All language subtitles for BBC.The.First.World.War.07of10.Blockade.720p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.Forum_[eng]

This programme contains scenes that
some viewers may find upsetting.

In August 1914,

the two greatest navies
in the world made ready for war.

Now the Royal Navy will settle
the question of the German fleet,

and if they do not
come out and fight,

they will be dug out like
rats from a hole.

But the two fleets rarely met.

Instead, a new kind of war evolved,
more stealthy, more cruel.

A war not against battleships,
but people.

The world's capital ships in 1914
were the products of a cold war.

Britain's HMS Dreadnought
had set the benchmark -

heavy armour, big guns, fast.

Dreadnoughts were bargaining chips
in a great naval poker game.

Germany had 13, and seven building.

Austria-Hungary, three,
America, ten,

Britain, 20.

They kept the peace,
but then the cold war turned hot.

Britain and Germany
were the main opponents,

staring each other down
across the North Sea.

The longer they looked at the map,
the more obvious their problems.

Germany's ships couldn't
get clear of the North Sea.

To the south, the Channel, blocked
by mines and the Dover Patrol.

To the north, the British Grand Fleet
at Scapa Flow.

But Britain couldn't
get at the German fleet

unless it came out from
its heavily protected bases.

And if they actually met
in the North Sea,

the result could be catastrophic.

The sight everyone feared.

Austro-Hungarian battleship
the Istvan,

sunk late in the war
by a tiny Italian torpedo boat.

In 1914, the German navy
believed torpedoes and submarines

might tip the balance their way.

A hit-and-run war
with little history and no rules.

Jackie Fisher, Britain's sharpest
admiral, predicted radical change.

The use of submarines
has convinced us

that in wartime,
nothing can stand against them.

The submarine is the coming
war vessel for sea fighting.

It means the whole foundation of
our naval strategy has broken down.

Two days into the war,

Germany unleashed ten U-boats
into the North Sea

to hunt down the British fleet.

One of them, U21,
made her way to the Firth of Forth,

where the British cruiser
HMS Pathfinder

was leaving Rosyth naval base.

U21 sunk her with a single torpedo.

Within a fortnight,
the Germans had more good news.

This 1927 film celebrates the voyage
of Captain Weddigen and the U9.

Through my prismatic glasses,

I noticed a small masthead come
into view near the Maas lightship.

It looked like a mast of a warship.

Could it be the first sight of the
enemy we were to have in the war?

The U9 had found the British
cruisers Hogue, Aboukir and Cressy

on patrol off the Dutch coast.

Practically obsolete, they were
nicknamed the Live-Bait Squadron.

Captain Weddigen seized his chance.

Fired torpedo at 500m.

Target was middle ship
in a three-ship formation.

31 seconds later,
the torpedo struck Aboukir.

On board was Kit Musgrave.

We were woken by a terrific crash.

The ship shook and all
the crockery in the pantry fell.

Cressy and Hogue arrived
and let down their boats.

Then Aboukir went down and we
slid down her side into the water.

Musgrave jumped into the North Sea

and became the only man in the war
to be sunk on three ships

within one hour.

I swam to the Hogue
and was going on board

when she was struck
and sank in three minutes.

I then swam to the Cressy
and was hauled up the side,

but she was struck also and we sank.

Georg von Muller was chief of
Germany's Imperial Naval Cabinet.

On our return from the morning ride,

the first news of the successful
torpedo attack by the U9

on three English cruisers.

We are all delighted
and the Kaiser is in seventh heaven.

The British were appalled.

First Lord of the Admiralty
Winston Churchill got the blame.

Over 1,400 men, many of them cadets,

had died in a single submarine
attack.

Winston's War Babies,
they were called.

British submarine lieutenant
Ronald Trevor wrote to his parents.

The news tonight is sad,

but what we submariners
have been expecting for weeks.

The commodore has repeatedly
warned the Admiralty

that those ships ought
not to patrol the North Sea.

What happened is what we predicted -

ships standby to rescue
the sinking one's crew,

then the submarine
gets two sitting shots.

Commander-in-chief of
the British Grand Fleet

was Admiral John Jellicoe.

He'd joined the navy in 1874
as a midshipman.

ADMIRAL IS PIPED ABOARD

Known as Silent Jack, he was
experienced, capable and cautious.

He ended patrols
off the German coast,

confining his most valuable ships
to Scapa Flow and Rosyth,

the limits of the U-boats' range.

He warned the Admiralty.

The Germans rely to a great extent
on submarines, mines and torpedoes,

and they possess a superiority over
us in these particular directions.

Germany's forward submarine base
was on the island of Heligoland.

The U-boats were ordered
to sweep the North Sea.

But the British had gone.

On 16th December 1914,
hoping to lure the British out,

five German warships
steamed across the North Sea.

At seven in the morning, they opened
fire on Scarborough and Hartlepool.

There was a terrific crash,
we thought it must be thunder.

When another crash came, we rushed
to the window and saw smoke

and cried "It's the Germans!"

Two wee girls hung on to me and said
"Are the Germans going to kill us?"

122 people died in the attack.

It was the first time enemy warships

had killed anyone on the
British mainland in over a century.

Jellicoe, too, had thought about
attacking the enemy's homeland,

not with a hit-and-miss
naval bombardment,

but a blockade, tight as a drum,
and lethal.

What we have to do is
starve and cripple Germany.

The destruction of the German fleet
is a means to an end,

and not an end in itself.

Here was a use
for those huge battleships,

as sentinels sealing
the exits from the North Sea,

stopping Germany's fleet getting out
and food and war supplies getting in.

The North Sea would become
no-man's-land - a dead sea.

Jellicoe was helped by an invention

more important than Dreadnoughts
or even submarines - wireless.

MORSE-CODE SIGNAL

Every day, every German ship
radioed its position

back to fleet headquarters
at Wilhelmshaven.

MORSE CODE SIGNAL CONTINUES

Over the North Sea, in the coastguard
station at Hunstanton, Norfolk,

British Naval Intelligence
was listening.

The German messages
were passed on to code breakers

in one of Britain's
most secret departments -

Room 40, deep in the heart
of the Admiralty Old Building.

According to one of their officers,
the men in Room 40 were a mixed bag.

They knew literary German fluently
and they could be relied on,

but of cryptography,
of naval German,

of the habits of war vessels of any
nationality, they knew not a jot.

Some, like Dillwyn Knox,

would help crack the German Enigma
code in the Second World War.

But in 1914,
they desperately needed some clues.

The break came in the Baltic Sea,

where a German cruiser, the
Magdeburg, was captured by Russians.

On board, they found one of
the war's most valuable documents

and passed it on
to their British allies.

This is the Magdeburg's code book.

It allowed the men in Room 40

to read nearly everything
the German navy was planning.

"Oh, well," the Kaiser said, on
learning of the Magdeburg's capture,

"sparks are bound to fly
at a time like this."

But the Kaiser had no idea
his enemies had his code book,

no idea of the immense advantage
they now possessed.

Britain's sea strategy
in the First World War was simple -

to isolate and starve her enemies.

At Scapa Flow and Rosyth
to the north,

at Dover and Harwich to the south,

the Royal Navy closed the North Sea
to German ships.

The blockade was a brutal vision,

brainchild of Maurice Hankey
of the Committee of Imperial Defence.

My belief in sea power
amounted almost to a religion.

The Germans, like Napoleon,
might overrun the Continent.

This might prolong the war,

but the final issue would be
decided by economic pressure.

The Director of Naval Intelligence
agreed.

Grass would sooner or later
grow in the streets of Hamburg

and widespread death and ruin
would soon be inflicted.

Germany began the war with a merchant
fleet of nearly four million tons.

Within months,
she lost a quarter of her ships,

seized in harbours
or caught making a dash

into the no-man's-land
of the North Sea.

Lloyd's of London kept a log
of every vessel sunk.

Their records show that
on one day alone, 8th August 1914,

Germany lost 41 ships.

Neutral countries - Holland,
Denmark, Sweden - were not spared.

Germany depended on ports like
Rotterdam for grain and raw materials

so Britain forced neutral ships
to submit to the blockade.

Starting with Holland, the British
pressured companies to declare goods.

In every country,
she built up a network of agents.

They tracked ships coming and going,
who was sending what, where.

Any ship could be stopped.

Any found with banned supplies
for Germany had its cargo seized.

Within weeks, the German government
started to ration food.

Caroline Ethel Cooper was
an Australian stranded in Leipzig.

Every week,
she wrote to her sister in Adelaide.

Dear Emmie, the government's seized
the bread, flour and meal supply.

We're allowed four pounds of bread
and one pound of flour at a time.

Now the war against neutral ships
and food supply has begun,

prices rise every week.

Sailors like Richard Stumpf
were stuck in harbour,

frustrated and hungry.

2nd April 1916.

We spend our time
worrying about our bellies.

Even the officers
are embittered and dissatisfied.

To end Germany's isolation, her navy
came up with a revolutionary plan -

an unarmed submarine
over 200 feet long,

that could carry a cargo
of 1,000 tons.

In June 1916,
the Deutschland set out for America,

the first time a submarine
had tried to cross the Atlantic.

Because of wet weather
and high seas,

the hatches were closed

and diesel engines pumped
hot, humid air through the boat.

Sweat ran down the bulkheads and
water leaked around loose rivets.

Drinking water tasted like diesel

and every meal the cook cooked
had a layer of oil across the top.

Approaching the American coast,

Captain Koenig ordered us to say
nothing of the strain we'd undergone

and to avoid mentioning
our seasickness.

Now, after two world wars,
it's taken for granted

that America and Britain are close
allies, naturally on the same side...

..but in the First World War,
it wasn't so clear.

Eight million Americans
had German parents or grandparents.

Four and a half million
were of Irish descent.

Many of them had little love
for England.

At the outbreak of war,

thousands of US citizens had tried
to enlist in the German army...

..and America was enjoying
a massive economic boom.

Half Britain's war budget
was spent in the States.

Companies like Bethlehem Steel
were swamped with orders.

They hauled in six times the profits
they'd made before the war.

The Deutschland was
just another good customer.

Her brave Atlantic crossing,
dodging Royal Navy warships,

was a rallying point for anyone who'd
suffered from the British blockade.

Our crossing became a triumph.

All the neutral steamers, American
or not, greeted us with sirens.

Only an English steamer
sailed past in deadly silence,

while we were proudly raising
the black, white and red flag.

The Deutschland's crew
received a hero's welcome.

There were dinners in their honour,
Captain Koenig met the President.

The three weeks spent in the
United States were a non-stop party.

Everywhere we went,
people gathered round us,

they all wanted a souvenir
of some kind.

I sold the buttons off my shirt
and the stripes off my tunic.

Germans introduced their daughters
and we never had to pay for beer.

The Deutschland returned to Germany
with vital nickel and rubber.

The help to the economy was nothing
compared with the boost to morale,

as even Caroline Ethel Cooper
had to admit.

The town is flagged because
the Deutschland got safely back.

Those red, white and black flags
always makes me sick,

but I'm glad she got across
all the same. It was a sporting run.

But the Deutschland was
too small to break the blockade.

In Germany and Austria, there were
not enough people to work the land

and too many officials trying
to ration what food there was.

The situation with the hunger
and queues is turning nasty.

People wait for potatoes
in their hundreds, four deep,

from four in the morning
until the afternoon.

Every morning, there are queues
of armchairs and cushions,

upon which people sit and sleep.

The shortages worsened after
the terrible harvest of 1916.

Germans called it the Turnip Winter.

Many had nothing to eat
but cattle fodder.

There were 50 food riots that year.

Oh, what days of terror,
everything's in turmoil!

There was havoc in town last night.

The window panes were smashed
in at Cafe Kaiserhof.

Angry crowds were shouting
outside bakeries and inns.

Up at the castle, they cursed
the major in words I shan't repeat.

The army appeared at 11.

It's horribly cold

and because the rolling stock has
all been taken for the war effort,

there is an extreme shortage
of coal.

We are learning how to be freezing

which isn't the most
pleasant feeling.

Schools, theatres and cinemas have
all been closed until further notice

because of the lack of coal.

The German navy did nothing to help.

Even if large parts of our battle
fleet lay at the bottom of the sea,

it would accomplish more than now,
lying well-preserved in our ports.

At Wilhelmshaven,
people wrote graffiti on the walls.

Dear Fatherland,
you may rest assured.

The fleet's in harbour,
safely moored.

Admiral Reinhard Scheer
had been ordered

not to risk his ships
against the full British fleet,

but by mid-1916, the pressure
to do something was intense.

On 31st May, Germany's High Seas
Fleet steamed out of Wilhelmshaven,

hoping to engage
the Royal Navy's battle cruisers.

But the British were one jump ahead.

MORSE-CODE SIGNAL

The men in Room 40
had already decoded Scheer's orders.

Three hours before
the Germans even left harbour,

the entire British Grand Fleet
was on its way to intercept them.

Now, the world would get the great
sea battle it had waited for -

Jutland.

It was a titanic clash -
250 warships, 100,000 men.

Britain's first great fleet action
since Trafalgar.

It was a fight they had to win.

If Germany ended up
masters of the North Sea,

the blockade would be finished,
the British Army in Europe cut off,

Britain open to invasion.

Admiral John Jellicoe was,
Winston Churchill said,

the only man who could lose
the war in an afternoon.

Less well-armoured than Germany's

Britain's ships preferred to
fight at very long range,

but at Jutland,
the range was just five miles.

We fired very slowly with
deliberation,

while the Kaiser-class ships
in front of us shot like mad.

Now, the English were in an
unfavourable position.

A shot hit the bridge of a German
destroyer and blew it to hell.

Shells fell all around us, and what
with ships sinking and dying bodies,

it made one shiver
at the sight of it.

At 4.30pm, the battle cruiser
Queen Mary was hit by a shell

which exploded in
the ship's magazine.

A horrible sight, it was.

An enormous height of red flame,

followed by a mass of black smoke

amongst which was the wreckage,
thrown in all directions.

The blast was tremendous!

Admiral Beatty watched from HMS Lion.

There seems to be something wrong
with our bloody ships today!

About seven o'clock
we passed the wreck of a large ship,

which we hoped was a German
but later learned was one of ours.

She was broken right in two,

the bow and stern was sticking up
about 50 feet and quite independent.

But the British had the Germans
outgunned and outnumbered.

As evening fell, the German fleet
broke off the action.

We were in a regular deathtrap.

The only way to escape
the unfavourable tactical situation

was to turn about
and withdraw on the opposite course

and get out of this
dangerous enemy envelopment.

To "Silent Jack" Jellicoe,
peering through the fog of battle,

it looked as though the Germans
were lulling the British into a trap.

If the enemy battle fleet
turned away from an advancing fleet,

I should assume the intention was to
lead us over mines and submarines.

So Jellicoe ordered the British
to turn, as well,

away from their vulnerable foe.

As night fell on 31st May 1916,

the men in Room 40 tracked
the retreating German fleet.

They passed its positions
to the Navy,

giving Jellicoe a last chance
to finish the Germans off.

But the Navy failed to catch them
and the German fleet made it home.

During the night, telegrams gave
estimated losses of the English

as two to three in our favour.

The Kaiser announced at breakfast,

"We have won a great victory
in the North Sea!"

Based on the maths alone,
the Kaiser was right.

Germany had lost 11 ships
and 2,500 men,

Britain, 14 ships and 6,000 men.

But that wasn't the point.

The Kaiser's battleships stayed
in harbour until the end of the war.

The British fleet still ruled the
North Sea, tightening the blockade.

Germany had replied to the British
blockade with her own economic war.

She, too, tried to cripple the enemy
by cutting off supplies.

This light raider, the Mowe,

was one of the few surface ships
Germany sent into the North Sea.

Her target -
not warships, but cargo boats.

She sunk 20,000 tons, building
a large collection of captured crews.

The English say we're
in league with the devil

and have acquired
the Flying Dutchman.

The captain of the Mowe said,

"What a great moment when I had
eight English captains before me

and I could tell them all 'This is
the work of the German fleet!'"

Germany's U-boats joined in the war
against Allied trade.

One British admiral was horrified.

Submarines are underhand,
unfair and damned un-English!

As for U-boats
attacking civilian ships,

it is impossible and unthinkable.

If they do, their captured crews
should be hanged as pirates.

The U-boat blockade of Britain
would have to be ruthless.

Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg realised
the effect of this on world opinion,

as he told Georg von Muller.

Spent the afternoon
with the Chancellor,

who wished once more
to discuss the U-boat question.

Bethmann envisaged the remaining
neutrals united against us

as the "mad dog"
among the peoples of the world.

That would mean the end of Germany.

Germany's admirals were furious
at having their hands tied,

but submarines were ordered
to stick to the old rules of war.

They gave warning of their attacks,
they did not attack underwater,

they gave merchant crews
time to escape.

German submarines sank
a quarter of a million tons in 1914,

but Britain built new ships faster
than the U-boats could sink them.

Far from being choked by a blockade,
the British economy flourished.

The British firm Vickers,
with a workforce of 78,000,

turned out guns, aeroplanes,
battleships - and record profits.

If Germany was trying to play fair,
Britain wasn't.

Q-ships looked like unarmed traders,
but carried hidden guns.

They looked like easy prey,
but when submarines came close,

the Q-ships uncovered their guns
and attacked.

To add to the deception, they
often sailed under foreign flags.

Lieutenant Heinrich Crompton, on the
U41, was caught by just such a trick.

As the two ships came
within 300m of each other,

the steamer opened a heavy accurate
fire from along the railing,

immediately joined by large-calibre
guns, hidden fore and aft.

The U41 returned three rounds from
a forward gun, all hits to the hull.

Throughout the action, the steamer
continued to fly the American flag.

On 1st February 1915,

in response to the British blockade,
the Kaiser stepped up his campaign.

He declared all waters
around Britain a war zone,

in which any ships,
including neutrals, might be sunk.

This decision set Germany
on a collision course with America.

The pride of the Cunard line,
the Lusitania,

was the world's largest,
most luxurious liner.

She could carry
over 2,000 passengers.

HORN BLARES

There was a ragtime dance
written in her honour.

LIVELY TWO STEP MUSIC PLAYS

On 1st May 1915,

Cunard posted a list of her
departures in the New York Times.

Next to it was an advertisement
placed by the German ambassador.

Those sailing to Britain, it said,
did so at their own risk.

At 11.30 that morning,

the Lusitania left
New York for Liverpool.

Her captain made light
of the submarine threat.

It's the best joke I've heard,

this talk of torpedoing
the Lusitania!

This is the last picture of her
ever taken.

The Lusitania sighted
the Irish coast on 7th May.

The lighthouse
on the Old Head of Kinsale,

was traditionally used by ships
on the Atlantic run

to get their bearings.

At 2:10, the Lusitania
was hit by a single torpedo.

As I watched, one funnel went,
then the other, then the other,

until the ship had gone
and the sea was calm,

and all you could see was bodies
and wreckage of furniture,

and everything that had been in
the ship, floating in the water.

My husband and I got in a lifeboat,
the ropes of which had to be cut,

since when I have not
seen or heard of my husband.

I've lost all I ever possessed

and my dead boys,
ages 11 years and eight.

I was rescued by a trawler.

My dear husband was lost, but I had
the satisfaction of finding him

and seeing him laid to rest
in the cemetery in Queenstown.

Police reports were sent to relatives
to identify the bodies.

1,200 people died on the
Lusitania, including 128 Americans.

At the battle fronts in Europe, tens
of thousands were dying every day,

but the fate of the Cunard liner
overshadowed them.

It led to the most widespread
anti-German riots of the war.

In Liverpool, an American joined
the mob outside a German-owned shop.

The crowd was growling
and the shop was dark,

but there were people upstairs.

I picked up a brick
and heaved it through a window.

Then everyone took to shying them
and in a few minutes,

the place was a wreck.

There were several policemen
at the corner and they just grinned.

With the sinking of the Lusitania,
Germany had crossed a line.

The world hates us as we are
conducting a war in a brutal manner,

and the brutality is increasing.

I was at a party when
a report of the Lusitania arrived.

Two officers' wives, mad with joy,
started to dance about the room.

"Don't forget," I said, "there were
women and children aboard."

"That doesn't matter,"
they said, and danced on.

"The more who go to the bottom,
the better."

The Lusitania came to stand
for German barbarity.

Britain stirred the indignation
with propaganda -

posters and even posed photographs
rammed home what had happened.

The German embassy in Washington
received bomb threats.

President Wilson began to see Germany
as the "mad dog of the world".

In God's name, how could
any nation calling itself civilised

do so horrible a thing?

It seemed America
might clamber down off the fence.

But outrage soon gave way to caution.

Wilson reassured the nation
that America would not go to war.

There is such a thing
as a man being too proud to fight.

There is such a thing
as a nation being so right

that it does not need to convince
others by force that it is right.

And anyway,
war would be very bad for business.

Wilson kept the United States
prepared but neutral for
two more years.

The sinking of the Lusitania
was terrible,

but it was not reason enough to
throw away more lives, and profits,

by joining in a distant war.

Germany's policy in America after
sinking the Lusitania was complex.

She kept her U-boats in check,
but not her spies.

In 1916, German agents
blew up Black Tom Island,

a loading depot in New York harbour.

It held 900 tons of ammunition
destined for the Allies.

Several thousand persons lined the
sea wall and acquired a real picture

of what the firing line
in the European war looks like.

The water line was
one mass of red glare.

The explosions were so strong,

they were felt in Philadelphia,
90 miles away.

German agents slipped bombs
onto ships in US ports.

There were assassination attempts

and even a bomb planted
in the US Capitol.

German agents are everywhere.

Extraordinary precautions
are now necessary

in the arms factories,
at the docks and on board vessels,

even vessels of
the United States Navy.

Hard evidence tying Germany
to espionage against America

came from one of the spies himself.

Heinrich Albert left his briefcase
on New York's elevated railway.

It held documents proving the German
embassy was bankrolling the sabotage.

Two diplomats, including
Franz von Papen,

Hitler's future vice-chancellor,
were expelled.

But nothing got in the way
of business on the New York
stock exchange.

When Germany won a battle,
Allied stocks fell.

When Britain won, her shares rose.

American investors
were betting on the war.

For Cabinet minister
David Lloyd George,

there was a direct connection
between battle and bank.

Success means credit.

Financiers never hesitate
to lend to a prosperous concern.

France and Russia paid for the war
by borrowing from Britain.

Britain raised money
on the American stock market

through her Wall Street bankers,
JP Morgan.

It was spent buying American
armaments, American supplies.

Of all the money raised in America
to pay for the war,

99% went to Britain and the Allies.

It was something that made
Germans wonder

just how neutral America really was.

30th January 1916.

In financial circles, it is said
England has won the war already

and every day it goes on after March
makes the ruin of Germany completer,

no matter what
her military successes may be.

America lent so much
that by the end of 1916,

the central bank warned that people
were betting too heavily on Britain.

If the Allies lost, they might
never get their money back.

The thought that American cash
might be backing the wrong side

wiped a billion dollars
off Allied stocks in a week.

Germany's generals felt the odds
were stacking up against them.

They grew impatient at hesitant
politicians tying their hands.

In view of the military situation,

we must lose no time
in adopting the measure

of torpedoing armed
enemy merchantmen without notice.

The Entente continue the war with
all the resources at their disposal.

Our ambassador
prophesies war with America

if we persist in torpedoing
armed merchantmen without warning.

The Kaiser wrote in the margin
of the report "I do not care!"

The Kaiser didn't care because
of some key German calculations.

His generals gambled that
if America joined the Allies,

she would not have a decisive impact
on the fighting in Europe until 1919.

Long before then,

the U-boat campaign would bring
Britain and France to their knees.

One thing stayed Germany's hand.

In December 1916, she put out
a peace feeler to the Allies,

believing she could
hold on to her gains.

The French and British leaders
met in Paris and rejected the offer.

Germany now staked everything
on a new submarine campaign.

U-boats would sink all ships
on sight, without warning.

February 2nd is a special
and uplifting day for us Germans,

the beginning of
the all-out submarine war.

We're holding our breaths and
hoping with this radical medicine,

we will finally cure England of her
arrogance and secure a quick peace,

the terms of which we will dictate.

In April 1917,
Germany sunk over 800,000 tons,

causing panic at
the British Admiralty.

But Germany didn't have enough
U-boats to sustain the success,

and Allied ships were getting better
at protecting themselves.

Merchant ships now travelled
not singly, but in convoy,

with more destroyers to protect them.

Airships and aeroplanes
scouted overhead,

looking for
the telltale signs of submarines.

63 U-boats were sunk in 1917 -

three times the losses
of the previous year.

One captured U-boat
was put on display in London.

13,000 people paid to view it
on the first day.

Its German sailors
couldn't believe the contrast

between the Allied home front
and their own.

We remained in Dover
for two and a half days

and were plentifully supplied
with food, drink and smokes,

for you notice nothing of the war.

There are no wooden soles
or bicycles with wooden tyres

and the butchers' shops have
rows and rows of pigs hanging up.

There is no prospect
of starving England.

I am glad,
for the war is over for me.

The second U-boat campaign
was a double failure.

It didn't deliver militarily -

German submarines could not
sink enough Allied ships -

and it was a diplomatic disaster,
pushing America to the brink of war.

The final shove
came from the men in Room 40.

On 16th January 1917,

Britain intercepted a telegram from
German Foreign Secretary Zimmerman

to his ambassador in Mexico City.

The Zimmerman telegram was made up
of a thousand numerical code groups.

It took two weeks to decipher.

As the meaning emerged,
the men in Room 40 realised

they held the most extraordinary
intelligence of the war.

Destined for the Mexican Government,

it outlined Germany's plan for
Mexico to invade the United States.

We make Mexico
a proposal of alliance

with an understanding on our part

that Mexico is to reconquer
Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

The settlement in detail
is left to you.

Zimmerman's scheme was harebrained.

Mexico was in
the midst of revolution,

US troops were already
fighting bandits on the border.

There was no way the Mexican
Government wanted more trouble.

But Germany's proposal
was a godsend to Britain.

It was just what she needed
to end America's neutrality.

Two weeks into the U-boat campaign,

Britain called the US ambassador
to the Foreign Office

and passed over the telegram.

It was,
said Britain's Foreign Secretary,

"as dramatic a moment
as I remember in all my life."

On 2nd April, President Wilson
went to the Capitol.

The United States had not declared
war when the Lusitania went down,

it had not declared war
when spies blew up its shipyards,

but Germany urging Mexico to attack
America was in a different league.

On 6th April 1917, the United States
declared war against Germany.

For three years, the country had
played the war's banker and supplier.

Now, as far as Wilson was concerned,

America was fighting a crusade for
international justice and democracy.

The North Sea would remain dead
until the very end.

The Germans now set themselves
a desperate task -

to win the war before
American troops arrived in force.

President Wilson's liberal crusade
would be up against new ideas,

of socialism and revolution.

In the next episode of
The First World War,

German spies sow rebellion
in Ireland and Russia

and French troops
mutiny on the Western front -

a war against war itself.