the family, The monarch
at the head of the nation, God in his heaven.
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00:02:08,604 --> 00:02:11,080
Sunday, after church, was a
day of quiet pleasures.
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# Little Dolly Daydream, Pride of Idaho,
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# So now you know, and when ye go
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# You'll see there's somethin' on her mind;
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# Don't think it's you,
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# 'Kase no one's got to kiss dat garl but me!
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In the Bois de Boulogne,
The Tiergarten or Rotten Row, ...
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the aristocracy displayed themselves.
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Carriages, servants, dazzling clothes.
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00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:13,505
Material progress had marched swiftly in
the peaceful decades before 1914.
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00:03:13,506 --> 00:03:18,270
It was a world of novelties, clashing
with established ways.
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Wireless and telephones,
motorcars and motorcycles, ...
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electric light and electric trains,
submarines and airships.
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A world humming with
new energy and power.
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But under the smiles, the relaxation,
it was a world of tensions.
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The old order, with its economy based on land
and its society based on owning land, ...
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was in conflict with the new order
of industry and teeming cities.
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00:03:53,922 --> 00:03:58,379
Industry had uprooted populations,
expanded them beyond belief, ...
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00:03:58,380 --> 00:04:03,211
tempted them, enriched them
and impoverished them.
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The peace of Europe in 1914
was a fragile thing.
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On the idle hill of summer,
sleepy with the sound of streams,...
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far I hear the steady drummer,
drumming like a noise in dreams.
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In the Germanic empire lying
across the heart of Europe, ...
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the clash of old and
new was obvious.
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Under the leadeshhip of Prussia,
under Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, ...
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Germany had emerged as a nation
and as a world power.
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00:05:07,621 --> 00:05:13,951
In 1871, her 39 separate states, after
centuries of discord, had united at last.
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The kings of Saxony and Bavaria, the
princes, dukes and electors of ...
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Brunswick, Baden, Hanover,
Mecklenburg, Wurttemberg, Oldenburg, ...
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all paid allegiance to the
King of Prussia, the Kaiser.
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This unity fulfilled a deep wish in the German
hearts. It gave them a sense of destiny.
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Even the leadership of Prussia
was better than insignificance.
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And with unity had come an extraordinary
upsurge of energy and expansion.
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In 1871, there were 41 million Germans.
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00:06:07,735 --> 00:06:13,128
In 1913, there were nearly 68 million,
an increase of more than half.
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00:06:13,129 --> 00:06:16,673
And more than half of them were
living in towns and cities.
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00:06:17,961 --> 00:06:20,160
But it was not merely an
expansion of population.
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00:06:22,775 --> 00:06:27,459
Foundations of economic strength at the
turn of the century was steel and coal.
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Germany had made great strides with both.
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Steel production multiplied by 12 in 30 years.
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Coal production multiplied by nearly 5 in 30 years.
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00:06:36,986 --> 00:06:40,553
- Manufactures multiplied by 4.
- Exports multiplied by 3.
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- Exports of chemicals multiplied by 3.
- Exports of machinery multiplied by 5.
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00:06:49,667 --> 00:06:54,088
In 30 years, Germany's share in world
trade had risen by a third.
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00:06:54,089 --> 00:07:01,038
Now, in 1914, Germany was, after America, the
most powerful industrial nation in the world.
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The epitome of her industrial might
lay in the firm of Krupp.
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Essen, city of steel, where the first Krupp
factory was built, became by 1902:
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00:07:20,548 --> 00:07:26,712
"A great city with its own streets, its own police
force, fire department and traffic laws. ...
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There are 150 kilometres of rail,
60 different factory buildings,...
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8500 machine tools,
7 electrical stations, ...
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140 kilometres of underground
cable and 46 overhead."
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Germany delighted in the
prowess of Krupp's.
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When Alfred Krupp died in that year, the
Kaiser attended his lavish funeral ...
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and called him
"a German of the Germans".
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In 1914, the firm employed 80,000 workers.
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They lived in Krupp houses, their babies were
delievered by Krupp doctors, ...
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their children educated in Krupp schools.
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00:08:14,569 --> 00:08:18,161
They bought at Krupp stores,
borrowed books from Krupp libraries, ...
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married in the Krupp church and were
buried in the Krupp cemetery.
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00:08:22,828 --> 00:08:27,394
Under Bismarck, Germany had come
closer than any other state ...
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to modern conceptions of social welfare.
German workers enjoyed sickness, accident ...
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and maternity benefits,
canteens and changing rooms ...
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and a national pension scheme, before these
were even thought of in more liberal countries.
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00:08:42,789 --> 00:08:45,579
Yet the life of the workers was hard.
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00:08:45,580 --> 00:08:49,837
The steel mills operated a 12-hour
day and an 80-hour week.
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Neither rest days nor
holidays were guranteed.
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In Germany, as in every industrial state,
there was poverty and protest.
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By 1912, the Socialist party was the strongest
party in the Reichstag, the German parliament.
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But the Reichstag did not rule Germany.
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The Keiser ruled Germany through officials
whom he personally appointed.
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"No one", said Sir Winston Churchill, "should judge the Kasier Wilhelm II ...
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without asking the question, 'What
should I have done in his position?'"
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Imagine yourself brought up to believe that you were appointed by God ...
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to be the ruler of a mighty nation.
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Imagine succeeding in your 20s to the
prizes of Bismarck's 3 victorious wars.
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Imagine feeling the magnificent German race bounding beneath you ...
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in ever-swelling numbers, strength,
wealth and ambition.
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And imagine on every side, the
thunderous tributes of the crowds ...
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and the skilled, unceasing
flattery of the court.
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00:09:55,515 --> 00:10:01,387
With this background, subjected to these pressures, trying to hide a left arm ...
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withered from birth, for 30
years, Wilhelm the second ...
87
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had vexed and perturbed the peace of
Europe, but always short of war.
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His first public utterance when he came to
the throne was addressed ...
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not to the people but to the army.
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00:10:17,351 --> 00:10:22,801
We belong to each other, I and the army.
We were born for each other ...
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and will indissolubly cleave to each other.
I promise ever to bear in mind ...
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that from the world above, the eyes of my
forefathers look down on me ...
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and that I shall one day have to stand
accountable to them for the glory ...
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and honour of the army.
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These were not empty words. The German
Kaiser was also the king of Prussia ...
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and it was precisely for the sake of
Prussian strength that the other Germany, ...
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the Germany of the merchants,
the industrialists, ...
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the musicians, the philosophers
had accepted her rule.
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The Prussian influence was seeping
through the whole nation.
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It was, above all, a military influence,
well described by one of its advocates, ...
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General von Hindenburg.
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The army trained and strengthened that
mighty organizing impulse ...
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which we found everywhere
in the Fatherland.
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The conviction that the subordination of the
individual to the good of the community ...
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was not only a necessity but a positive
blessing had gripped the mind of the ...
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German army and through
it that of the nation.
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With Prussia as the core, the German empire
was the most powerful ...
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military organism in the world.
And at its head, posturing, gesturing, ...
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stood the all-powerful Kaiser,
challenging Europe.
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Without germany, and without the German
Kaiser, no great decisions must ever be ...
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taken. If this should happen, the position
of Germany in the world would vanish ...
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forever and I do not purpose that this
should ever happen. To employ suitable ...
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and, if necessary, violent means
ruthlessly is my duty, my fair privilege.
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Germany's neighbours watched her
clamorous progress with alarm.
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The republic of France uneasily remembered
her overwhelming defeat ...
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at Germany's hands in 1870.
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Then, the rich lands of Alsace and
Lorainne had been torn from her.
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Patriotic Frenchmen bitterly resented
the loss and the bitterness ...
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was passed on to new generations.
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Think that the Motherland is your second
mother, that she weeps and suffers ...
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over the children they have
torned from her bosom.
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France had her iron, her coal, her industry,
but the French were above all, ...
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tillers of the soil.
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Produce of her fields and vineyards
made France self-supporting.
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00:13:26,818 --> 00:13:31,746
The French cared for good food. The
specialities of each province ...
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acquired international fame. While the
ploughland and pastures ...
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of the provinces fed Paris, Paris itself
fertilized not only France, but Europe, too.
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00:13:45,808 --> 00:13:49,078
The curiosity and enthusiasm
of Parisians matched a period ...
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which seemed to produce
new novelties every day.
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00:14:01,690 --> 00:14:04,680
Louis Bleriot was the first
man to fly the channel.
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00:14:04,681 --> 00:14:11,238
I began my flight steady and sure. I have
no apprehension, no sensations, nothing.
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00:14:11,239 --> 00:14:16,223
I am making at least 42 miles an hour,
travelling at a height of 250 feet.
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00:14:16,224 --> 00:14:22,231
Below me is the sea. There is nothing to be
seen, neither France nor England.
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00:14:22,232 --> 00:14:28,769
I am alone. For 10 minutes, I am lost and
then I see the cliffs of Dover.
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00:14:35,697 --> 00:14:39,421
There were flying experiments of another
kind, not so successful.
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Cranks or pioneers, the French greeted
them all expectantly.
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A moving pavement was displayed at the
exhibition of 1900.
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00:15:03,117 --> 00:15:10,671
Looking down from it, Paris was truly,
"sovereign of cities, seemliest in sight."
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The wide, bustling boulevards, the cafes,
the Louvre, storehouse of Europe's ...
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00:15:16,536 --> 00:15:21,708
treasures, the imprisoned sunshine of the
Impressionists, the acting of ...
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Sarah Bernhardt, the Moulin Rouge and the
legs of Mistinguett, dinner at Maxim's.
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Picasso and Matisse were painting. In her
quiet laboratory, Madam Curie ...
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was discovering Radium.
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Paris was the Mecca of the west.
But Paris is not France.
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00:15:43,337 --> 00:15:47,775
The glamour of Paris did not reflect the
deepest truths about the French.
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00:15:47,776 --> 00:15:52,836
It encouraged their optimism, but it
concealed unrest and violent agitation ...
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00:15:52,837 --> 00:15:57,806
among the industrial classes, who felt left
out of a rising tide of prosperity.
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00:15:57,807 --> 00:16:02,601
It concealed the backwardness of French
industry in a world where this counted ...
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more and more. It concealed a declining
birthrate in a world ...
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which paraded its millions. It concealed
the canker at the heart of ...
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00:16:13,358 --> 00:16:21,227
French politics, memory of the defeat of
1870 and fear of the rising might of Germany.
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00:16:21,228 --> 00:16:26,584
Because of this memory and this fear,
the army played a special part ...
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00:16:26,585 --> 00:16:31,711
in the life of France. Shattered in 1870,
it had made a remarkable recovery.
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It became a national army, based on
universal conscription.
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It schooled itself in colonial wars, but
its eyes were fixed on the German frontier.
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In 1914, there was a socialist government.
Anti-militarism, pacifism and ...
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internationalism were being
proclaimed with swelling voices.
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00:16:52,315 --> 00:16:57,043
The delegates of the Workers' organizations
judge that wage earners obliged to go to ...
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war have this alternative only, either to
take up weapons in order to menace other ...
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wage earners, or to take up battle
against the common foe - capitalism.
161
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Anti-militarist and anti-patriotic
propaganda must become ...
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evermore intense and audacious.
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Discordant voices in France, strident voices
in Germany. For, as Germany pursued ...
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the destiny preached by her thinkers,
another neighbour took fright.
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The Germans were not content with military
might and industrial supremacy.
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They still felt cheated. They wanted a
place in the sun, an empire.
167
00:17:48,625 --> 00:17:54,302
Between 1884 and 1890, German
sovereignty was proclaimed over an area
168
00:17:54,303 --> 00:17:57,618
more than 4 times larger
than Germany herself.
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00:17:57,619 --> 00:18:02,232
And on the pretext of protecting these
colonies and her expanding trade, ...
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Germany began to build a battleleet.
171
00:18:11,114 --> 00:18:14,654
This was a threat that any British
newspaper reader could understand.
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00:18:14,655 --> 00:18:20,508
The sea served Britain in the office of a
wall or as a moat defensive to a house ...
173
00:18:20,509 --> 00:18:24,496
against the envy of less happier lands.
174
00:18:27,096 --> 00:18:29,864
Now envy was reaching across the sea.
175
00:18:32,764 --> 00:18:37,833
Winston Churchill spoke for all Britain
when he said, "Our naval power involves ...
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00:18:37,834 --> 00:18:43,309
British existence. If our naval supremacy
were to be impaired, the whole fortunes ...
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00:18:43,310 --> 00:18:48,726
of our race and empire would perish and
be swept utterly away."
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00:18:52,593 --> 00:18:57,435
Britain awoke to the truths of the 20th
century. Reality jarred against ...
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00:18:57,436 --> 00:19:02,375
the romantic image of merry England.
Yet the image lived on, ...
180
00:19:02,376 --> 00:19:06,334
reinforced by the royal family,
in its role of country squire.
181
00:19:17,743 --> 00:19:20,197
Englishmen like to think of
themselves in these terms.
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00:19:20,198 --> 00:19:24,415
They attached magical virtues
to walking over fields.
183
00:19:35,380 --> 00:19:39,508
They also found virtue in royal
pageantry, jubilees, coronations, ...
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00:19:39,509 --> 00:19:42,858
state openings, funerals.
185
00:19:45,606 --> 00:19:49,670
The funeral of King Edward the seventh in
1910 provided a last glimpse ...
186
00:19:49,671 --> 00:19:52,848
of royal Europe in all its panoply.
187
00:20:17,595 --> 00:20:20,787
9 kings followed Edward's coffin
through the streets of London.
188
00:20:20,788 --> 00:20:27,066
King George the fifth, his successor, the
Kaiser, his nephew, the king of Belgium, ...
189
00:20:27,067 --> 00:20:33,402
the king of Spain, the kings of Portugal,
Denmark, Bulgaria, Norway and Greece.
190
00:20:33,403 --> 00:20:37,684
The watching awestruck crowds were
reminded that ...
191
00:20:37,685 --> 00:20:42,114
Britain was the centre of an empire
on which the sun never set.
192
00:20:47,084 --> 00:20:49,409
The most glittering jewel
of all was India.
193
00:20:49,410 --> 00:20:55,943
The Great Durbar at Delhi in 1911 seemed
to set the seal on British rule.
194
00:20:55,944 --> 00:21:00,580
Wearing their papal coronation robes and
pursued by attendants carrying ...
195
00:21:00,581 --> 00:21:05,394
peacock fans, yak tails and golden maces,
their majesties took their thrones ...
196
00:21:05,395 --> 00:21:08,453
and faced the tens of thosands
of their subjects.
197
00:21:09,923 --> 00:21:14,366
King George the fifth worte in his diary:
"The most beautiful and wonderful sight ...
198
00:21:14,367 --> 00:21:20,047
I ever saw. I wore a new crown for India
which cost 60,000 pounds.
199
00:21:20,048 --> 00:21:26,261
The amphitheatre contained about 12,000
people and about 18,000 troops."
200
00:21:32,146 --> 00:21:36,980
119 princes and maharajas bowed and retracted ...
201
00:21:36,981 --> 00:21:39,580
in a ceremony which
lasted a full hour.
202
00:21:39,581 --> 00:21:43,698
The Delhi Durbar affirmed the bond
between the king-emperor ...
203
00:21:43,699 --> 00:21:46,702
and more than 300 million
Indian subjects.
204
00:21:48,553 --> 00:21:51,103
Africans, too, were subject
to the British crown.
205
00:21:56,181 --> 00:21:59,094
To Cecil Rhodes had come the dream of
linking British possessions with a ...
206
00:21:59,095 --> 00:22:04,961
railway from the Cape to Cairo.
The almost unbroken pink ...
207
00:22:04,962 --> 00:22:10,190
up the map of Africa showed the
dream well on the way to realization.
208
00:22:11,872 --> 00:22:15,955
And there were the white dominions,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
209
00:22:15,956 --> 00:22:20,714
These were the lands where men of British
stock had driven down new routes, ...
210
00:22:20,715 --> 00:22:24,987
creating British populations in far
distant places, half as numerous ...
211
00:22:24,988 --> 00:22:26,701
as the Britons who stayed at home.
212
00:22:44,072 --> 00:22:47,889
In the British Isles, life for many
was a struggle for daily bread.
213
00:22:55,940 --> 00:23:02,393
The national wealth of the country in 1914
has been computed at 14,300 million pounds.
214
00:23:02,394 --> 00:23:06,130
But in the black deserts of Britain's
industrial towns, ...
215
00:23:06,131 --> 00:23:10,774
working class families could not afford
decent clothes or enough to eat.
216
00:23:14,334 --> 00:23:17,999
In London, at the turn of the century,
30.7 per cent of the population ...
217
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:20,083
were living below the poverty line.
218
00:23:20,184 --> 00:23:26,645
In York, 28 per cent existed on a diet
less generous than that of the workhouse.
219
00:23:26,646 --> 00:23:31,105
Small wonder that the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Lloyd George, wrote: ...
220
00:23:31,106 --> 00:23:37,967
"Our working populations, crushed into
dingy and mean streets with no assurance ...
221
00:23:37,968 --> 00:23:42,067
that they would not be deprived of
their daily bread by ill health ...
222
00:23:42,068 --> 00:23:47,953
or trade fluctuations, were
becoming sullen with discontent."
223
00:23:49,033 --> 00:23:52,559
As in Germany and in France, the
workers turned to socialism.
224
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:55,624
The Labouur Party was born.
225
00:23:56,626 --> 00:23:59,574
But 40 Labour MPs could not
provide a remedy.
226
00:24:00,990 --> 00:24:03,359
Only through the rapidly growing
trade union movement ...
227
00:24:03,360 --> 00:24:05,540
could the workers assert their demands.
228
00:24:05,541 --> 00:24:10,152
In 1911 and 1912, Britain was
swept by a wave of strikes ...
229
00:24:10,153 --> 00:24:13,238
more complete and embittered
than any yet seen.
230
00:24:14,756 --> 00:24:20,427
The trade union leader Ben Tillet said: "It
was a great upsurge of elemental forces.
231
00:24:20,428 --> 00:24:25,352
It seemed as if the dispossessed and
disinherited classes were all ...
232
00:24:25,353 --> 00:24:29,848
simultaneously moved to assert
their claims upon society.
233
00:24:47,069 --> 00:24:50,294
The ruling classes reacted with
furious incomprehension.
234
00:24:50,295 --> 00:24:54,937
In Liverpool, troops were brought in
to fire over the heads of the crowds.
235
00:24:54,938 --> 00:25:00,780
A man told Sir Austin Chamberlain:
"I think the situation is so serious ...
236
00:25:00,781 --> 00:25:04,973
that I went this morning to a wholesale
armourer's to buy 5 revolvers.
237
00:25:04,974 --> 00:25:10,259
The shop man said: 'We had a 100 yesterday,
we had 50 when we opened this morning.
238
00:25:10,260 --> 00:25:12,377
We have not one left now.'"
239
00:25:12,378 --> 00:25:17,026
This was England, facing a class
struggle such as she had not seen ...
240
00:25:17,027 --> 00:25:19,037
for over a half a century.
241
00:25:19,038 --> 00:25:25,535
Facing also the dispossessed who had
nothing to do with class - the women.
242
00:25:25,536 --> 00:25:29,193
The old fight for women's rights
received a new impetus ...
243
00:25:29,194 --> 00:25:31,442
from the militant
suffragette movement.
244
00:25:32,355 --> 00:25:36,465
Nothing was safe from their attacks.
Churches were burned, public buildings ...
245
00:25:36,466 --> 00:25:40,694
and private residences destroyed, bombs
were exploded, the police and ...
246
00:25:40,695 --> 00:25:43,384
individuals assaulted,
meetings broken up.
247
00:25:45,555 --> 00:25:50,786
At Epsom on Derby Day, a suffragette waited
to throw herself under the king's horse.
248
00:25:56,124 --> 00:25:57,592
She died of her injuries.
249
00:25:59,706 --> 00:26:01,343
Workers and women.
250
00:26:01,344 --> 00:26:04,627
There were others, too, whose
discontents were coming to a head.
251
00:26:05,956 --> 00:26:11,565
Southern Ireland was clamouring for home
rule. Her spokesman was Eamon De Valera.
252
00:26:11,566 --> 00:26:16,281
The militarist power which has kept
Ireland within its grasp for centuries ...
253
00:26:16,282 --> 00:26:23,698
can never be persuaded to let go. If
liberty is not entire, it is not liberty.
254
00:26:27,417 --> 00:26:30,634
The Irish struggle brought Britain
to the very edge of civil war.
255
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:37,200
Poverty and envy, riches and arrogance,
ambition and frustation, ...
256
00:26:37,201 --> 00:26:42,891
doubt and demand, these were the
tensions of ever industrial state.
257
00:26:46,478 --> 00:26:49,795
And to them were added the tensions
between states themselves.
258
00:26:49,796 --> 00:26:54,517
In Britain, alarm grew with the growth of
the German fleet just across the water.
259
00:26:54,518 --> 00:26:58,483
Public opinion, disunited on
almost everything else, ...
260
00:26:58,484 --> 00:27:00,584
was united on the need
for battleships.
261
00:27:00,585 --> 00:27:04,117
Each launching, whether in
Barrow or in Bremen, ...
262
00:27:04,118 --> 00:27:08,255
drove Britain and Germany
further and further apart.
263
00:27:08,256 --> 00:27:12,993
Even men as sympathetic towards Germany
as Lord Haldane could say: ...
264
00:27:12,994 --> 00:27:17,623
"Peace was to be preserved, but
preserved on what terms?
265
00:27:17,624 --> 00:27:21,782
On the terms that the German was so
strong by land and sea that he could ...
266
00:27:21,783 --> 00:27:27,422
swagger down the high street of the world,
making his will prevail at every turn?"
267
00:27:28,910 --> 00:27:32,057
In 1908, Lloyd George met
the German ambassador.
268
00:27:32,058 --> 00:27:36,803
I explained to him that the real
ground for the growing antagonism ...
269
00:27:36,804 --> 00:27:40,787
in this country towards Germany
was not jealousy of her ...
270
00:27:40,788 --> 00:27:45,688
rapidly expanding commerce,
but fear of her growing navy.
271
00:27:48,527 --> 00:27:50,367
But the Kaiser did not care.
272
00:27:50,368 --> 00:27:53,540
I do not wish for a good
understanding with England ...
273
00:27:53,541 --> 00:27:56,603
at the expense of the
extension of the German fleet.
274
00:28:01,069 --> 00:28:05,197
So, Germany's naval dreams made
Britain a potential enemy, ...
275
00:28:05,198 --> 00:28:08,820
just as her military might had kept
alive the hostility of France.
276
00:28:08,821 --> 00:28:13,559
The two nations were drawn
together by Germany's challenge.
277
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,539
The Entente Cordiale was forged.
278
00:28:16,540 --> 00:28:22,308
By 1914, when King George the fifth paid
a state visit to Paris and rode with ...
279
00:28:22,309 --> 00:28:27,762
President Poincare through cheering
crowds, the Entente was 10 years old.
280
00:28:27,763 --> 00:28:32,294
In both countries, men welcomed
the end of centuries of rivalry.
281
00:28:32,295 --> 00:28:37,678
It seemed a good omen for peace, but the
security offered by the Entente Cordiale ...
282
00:28:37,679 --> 00:28:45,194
was delusive, for France had another ally
on the other side of Europe - Russia.
283
00:28:45,195 --> 00:28:50,955
Britain, in turn, made an agreement with
her. Thus, Germany found herself ...
284
00:28:50,956 --> 00:28:55,565
faced with what her statesmen had
always most dreaded - encirclement.
285
00:28:55,566 --> 00:28:59,002
Potential enemies in the
west and in the east.
286
00:29:10,926 --> 00:29:14,991
In the summer of 1914, it was not
Britain nor France nor Russia ...
287
00:29:14,992 --> 00:29:18,076
which held the real threat
to the peace of Europe.
288
00:29:18,077 --> 00:29:24,089
The real threat lay in the alliance of
Germany's making, her alliance with Austria.
289
00:29:25,471 --> 00:29:28,131
This was a shackle linking the
swelling vigour of Germany ...
290
00:29:28,132 --> 00:29:31,978
to the irresponsible policies
of an old, decaying empire.
291
00:29:31,979 --> 00:29:34,465
Bismarck foresaw the danger.
292
00:29:34,466 --> 00:29:38,015
I shall not live to see
the great war, ...
293
00:29:38,016 --> 00:29:41,715
but you will see it and it
will start in the east.
294
00:29:41,716 --> 00:29:46,179
For centuries, Austria had been
the leading German state, ...
295
00:29:46,180 --> 00:29:49,140
Europe's shield against the east.
296
00:29:49,141 --> 00:29:56,047
By 1914, her empire was an anachronism
whose fatal ambitions died hard.
297
00:29:56,048 --> 00:30:02,313
At the head of this ancient realm stood
the emperor Franz Josef, 84 years old.
298
00:30:02,314 --> 00:30:07,571
He had reigned in vienna since 1848,
Europe's year of revolutions, ...
299
00:30:07,572 --> 00:30:10,650
when the Austrian empire
had come near to collapse.
300
00:30:10,651 --> 00:30:15,649
Franz Josef held it together by a
mixture of compromise and repression, ...
301
00:30:15,650 --> 00:30:19,024
but nothing could disguise
its decrepitude.
302
00:30:20,025 --> 00:30:23,757
Lord Lansdowne wrote:
"To human calculation, ...
303
00:30:23,758 --> 00:30:28,596
the Habsburg empire cannot survive the
decease of the emperor Franz Hosef."
304
00:30:33,010 --> 00:30:37,186
Tha anachronism lingered on,
upheld by this old man.
305
00:30:38,354 --> 00:30:44,003
Its ceremonies, its displays, its brilliant
uniforms, the rigid protocol of the ...
306
00:30:44,004 --> 00:30:49,463
imperial court, the high-sounding titles,
the wit, the music, the culture ...
307
00:30:49,464 --> 00:30:54,993
of Vienna, all belonged to a past which was
becoming ever more at odds with the present.
308
00:30:56,459 --> 00:31:01,820
But this empire was not merely Austrian.
It was, in the first place, a dual monarchy.
309
00:31:01,821 --> 00:31:04,705
The Austrians shared power
with the Hungarians ...
310
00:31:04,706 --> 00:31:07,182
who kept their own
parliament and their own laws.
311
00:31:07,183 --> 00:31:12,402
Austrians and Hungarians together
ruled over a mixture of peoples.
312
00:31:12,403 --> 00:31:19,878
Italians, Poles, Czechs, Ruthenians,
Slovaks, Slovenes, Serbs.
313
00:31:19,879 --> 00:31:23,642
Nearly half of Franz Josef's
subjects were Slavs, ...
314
00:31:23,643 --> 00:31:28,208
who viewed their masters with sullen
hatred and yearned for liberation.
315
00:31:29,605 --> 00:31:34,216
They looked for aide outside the Austrian
empire to the free Slav countries, ...
316
00:31:34,217 --> 00:31:41,071
the rising kingdom of Serbia and the Russian
empire, protector of Slavs everywhere.
317
00:31:41,072 --> 00:31:45,507
Tribal memories and tribal fears
agitated all these people ...
318
00:31:45,508 --> 00:31:48,973
whose borders stretched
to Europe's edge.
319
00:31:51,799 --> 00:31:53,752
Russia would stand by the Slavs.
320
00:31:53,753 --> 00:31:59,862
Against Russia, Austria would need strong
help. Germany had promised that help.
321
00:31:59,863 --> 00:32:04,995
Whatever comes from the Vienna
foreign office is a command from me.
322
00:32:06,128 --> 00:32:08,606
Yet, there were those in
Germany who felt misgivings.
323
00:32:08,607 --> 00:32:14,158
In 1914, the German ambassador in Vienna
said: "I constantly wonder whether ...
324
00:32:14,159 --> 00:32:19,054
it really pays to bind ourselves too
tightly to this phantasm of a state, ...
325
00:32:19,055 --> 00:32:21,231
that is cracking in all directions."
326
00:32:21,232 --> 00:32:26,713
But the Austro-German alliance was a
fact, leading to inescapable conclusions.
327
00:32:27,962 --> 00:32:34,254
In 1914, the Kaiser noted: "As a soldier,
I have no doubt, on the basis of ...
328
00:32:34,255 --> 00:32:38,109
information reaching me that Russia
is systematically preparing ...
329
00:32:38,110 --> 00:32:43,247
for war against us and I frame
my policy on that assumption."
330
00:32:48,764 --> 00:32:51,815
Russia, also, was a
troubled anachronism.
331
00:32:52,454 --> 00:32:56,576
The Tsar of all the Russias ruled
over countless millions of people.
332
00:33:10,795 --> 00:33:15,407
More than 130 millions of them had
been counted in the census of 1897.
333
00:33:16,345 --> 00:33:18,731
How many more were contained
in the deep hinterlands ...
334
00:33:18,732 --> 00:33:21,210
of the Russian empire,
none could say.
335
00:33:22,102 --> 00:33:25,222
This was the largest state in
the world, a sprawling giant.
336
00:33:26,333 --> 00:33:28,766
Communications across it were
primitive and difficult, ...
337
00:33:28,767 --> 00:33:31,955
during the thaw, almost impossible.
338
00:33:33,207 --> 00:33:36,956
A British diplomat wrote: "No one
can have the slightest idea ...
339
00:33:36,957 --> 00:33:40,741
what the country tracks in Russia are
like during the spring and winter.
340
00:33:40,742 --> 00:33:44,446
It took me 16 days to
traverse 80 miles."
341
00:33:46,633 --> 00:33:50,243
Over these limitless distances, the
Romanov dynasty in the person of ...
342
00:33:50,244 --> 00:33:54,635
Nicholos the second, emperor
and autocrat, ruled absolutely.
343
00:33:54,636 --> 00:33:59,062
In 1895, answering a demand for more
representative government, ...
344
00:33:59,063 --> 00:34:04,548
the Tsar said: "Let all know that in
devoting all my strength to the ...
345
00:34:04,549 --> 00:34:08,929
people's well-being, I shall preserve
the principle of autocracy ...
346
00:34:08,930 --> 00:34:12,521
as firmly and as undeviatingly
as did my father."
347
00:34:19,011 --> 00:34:23,468
In 1905, Russia suffered humiliating
defeat at the hands of Japan.
348
00:34:23,469 --> 00:34:26,129
The very foundations of
tsarism were shaken.
349
00:34:26,986 --> 00:34:30,734
The peasants, the vast, illiterate
masses of Russian people, ...
350
00:34:30,735 --> 00:34:37,088
living on a chancy borderline of
famine and ruin, rose in revolution.
351
00:34:38,090 --> 00:34:41,097
They found allies in the
growing industrial proletariat.
352
00:34:42,258 --> 00:34:45,231
But the 1905 revolution
was bloodily crushed.
353
00:34:45,232 --> 00:34:48,694
In 1906, the principle of
autocracy was restated ...
354
00:34:48,695 --> 00:34:52,523
by the Imperial Council
more firmly than ever.
355
00:34:52,524 --> 00:34:57,784
To the Emperor of all the Russias
belongs supreme autocratic power.
356
00:34:57,785 --> 00:35:02,002
Submission to his power,
not from fear only, ...
357
00:35:02,003 --> 00:35:07,332
but as a matter of conscience,
is commanded by God himself.
358
00:35:10,324 --> 00:35:15,194
With this imperious rejection of democracy,
the regime recklessly tightened ...
359
00:35:15,195 --> 00:35:19,769
the tensions, exasperated the feelings
and embittered the thoughts of the people.
360
00:35:20,826 --> 00:35:22,463
There were riots and strikes.
361
00:35:24,249 --> 00:35:27,739
A strike in the Lena gold
fields was ruthlessly suppressed.
362
00:35:43,486 --> 00:35:47,190
The Tsar and his court consume
their time with simple pleasures, ...
363
00:35:47,191 --> 00:35:49,951
heedless of the Russian people.
364
00:36:18,768 --> 00:36:21,887
Interior tensions were coming
to the boil in this pious, ...
365
00:36:21,888 --> 00:36:24,936
passionate, intensely
patriotic nation.
366
00:36:26,099 --> 00:36:29,253
And as they did so,
external tensions also grew.
367
00:36:32,186 --> 00:36:35,897
The Balkans, where the Slav lands
lay between the scowling frontiers ...
368
00:36:35,898 --> 00:36:40,038
of three crumbling empires,
were their point of impact.
369
00:36:41,955 --> 00:36:46,070
In 1908, Austria, with
outdated ambitions, annexed ...
370
00:36:46,071 --> 00:36:50,478
the Slav territories of Bosnia and
Herzegovina on the borders of Serbia.
371
00:36:52,893 --> 00:36:58,122
Russia, still weak after defeat
by Japan in 1905, let that pass.
372
00:36:58,123 --> 00:37:02,622
Then in 1912, the small Balkan kingdoms
joined together to inflict a ...
373
00:37:02,623 --> 00:37:08,411
crushing defeat on the Turkish empire,
but they quarrelled among themselves.
374
00:37:08,412 --> 00:37:13,430
Out of the Balkan wars of 1912
and 1913, Serbia emerged ...
375
00:37:13,431 --> 00:37:18,192
as the strongest of the Balkan
states, an inspiration for all Slavs.
376
00:37:18,193 --> 00:37:23,117
Austria watched her inconvenient
progress with a jealous, calculating eye.
377
00:37:24,127 --> 00:37:29,860
The British ambassador in Vienna reported
in 1913: "Relations between Austria ...
378
00:37:29,861 --> 00:37:32,717
and Russia are growing
worse day by day.
379
00:37:32,718 --> 00:37:38,015
Serbia will, one day, set Europe by the
ears and bring about universal war."
380
00:37:39,554 --> 00:37:42,852
The French president, Poincare, came to a similar conclusion.
381
00:37:42,853 --> 00:37:47,794
Whatever be the issue, small or great,
which may arise in the future between ...
382
00:37:47,795 --> 00:37:53,628
Russia and Germany, it will not pass
by like the last. It will be war.
383
00:37:55,291 --> 00:37:57,278
In Austria, the issue was clear.
384
00:37:57,279 --> 00:38:01,936
The Austrian chief of staff, Conrad
von Hotzendorf, said openly: ...
385
00:38:01,937 --> 00:38:06,286
"We must crush this viper Serbia."
386
00:38:07,964 --> 00:38:12,634
By 1914, Europeans had
learned to live with fear ...
387
00:38:12,635 --> 00:38:14,651
and fear is the midwife of war.
388
00:38:14,652 --> 00:38:20,416
On Sunday, June the 28th, Europe
entered upon her final, fatal crisis.
389
00:38:20,417 --> 00:38:25,208
The Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to
the Austrian throne, and his wife ...
390
00:38:25,209 --> 00:38:30,306
were visiting Sarajevo, capital of the
recently annexed province of Bosnia.
391
00:38:31,471 --> 00:38:35,223
From Serbia, just across the border,
a group of Slav terrorists ...
392
00:38:35,224 --> 00:38:39,473
had also come to Sarajevo,
pledged to kill Franz Ferdinand.
393
00:38:40,726 --> 00:38:44,405
As the archduke and his wife took their
departure, one of these terrorists, ...
394
00:38:44,406 --> 00:38:49,826
a Slav schoolboy called Gavrilo Princip,
fired two pistol shots.
395
00:38:51,317 --> 00:38:53,543
They hit Franz Ferdinand
and his wife.
396
00:38:54,867 --> 00:38:57,641
A quarter of an hour later,
both were dead.
397
00:38:59,435 --> 00:39:02,326
The peace of Europe died with them.