1 00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:26,760 It was 1915, the beginning of a new year, 2 00:01:26,760 --> 00:01:29,400 the beginning of new hopes. 3 00:01:29,400 --> 00:01:37,320 The old hopes, the glorious ones of 1914, were buried in the mud and clay of trench warfare. 4 00:01:37,320 --> 00:01:42,800 The Schlieffen Plan, Plan 17, the Russian Steamroller - 5 00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:46,840 in the hangover of this cold dawn of 1915, 6 00:01:46,840 --> 00:01:53,440 they were only memories of the time when all Europe had been drunk on the wine of quick victory. 7 00:01:55,280 --> 00:02:02,000 It was stalemate, puzzling to generals reared on the concept of the sweeping manoeuvre, 8 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:08,200 frustrating to soldiers trained for wars of movement, disillusioning to new arrivals. 9 00:02:08,200 --> 00:02:13,800 We'd been brought up on histories of the Boer War and patriotism 10 00:02:13,800 --> 00:02:17,200 and...heroics and everything. 11 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:22,320 And we thought the war was going to be over before we could get there. 12 00:02:22,320 --> 00:02:27,040 However, in about half a minute, all that had gone 13 00:02:27,040 --> 00:02:33,760 and I wondered what the devil I'd got into, because it was nothing but mud and filth. 14 00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:38,840 And all the chaps who were already there, they looked like tramps - 15 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:43,080 they were all plastered in filth and dirt, unshaven. 16 00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:47,880 During the long winter, General Joffre, French commander-in-chief, 17 00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:51,640 pondered the new problems of trench warfare. 18 00:02:51,640 --> 00:02:57,760 "The enemy had been driven back, but he had firmly fastened himself upon our soil 19 00:02:57,760 --> 00:03:04,440 "and we had been obliged to leave in his hands for a length of time no-one could estimate 20 00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:11,040 "a rich part of our country. It was not enough that we had prevented the enemy from winning the war, 21 00:03:11,040 --> 00:03:17,840 "it was essential to achieve a complete victory over him, reconquer Belgium, the north of France, 22 00:03:17,840 --> 00:03:21,920 "and our precious provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. 23 00:03:21,920 --> 00:03:26,040 "This was the heartbreaking problem which faced me." 24 00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:30,640 To hold their conquests, the Germans were building a fortress. 25 00:03:30,640 --> 00:03:32,400 They threw up earthworks, 26 00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:35,440 dug defensive interlocking trench systems, 27 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:39,920 they strengthened their lines with barbed wire and machine guns. 28 00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:45,720 Wire and guns saved men - men to form a new striking force. 29 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:52,360 Falkenhayn, chief of the German general staff, wanted to use it to smash the British into the sea 30 00:03:52,360 --> 00:03:58,480 while they were still weak in numbers. But Germany had two fronts - west and east. 31 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:05,760 In the east, the Russians pressed Germany's Austrian allies back and back into the Carpathian passes. 32 00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:10,320 Beyond were the rich plains of Hungary's homeland. 33 00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:14,440 Falkenhayn had to give up his plan to attack the British. 34 00:04:14,440 --> 00:04:21,520 "The need for some relief to the Austrians by means of an attack in another spot became imperative. 35 00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:28,560 "With a heavy heart, I had to make up my mind to employ my only available reserves in the east." 36 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:36,080 For this relief attack, Falkenhayn chose the Masurian Lakes region of east Prussia, 37 00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:40,920 where the Russians still occupied a wide area of pine forest and lakes, 38 00:04:40,920 --> 00:04:45,440 carved out by the glaciers in the ice ages of long ago. 39 00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:48,560 Now it was winter, January 1915. 40 00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:55,240 Through blizzards and temperatures below zero, men and beasts of two German armies 41 00:04:55,240 --> 00:05:00,000 moved up to their assault positions opposite the Russian 10th Army. 42 00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:05,040 The German plan was bold and simple - 43 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:09,120 outflank the Russians from the north, curl round them 44 00:05:09,120 --> 00:05:13,600 and herd them into the Forest of Augustow and destroy them. 45 00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:18,280 By the beginning of February, just as the Germans were ready, 46 00:05:18,280 --> 00:05:22,680 fresh blizzards screamed through the endless forests, 47 00:05:22,680 --> 00:05:26,480 piling snowdrifts across the roads and tracks. 48 00:05:26,480 --> 00:05:29,680 Movement became almost impossible. 49 00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:36,000 But Hindenburg, the dour and massive commander-in-chief, gave the order to attack. 50 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:39,960 On February the 8th, the two German armies struck. 51 00:05:41,680 --> 00:05:48,800 Behind fire from batteries of Howitzers, they stormed forward, driving the Russians before them. 52 00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:59,720 Once more, a great Russian army was retreating, 53 00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:04,960 like a clumsy, helpless, bewildered beast under the blows of a drover. 54 00:06:04,960 --> 00:06:10,480 For ten days, 350,000 men floundered through the snow 55 00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:17,640 to escape the German pincers, but always they were remorselessly shepherded south and surrounded. 56 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:28,600 By the 21st of February, the German victory was complete and terrible. 57 00:06:28,600 --> 00:06:33,200 The corpses of 100,000 peasant soldiers of the Tsar 58 00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:36,320 lay frozen and forgotten. 59 00:06:39,500 --> 00:06:44,479 The horror of the campaign chilled even Hindenburg himself 60 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:53,000 The name of the winter battle in Masuria charms like an icy wind or the silence of death 61 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:59,500 Men will ask themselves: "Have earthly beings really done these things 62 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:08,500 or was it all but a fable or a phantom? Are not these marches in the winter nights that camp in the iciest snow storm 63 00:07:08,750 --> 00:07:16,501 that last phase of the battle in the forest of Augustow but the creation of an ispired human fancy?" 64 00:07:41,940 --> 00:07:46,980 The people of Petrograd were told the stark facts of the disaster - 65 00:07:46,980 --> 00:07:50,740 100,000 dead, 110,000 prisoners 66 00:07:50,740 --> 00:07:52,900 and 300 guns lost. 67 00:07:52,900 --> 00:07:57,260 But the reason for the defeat was concealed from them. 68 00:07:57,260 --> 00:08:01,700 The Russian army was starved of weapons and ammunition. 69 00:08:01,700 --> 00:08:07,820 In December 1914, the Russian chief-of-staff at the front had written to the Minister of War... 70 00:08:07,820 --> 00:08:14,620 "The men are saying, 'Why should we perish of hunger and cold without boots? The artillery are silent 71 00:08:14,620 --> 00:08:17,380 " 'and we are killed like partridges.' " 72 00:08:17,380 --> 00:08:22,300 Russian prisoners liberated by the Cossacks abused their rescuers. 73 00:08:22,300 --> 00:08:25,420 "Who asked you to rescue us? 74 00:08:25,420 --> 00:08:30,220 "Fools! We don't want to hunger and freeze again." 75 00:08:30,220 --> 00:08:36,140 The Russian guns needed 45,000 shells a day. In February 1915, 76 00:08:36,140 --> 00:08:40,660 Russian factories were supplying them with only 20,000. 77 00:08:40,660 --> 00:08:45,540 This was not a war for soldiers alone, but a war for industry too. 78 00:08:45,540 --> 00:08:51,820 And only Germany, the most modern industrial power in Europe, was equipped for it. 79 00:09:00,940 --> 00:09:05,980 Yet short of heavy guns and ammunition, short even of rifles, 80 00:09:05,980 --> 00:09:08,260 the Russian army in Galicia continued 81 00:09:08,260 --> 00:09:14,060 with indomitable peasant courage to force the Austrians back. 82 00:09:14,060 --> 00:09:17,780 Before them stood the Austrian fortress of Przemysl, 83 00:09:17,780 --> 00:09:24,340 the last rock against the Russian tide that threatened to engulf Hungary. 84 00:09:28,500 --> 00:09:34,220 Behind the shattered forts of the perimeter, the Austrian garrison had been cut off for three months 85 00:09:34,220 --> 00:09:40,700 and food was now so short that the population were eating cats and dogs, as well as horse meat. 86 00:09:40,700 --> 00:09:45,820 The Austrian commander decided on a last, desperate attempt to break out. 87 00:09:45,820 --> 00:09:50,660 It failed and on March the 22nd, the great fortress surrendered. 88 00:09:59,740 --> 00:10:06,620 107,000 men and 20,000 sick and wounded fell into Russian hands at Przemysl. 89 00:10:06,620 --> 00:10:10,780 Croats and Ruthenians and Hungarians and Germans, 90 00:10:10,780 --> 00:10:16,420 the unwilling and willing soldiers of the emperor, Franz Josef. 91 00:10:16,420 --> 00:10:21,780 The feeble state of the Austrian army haunted Falkenhayn. 92 00:10:21,780 --> 00:10:26,460 "The appeals of the Austrians for assistance never ceased. 93 00:10:26,460 --> 00:10:30,900 "Symptoms of disintegration became more and more evident 94 00:10:30,900 --> 00:10:35,060 "in formations of Czech and southern Slav recruits." 95 00:10:35,060 --> 00:10:40,020 Once more, Germany had to help Austria against the Russians. 96 00:10:40,020 --> 00:10:47,860 But how? Hindenburg and Ludendorff still passionately believed that the war could be won in the east. 97 00:10:47,860 --> 00:10:52,900 They repeatedly told the Kaiser that if enough forces were given them, 98 00:10:52,900 --> 00:10:57,860 they'd destroy the whole Russian army by huge pincer movements. 99 00:10:57,860 --> 00:11:05,420 But in the end, the Kaiser rejected their grandiose ideas and accepted Falkenhayn's less ambitious plan. 100 00:11:08,300 --> 00:11:12,220 Falkenhayn proposed a breakthrough between Gorlice and Tarnow, 101 00:11:12,220 --> 00:11:18,780 followed by a lightning pursuit across the communications of the Russian armies threatening Hungary. 102 00:11:18,780 --> 00:11:25,940 It wouldn't win the war, but would be a smashing blow that would paralyse the Russian army. 103 00:11:25,940 --> 00:11:30,020 April brought Europe her first wartime spring. 104 00:11:30,020 --> 00:11:34,500 The grim Russian winter melted into a landscape of astonishing beauty. 105 00:12:21,100 --> 00:12:25,900 The troops of Falkenhayn's striking force settled down 106 00:12:25,900 --> 00:12:31,140 for the long train journey to the wide horizons of the east. 107 00:12:31,140 --> 00:12:38,620 This was an army made for victory. Only the Marne and first Ypres marred a record of success 108 00:12:38,620 --> 00:12:43,980 stretching back through Sedan in 1870 to Waterloo. 109 00:12:45,980 --> 00:12:50,220 At fixed intervals, the packed trains rolled eastwards. 110 00:12:50,220 --> 00:12:52,540 Speed - 19mph. 111 00:12:52,540 --> 00:12:55,540 180 trains to each army corps. 112 00:12:55,540 --> 00:13:00,020 With the army went the now familiar German battering ram - 113 00:13:00,020 --> 00:13:07,020 medium and heavy Howitzers, huge stocks of shells to sweep away the Russian defences like a cyclone. 114 00:13:13,540 --> 00:13:18,580 The breakthrough was to be made by the 11th Army under von Mackensen. 115 00:13:18,580 --> 00:13:20,980 His orders were clear. 116 00:13:20,980 --> 00:13:25,540 "The 11th Army must make quick forward progress. This is important. 117 00:13:25,540 --> 00:13:32,580 "Only in speed lies the guarantee that we shall be able to stop the enemy bringing up its reserves." 118 00:13:32,580 --> 00:13:40,180 By the 28th of April, 170,000 men and 1,000 guns had been slotted into an 18-mile front. 119 00:13:40,180 --> 00:13:43,100 No shortage of ammunition here. 120 00:13:43,100 --> 00:13:45,740 Falkenhayn wrote... 121 00:13:45,740 --> 00:13:53,340 "By the spring of 1915, GHQ was relieved of any serious anxiety with regard to munitions supply." 122 00:13:53,340 --> 00:13:55,580 May the 2nd. 123 00:13:55,580 --> 00:14:00,340 From 6am to 10am, 1,000 guns, half of them heavy, 124 00:14:00,340 --> 00:14:04,380 smashed the Russian defences to shreds. 125 00:14:18,700 --> 00:14:21,660 Then the attack went in. 126 00:14:22,900 --> 00:14:30,620 "Neither fire, trenches, nor barbed wire could stop the assault, and our ranks became thinner and thinner. 127 00:14:30,620 --> 00:14:35,340 "After 35 minutes, and despite the tropical heat, we reached the enemy. 128 00:14:35,340 --> 00:14:42,180 "The Russians clung ferociously to their trenches, but in another 10 minutes, the job was finished." 129 00:14:43,940 --> 00:14:47,780 Von Mackensen signalled to the Kaiser... 130 00:14:47,780 --> 00:14:54,380 "I report that the order to make the enemy's position in the Carpathians untenable has been carried out. 131 00:14:54,380 --> 00:14:57,740 "The enemy is in retreat along the whole line." 132 00:15:04,940 --> 00:15:07,340 Against the weight and power of the German pursuit, 133 00:15:07,340 --> 00:15:12,460 the Russians could do nothing. A Russian commander wrote... 134 00:15:12,460 --> 00:15:17,460 "The retreat from Galicia was one vast tragedy for the Russian army. 135 00:15:17,460 --> 00:15:24,420 "No cartridges, no shells, bloody fighting and difficult marches day after day. 136 00:15:24,420 --> 00:15:31,340 "No end of weariness, physical and moral, faint hopes followed by sinister dread. 137 00:15:31,340 --> 00:15:38,740 "For 11 days, the German heavy artillery swept away whole lines of our trenches and their defenders. 138 00:15:38,740 --> 00:15:44,180 "We hardly replied. There was nothing to reply with." 139 00:15:46,300 --> 00:15:49,740 A Russian general had sent an urgent message to Petrograd. 140 00:15:51,180 --> 00:15:56,900 "There are no rifles. 150,000 men are without rifles! 141 00:15:56,900 --> 00:16:02,700 "From hour to hour, it is worse. We await the heavenly manna from you." 142 00:16:05,140 --> 00:16:11,180 At the end of May, Mackensen's troops marched in triumph into the fortress city of Przemysl. 143 00:16:11,180 --> 00:16:15,260 It had been in Russian hands for only two months. 144 00:16:15,260 --> 00:16:22,140 Victorious Germans and Austrians had marched over 100 miles through the heat of the Galician summer. 145 00:16:22,140 --> 00:16:26,820 They forced the Russians to retreat along the whole Carpathian front. 146 00:16:26,820 --> 00:16:34,300 As they entered Przemysl, their triumphant progress was celebrated 450 miles behind them in Berlin, 147 00:16:34,300 --> 00:16:40,060 with flags and bell-ringing and the cheers of a proud and grateful nation. 148 00:17:12,740 --> 00:17:16,540 The fall of Przemsyl marked yet another stage 149 00:17:16,540 --> 00:17:22,220 in the dumb but terrible agony of the Russian peasant armies. 150 00:17:22,220 --> 00:17:27,020 The Russian soldier was a very good soldier, 151 00:17:27,020 --> 00:17:30,100 provided he was properly led. 152 00:17:31,300 --> 00:17:37,140 But without officers, the officers were wounded or killed... 153 00:17:38,980 --> 00:17:44,940 ...the simple Russian muchik had not much initiative. 154 00:17:44,940 --> 00:17:49,100 After all, they were mostly peasants, 155 00:17:49,100 --> 00:17:53,980 very simple, good-natured men, very big and tough. 156 00:17:55,300 --> 00:17:58,580 But without guidance, they were lost. 157 00:17:58,580 --> 00:18:04,540 And very often, they, um... to our great surprise, 158 00:18:04,540 --> 00:18:07,380 they surrendered in droves. 159 00:18:14,740 --> 00:18:21,180 By the time they were captured, some Russian soldiers had been retreating for a month. 160 00:18:21,180 --> 00:18:25,220 Over 100,000 of their comrades had been killed. 161 00:18:25,220 --> 00:18:29,140 "The Russian army was at the end of its power. 162 00:18:29,140 --> 00:18:34,020 "The uninterrupted fighting in the Carpathians cost it heavy losses. 163 00:18:34,020 --> 00:18:37,780 "The deficit in officers and men was terrifying. 164 00:18:37,780 --> 00:18:42,220 "The lack of arms and ammunition was catastrophic." 165 00:18:42,220 --> 00:18:48,740 For the Russian prisoners, the unequal struggle against Germany's might was over 166 00:18:48,740 --> 00:18:52,820 and they celebrated the miracle of still being alive. 167 00:19:01,260 --> 00:19:05,460 On the western front, spring brought new hope. 168 00:19:05,460 --> 00:19:09,700 It was the time for battle again and the Germans knew it. 169 00:19:09,700 --> 00:19:16,140 Their 400 miles of trenches, behind barbed wire sometimes as thick as a thumb, 170 00:19:16,140 --> 00:19:19,780 walled the French off from their lost lands. 171 00:19:19,780 --> 00:19:25,700 As the weather improved, the French would be coming to take them back. 172 00:19:25,700 --> 00:19:30,220 The Germans watched and waited for the attacks they knew must come. 173 00:19:30,220 --> 00:19:37,220 Opposite them, sometimes half a mile away, sometimes only 20 yards, the Allies also waited. 174 00:19:43,060 --> 00:19:48,780 The temporary lines where the balance of war had settled at the end of 1914 175 00:19:48,780 --> 00:19:51,980 were acquiring a squalid permanence. 176 00:19:51,980 --> 00:19:56,780 Haphazard sections of trench were deepened and joined to each other. 177 00:19:56,780 --> 00:20:02,100 Drains were scooped in the mud and holes converted to dugouts. 178 00:20:02,100 --> 00:20:08,820 They were at least splinter-proof, which meant much to an army fighting an artillery war. 179 00:20:15,260 --> 00:20:21,300 The soldiers knew something must happen soon. A French dragoon wrote... 180 00:20:21,300 --> 00:20:29,060 "In spring, the army stirred itself, stretched its legs and awoke to the fact that a new era was beginning. 181 00:20:29,060 --> 00:20:36,420 "The change took place with the greatest mystery. Rumours, coming no-one knew wherefrom, circulated." 182 00:20:36,420 --> 00:20:43,180 The basic question of 1915 was - could the Allies break through the German defensive works? 183 00:20:43,180 --> 00:20:47,220 Lord Kitchener expressed the widespread doubts. 184 00:20:47,220 --> 00:20:53,380 "We must recognise that the French army cannot make a sufficient break through the German lines 185 00:20:53,380 --> 00:20:58,180 "to cause a complete change of the situation. 186 00:20:58,180 --> 00:21:03,820 "The German lines in France may be seen as a fortress that cannot be carried by assault." 187 00:21:03,820 --> 00:21:09,940 But the Germans left General Joffre, the French commander-in-chief, with no choice. 188 00:21:09,940 --> 00:21:15,340 "The best and largest portion of the German army was on our soil, 189 00:21:15,340 --> 00:21:21,620 "with its line of battle jutting out a mere five-days' march from the heart of France. 190 00:21:21,620 --> 00:21:25,580 "This situation may be clear to every Frenchman 191 00:21:25,580 --> 00:21:32,020 "that our task consisted in defeating this enemy and driving him out of our country." 192 00:21:32,020 --> 00:21:34,180 But how? 193 00:21:57,380 --> 00:22:04,180 French observers peered at the German front line. Week by week, month by month, battle by battle, 194 00:22:04,180 --> 00:22:08,780 the Germans had strengthened and deepened their defensive position. 195 00:22:08,780 --> 00:22:12,300 From behind the trenches, the gun flashes told the Allies 196 00:22:12,300 --> 00:22:17,780 of the power and numbers of the artillery supporting the German soldiers. 197 00:22:17,780 --> 00:22:23,660 The answer, the French concluded, lay in artillery and high-explosive shell. 198 00:22:23,660 --> 00:22:30,460 Given enough, the infantry would occupy German defences already ploughed up and made harmless. 199 00:22:35,220 --> 00:22:39,660 In the words of Sir Douglas Haig, commanding the British 1st Army... 200 00:22:39,660 --> 00:22:45,860 "With sufficient shells, we could walk through the German lines in several places." 201 00:22:45,860 --> 00:22:48,820 But were there sufficient shells and gun power? 202 00:22:52,620 --> 00:22:57,100 When war broke out, France had only 300 heavy guns 203 00:22:57,100 --> 00:23:02,060 to oppose 3,500 German medium and heavy guns. 204 00:23:02,060 --> 00:23:06,340 Since then, only 48 new heavies had been delivered 205 00:23:06,340 --> 00:23:11,220 and 18 of those had blown up in the gunners' faces. 206 00:23:11,220 --> 00:23:15,900 Now, in a desperate attempt to catch up, they pressed into service 207 00:23:15,900 --> 00:23:21,060 the old, slow-firing big guns stripped from fortresses like Verdun and Tulle. 208 00:23:28,540 --> 00:23:35,780 The BEF, by the first half of 1915, had only 10 heavy guns per division, against the German 20. 209 00:23:37,420 --> 00:23:43,660 Every time our artillery opened up on them, they'd come back tenfold. 210 00:23:43,660 --> 00:23:48,540 If we fired five or six rounds, they'd fire 50 to 60 back at us. 211 00:23:48,540 --> 00:23:53,580 But always, it was that unequal bashing that got the infantryman. 212 00:23:53,580 --> 00:24:00,180 That if we got a gun at all... We had a machine-gun, it's true, but that was only a puny effort. 213 00:24:00,180 --> 00:24:06,220 It was these colossal shells that rained on and on and we could do nothing about it. 214 00:24:06,220 --> 00:24:12,940 The earthworks and barbed wire, such as they were, had been blown to pieces long since. 215 00:24:12,940 --> 00:24:19,780 And the result was that practically the whole of the front line, around the town of Ypres... 216 00:24:21,140 --> 00:24:23,980 ...was a series of holes, 217 00:24:23,980 --> 00:24:28,820 in which men crouched and waited for the end. 218 00:24:28,820 --> 00:24:34,140 In February, Sir John French rationed heavies to 8 rounds a day 219 00:24:34,140 --> 00:24:41,100 and his field guns to 10 for ordinary purposes. A British gunner wrote to Lloyd George... 220 00:24:41,100 --> 00:24:48,180 "We don't know or care who is to blame, we only know we are being starved to death for want of shells 221 00:24:48,180 --> 00:24:54,060 "and our infantry are being fated daily to a more and more terrible task." 222 00:25:00,180 --> 00:25:04,220 Trench mortars and mine-throwers were lacking too. 223 00:25:04,220 --> 00:25:10,700 The soldiers of the country dubbed "the workshop of the world" were reduced to home-made equipment. 224 00:25:10,700 --> 00:25:18,500 They invented a hairbrush grenade - a slab of guncotton fastened to a piece of wood and lit with a match. 225 00:25:18,500 --> 00:25:23,340 There was also a jam tin filled with shredded guncotton and nails. 226 00:25:23,340 --> 00:25:26,540 Some units improvised trench mortars. 227 00:25:26,540 --> 00:25:31,340 A corporal said to me, "Come here, we're going to let our mortar off." 228 00:25:31,340 --> 00:25:36,380 It was a home-made mortar. It looked to me like a bit of rainwater pipe 229 00:25:36,380 --> 00:25:41,180 bound all round with a leather thong to take the resistance. 230 00:25:41,180 --> 00:25:45,980 There was a plate bolted on the back and a touch hole with a fuse in it. 231 00:25:45,980 --> 00:25:51,980 The charge was a screw of gunpowder in a paper screw 232 00:25:51,980 --> 00:25:57,700 and the bomb was a jam tin filled with explosive. 233 00:25:57,700 --> 00:26:01,460 They lit the fuse and all stood well away. 234 00:26:01,460 --> 00:26:08,300 The bomb went off, whizzed over, dropped somewhere near the German trench and went off with a big bang. 235 00:26:08,300 --> 00:26:15,340 The French improvised too. In some parts of the country, manufacturing munitions was a cottage industry. 236 00:26:32,260 --> 00:26:35,540 As the day of the Allied offensives approached, 237 00:26:35,540 --> 00:26:40,380 the shell shortage remained desperate at the British depot. 238 00:26:40,380 --> 00:26:47,220 It was the base ammunition depot for the southern armies and it was, I suppose, an ex-builder's yard. 239 00:26:47,220 --> 00:26:53,900 It consisted of a couple of sheds, room to put a couple of railway trucks or wagons in, 240 00:26:53,900 --> 00:27:00,820 and the total stock couldn't have exceeded about 2,000 rounds of ammunition of all kinds. 241 00:27:00,820 --> 00:27:05,060 We used to issue it in half dozens, dozens 242 00:27:05,060 --> 00:27:09,860 and sometimes single rounds to some of the bigger batteries. 243 00:27:09,860 --> 00:27:16,500 I suppose one day's loading would be a couple of railway trucks. Of course, it was perfectly absurd. 244 00:27:16,500 --> 00:27:21,300 The ammunition we had was treated as if it were gold ingots. 245 00:27:21,300 --> 00:27:26,020 It was laid out in very neat rows, cos it had to be counted every day, 246 00:27:26,020 --> 00:27:29,420 aligned every day and dusted every day. 247 00:27:29,420 --> 00:27:36,740 Early in 1915, the Allies began a series of attacks to wear down and soften the German defences. 248 00:27:36,740 --> 00:27:39,940 "Suddenly, a thunderclap right beside us. 249 00:27:39,940 --> 00:27:44,940 "An enormous fountain of black smoke seems to spring out of the ground, 250 00:27:44,940 --> 00:27:51,300 "hurling hundreds of clods up to the sky, and they rained like hailstones on our heads. 251 00:27:51,300 --> 00:27:58,180 "It's a heavy melanite shell a few feet away. We run in all directions. Then, one by one, we recover." 252 00:27:58,180 --> 00:28:04,260 The French spring offensives cost them 240,000 men, 253 00:28:04,260 --> 00:28:06,900 killed or wounded. 254 00:28:06,900 --> 00:28:10,940 On March the 10th, the British attacked at Neuve Chapelle. 255 00:28:10,940 --> 00:28:15,260 There were enough hoarded shells to smash the German front-line trench. 256 00:28:15,260 --> 00:28:21,780 But the German second line was not destroyed. The attack could go no further. 257 00:28:23,740 --> 00:28:30,500 On April the 6th, the French attacked at Saint Mihiel to pinch out the German salient. 258 00:28:30,500 --> 00:28:34,900 They failed. But these were only preliminary attacks. 259 00:28:34,900 --> 00:28:41,340 The real attempt to break through the German defences was planned for May. 260 00:28:44,180 --> 00:28:48,580 But it was the Germans who attacked on April the 22nd. 261 00:28:48,580 --> 00:28:55,220 Their purpose was to cover up their troop movements away from the western front. 262 00:28:55,220 --> 00:29:00,980 Against the French at Ypres, they let loose a hideous new weapon, 263 00:29:00,980 --> 00:29:06,980 which science had added to the German soldiers' armoury - poison gas. 264 00:29:16,220 --> 00:29:21,100 At about 4pm, a very heavy bombardment started 265 00:29:21,100 --> 00:29:25,700 and a little later on, we saw the effects of this. 266 00:29:25,700 --> 00:29:30,540 The first thing was hundreds of French troops running away. 267 00:29:30,540 --> 00:29:33,180 They were just like ants. 268 00:29:33,180 --> 00:29:37,820 They weren't sticking to roads or paths or anything else. 269 00:29:37,820 --> 00:29:43,140 They were in the fields, breaking through hedges. No arms, they'd all gone. 270 00:29:43,140 --> 00:29:46,460 And clutching their throats, saying, "Gaz!" 271 00:29:46,460 --> 00:29:51,140 We tried to rally them as they got to us and they wouldn't stay. 272 00:29:51,140 --> 00:29:55,540 All we got from them was, "Allez, bombe, bombe! Malade, malade!" 273 00:29:55,540 --> 00:30:01,300 They kept going and we got orders to turn and shoot them, which we did. 274 00:30:01,300 --> 00:30:07,620 And momentarily, we looked and we saw this green cloud coming along the ground. 275 00:30:07,620 --> 00:30:12,540 The gas attack made a gap in the Allied lines 4.5 miles across. 276 00:30:12,540 --> 00:30:16,100 The Canadians were thrown into the breach, 277 00:30:16,100 --> 00:30:22,540 and for three weeks they held on, alongside British and French troops and braved the new horror. 278 00:30:22,540 --> 00:30:28,580 One chap had his hand blown off and his wrist was fumbling around, tearing at his throat. 279 00:30:28,580 --> 00:30:34,340 The effect of this gas was to form a sort of foamy liquid in one's lungs. 280 00:30:34,340 --> 00:30:38,340 And more or less in time, drowned one... 281 00:30:38,340 --> 00:30:40,820 if you were unlucky. 282 00:30:40,820 --> 00:30:44,980 Of course, a lot of the men died pretty quickly. 283 00:30:44,980 --> 00:30:48,420 Others were soon down, dying. 284 00:30:48,420 --> 00:30:56,300 They were in fact drowning from this beastly foam coming up from their lungs. 285 00:30:56,300 --> 00:31:02,740 There must have been 200-300 men, wriggling and wreathing in all positions, tearing at their throats, 286 00:31:02,740 --> 00:31:07,700 their faces black, and an RAMC sergeant stood there... 287 00:31:07,700 --> 00:31:14,460 I've never seen a man so despondent. He said, "Look at the poor bastards, I can't do anything for them." 288 00:31:14,460 --> 00:31:17,180 A young German officer wrote... 289 00:31:17,180 --> 00:31:21,660 "The effects of the successful gas attack were horrible. 290 00:31:21,660 --> 00:31:25,460 "I do not like the idea of poisoning men. 291 00:31:25,460 --> 00:31:31,540 "Of course, the entire world will rage about it at first... and then imitate us." 292 00:31:31,540 --> 00:31:37,980 This was the day when the last vestige of glamour and glory went out of war. 293 00:31:42,100 --> 00:31:45,500 Behind its ancient moat and ramparts, 294 00:31:45,500 --> 00:31:51,380 Ypres itself became a symbol of resistance and unstinted sacrifice. 295 00:31:51,380 --> 00:31:54,940 The great German shells set the town ablaze. 296 00:31:54,940 --> 00:31:58,740 Centuries of history crumbled at each blast. 297 00:32:02,140 --> 00:32:08,020 "But on a sudden, fierce destruction came, tigerishly pouncing. 298 00:32:08,020 --> 00:32:12,420 "Thunderbolt and flame showered on her streets 299 00:32:12,420 --> 00:32:17,340 "to shatter them and toss her ancient towers to ashes." 300 00:32:20,380 --> 00:32:27,460 The shelling had started again in Ypres and by the time we'd got marching up to the town, 301 00:32:27,460 --> 00:32:31,660 it looked as though the whole place was on fire. 302 00:32:31,660 --> 00:32:36,260 Buildings right and left of us were blazing away. 303 00:32:36,260 --> 00:32:40,700 And the heat was so intense in some of the narrow streets 304 00:32:40,700 --> 00:32:44,740 that as we were marching up in column of four, 305 00:32:44,740 --> 00:32:51,540 the men on the flanks had to creep into the middle to avoid the blistering heat. 306 00:32:51,540 --> 00:32:55,860 And one could see the haggard desolation... 307 00:32:57,860 --> 00:33:03,580 ...on their faces, as they also surveyed the havoc around them. 308 00:33:08,500 --> 00:33:13,900 The German attacks at Ypres rammed home the terrible lesson - 309 00:33:13,900 --> 00:33:17,940 this was a new kind of war, a war of engineering and chemistry 310 00:33:17,940 --> 00:33:21,380 and industrial power. 311 00:33:21,380 --> 00:33:26,820 The German successes at Ypres and in Russia were gained in the Ruhr. 312 00:33:26,820 --> 00:33:33,100 Lloyd George, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, saw what the Allies were up against. 313 00:33:33,100 --> 00:33:39,100 "The Germans and Austrians between them had, even at the commencement of the war, 314 00:33:39,100 --> 00:33:42,620 "much larger supplies of war materiel 315 00:33:42,620 --> 00:33:47,980 "and more extensive factories for the turning out of supplies than the Allied countries. 316 00:33:47,980 --> 00:33:51,620 "And they have since made much better use 317 00:33:51,620 --> 00:33:58,380 "of their manufacturing resources for the purpose of increasing that output. 318 00:33:58,380 --> 00:34:06,260 "Germany is the best-organised country in the world, and her organisation has told." 319 00:34:06,260 --> 00:34:13,460 In Britain, guns and shells were still being produced by a system designed for small armies and wars. 320 00:34:13,460 --> 00:34:17,420 The main supplier was Woolwich Arsenal. 321 00:34:17,420 --> 00:34:23,540 Woolwich was an arsenal, not a factory, like Krupps, geared for mass production. 322 00:34:23,540 --> 00:34:30,180 By the spring of 1915, the War Office had placed munitions orders with over 2,500 firms in Britain. 323 00:34:30,180 --> 00:34:34,780 But there is a long gap between demand and delivery. 324 00:34:34,780 --> 00:34:40,060 Less than a quarter of what was contracted for was delivered in time 325 00:34:40,060 --> 00:34:45,180 and no attempt had yet been made to mobilise all of British industry. 326 00:34:45,180 --> 00:34:50,300 For Lloyd George, a crusader by nature, here was a cause. 327 00:34:50,300 --> 00:34:56,740 Soldiers were dying in France and muddle and inefficiency at home were letting them down. 328 00:34:56,740 --> 00:35:01,300 On February the 22nd, he wrote to Asquith, the Prime Minister... 329 00:35:01,300 --> 00:35:06,380 "I sincerely believe that we could double our effective energies 330 00:35:06,380 --> 00:35:10,660 "if we organised our factories properly. 331 00:35:10,660 --> 00:35:17,740 "All the engineering works of the country ought to be turned on to the production of war materiel. 332 00:35:17,740 --> 00:35:23,500 "While this process is going on, the population ought to be prepared 333 00:35:23,500 --> 00:35:28,300 "to suffer all sorts of deprivations and even hardships." 334 00:35:29,980 --> 00:35:35,180 On May the 9th, the French and British armies launched a new offensive. 335 00:35:35,180 --> 00:35:40,660 The British artillery had shells for only 45 minutes of bombardment 336 00:35:40,660 --> 00:35:47,220 and nine out of ten shells were shrapnel, useless to smash deep, defensive works. 337 00:35:49,220 --> 00:35:54,380 Once more, the Allied soldiers opposed their muscles and flesh 338 00:35:54,380 --> 00:35:57,180 to the cruel lash of German steel. 339 00:35:58,340 --> 00:36:02,940 Half of us were knocked out, either killed or wounded. 340 00:36:02,940 --> 00:36:08,300 And going across a meadow, there were a lot more killed. 341 00:36:08,300 --> 00:36:11,700 And we all stopped and laid down... 342 00:36:12,900 --> 00:36:19,100 ...trying to get what shelter we could from the tremendous rifle fire coming over. 343 00:36:19,100 --> 00:36:25,340 Then a sergeant just in front of me jumped up and said, "Come on, men, be British!" 344 00:36:25,340 --> 00:36:30,380 We jumped up, followed him. He ran about six yards and he went down. 345 00:36:30,380 --> 00:36:37,380 We ran on about another 20 yards towards the German trenches which were literally packed. 346 00:36:37,380 --> 00:36:42,500 They stood four deep, firing machine guns and rifles straight at us. 347 00:36:42,500 --> 00:36:47,500 The attack on the Aubers Ridge had been stopped in its tracks. 348 00:36:47,500 --> 00:36:51,580 But the worst of the shell and gun shortages was yet to come 349 00:36:51,580 --> 00:36:55,060 in the offensive at Festubert a week later. 350 00:36:55,060 --> 00:36:59,380 We were in a battery of 15-pounders, four guns 351 00:36:59,380 --> 00:37:03,180 and consistently short of ammunition, 352 00:37:03,180 --> 00:37:07,380 being allowed four rounds per day for registering, etc. 353 00:37:07,380 --> 00:37:14,140 As the intensity of the battle grew to May the 24th, we ran completely out of ammunition 354 00:37:14,140 --> 00:37:17,060 and were left absolutely helpless. 355 00:37:17,060 --> 00:37:20,260 Silent guns, a mutilated army, 356 00:37:20,260 --> 00:37:22,820 spring hopes dashed. 357 00:37:22,820 --> 00:37:28,220 Yet all this was still hidden from the British people at home. 358 00:37:28,220 --> 00:37:35,380 In their censored newspapers, they read comforting accounts of devastating British gunfire. 359 00:37:35,380 --> 00:37:40,300 "At 5am, the bombardment began. Then the infantry swept forward. 360 00:37:42,900 --> 00:37:47,940 "The dazed German soldiers in their front-line trenches were helpless 361 00:37:47,940 --> 00:37:52,700 "under the intense bombardment and determined attacks of the British." 362 00:37:52,700 --> 00:37:59,620 Sir John French, commander-in-chief in France, put an end to the conspiracy of silence over shells. 363 00:37:59,620 --> 00:38:06,780 He told the story of the shortages and their effects to the military correspondent of the Times. 364 00:38:06,780 --> 00:38:10,940 On the 14th of May, the truth was out. 365 00:38:10,940 --> 00:38:15,900 "The infantry did splendidly, but the conditions were too hard. 366 00:38:15,900 --> 00:38:20,420 "The want of an unlimited supply of high explosive 367 00:38:20,420 --> 00:38:23,300 "was a fatal bar to our success." 368 00:38:23,300 --> 00:38:30,340 The reality of the war was at last coming home to Britain, as it had already to the French and Russians, 369 00:38:30,340 --> 00:38:33,540 the reality of a new kind of war - 370 00:38:33,540 --> 00:38:38,940 a war of industrial might, in which Germany was so far overwhelming. 371 00:38:38,940 --> 00:38:44,260 This was a war which France and Britain had hardly begun to fight.