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It was 1915, the beginning of a new year,
the beginning of new hopes.

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The old hopes, the
glorious ones of 1914, were

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buried in the mud and
clay of trench warfare.

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The Schlieffen Plan, Plan 17, the Russian
steamroller, in the hangover of this cold

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dawn of 1915, they were
only memories of the time when

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all Europe had been drunk
on the wine of quick victory.

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It was stalemate, puzzling to generals
reared on the concept of the sweeping

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manoeuvre, frustrating
to soldiers trained for

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wars of movement,
disillusioning to new arrivals.

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We'd been brought up on histories of the
Boer War and patriotism and heroics and

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everything, and we thought the war was
going to be over before we could get there.

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However, in about half a minute,
all that had gone.

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I just wondered what the devil had got
into, because it was nothing but mud and

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filth, and all the chaps who were already
there were, well, they looked like tramps.

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They were all plastered and filth and dirt
unshaven.

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During the long winter, General Joffe,
the French commander-in-chief,

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pondered the new problems of trench
warfare.

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The enemy had been driven back.

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But he had firmly fastened himself upon
our soil, and we had been obliged to leave

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in his hands for a length of time,
whose duration no one could now estimate,

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a rich part of our country.

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It was not enough that we had prevented
the enemy from winning the war.

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It was essential to achieve a complete
victory over him, reconquer Belgium,

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the north of France, and our precious
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

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This was the heartbreaking problem which
faced me.

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To hold their conquests, the Germans were
building a fortress.

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They threw up earthworks, they dug
defensive interlocking trench systems,

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they strengthened their lines with barbed
wire and machine guns.

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Wire and guns saved men.

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Men to form a new striking force.

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Falkenhayn, chief of the German General
Staff, had wanted to use it to smash the

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British into the sea while they were still
weak in numbers.

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But Germany had two fronts, west and east.

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And in the east, the Russian
masses were pressing Germany's

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Austrian allies back and
back into the Carpathian passes.

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Beyond were the rich plains of Hungary's
homeland.

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Falkenhayn had to give up his plan to
attack the British.

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The need for some relief
to the Austrians by means

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of an attack in another
spot became imperative.

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With a heavy heart, I
had to make up my mind to

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employ my only available
reserves in the east.

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For this relief attack, Falkenhayn chose
the Masurian Lakes region of East Prussia,

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where the Russians still occupied a wide
tract of pine forests and lakes,

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carved out by the glaciers in the ice ages
of long ago.

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Now it was winter, January 1915.

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Through blizzards and temperatures below
zero, men and beasts of two German armies

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moved up to their assault positions
opposite the Russian 10th Army.

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The German plan was bold and simple.

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Outflanked the Russians
from the north, curl round them,

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and herd them into the forest
of Augustov and destroy them.

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By the beginning of February, just as the
Germans were ready, fresh blizzards

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screamed through the endless forests, piling
snowdrifts across the roads and tracks.

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Movement became almost impossible.

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But Hindenburg, the duer and massive
commander-in-chief, gave the order to attack.

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On February the 8th, the two German armies
struck.

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Behind fire from
batteries of howitzers, they

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stormed forward, driving
the Russians before them.

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Once more, a great Russian army was
retreating like a clumsy, helpless,

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and bewildered beast under the blows of a
drover.

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For ten days, 350,000 men floundered through
the snow to escape the German pincers.

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But always they were remorselessly
shepherded south and surrounded.

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By the 21st of February, the German
victory was complete and terrible.

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The corpses of a
hundred thousand peasant

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soldiers of the Tsar
lay frozen and forgotten.

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The horror of the campaign chilled even
Hindenburg himself.

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The name of the winter
battle in Mosuria charms

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like an icy wind or
the silence of death.

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Men will ask themselves, Have earthly
beings really done these things?

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Or is it all but a fable or a phantom?

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Are not these marches in the winter
nights, that camp in the icy snowstorm,

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that last phase of the
battle in the forest of

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Augustov, but the creation
of an inspired human fancy?

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The people of Petrograd were told the
stark facts of the disaster.

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A hundred thousand
dead, a hundred and ten

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thousand prisoners, and
three hundred guns lost.

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But the reason for the defeat was
concealed from them.

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The Russian army was starved of weapons
and ammunition.

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In December 1914, the
Russian chief of staff at

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the front had written
to the minister of war.

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The men are saying, Why should we perish
of hunger and cold, without boots?

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The artillery is silent, and we are killed
like partridges.

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Russian prisoners liberated by the
Cossacks abused their rescuers.

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Who asked you to rescue us?

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Fools!

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We don't want to hunger and freeze again.

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The Russian guns needed 45,000 shells a
day.

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In February 1915, Russian factories were
supplying them with only 20,000.

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This was not a war for soldiers alone.

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It was a war for industry too.

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And only Germany, the most modern industrial
power in Europe, was equipped for it.

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Yet, short of heavy guns, short of
ammunition, short even of rifles,

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the Russian army in Galicia
continued with indomitable

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peasant courage to
force the Austrians back.

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Before them, stood the Austrian fortress
of Przemysl, the last rock against the

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Russian tide that threatened to engulf
Hungary.

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Behind the shattered forts of the
perimeter, the Austrian garrison had been

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cut off for three months, and
food was now so short that the

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population were eating cats
and dogs as well as horse meat.

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The Austrian commander decided on a last
desperate attempt to break out.

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It failed, and on March 22nd, the great
fortress surrendered.

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107,000 men and 20,000 sick and wounded
fell into Russian hands at Przemysl.

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Croats and Ruthenians and
Hungarians and Germans, the

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unwilling and the willing
soldiers of the Emperor Franz Josef.

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The feeble state of the Austrian army
haunted Falkenhayn.

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The appeals of the Austrians for
assistance never ceased.

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Symptoms of disintegration
became more and more evident

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in formations of Czech
and southern Slav recruits.

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Once more, Germany had to help Austria
against the Russians.

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But how?

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Hindenburg and
Ludendorff still passionately

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believed that the war
could be won in the east.

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They repeatedly told the Kaiser that if
only enough forces were given them,

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they could destroy the whole Russian army
by huge pincer movements.

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But in the end, the Kaiser
rejected their grandiose

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ideas and accepted
Falkenhayn's less ambitious plan.

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Falkenhayn proposed a breakthrough between
the towns of Gorlice and Tarnow,

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followed by a lightning pursuit
across the communications

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of the Russian armies
that threatened Hungary.

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It wouldn't win the
war, but it would be a

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smashing blow that would
paralyse the Russian army.

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April brought Europe her first wartime
spring.

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The grim Russian winter melted into a
landscape of astonishing beauty.

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The troops of Falkenhayn's
striking force settled down for

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the long train journey to
the wide horizons of the east.

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This was an army made for victory.

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Only the Marne and First
Ypres marred a record of success,

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stretching back through
Sedan in 1870 to Waterloo.

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At fixed intervals, the packed trains
rolled eastwards.

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Speed, 19 miles an hour.

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180 trains to each army corps.

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With the army went the now familiar German
battering ram, medium and heavy howitzers.

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Huge stocks of shells to sweep away the
Russian defences like a cyclone.

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The breakthrough was to be made by the
11th Army, under von Mackensen.

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His orders were clear.

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The 11th Army must make quick forward
progress.

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This is of fundamental importance.

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Only in speed lies the
guarantee that we should be

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able to stop the enemy
bringing up his reserves.

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By the 28th of April,
170,000 men and 1,000

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guns had been slotted
into an 18-mile front.

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No shortage of ammunition here.

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Falkenhayn wrote...

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By the spring of 1915,
GHQ was relieved of any

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serious anxiety with
regard to munitions supply.

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May the 2nd.

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From 6 till 10 in the morning,
a thousand guns, half of them heavy,

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smashed the Russian defences to shreds.

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Neither fire, nor trenches, nor barbed
wire could stop the assault.

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Although our ranks became thinner and
thinner.

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After 35 minutes, and despite the tropical
heat, we reached the enemy.

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The Russians clung ferociously to their
trenches, but in another 10 minutes,

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the job was finished.

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Von Mackensen signalled to the Kaiser.

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I report to your majesty that the order to
make the enemy's positions in the

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Carpathians untenable has been carried
out.

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The enemy is in retreat along the whole
line.

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Against the weight and power of the German
pursuit, the Russians could do nothing.

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A Russian commander
wrote, The retreat from

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Galicia was one vast
tragedy for the Russian army.

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No cartridges, no shells, bloody fighting
and difficult marches, day after day.

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No end of weariness, physical and moral.

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Faint hopes followed by sinister dread.

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For 11 days, the German
heavy artillery swept away whole

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lines of our trenches and
their defenders with them.

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We hardly replied.

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There was nothing to reply with.

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A Russian general had sent an urgent
message to Petrograd.

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There are no rifles.

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150,000 men are without rifles.

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From hour to hour it is worse.

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We await the heavenly manor from you.

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At the end of May,
Mackensen's troops marched

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in triumph into the
fortress city of Przemysl.

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It had been in Russian hands for only two
months.

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The victorious Germans and
Austrians had marched more than a

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hundred miles through the heat
and dust of the Galician summer.

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They had forced the Russians to retreat
along the whole Carpathian front.

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As they entered Przemysl, their triumphant
progress was being celebrated 450 miles

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behind them in Berlin
with flags and bell ringing

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and the cheers of a
proud and grateful nation.

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The fall of Przemysl marked
yet another stage in the

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dumb but terrible agony of
the Russian peasant armies.

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The Russian soldier was a very good
soldier provided he was properly led.

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But without officers...

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See, officers were wounded or killed.

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The simple Russian mushyk had not much
initiative.

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After all, they were mostly peasants.

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Very simple, good-natured men.

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Very big and tough.

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But without guidance, they were lost.

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And very often, they...

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To our great surprise, they surrendered in
droves.

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By the time they were
captured, some Russian

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soldiers had been
retreating for a month.

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00:18:21,520 --> 00:18:24,480
Over a hundred thousand of their comrades
had been killed.

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The Russian army was at the end of its
power.

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The uninterrupted fighting in the
Carpathians had costed heavy losses.

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00:18:32,721 --> 00:18:36,640
The deficit in officers and men was
terrifying.

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00:18:37,220 --> 00:18:40,800
The lack of arms and ammunition was
catastrophic.

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For the Russian prisoners, the unequal
struggle against Germany's might was over.

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00:18:48,300 --> 00:18:52,000
And they celebrated the miracle of still
being alive.

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On the Western Front, spring brought new
hope.

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It was a time for battle again.

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And the Germans knew it.

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Their 400 miles of trenches, behind barbed
wire, sometimes as thick as a thumb,

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00:19:16,220 --> 00:19:18,580
walled the French off from their lost
lands.

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00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:23,740
As the weather improved, the French would
be coming to take them back.

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The Germans watched and waited for the
attacks they knew must come.

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Opposite them,
sometimes half a mile away,

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sometimes only 20 yards,
the Allies also waited.

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The temporary lines where
the balance of war had settled

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at the end of 1914 were
acquiring a squalid permanence.

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00:19:52,480 --> 00:19:56,340
Haphazard sections of trench were deepened
and joined to each other.

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Drains were scooped in the mud.

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00:19:58,800 --> 00:20:01,620
Holes in the ground had been converted
into dug-outs.

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They were at least
splinter-proof, which meant

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much to an army
fighting an artillery war.

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00:20:15,400 --> 00:20:18,800
The soldiers knew something must happen
soon.

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00:20:19,520 --> 00:20:24,560
A French dragoon wrote, In spring,
the benumbed army stirred itself,

220
00:20:24,940 --> 00:20:28,320
stretched its legs and awoke to the fact
that a new era was about to begin.

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00:20:28,840 --> 00:20:31,320
The change took place with the greatest
mystery.

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Rumours, coming no one knew where from,
began to circulate.

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00:20:37,180 --> 00:20:40,342
The basic question
of 1915 was, Could the

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00:20:40,343 --> 00:20:43,601
Allies break through the
German defensive works?

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00:20:44,060 --> 00:20:46,980
Lord Kitchener expressed the widespread
doubts.

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00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:52,440
I suppose we must recognise that the
French army cannot make a sufficient break

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00:20:52,441 --> 00:20:56,640
through the German lines of defence to
cause a complete change of the situation.

228
00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:00,322
The German lines in
France may be looked upon

229
00:21:00,323 --> 00:21:03,621
as a fortress that cannot
be carried by assault.

230
00:21:03,940 --> 00:21:09,180
But the Germans left General Joffe, the
French commander-in-chief, with no choice.

231
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:16,480
The best and largest portion of the German
army was on our soil, with its line of

232
00:21:16,481 --> 00:21:20,520
battle jutting out a mere five days' march
from the heart of France.

233
00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:27,000
This situation made it clear to every
Frenchman that our task consisted in

234
00:21:27,001 --> 00:21:30,560
defeating this enemy and driving him out
of our country.

235
00:21:32,060 --> 00:21:33,060
But how?

236
00:21:57,310 --> 00:22:00,330
French observers peered at the German
front line.

237
00:22:00,750 --> 00:22:05,118
Week by week, month by month,
battle by battle, the Germans

238
00:22:05,119 --> 00:22:08,110
had strengthened and deepened
their defensive position.

239
00:22:08,810 --> 00:22:13,550
From behind the trenches, the gun flashes
told the Allies of the power and numbers

240
00:22:13,551 --> 00:22:16,010
of the artillery supporting the German
soldiers.

241
00:22:17,870 --> 00:22:22,730
The answer, the French concluded,
lay in artillery and high-explosive shell.

242
00:22:23,350 --> 00:22:26,673
Given enough, the infantry
would merely occupy German

243
00:22:26,674 --> 00:22:29,391
defences already ploughed
up and made harmless.

244
00:22:34,870 --> 00:22:38,510
In the words of Sir Douglas Haig,
commanding the British First Army,

245
00:22:39,370 --> 00:22:41,635
when there were
sufficient shells, we could

246
00:22:41,636 --> 00:22:44,431
walk through the German
lines in several places.

247
00:22:45,310 --> 00:22:48,570
But were there sufficient shells,
sufficient gun power?

248
00:22:52,590 --> 00:22:57,699
When war broke out,
France had only 300 heavy

249
00:22:57,700 --> 00:23:02,210
guns to oppose 3,500 German
medium and heavy guns.

250
00:23:02,990 --> 00:23:07,058
Since then, only 48 new
heavies had been delivered,

251
00:23:07,059 --> 00:23:10,311
and 18 of those had blown
up in the gunners' faces.

252
00:23:11,190 --> 00:23:15,430
Now, in a desperate attempt to catch up,
they were pressing into service the old,

253
00:23:15,890 --> 00:23:20,750
slow-firing big guns stripped from
fortresses like Verdun and Toul.

254
00:23:28,610 --> 00:23:32,198
The BEF, by the first
half of 1915, had only 10

255
00:23:32,199 --> 00:23:35,230
heavy guns per division
against the German 20.

256
00:23:38,070 --> 00:23:42,010
Incidentally, every time our artillery
opened up in them at that particular time,

257
00:23:42,150 --> 00:23:43,510
they would come back tenfold.

258
00:23:44,130 --> 00:23:48,370
If our artillery fired about five or six
rounds, they'd fire 50 to 60 back at us.

259
00:23:48,730 --> 00:23:53,450
But all worse, it was that unequal bashing
that got the infantrymen.

260
00:23:54,050 --> 00:23:56,677
We couldn't, if we'd
got a gun at all, we had a

261
00:23:56,678 --> 00:24:00,270
machine gun, it's true,
but that was a puny effort.

262
00:24:00,550 --> 00:24:06,350
It was these colossal shells that rained on
and on, and we could do nothing about it.

263
00:24:06,570 --> 00:24:09,210
The earthworks and
the barbed wire, such as

264
00:24:09,211 --> 00:24:12,790
they were, had been
blown to pieces long since.

265
00:24:13,490 --> 00:24:19,470
And the result was that practically the
whole of the front line around the town of

266
00:24:19,471 --> 00:24:28,250
Ypres was a series of holes in which men
crouched and waited for the end.

267
00:24:28,910 --> 00:24:32,798
In February, Sir John French
rationed his heavies to eight

268
00:24:32,799 --> 00:24:36,930
rounds a day and his field
guns to ten for ordinary purposes.

269
00:24:38,230 --> 00:24:43,270
A British gunner wrote to Lloyd George,
We don't know or care who is to blame.

270
00:24:43,830 --> 00:24:48,750
We only know that we are being starved to
death for want of shells, and our infantry

271
00:24:48,751 --> 00:24:52,130
are being fated daily to a more and more
terrible task.

272
00:25:00,350 --> 00:25:03,150
Trench mortars and mine throwers were
lacking too.

273
00:25:03,630 --> 00:25:06,369
The soldiers of the country
that thought itself the

274
00:25:06,370 --> 00:25:09,990
workshop of the world were
reduced to homemade equipment.

275
00:25:10,730 --> 00:25:14,052
They invented the hairbrush
grenade, a slab of gun cotton

276
00:25:14,053 --> 00:25:17,130
fastened to a piece of wood
and lit with a match or cigarette.

277
00:25:18,250 --> 00:25:22,330
There was also a jam tin filled with
shredded gun cotton and nails.

278
00:25:23,470 --> 00:25:26,370
Some units improvised trench mortars.

279
00:25:26,650 --> 00:25:29,177
A corporal said to me,
Come along here, we are

280
00:25:29,178 --> 00:25:31,310
going to let our mortal
come and have a look at it.

281
00:25:31,530 --> 00:25:32,890
It was a homemade mortar.

282
00:25:33,230 --> 00:25:35,630
It looked to me like a piece of rainwater
pipe.

283
00:25:35,890 --> 00:25:38,530
And it was bound all
round with what appeared

284
00:25:38,531 --> 00:25:40,570
to be a leather throng
to take the resistance.

285
00:25:41,090 --> 00:25:45,250
There was a plate bolted on the back and a
touch hole with a piece of fuse in it.

286
00:25:46,210 --> 00:25:51,870
The charge was a screw of gunpowder in a
paper screw.

287
00:25:53,410 --> 00:25:57,330
And the bomb was a jam tin, filled with
explosive.

288
00:25:58,190 --> 00:26:00,550
They lit the fuse and all stood well away.

289
00:26:01,350 --> 00:26:04,850
Well, the bomb just went off, whizzed
over, tumbled over two or three times and

290
00:26:04,851 --> 00:26:07,970
dropped somewhere near the German French
and went off with a big bang.

291
00:26:07,971 --> 00:26:10,510
The French had to improvise too.

292
00:26:10,930 --> 00:26:15,631
In some parts of the country, the manufacture
of munitions became a cottage industry.

293
00:26:32,780 --> 00:26:36,501
As the day of the Allied
offensives approached, the shell

294
00:26:36,502 --> 00:26:39,680
shortage remained desperate
at the British base depot.

295
00:26:39,681 --> 00:26:42,940
It was the base ammunition depot of the
Southern Armies.

296
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:46,940
And it was, I suppose, an ex-builder's
yard.

297
00:26:47,140 --> 00:26:49,803
It consisted of about a
couple of sheds, room

298
00:26:49,804 --> 00:26:53,181
to put a couple of railway
trucks or wagons in.

299
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:56,818
And the total stock
couldn't have exceeded

300
00:26:56,819 --> 00:27:00,320
about 2,000 rounds of
ammunition of all kinds.

301
00:27:00,321 --> 00:27:05,623
We used to issue it in
half-dozens, dozens, and

302
00:27:05,624 --> 00:27:09,100
sometimes single rounds to
some of the bigger batteries.

303
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:13,840
And I suppose one day's loading would be a
couple of railway trucks.

304
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:16,100
And, of course, it was perfectly absurd.

305
00:27:16,560 --> 00:27:21,060
The ammunition we had was treated as if it
were gold ingots.

306
00:27:21,360 --> 00:27:23,680
It was laid out in very neat rows.

307
00:27:23,681 --> 00:27:29,080
It had to be counted every day and lined
every day and dusted every day.

308
00:27:29,820 --> 00:27:33,742
Early in 1915, the Allies
began a series of attacks

309
00:27:33,743 --> 00:27:36,741
to wear down and soften
the German defences.

310
00:27:37,360 --> 00:27:40,400
Suddenly, a thunder clap right beside us.

311
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:44,105
An enormous fountain of
black smoke seems to spring out

312
00:27:44,106 --> 00:27:47,280
of the ground, hurling
hundreds of clods up to the sky.

313
00:27:47,780 --> 00:27:50,280
And they rain down like hailstones on our
heads.

314
00:27:50,780 --> 00:27:53,680
It's a heavy melanite shell just a few
feet away.

315
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:55,480
We run in all directions.

316
00:27:55,860 --> 00:27:58,640
Then, one by one, we recover.

317
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:05,840
The French spring offensives cost them
240,000 men, killed or wounded.

318
00:28:06,820 --> 00:28:10,280
On March the 10th, the British attacked at
Neuve Chapelle.

319
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,560
There were enough hoarded shells to smash
the German frontline trench.

320
00:28:15,100 --> 00:28:18,140
But the German second line was not
destroyed.

321
00:28:18,940 --> 00:28:20,820
The attack could go no further.

322
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:30,540
On April the 6th, the French attacked at
Saint-Mille to pinch out the German salient.

323
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:31,820
They failed.

324
00:28:31,821 --> 00:28:34,820
But these were only preliminary attacks.

325
00:28:35,340 --> 00:28:39,100
The real attempt to break through the
German defences was planned for May.

326
00:28:43,870 --> 00:28:48,450
But it was the Germans who attacked on
April the 22nd.

327
00:28:48,451 --> 00:28:51,348
Their purpose was to cover
up their troop movements

328
00:28:51,349 --> 00:28:54,270
away from the Western
Front to Gorlice Tarnow.

329
00:28:55,350 --> 00:28:59,890
Against the French sector at Ypres,
they let loose a hideous new weapon,

330
00:29:00,470 --> 00:29:03,630
which science had added to the German
soldiers' armoury.

331
00:29:04,810 --> 00:29:05,830
Poison gas.

332
00:29:16,210 --> 00:29:20,811
At about four o'clock in the afternoon,
there was a very heavy bombardment started.

333
00:29:21,130 --> 00:29:25,550
And a little later on, we saw the effects
of this.

334
00:29:26,150 --> 00:29:30,070
The first thing was, hundreds of French
troops running away.

335
00:29:31,070 --> 00:29:33,350
They were just like ants.

336
00:29:33,670 --> 00:29:37,110
They weren't sticking to roads or paths or
anything else.

337
00:29:37,111 --> 00:29:40,510
They were all over the fields and breaking
through hedges and everything.

338
00:29:40,730 --> 00:29:41,370
No arms.

339
00:29:41,530 --> 00:29:42,530
They'd all gone.

340
00:29:42,950 --> 00:29:46,090
Clutching their throats and saying,
Gaz, gaz, and so on.

341
00:29:46,850 --> 00:29:49,610
We tried to rally them as they got level
with us.

342
00:29:49,611 --> 00:29:51,010
And they wouldn't stay.

343
00:29:51,250 --> 00:29:54,670
And all we got from them was alley man,
bum, bum, milad, milad.

344
00:29:55,150 --> 00:29:56,370
And they kept going.

345
00:29:56,550 --> 00:29:59,490
And we could all just turn around and
shoot them, which we did.

346
00:29:59,830 --> 00:30:00,950
Run away from us.

347
00:30:01,270 --> 00:30:04,670
And momentarily, we looked in here.

348
00:30:04,671 --> 00:30:07,590
We saw this green cloud coming along the
ground.

349
00:30:07,930 --> 00:30:12,090
The gas attack made a gap in the allied
lines four and a half miles across.

350
00:30:14,310 --> 00:30:16,350
The Canadians were thrown into the breach.

351
00:30:16,750 --> 00:30:19,610
And for three weeks, they
held on alongside British

352
00:30:19,611 --> 00:30:22,130
and French troops and
braved the new horror.

353
00:30:22,650 --> 00:30:24,390
One chap had his hand blown off.

354
00:30:24,550 --> 00:30:28,050
And his wrist was fumbling around,
tearing at his throat.

355
00:30:28,051 --> 00:30:34,310
The effect of this gas was to form a sort
of foamy liquid in one's lungs.

356
00:30:35,090 --> 00:30:38,130
And more or less, in time, drown one.

357
00:30:38,790 --> 00:30:39,830
If you were unlucky.

358
00:30:40,810 --> 00:30:43,730
Because a lot of the men died pretty
quickly.

359
00:30:44,910 --> 00:30:48,210
Others were soon down, dying.

360
00:30:48,211 --> 00:30:55,810
They were, in fact, drowning from this
beastly foam coming up from their lungs.

361
00:30:56,210 --> 00:30:58,250
There must have been two or three hundred
men.

362
00:30:58,490 --> 00:31:02,430
And they were wriggling and wreathing in
all positions, tearing at their throats,

363
00:31:02,770 --> 00:31:03,750
their faces black.

364
00:31:03,751 --> 00:31:07,330
And an RAMC sergeant, he stood by there.

365
00:31:07,590 --> 00:31:11,306
And he was... he looked... Well, I've
never seen a man look so despondent.

366
00:31:11,330 --> 00:31:12,730
He says, look at the bald bastards.

367
00:31:12,790 --> 00:31:14,410
He said, we can't do anything for them.

368
00:31:14,930 --> 00:31:21,431
A young German officer wrote, The effects
of the successful gas attack were horrible.

369
00:31:21,910 --> 00:31:24,450
I do not like the idea of poisoning men.

370
00:31:25,330 --> 00:31:31,510
Of course, the entire world will rage
about it, at first, and then imitate us.

371
00:31:31,511 --> 00:31:37,150
This was the day when the last vestige of
glamour and glory went out of war.

372
00:31:42,220 --> 00:31:46,134
Behind its ancient moat
and ramparts, Ypres itself

373
00:31:46,135 --> 00:31:50,440
became a symbol of resistance
and unstinted sacrifice.

374
00:31:51,220 --> 00:31:54,340
The great German shells set the town
ablaze.

375
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,340
Centuries of history crumbled at each
blast.

376
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:07,080
But on a sudden, fierce destruction came
tigerishly pouncing.

377
00:32:07,740 --> 00:32:12,150
Thunderbolt and flame
showered on her streets to

378
00:32:12,151 --> 00:32:16,780
shatter them and toss her
ancient towers to ashes.

379
00:32:20,660 --> 00:32:23,580
The shelling had started again in Ypres.

380
00:32:24,220 --> 00:32:27,896
And by the time we got
up, marching up to the town,

381
00:32:27,897 --> 00:32:30,900
it looked as though the
whole place was on fire.

382
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,420
Buildings right and left of us were
blazing away.

383
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:42,140
And the heat was so intense in some of the
narrow streets that, as we were marching

384
00:32:42,141 --> 00:32:47,575
up in column of four, the
men on the flanks had to

385
00:32:47,576 --> 00:32:50,980
creep into the middle to
avoid the blistering heat.

386
00:32:50,981 --> 00:32:58,397
And one could see the
haggard desolation on their

387
00:32:58,398 --> 00:33:03,301
faces as they also surveyed
the havoc around them.

388
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:13,060
The German attacks at Ypres rammed home
the terrible lesson.

389
00:33:13,061 --> 00:33:16,040
This was a new kind of war.

390
00:33:16,340 --> 00:33:20,000
A war of engineering and chemistry and
industrial power.

391
00:33:20,700 --> 00:33:25,160
The German successes at Ypres and in
Russia had been gained in the Ruhr.

392
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:28,288
Lloyd George, the
British Chancellor of the

393
00:33:28,289 --> 00:33:31,621
Exchequer, saw what
the Allies were up against.

394
00:33:32,220 --> 00:33:38,280
The Germans and Austrians, between them,
had, even at the commencement of the war,

395
00:33:39,120 --> 00:33:44,800
much larger supplies of war material and
more extensive factories for the turning

396
00:33:44,801 --> 00:33:47,740
out of supplies than the Allied countries
possessed.

397
00:33:48,020 --> 00:33:53,120
And they have undoubtedly since made much
better use of their manufacturing

398
00:33:53,121 --> 00:33:56,620
resources for the purpose of increasing
that output.

399
00:33:56,621 --> 00:34:01,320
Germany is the best organised country in
the world.

400
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,460
And her organisation has told.

401
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:09,100
In Britain, guns and shells
were still being produced

402
00:34:09,101 --> 00:34:12,580
by a system designed for
small armies and small wars.

403
00:34:13,420 --> 00:34:15,780
The main supplier was Woolwich Arsenal.

404
00:34:17,220 --> 00:34:22,580
Woolwich was an arsenal, not a factory
like Krupp's, geared for mass production.

405
00:34:22,581 --> 00:34:26,519
By the spring of 1915,
the war office had placed

406
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:30,220
munitions orders with
over 2,500 firms in Britain.

407
00:34:30,500 --> 00:34:34,580
But there is a long gap between demand and
delivery.

408
00:34:35,120 --> 00:34:39,840
Less than a quarter of what had been
contracted for was actually delivered in time.

409
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:44,200
And no attempt had yet been made to
mobilise the whole of British industry.

410
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:50,120
For Lloyd George, a Crusader by nature,
here was a cause.

411
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:53,886
Soldiers were dying in
France, and muddle and

412
00:34:53,887 --> 00:34:56,441
inefficiency at home
were letting them down.

413
00:34:56,920 --> 00:35:00,360
On February the 22nd, he wrote to Aswith,
the Prime Minister.

414
00:35:00,361 --> 00:35:05,797
I sincerely believe that we
could double our effective

415
00:35:05,798 --> 00:35:09,840
energies if we organised
our factories properly.

416
00:35:10,340 --> 00:35:13,624
All the engineering works
of the country ought to

417
00:35:13,625 --> 00:35:16,901
be turned on to the
production of war material.

418
00:35:17,720 --> 00:35:23,360
While this process is going on,
the population ought to be prepared to

419
00:35:23,361 --> 00:35:28,800
suffer all sorts of deprivations and even
hardships.

420
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,980
On May the 9th, the French and British
armies launched a new offensive.

421
00:35:36,540 --> 00:35:38,643
The British artillery
had enough shells for

422
00:35:38,644 --> 00:35:41,441
only three quarters of
an hour's bombardment.

423
00:35:41,620 --> 00:35:46,900
And nine out of ten shells were shrapnel,
useless to smash deep defensive works.

424
00:35:49,860 --> 00:35:53,453
Once more, the Allied
soldiers opposed their

425
00:35:53,454 --> 00:35:57,340
muscles and flesh to the
cruel lash of German steel.

426
00:35:58,820 --> 00:36:02,620
Half of us were knocked out, either killed
or wounded.

427
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:07,480
And going across the meadow, there were a
lot more killed.

428
00:36:08,780 --> 00:36:15,200
And we all stopped and laid down,
trying to get what shelter we could from

429
00:36:15,201 --> 00:36:17,500
the tremendous rifle fire which was coming
over.

430
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:24,780
And then a sergeant just in front of me
jumped up and said, come on men, be British.

431
00:36:25,100 --> 00:36:29,480
We jumped up and followed him and he ran
about six yards and he went down.

432
00:36:30,780 --> 00:36:34,280
Well, we ran on about another 20 yards
toward the German trenches.

433
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:36,940
The German trenches were literally packed.

434
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:43,021
They were standing about four deep, firing
machine guns, rifles, straight at us.

435
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:47,060
The attack on the Aubert ridge had been
stopped in its tracks.

436
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:50,735
But the worst of the shell
and gun shortages was yet

437
00:36:50,736 --> 00:36:53,700
to come in the offensive
at Festubert a week later.

438
00:36:55,580 --> 00:37:02,100
We were in a battery of 15 pounders,
four guns, and consistently short of

439
00:37:02,101 --> 00:37:06,460
ammunition, being allowed four rounds per
day for registering, etc.

440
00:37:07,500 --> 00:37:13,040
As the intensity of the battle grew to May
the 24th, we ran completely out of

441
00:37:13,041 --> 00:37:16,400
ammunition and were left there absolutely
helpless.

442
00:37:16,401 --> 00:37:22,820
Silent guns, a mutilated army,
spring hopes dashed.

443
00:37:23,460 --> 00:37:27,400
Yet all this was still hidden from the
British people at home.

444
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:30,862
In their censored newspapers
they read comforting

445
00:37:30,863 --> 00:37:34,001
accounts of devastating
British gunfire.

446
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:37,740
At 5am the bombardment began.

447
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:40,280
Then the infantry swept forward.

448
00:37:42,980 --> 00:37:48,520
The day's German soldiers in their front
line trenches were helpless, under the

449
00:37:48,521 --> 00:37:52,400
weight of the intense bombardment and
determined attacks of our British men.

450
00:37:52,700 --> 00:37:56,040
It was Sir John French himself,
the commander-in-chief in France,

451
00:37:56,240 --> 00:37:59,600
who put an end to the conspiracy of
silence over shells.

452
00:38:00,260 --> 00:38:03,200
He told the story of
the shortages and their

453
00:38:03,201 --> 00:38:06,160
effects to the military
correspondent of the Times.

454
00:38:06,900 --> 00:38:10,020
On the 14th of May, the truth was out.

455
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:12,240
The infantry did splendidly.

456
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:15,820
But the conditions were too hard.

457
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:22,840
The want of an unlimited supply of high
explosive was a fatal bar to our success.

458
00:38:23,580 --> 00:38:26,997
The reality of the war
was at last coming home to

459
00:38:26,998 --> 00:38:30,001
Britain, as it had already to
the French and the Russians.

460
00:38:30,540 --> 00:38:35,170
The reality of a new kind
of war, a war of industrial

461
00:38:35,171 --> 00:38:38,460
might, in which Germany
was so far overwhelming.

462
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:44,180
This was a war which France and Britain
had hardly begun to fight.

463
00:38:44,181 --> 00:38:45,856
And this was a war which was wrong but it
made its massive impact, which.

464
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,760
And the military had to force the modern
magic set of intelligence to the