The pendulum of war had come to rest.
The armies halted.
Around the campfires, men were too weary to talk much,
but they could wonder, which way would they march tomorrow?
For 15 days, the Allies had been in constant retreat.
For 15 days, the great weight of the German army had pressed down towards Paris.
ORDERS SHOUTED IN GERMAN
By September 5th, they were less than 20 miles from the capital.
Would Paris fall?
Hope waned and time was running out.
Yet one man preserved his hope and made his will prevail.
At Allied headquarters, Gen Joffre perceived that a significant change had occurred.
The situation was impressive.
Our front formed the arc of a vast circle
enveloping the enemy.
Thus our 5th Army was in a position to attack
the enemy columns crossing the Marne,
while the British Army and mobile troops of the Paris garrison
were well placed to attack in flank
the German forces who'd diverged from the direction of Paris.
This was the moment of decision that Joffre had been waiting for.
Now hundreds of thousands of tired men must be halted,
turned about and thrown against the enemy.
From Verdun to the Marne, Joffre told his right wing to hold firm.
The German 2nd Army was marching south
at some distance from the First.
The French 6th Army would strike from the west.
As Von Kluck turned to meet them,
the French 5th Army and the BEF could march on the gap in the line.
One thing was essential. The BEF must march.
Joffre visited Sir John French to explain his plan and plead for aid.
Finally, clasping his two hands in front of himself, he turned to Sir John French and said...
SPEAKS IN FRENCH
"Field Marshal, it is France that is begging you."
It was so moving that Sir John French, who was awfully British,
very unemotive himself,
he was so moved that he struggled with the French language once more.
He couldn't get anything out.
And turning to somebody,
he said, "Tell him that anything that men can do, our men will do.
"We will attack tomorrow."
Word began to filter down the line that we were on the move
in the reverse direction.
At first it was hard to believe, but soon we were recrossing the Marne.
We were on the advance again.
The feeling is impossible to describe.
From being tired, worn out, demoralised creatures,
we became trained soldiers with the enemy in view,
and off we went.
"The happiest day of my life. We marched towards the rising sun,"
wrote a British officer.
It was September 6th, 1914.
General Joffre issued an order of the day to his armies.
"The moment has passed for looking to the rear.
"All our efforts must be directed to attacking and driving back the enemy.
"Troops who can advance no further
"must, at any price, hold on to the ground they have conquered
"and die on the spot, rather than give way!
"Under the circumstances that face us,
"no act of weakness can be tolerated."
Slowly, the pendulum started its counter swing.
The Germans resisted strongly.
North of Paris, General Maunoury's army was heavily counter attacked
and in danger of defeat.
Gen Gallieni, military governor of Paris,
rushed forward reinforcements in taxi cabs - the taxis of the Marne.
The men they carried just sufficed to prevent a collapse.
But the centre was the vital area.
Here the French 5th Army and the BEF thrust forward
into the widening gap between the armies of Von Kluck and Von Bulow.
Reluctantly at first, but each day more certainly, the Germans gave way.
On September 11th, Joffre telegraphed to the Minister of War:
"The Battle of the Marne is an incontestable victory for us."
And now, as the Allies reap the rewards of victory,
new hope surged up in them that had faced the misery of defeat.
Could the Germans be hustled back to the frontier
out of the rich provinces of France which they had overrun?
Could the Allies pursue swiftly? Back to the Rhine in three weeks, perhaps?
Optimism spread its wings.
Gen Sir Henry Wilson compared notes with an officer on Joffre's staff.
Gatineau asked me when I thought we'd enter Germany.
I said that I thought we should be in Elsenborn in four weeks. He thought three.
"Vitesse! Vitesse!" urged General Foch.
"En avant, soldat, pour La France!" cried Gen Franchet d'Esperey.
But General Haig, commanding the British First Corps, remarked:
"I thought our movements very slow today, in view of the fact the enemy's on the run."
The movements were too slow.
Broken bridges...
tiredness, over caution, brave fighting by German rear guards,
all combined to slow the Allied advance.
On September 13th, Haig's corps reached the River Aisne
and the wooded spurs of the Chemin des Dames Ridge -
the Ladies Road, running along beside the river in Soissons.
They were just two hours too late.
A German Army corps, released by the fall of Maubert,
marched 40 miles in 24 hours, with a quarter of its infantry falling out on the way.
It arrived in the nick of time to block the British advance.
The Germans dug in hastily along the Chemin des Dames Ridge.
The British, unable to move them, dug in also.
The French did the same in their turn.
The beginnings of Trench warfare were now seen.
On September 16th, Joffre told his army commanders:
"It seems as if the enemy is once more going to accept battle
"in prepared positions north of the Aisne.
"It is not longer a question of pursuit,
"but of methodical attack."
Every attack was halted.
The Germans counter attacked to throw the Allies into the Aisne.
They also failed. Losses mounted on both sides.
At the end of the month, Gen Haig said:
"In front of this corps, and for miles either side,
"affairs have reached a deadlock. No decision seems possible here."
Joffre had already reached this conclusion,
so had the German High Command.
Simultaneously, Allies and Germans moved against each other's flanks.
So, the war, which had burned southwards so swiftly,
rolled back northward like a forest fire under a changing wind.
The flames fell on new countryside - Picardy, Artois, Flanders.
This was the "race to the sea".
All through these days of frustration on the Aisne,
by railway,
on horseback,
on foot
and thousands by bicycle,
the soldiers of both sides were on the move.
Populations which had hoped to be spared were driven before them.
And in the north, the thunder of great guns was heard again.
On September 28th, the Germans began a violent bombardment of Antwerp.
The King of the Belgians with his army and his government
had taken refuge in this great port.
Antwerp was heavily defended by rings of forts,
with some 150,000 Belgian soldiers inside them.
On October 1st, the London Times said:
"We do not think there is any need to worry about Antwerp."
But the next day, the British government heard
that the Belgian Army proposed to abandon the city.
"The news," said Sir Winston Churchill,
"seemed not only terrible but incomprehensible."
Churchill himself sped across the sea.
He promised the Belgians Allied support and persuaded them to wait.
Naval armoured cars came up the coast from Ostend.
With them, troops of the Uniformed 7th Division by whatever means they could find.
CHEERING
At Antwerp itself, Royal Marines of the Naval Division landed.
They were soon under bombardment in the line.
Some shrapnel, a few high explosives,
and then, high in the sky, a train-like rumble and whistle.
It ended with an explosion in Antwerp with smoke and flames.
An old hand said, "Them's Howitzer shells!
"The bastards must be 12 miles away!"
At intervals all day these train-like shells came over
and burst on the city of Antwerp.
Late in the afternoon, the oil tanks by the dockside were hit.
We sat, watched, waited.
Felt hopeless and useless.
For three days, the unequal struggle went on.
But the Allies had nothing like the German Howitzers which had already battered Liege and Namur.
On October 7th, the inevitable end was in sight.
The Belgian Government left for Ostend
and the field army began its withdrawal down the coast.
With them, once more, went the pitiful refugees,
escaping as best they could, by any route they could,
from the German invaders whose cruel reputation had gone before them.
The future of Belgium was all in shadows now.
On October 9th, the Germans entered Antwerp.
Now the flames of war licked down the coast to join the blaze of battle to the south.
The Belgian Army fell back to Diksmuide.
It joined a magnificent detachment of French marines.
And division by division, the BEF, transported from the Aisne,
was coming into action near the old Flemish market town of Ypres.
Their arrival filled the last remaining gap in a battle line
from the sea to Switzerland.
It was the final act of the war's movement.
The last great encounter battle of the Western Front
opened with glittering promise for both sides.
Gen Foch was now in charge of all the Allied forces in the north.
He was clear about what he had to do.
The question was, did we have the time and means to effect a breakthrough
before the enemy could complete defensive measures against which we would be impotent?
This effort was an attempt to exploit the last vestige of our victory on the Marne.
The Germans now had a new commander.
Von Moltke had failed and was replaced by Erich von Falkenhayn as Chief of Staff.
He too was clear about his task.
The Allied threat to the German right wing must be eliminated.
If this at least was not done,
then the drastic action against England and her sea traffic,
submarines, aeroplanes and airships,
which was being prepared as a reply to England's war of starvation,
was impossible.
It was also questionable whether the occupied territory in France and Belgium
could be held.
The prize, felt von Falkenhayn, was worth the stake.
For both sides, the stake at Ypres was everything they had.
The sustained intensity of this battle was something new.
Crisis after crisis flared along the line.
In the north, the Belgians were hard pressed,
defending the last patch of native soil from the invader.
They took a terrible decision, to open the sluice gates of the River Yser.
They let in the sea over land that had been reclaimed by the labour of centuries.
A French officer watched the result.
Little by little, the soil became spongy.
The ditches began to fill.
On the 29th, we could see the water rise,
but it wasn't till the 31st that we saw a different landscape.
Over this new landscape, veiled by a mist,
settled a deathlike silence.
The Germans, too, were willing to mortgage their future.
They flung into battle divisions of student volunteers,
wildly enthusiastic, but only half trained.
They were mown down by the British regulars.
The Germans called their fate "the slaughter of the innocents".
Veteran units also suffered heavy losses.
GERMAN ACCENT: Within 100 yards, we came under machine gun fire,
which was so terrific and the losses were so staggering
that we got orders to lie down and stay still.
Nobody dared to lift his head
because they knew that if the machine gunners saw any movement,
they let fly.
And then the British artillery opened up.
The corpses and the heads and the legs and the arms flew about
and we were cut to pieces.
The British Expeditionary Force was also cut to pieces by the German guns.
These men were irreplaceable. They were Britain's only trained troops.
By the time the battle was over, the old British Army was gone past recall.
Losses in this battle totalled nearly 60,000.
Already, before it ended, the consequences were seen.
The Territorials made their appearance.
The London Scottish were the first to enter the fight.
They lost 60% of their numbers in their first battle.
Beside them, on October 29th, arrived the first units of the Indian Corps.
The citizen army and the Empire were already having to replace the regulars.
Regulars, Territorials, Indians, French, Belgians.
The French outnumbered all the rest.
Together, they beat off all the German attacks.
Their own attacks failed also.
Capt Rudolph Binding of the German Dragoons wrote in a letter:
"The war has got stuck into a gigantic siege on both sides.
"The whole front is one endless fortified trench.
"Neither side has the force to make a decisive push."
On November 2nd, he was even gloomier.
"Everyone is getting ready for a winter campaign.
"I judge there's no possibility of an early finish."
The thought grew upon him with all its cheerless implications.
"November 8th, we are still stuck here for perfectly good reasons.
"One might as well say for perfectly bad reasons."
By the middle of November, his mind was made up.
"This business may last for a long time."
The impossible was now a fact -
a battle line which stretched across a continent.
There were no flanks to turn, only the convolutions of the trenches
in which the million-strong armies crouched and waited.
Nothing like it had ever been seen before.
All the plans had gone awry.
All the careful preparation of Germany, all the brave improvisation of the Allies.
All the heroism of the soldiers had produced stalemate.
The stalemate was universal.
In Serbia, where the war began, the same incredible spectacle was seen.
On August 12, the Austrians entered Serbia on what they thought
would be a swift punitive campaign
which would quickly bring down this upstart Slav kingdom to the dust.
To everyone's astonishment, the Austrian invasion was repelled.
The Serbs fought with passionate fury against their neighbours.
But the weight of numbers was on Austria's side.
After an interval, the Austrians returned in strength
and with more caution.
This time, it seemed that they must win.
GUNSHOT
On December 2nd, they entered Belgrade again.
Easy enough, Belgrade was right on the border.
But once again, the Serbs made a remarkable rally.
By the 15th, the Austrians were out of Belgrade again.
Serbia was cleared of the invaders.
The campaign had been brutal and bloody.
The Austrians lost 227,000 men,
more than half the numbers of their invading forces.
This was a war of Austria's making, but Austria was out of luck.
The bulk of Austria's army marched with enthusiasm to meet the Russians,
believing in the strength of their German allies.
Under 50% of them were Austrians and Hungarians.
The rest, mostly Slavs, have little desire to fight for the Hapsburg empire.
Many of them knew no more German than the 80 basic words of command.
Yet the German victory at Tannenberg in August gave them hope.
Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshall Conrad von Hotzendorf,
had visions of a Tannenberg of his own
against Russia's southern islands.
On September 6th, the main bodies of the Russians and Austrians
met around the town of Lemberg.
There was bitter fighting.
On September 11th, the day on which Joffre announced victory on the Marne,
Conrad had accepted defeat.
His casualties were enormous,
and included over 100,000 prisoners.
The Austrians began a withdrawal which carried them back 200 miles.
A lasting blow had been struck at Austrian morale.
German staff officers cruelly summed it up by saying:
"We are fettered to a corpse."
The Germans had reasons for bitterness.
This Austrian disaster had gravely affected their plans and prospects,
which had looked so bright after Tannenberg.
Now, as the Russians advanced into Carpathia,
the Germans had to leave their own offensives
to meet the threat.
Their attack on Warsaw came to nothing.
In East Prussia, the Russians were able to mount a new invasion.
At the root of all problems in this vast fighting area
was communication.
General Ludendorff wrote:
"We had trouble getting the railway lines,
"that we had ourselves previously destroyed,
"into working order again.
"We worked now with might and main to restore them,
"but considerable time elapsed before the railway communications were really in order."
The Russian winter arrived,
halting all the armies in their tracks.
Germans, Austrians, Russians, they burrowed holes for shelter,
struggled to keep warm and waited for better times.
- Ludendorff said: - "The 1914 campaign had not brought a decision.
"And I could not see how one would be reached in 1915."
In the east, as in the west, it was stalemate.
This, too, was going to be a long business.
As the weeks slid into months and drew towards the ending of the year,
shocked nations recognised that this war would not be "over by Christmas"!
In France, censorship concealed the full truth of what had happened since August 3rd.
But in hundreds of thousands of homes,
nothing could conceal the loss of a husband or brother or a son.
995,000 Frenchmen were killed, wounded or missing in 1914.
Russia's losses were even greater than the French.
Also, disturbing signs of internal rottenness had appeared.
The Russian soldiers had displayed unbelievable devotion, patience and tenacity.
Too often, their courage was brought to nothing
by blunders, corruption and heartbreaking shortages.
Yet, at the end of the year, the Tzar's illusions lingered on.
My dear army have given such proofs of valour that victory can't fail us now.
We must dictate the peace. I am determined to continue until the Central Powers are destroyed.
No congress or mediation for me!
Britain and Germany settled to their business with implacable wrath.
The novelist H.G. Wells voiced their ardour.
"Nobody wants to be a non-combatant in a war of this sort."
The desire to join in the fight, possessed the British people in odd ways.
A Times reporter wrote in his diary:
"People seem enveloped in a mysterious darkness,
"haunted by goblins in the form of German spies.
"The wildest stories circulate of outrages committed by Germans in our midst."
Fear of spies and of invasion produced hysteria
which turned venomously against Germans and Austrians in Britain,
or against their suspected sympathisers.
The first casualty was Lord Haldane,
the man who had created the Expeditionary Force and the Territorial Army.
Haldane was accused in the papers of being secretly pro-German.
It was even said that this lifelong bachelor had a German wife.
He recalled:
"I was threatened with assault in the street.
"And I was, on occasions, in some danger of being shot at."
This violence turned in other directions, too.
In the East End of London, German shops were attacked and looted.
Driven by popular pressure, the government unwillingly rounded up aliens in Britain.
The historian F.S. Oliver recorded:
"One of my friends has given away her dachshunds
"lest they should lead her to be suspected of spying."
In October, the agitation reached its climax
with a campaign against Prince Louis of Battenburg,
who, with Winston Churchill, had been responsible for creating the Grand Fleet before war broke out.
The journal "John Bull" wrote:
"Blood is said to be thicker than water.
"We doubt whether all the water in the North Sea
"could obliterate the blood-ties between the Battenburgs and Hohenzollerns
"when it comes to a life or death struggle between Germany and ourselves."
On October 30th, Prince Louis resigned.
But these preoccupations were remote from the needs of the BEF.
On August 7th, the Prime Minister requested parliament to sanction an army increase of 500,000 men.
CHEERING
The response was immediate and impressive.
BAND PLAYS "THE BRITISH GRENADIERS"
War had been declared and the following Sunday I went to the Shepherd's Bush Empire to a show.
At the end, they showed the Fleet sailing the high seas,
and played "Britons never shall be slaves".
And one feels the shiver run up the back and you know you've got to do something.
I was just turned 17 at the time.
On the Monday, I went up to Whitehall, Old Scotland Yard, and enlisted.
By September 5th, the Prime Minister announced
that between 250,000 and 300,000 men had joined Kitchener's Army.
Two days later, the figure was corrected. It was 439,000.
The patriotic fires burned high.
A letter to the Times cried out:
"Reform Club, Pall Mall, Sir...
"Yesterday, while Lord Kitchener was telling us the bravery of our wounded and dead,
"while he was asking for men to replace them,
"every lawn tennis court near me was filled with strapping young men and gells!
"Is there no way of shaming these laggards?
"The English gell who will not know the man - lover, brother, friend -
"that has no overwhelming reason for not taking up arms,
"that gell will do her duty and give good help to her country."
54 million posters were issued,
eight million personal letters were sent,
12,000 meetings were held,
20,000 speeches were delivered by servicemen or ex-servicemen.
By the end of 1914, one million one hundred and eighty-six thousand three hundred and thirty-seven men
had enlisted.
And this was not all.
Canada's position had been made clear long before the war.
In 1910, her prime minister said:
"When Britain is at war, Canada is at war.
"There is no distinction."
The Canadian government offered a contingent of 25,000,
but 40,000 men came forward in less than a month.
Lord Beaverbrook wrote:
"No mere jack-booted militarism inspired them.
"They sought neither the glory of conquest, the rape of freedom,
"nor the loot of sacked cities.
"They came forward free men and unconstrained,
"with the simple resolve to lay down their lives if need be in defence of the Empire -
"their Empire, too."
As with Canada, so with Australia. On August 3rd, their treasurer said:
"If Britain goes to her Armageddon, we will go with her.
"Our fate and hers, for good or ill, are as woven threads."
Australia offered her navy and a contingent of 20,000.
FOG HORN BOOMS
New Zealand also offered her navy and 8,000 men -
a higher proportion than any other dominion.
South Africa joined in. Men came from all the colonies.
The martial races of India gathered at the summons of the drum.
The Empire was at war.
This was something that Germany had not catered for.
The Swedish explorer, Sven Hedin, visiting Germany in October,
spoke for her outraged feelings:
"The two western powers of the entente bear the responsibility
"for having caused the dance of death to involve the whole globe!
"Canadians come from America, Senegalese Negroes from Africa,
'and poor Hindus and Gurkhas, bronzed by the sun of India,
"lie freezing in the trenches.
"Lastly, Australia and New Zealand are sending contingents.
"What is the purpose of such a world-wide levy of warriors?
"Why, Germanic culture is to be uprooted from the earth!"
Victorious, yet thwarted of final victory, Germany set her teeth and hardened her will.
At the end of October, the president of the national bank in Berlin
told the correspondent of the New York Sun:
"It is a fight between England and Germany
"to the bitter end, to the last German, if need be.
"England has wanted it, so let it be.
"We want no quarter from England, we shall give none.
"Now it is death, destruction and annihilation
"for one or other of the two nations.
"Tell your American people that,
"and say the words don't come from a fanatic, but from a quiet businessman who knows his people.
"Tell America not to be misled by peace talk.
"There is not going to be any peace.
"This will be a long war."
In an ugly mood, the nations settled down to fight it out.
In the crude trenches, men dug for shelter as deep as they dared.
They learned to suffer the companionship of mud.
The manhood of Europe discovered a new way of life,
with death never far away.
They were surprised to find that Christmas had overtaken them.
British soldiers listened with wonder as the carol "Heilige Nacht" arose from the German trenches.
Here and there, they saw Christmas trees go up.
The next day, it was just the sort of day for peace to be declared said one British officer.
Without a word, British and German soldiers got out of their trenches
and walked towards each other.
The whole of No Man's Land was grey and khaki.
We were smoking, talking, shaking hands,
exchanging names and addresses for after the war, to write to each other.
The British soldiers showed the Germans
the gift boxes they'd had from Princess Mary,
each containing tobacco and cigarettes.
The Germans had pipes embossed with the head of the Crown Prince,
Little Willie of the English cartoons.
When the Germans started to bury some of their frozen dead,
the British had another shock, the inscriptions on the crosses.
They would put, "Fur Vaterland und Freiheit" -
"For Fatherland and Freedom".
And I said to a German,
"Excuse me, but how can you be fighting for freedom?
"You started the war and WE are fighting for freedom."
And he said, "Excuse me, English comrade,
"but WE are fighting for freedom for our country."
"And I see you also put 'Here rests in God... here rests in God an unknown hero.' In God?"
"Oh, yes, God is on our side." I said, "But he's on OUR side."
"Well, English comrade, do not let us quarrel on Christmas day."
MALE CHOIR SINGS "SILENT NIGHT"