All language subtitles for BBC.The.Great.War.04of26.Our.Hats.We.Doff.To.General.Joffre.divx.mp3

"For all we have and are,
For all our children's fate,

"Stand up and meet the War,
The Hun is at the gate."

The Germans were west of Brussels.
Still they came on.

It seemed that nothing
could stop them.

The Schlieffen plan
was working beautifully,

taking the Germans through Belgium,

brushing the Channel coast,
down through France, west of Paris,

to attack the French armies
from the rear.

Everywhere,
the French were in confusion.

From Verdun to Charleroi,
they were falling back.

The German right wing
three-quarters of a million men

was coming into position
to make its sweep.

This was the loaded tip
of von Schlieffen's flail.

The heaviest weight in the tip
was General von Kluck's 1st Army.

They skirted the historic
battlefield of Waterloo,

where, 99 years before, British
and Germans had fought the French.

Ahead lay a dreary,
industrial region.

Coming straight towards them,
not knowing, oblivious of danger,

believing they were joining
a great Allied advance,

marched the four divisions
of the British Expeditionary Force.

Only the cavalrymen, under General
Allenby, cautiously scouting ahead,

were aware of the German presence.

Suddenly, amid the slag heaps
and villages of a mining area,

the army was ordered to halt.

Field Marshal Sir John French
had received new information.

There would be no advance,
but instead a defensive battle.

The British formed a broad angle.

The left flank, where the danger
was greatest, was wide open.

At its apex stood the little,
red-brick town of Mons.

Sunday, August 23rd, came in
with mist and scattered showers.

Church bells were calling
devout Belgians to early mass.

In their Sunday best,
they stared at the foreign soldiers

who filled their town.

They found it hard to believe
that war was upon them.

BELL TOLLS

The men of General Smith-Dorrien's
2nd Army Corps were digging in

along the Mons canal, preparing
an awkward position for defence.

Quite suddenly, out of the blue,
we saw cavalry coming towards us.

They came out on our right flank.

I said, "Good gracious,
it's Germans!"

So we immediately started to fire.
We fired fuse-nought.

They got about 300 yards, I suppose,
from the guns and wouldn't face it.

By nine o'clock,
the guns were in full cry.

The British Army began to
learn about Jack Johnsons,

Black Marias and Coal Boxes,

the names the soldiers gave
to the shattering explosions

of the German heavy shells.

'We were waiting for them. We didn't
expect the blow that struck us.

'All at once, the sky began to rain
down bullets and shells.

'I saw shells to my right and left.
I saw many a good comrade go out.'

Then the German infantry
began to come forward,

surging towards the canal banks
to cross at locks and bridges.

There was a surprise
in store for them too.

'They were in solid square blocks,
standing out against the skyline.

'You couldn't help pitying them.

'We lay in our trenches
with not a sound or sign.

'They crept nearer.
Our officers gave the word.'

SHELLS EXPLODE

'The Germans staggered like
a drunk man hit between the eyes.

'They made a run for it,

'shouting some outlandish cry
we couldn't make out.'

'Poor devils of infantry.

'They advanced in companies
of 150 men, in files five deep.

'The first company were blasted away
to heaven by a volley at 700 yards.

'In their insane formation,
every bullet would find two billets.

'They had absolutely no chance.'

This was the mad minute 15 rounds
of aimed rifle fire per minute

that the British infantry alone
were trained to do.

At Mons, it worked.
The Germans were shot flat.

'Our first battle is a heavy,
an unheard-of, heavy defeat.

'And against the English
the English we laughed at!'

'Entrenched and completely hidden,
the enemy opened a murderous fire.

'The casualties increased,
the rushes became shorter.

'With bloody losses,
the attack came to an end.'

It was all to no avail.

On the left flank of the British
and the right of the French,

German pressure was building.

Sir Henry Wilson,
Deputy Chief of Staff,

clung to the hope of advancing.

And then...

'At 11pm, news came that the French
5th Army was falling back further.

'Between 11pm and 3am,

'we drafted orders for retirement
to the line Maubeuge-Valenciennes.'

Retreat from Mons had begun.

We were very disappointed

when we got the order
to break off battle and retreat.

This was not an easy thing.

It's quite easy to join battle,
but not to break it off.

We put down a curtain fire
between us and the Germans,

which enabled the infantry
and cavalry to get away.

'After all their experience
of small wars,

'the English veterans
brilliantly understood

'how to slip off
at the last moment.'

On they came again.

The Schlieffen plan
was still going like clockwork.

The whole Allied line was
going back the end of a dream.

And for thousands of frightened,
homeless people,

the end of a way of life.

On the other side of Europe,
it was different.

Here, it seemed the Schlieffen plan
was not working well.

The Russian steamroller
was on the move.

Gathering slowly from the provinces
of the Tsar's empire,

the limitless manpower of Russia
assembled and marched to war.

Movement was slow
across the endless plains

with bad roads
and railways few and far between.

Army by army,
with ponderous deliberation,

the Russians gathered
on the Galician Front,

where the equally slow Austrians
were taking up positions.

In East Prussia,

the Schlieffen plan, counting on
the slowness of the Russians,

allowed only nine divisions
to hold the enemy off.

The Germans received a shock.

On August 17th,
Russians invaded East Prussia.

This the Germans had not expected.

German people tasted the tragedies

which Belgian and French
were learning to know too well.

The fear of the Muscovites, the
savage reputation of the Cossacks,

the terror of men with slant eyes
drove these people from their homes,

away from the fields and farms
they had worked so hard.

Orderly, submissive, sick at heart,
they made their painful parting.

On August 20th, the day
the Germans entered Brussels,

their eastern army was defeated
at Gumbinnen.

Konigsberg, capital of East Prussia,
was threatened by this advance.

On August 23rd, the day of Mons,

the Russians won another victory
at Frankenau.

But it was their last.

Telegraph wires bore their messages
across Germany to Belgium

to summon new German leaders.

Hindenburg and Ludendorff were sent
by Moltke to stop the rot.

Out of the confusion of retreat on
a battle front over 100 miles wide,

they shaped a bold plan.

The Russian 2nd Army was
dangerously ahead of the 1st Army,

with the Masurian Lakes
between them.

Using the well-developed railways
of East Prussia,

the Germans would strike
at the isolated 2nd Army

near the village of Tannenberg.

A German general
with a French name von Francois.

A Russian general
with a German name Rennenkampf.

A German general
with a Scottish name Mackensen.

A Russian general
with a tragic name Samsonov.

These were the chief actors.

The lesser actors
were half a million soldiers,

who did the fighting and marching.

It was mostly marching
for the Germans,

racing to cut
Samsonov's line of retreat,

to smash his army
before Rennenkampf could bring help.

It took five days to do it. By then,
the Russian 2nd Army was a wreck.

90,000 Russian soldiers
were taken prisoner,

rounded up like stock in a corral.

The head cowboy was Francois.

General Samsonov walked away
into a wood and shot himself.

East Prussia was saved. The trim
towns would not be shattered.

Cossacks would not burn
the farmsteads.

Instead, the War
would now flow eastwards.

Schlieffen's plan
had stood the test,

which was ironical, since it was
on the point of being abandoned.

No weakening of the German purpose
was yet visible in the west.

Each day brought new discouragement
to the Allies.

The flail thumped against the left
of the Allied line.

The centre continued to give way,

and the right held on
by the skin of its teeth.

Pressure intensified on the Allied
Commander-in-Chief, General Joffre.

Each day brought him new questions,
but never an answer.

'My first task was to seek
the cause of these failures

'in order to find a remedy.

'Was it the enemy's
numerical superiority?

'It appeared that, as regards
numbers, we were superior to him.'

Was it the French Army's leaders
who were at fault?

If so, Joffre knew what to do.
The Minister of War told him:

'Eliminate the old fossils
without pity.'

This, Joffre would do. But another
question was more disturbing.

'The French soldier
is impressionable,

'losing confidence as readily
as he acquires enthusiasm,

'yielding to depression
as quickly as he becomes exalted.

'Could he hold out
under this terrible strain?'

Joffre asked himself a question

which went to the very roots
of everything.

'Does the trouble lie in the
strategic disposition of our forces?'

On August 24th, Joffre reached
a conclusion which shaped history.

'What concerned me
was the encircling movement

'which the Germans
were developing on our left.

'The British alone
could offset this menace.

'To this army
I had no right to give orders.

'I had to content myself
with suggesting.

'It seemed necessary,
on the left of the British Army,

'to place French troops, to which
I had the right to give orders.'

This proposition
contained a mighty seed.

Everything that happened confirmed
the strength of Joffre's idea.

On August 26th, he went to his
second meeting with Sir John French,

witnessed by a young
liaison officer, Lieutenant Spears.

Joffre began to explain
the purport of an order...

extremely important,
that he'd issued.

Whilst he was doing so,
in walked Lanrezac, bustling in.

Then Joffre went on,
explaining this order of his.

Sir John French said, "What order?
I haven't seen an order."

Whereupon General Wilson,
subchief of staff, explained over,
awkwardly I thought

that some order had been
received during the night, but
it hadn't been dealt with yet.

I got the impression it
hadn't been translated

When General Joffre realised

that his orders hadn't even been
received and read by the British...

...he seemed overwhelmed
with discouragement.

It was the only time
I've ever known

that he seemed to lose heart,
to be deflated.

This was an abject moment
for General Joffre.

'When I left British headquarters
in the afternoon,

'I carried away a serious impression
of the fragility of our extreme left.

'Could it hold out long enough
to enable me to regroup our forces?

'If this manoeuvre was to succeed,
two conditions had to be fulfilled.

'First, our 4th and 5th Armies

'must interrupt their retreat
with counterattacks

'to give me time to assemble
a new army on our left.

'Secondly, the British
must resist tenaciously

'and yield ground only very slowly.'

Joffre and Sir John French
didn't know it,

but that was what the British Army
was doing.

General Smith-Dorrien had decided
to fight at Le Cateau.

2nd Corps was exhausted
it would have to stand and fight,

strengthened by a new division
from England on the left.

Smith-Dorrien hoped that Haig's men
would show up soon on the right.

And so, on August 26th
the anniversary of Crecy

Le Cateau joined the company of
the many insignificant French towns

pitchforked into history
on a summer morning.

Things didn't start too well.

It was not the British 1st Corps
which appeared on the right,

but the German 3rd Corps.

'They come up like a football crowd
leaving Hampstead Park,

'firing rifles from their right hips.

'They had absolutely no idea of aim.'

British cavalry
and horse artillery were driven in.

The infantry,
in crude trenches and rifle pits,

were taken in enfilade...
but they held on.

Again, their rifles
had wonderful targets.

We'd hardly got our head covered,

before the ridge
about three-quarters of a mile away

was literally swarming with Germans
in their grey uniforms.

They advanced, and we received
the order for rapid fire.

It was probably three-quarters of
a mile, an extreme range for a rifle.

But we fired at 15 rounds a minute
at these advancing Germans.

They broke up into smaller groups
of six or eight,

advancing through a cornfield,
where the corn was in stooks.

As we rapid-fired, they took cover
behind these stooks of corn.

The line held,
but the morning passed slowly

as more and more German units
came into action.

The last British reserves
were thrown in.

We were in reserve.
The brigade was formed up.

Orders came that we were required
on the left of the line to go fast.

We marched four miles
to the left of the line.

We came to a village
whose name I don't remember.

We found Smith-Dorrien
standing outside his headquarters.

He waved to us as we passed.

He said, "I think we're holding them
all right. You won't be wanted here.

"Everything's going fine."

The exposed artillery batteries
on the right flank lost heavily.

Men drifted from the battle. It was
time to go, if it could be managed.

The great problem was to extricate
the guns, many of them silent now,

standing on the skyline amid smashed
limbers, dead horses and dead men.

The Royal Artillery
does not willingly abandon guns.

The teams dashed forward
through cheering infantry.

'As they came in view of the enemy,

'they were struck by a hurricane
of shrapnel and machine-gun bullets.

'Still they went on.
The officer in charge was killed.

'One team was shot down
before the position was reached.

'Two guns of the 122nd Battery
were carried out without mishap.

'A third was limbered up,
but the horses went down instantly.'

The rest had to be left.
The Germans were 200 yards away.

Incredibly, in the broad daylight
of mid-afternoon,

Smith-Dorrien's three divisions
slipped away.

The Germans did not know
which way they had gone.

This was the British Army's first
real battle, and the cost was great:

nearly 8,000 officers and men
and 38 guns.

Now they were retreating again.

They had done everything
expected of them

and had no sense of being beaten.

Tired troops
can look like beaten men

to those who don't understand them.

General Smith-Dorrien
understood them perfectly.

'It was a wonderful sight
men smoking pipes, quite unconcerned,

'walking steadily down the road,
no formation of any sort,

'men of all units mixed up together.

'I likened it at the time to a crowd
coming away from a race meeting.'

Joffre's liaison officer
at General Headquarters,

did not understand
the British Army.

Joffre was appalled at his report.

'The situation
is extremely critical.

'The British Army is beaten
and incapable of any serious effort.

'The 3rd and 5th Divisions
are now disorganised bands,

'incapable of offering resistance.

'Conditions are such that
the British Army no longer exists.'

It wasn't true.
They were just tired.

We marched and marched,
day after day, with very little food.

I'd eaten my emergency rations.
Of course I shouldn't have done.

We had a tin of bully beef
I'd eaten that as well.

We were all very hungry.

We did get a cup of tea occasionally,
or a canteen of tea.

We marched through a forest
which was very cold and damp.

We were marching during the day
through a very big forest.

Sometimes cold,
more often far too hot,

exhausted soldiers
made their tour of France.

35 miles to the Somme
and into Picardy,

long, white roads, dead straight
between the poplar trees,

dust rising off the cobbles.

I've seen infantry
with their feet bleeding,

with their boots off
and putties wrapped round them.

I've seen men sobbing,

asking our officers, "Why can't we
fight? Why won't you let us fight?"

Down in the ??? de France, the dark
forests and the green river valleys,
with the little gay salles

where the Parisians go to fish and
to picnic in the summer
...this was no picnic.

There was a despondent tide
of humanity

laden soldiers
beside burdened refugees,

sharing the same wretchedness,
treading the same long road,

which trudged wearily southwards.

'We came across two young girls.
They were helping each other along.

'They could hardly drag one foot
before the other.

'A little bit further,

'I saw one poor old chap with a long
white beard sat in a wheelbarrow

'and another old chap with a beard
wheeling him along,

'a little girl by the side, weeping.'

Further along, there were thousands,
not hundreds, taking to the woods

at the side of the road.

We saw them with what they had
their scanty possessions

taking refuge in the wood
for the night.

These woods were just silhouetted
in the background by the flames

of the burning villages and hamlets,
which had been destroyed.

They were just homeless and hopeless.

The hopelessness of it all
began to communicate to everyone,

even the indomitable commander of
the Allied armies General Joffre.

It was a very strange thing to see
a single man exercising his will...

...over a million men,

with the fate of his country
in the balance...

...having to satisfy the political
requirements of his own government

and the British government,

having to face a catastrophic
situation and never getting rattled.

Appearances and reality
were beginning to drift apart.

One appearance
did match the reality.

Everyone looked tired
and everyone WAS tired.

Order out of disorder, hope out
of darkness, reverse out of triumph.

These were the realities that had
to be plucked out of appearances.

South-west now, to Amiens and towns
that had never dreamt of war,

marched von Kluck's 1st Army.

If they were not checked,

Joffre's new 6th Army
would be smashed before it formed.

Could they be checked?
It seemed that they might.

As they marched south-west, a gap
split them from their neighbours.

The Germans exposed their flank.

It all depended on General Lanrezac.

What followed
was the Battle of Guise.

August 29th the French columns
wove westward through early mists

and across the River Oise.

Their objective: St Quentin and the
left flank of the German 1st Army.

At first, everything went well
slowly but well.

Towards noon,
the picture suddenly changed.

Von Bulow's 2nd Army
took the French in flank

as it came south, crossing the Oise
at the ancient town of Guise.

It was an ugly crisis,
but Lanrezac rose to the occasion.

He switched his reserves,
still marching west,

into the northern fight.

"Throw the Germans back
across the Oise," he ordered.

The reserve commander,
General Franchet d'Esperey,

one of the most dynamic French
officers, was just the man to do it.

On horseback, Franchet d'Esperey
led his red-trousered infantry

with colours flying,
bands playing, into the attack.

It was the last
of the old-time pageants of war.

And it succeeded. They did throw
the Germans back across the Oise.

The Battle of St Quentin
came to nothing.

But the Battle of Guise
was a valuable success.

The straining Schlieffen plan
broke down at last.

General von Bulow, in alarm,
called to von Kluck for help.

Von Kluck, halting his march
to the south-west, turned inwards...

towards Paris,
whose streets were sad and empty.

The city of pleasure
silent now and scared.

The government had gone
to the distant safety of Bordeaux.

Many citizens had also fled.

General Joseph Gallieni
was in sole command.

Before he left, the Minister of War
had told Gallieni

to defend Paris "a outrance".

"Do you understand, Minister,

"the significance of the words
'a outrance'?" asked Gallieni.

"They mean destruction, ruins,
dynamiting bridges in the city."

"A outrance," the Minister repeated.

Gallieni issued a proclamation.

'Army of Paris, Citizens of Paris,

'The Government of the Republic

'has left Paris to give
new impulse to the national defence.

'I have received a mandate to defend
Paris against the invader.

'This mandate I shall carry out
to the end.'

The French people
were learning fast what war meant.

Everyone was learning.

A special Sunday-afternoon edition
of the London Times

with a dispatch from Amiens

confirmed what the observant had
guessed from hints and suggestions.

'The nation should know
certain things.

'Since Monday morning last,

'the German advance
has been one of incredible rapidity.

'British forces fought a terrible
fight the Action of Mons.

'The broken army fought desperately
with many stands,

'forced backward
by the sheer numbers

'of an enemy prepared to lose three
or four men for each British soldier.

'Our losses are great. I have seen
the broken bits of many regiments.

'Some have lost
nearly all their officers.

'The British Expeditionary Force
has suffered terrible losses

'and requires immediate
and immense reinforcement.'

Lord Kitchener,
Secretary of State for War,

circulated an official correction
to the Times' alarming dispatch.

'There has in effect been
a four-day battle

'on the 23rd, 24th,
25th and 26th August.

'During this period,

'British troops, in conformity with
the movement of the French armies,

'were checking the German advance and
withdrawing to new lines of defence.'

In the Commons, the Prime Minister,
Mr Asquith, also made a statement.

'It is impossible too highly
to commend the patriotic reticence

'of the press as a whole
up to the present moment.

'The publication in the Times would
appear to be a regrettable exception.

'I trust it will not recur.'

The British public
was not ready for too much truth.

In victorious Germany, some signs
contradicted the boasting press.

A British-born German princess
wrote on September 2nd:

'Today I went to the Grunewald to
see the arrival of trains of wounded,

'hoping to see some English and help
them, but it was a false report.

'They were transport trains

'carrying troops
from the Western Front to Russia.

'There was a tremendous reception,

'but the troops
looked too weary to respond

'very different to those
of a short time ago.'

In St Petersburg also, bad news
was making its first impact.

'I passed groups of people
engrossed in discussion.

'A large group was gathered by the
bulletin board of the Novoya Vremya.

'I'd never seen so many people there.

'An event of great importance
must have occurred at the Front.

'A voice said, "Disaster!
Even generals are being killed.

'"Why is the government deceiving us
with news of victories?"

'Another voice added, "It's the same
mess as during the war with Japan."'

A chill struck at the hearts
of the Allied nations.

A great weight
seemed to press down on them all.

Whatever might be happening
in the German war machine,

whatever mistakes
the Supreme Command might be making,

the German advance
seemed inexorable, invincible.

Yet all was not well with the mood
of the German soldiers.

They were becoming weary beyond
words. Weariness breeds bitterness.

We marched on and on and on.

We never dared to take off our boots,

because our feet were so swollen

that we didn't think it would be
possible to put them on again.

And...in a small village...

the Mayor came and asked
our company commanders

not to allow us to cut off the hands
of the children.

These were atrocity stories which
we heard about the German Army.

At first, we laughed about it.

But when we heard other propaganda
against the German Army,

we became angry.

'Our men are done up.

'The men stagger forward,
their faces coated with dust,

'their uniforms in rags.

'They look like living scarecrows.

'They march with eyes closed,

'singing in chorus so they shall
not fall asleep on the march.

'The certainty of victory

'and triumphal entry into Paris
keeps them going.

'The delirium of victory
sustains our men.

'In order that their bodies may be
as intoxicated as their souls,

'they drink to excess, but this
drunkenness keeps them going.'

The British Expeditionary Force
crossed the forest of Compiegne,

pausing to fight a rearguard action
at Villers-Cotterets.

It was shortly after we passed
a place called Villers-Cotterets

that the nearness of Paris
began to penetrate our tiredness.

And we noticed the kilometre stones
at the side of the road.

Gradually, we were getting nearer
and nearer to Paris 25, 24, 23.

We couldn't believe
it was happening to us.

Every step nearer to Paris, as
witnessed by these kilometre stones,

was another blow on the head
which increased our depression.

And we mentally felt that should
we reach zero Paris itself

as far as we were concerned,
we'd have lost the War.

Day by day, the switch of divisions
from right to left was going on.

Day by day, the picture changed
imperceptibly but decisively.

As the troop trains rumbled across
France to the decisive point,

as the last pitiful batches
of refugees made their escapes,

and as the kilometre posts dragged
slowly past the exhausted soldiers,

General Joffre
awaited his opportunity.

Hour by hour,
news came in from airmen, cavalry,

from secret agents, commanders.

Much of it was bad enough
to frighten a lesser man to death.

But one thing was certain.

The German right wing,
General von Kluck's mighty 1st Army,

was not after all
going to encircle the Allied left.

If it held its direction, it would
march across the defences of Paris,

where Gallieni waited like an eagle.

As it did so,
its own flank would be exposed

the most dangerous mistake in war.

Joffre did not fail
to perceive this.

I actually saw him...

on the afternoon that he decided
on the Battle of the Marne.

I'd never seen...

Very few people have ever seen
anybody with such a burden

placed on his shoulders.

With nobody to help,
just weighing the pros and cons

of this movement and that movement,

what orders to issue.

It lasted quite a long time,
perhaps a couple of hours.

And then he got up.
His decision was taken.

The orders went out that night.

The pendulum was coming briefly
to rest.

For an indefinable moment of time,

the soldiers paused under
the gilding leaves of early autumn

around their campfires.

The men of the warring nations
drew a little breath.

The moment of decision was at hand.

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