1 00:00:44,250 --> 00:00:51,710 In 1915, German airman Peter Strunberg, was in command of the Zeppelins that flew 2 00:00:51,711 --> 00:00:57,611 over Britain and carried out the first systematic bombing of civilians from the sky. 3 00:01:03,500 --> 00:01:07,148 We who strike the enemy where his heart beats have 4 00:01:07,149 --> 00:01:11,200 been slandered as baby killers and murderers of women. 5 00:01:14,300 --> 00:01:20,720 What we do is repugnant to us too, but necessary, very necessary. 6 00:01:23,020 --> 00:01:28,140 A soldier cannot function without the factory worker, 7 00:01:28,141 --> 00:01:31,760 the farmers and all the other providers behind them. 8 00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:36,980 Nowadays, there is no such animal as a non-combatant. 9 00:01:43,970 --> 00:01:47,550 Peter Strunberg would not live to see the end of the war. 10 00:01:47,551 --> 00:01:50,190 His zeppelin would be shot down. 11 00:01:51,890 --> 00:01:57,630 But in 1915, he knew that the nature of battle had changed forever. 12 00:02:00,950 --> 00:02:06,230 War in the 20th century would be a new kind of war. 13 00:02:24,250 --> 00:02:30,010 early on April the 25th, 1915, an amphibious force of British, 14 00:02:30,470 --> 00:02:34,407 French, Australian and New Zealand troops began 15 00:02:34,408 --> 00:02:37,710 landing on the Turkish peninsula of Gallipoli. 16 00:02:37,711 --> 00:02:39,550 Their aim? 17 00:02:39,870 --> 00:02:44,210 To knock Germany's ally, Turkey, out of the war. 18 00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:52,820 Opposing them, on cliffs overlooking the shore, was a smaller Turkish force. 19 00:02:59,070 --> 00:03:02,313 From his battleship, the Allied commander, Sir 20 00:03:02,314 --> 00:03:06,091 Ian Hamilton, watched the spectacle unfold. 21 00:03:09,290 --> 00:03:12,030 The day was just breaking over the jagged hills. 22 00:03:13,370 --> 00:03:16,910 The landing of the lads from the south was in full swing. 23 00:03:18,870 --> 00:03:22,030 We could see boatloads making for the land. 24 00:03:23,150 --> 00:03:26,550 Swarms trying to straighten themselves out along the shore. 25 00:03:27,850 --> 00:03:30,790 God, one would think, cannot see them at all. 26 00:03:31,590 --> 00:03:35,490 Or he would put a stop to this sort of panorama altogether. 27 00:03:40,810 --> 00:03:47,131 The peninsula chosen for the assault guarded the entrance to the Dardanelles Straits. 28 00:03:49,510 --> 00:03:52,887 Four weeks earlier, the British Navy had failed to open 29 00:03:52,888 --> 00:03:57,030 up this route to the Black Sea and its ally, Russia. 30 00:04:00,270 --> 00:04:02,350 Now, it was the army's turn. 31 00:04:03,890 --> 00:04:08,730 An amphibious expedition is the most difficult operation of warfare, 32 00:04:09,070 --> 00:04:12,430 especially if you're sending it against something like the Gallipoli Peninsula, 33 00:04:12,431 --> 00:04:16,890 which must be one of the most defensible pieces of geography in the world. 34 00:04:19,030 --> 00:04:25,670 What you've got is a very few beaches and then high cliffs, overhanging cliffs, 35 00:04:26,090 --> 00:04:27,150 towering hills. 36 00:04:27,410 --> 00:04:31,890 An absolutely ideal place for a defending force to place itself. 37 00:04:35,110 --> 00:04:40,890 By mid-afternoon on the first day, 8,000 Allied soldiers were on the beaches. 38 00:04:44,660 --> 00:04:47,220 The outnumbered Turks began to retreat. 39 00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:53,900 But Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal, the man who would become Ataturk, faced them. 40 00:04:57,580 --> 00:05:03,240 I said to the men who were running away, You cannot run away from the enemy. 41 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:07,100 We have no ammunition, they said. 42 00:05:07,840 --> 00:05:11,100 If you haven't got ammunition, you have your bayonets. 43 00:05:11,101 --> 00:05:16,340 And shouting to the men, I made them fix their bayonets and lie down on the ground. 44 00:05:16,820 --> 00:05:19,500 I said, I don't order you to attack. 45 00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:22,260 I order you to die. 46 00:05:24,100 --> 00:05:30,281 The Turkish troops stood their ground, allowing time for reinforcements to arrive. 47 00:05:39,110 --> 00:05:41,133 They knew they would die in about three 48 00:05:41,134 --> 00:05:44,591 minutes, but they showed not the least dismay. 49 00:05:45,290 --> 00:05:47,190 There was no wavering. 50 00:05:48,230 --> 00:05:53,070 Those who could read, prepared to enter Paradise with the Koran in their hands. 51 00:05:53,650 --> 00:05:58,590 Those who could not, recited the martyr's prayer as they went forward. 52 00:06:02,110 --> 00:06:05,234 By holding the high ground, the Turks had trapped 53 00:06:05,235 --> 00:06:08,611 the Allies between the cliffs and the sea. 54 00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:17,353 From his ship, Hamilton could do nothing but order 55 00:06:17,354 --> 00:06:20,540 his men to hold the narrow beaches they occupied. 56 00:06:25,960 --> 00:06:28,140 You have got through the difficult business. 57 00:06:28,700 --> 00:06:30,000 Now you have only to dig. 58 00:06:30,260 --> 00:06:30,720 Dig. 59 00:06:31,280 --> 00:06:32,280 Dig. 60 00:06:32,400 --> 00:06:33,880 Until you are safe. 61 00:06:49,400 --> 00:06:55,420 It's not really an episode in a great European war between industrial powers at all. 62 00:06:55,421 --> 00:06:58,600 It's the old British imperial tradition. 63 00:06:59,260 --> 00:07:03,100 And once it started not working, people decided, but good heavens, 64 00:07:03,860 --> 00:07:06,760 British prestige is at stake. 65 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:10,620 That the whole Muslim world will feel that we have been humiliated. 66 00:07:18,740 --> 00:07:21,808 Gallipoli, which was to have been a quick victory, was 67 00:07:21,809 --> 00:07:24,520 turning into an Eastern version of the Western Front. 68 00:07:24,960 --> 00:07:27,700 A war of trenches and stalemate. 69 00:07:41,560 --> 00:07:48,300 As we approach the shore, what an aspect opens up before us. 70 00:07:50,420 --> 00:07:53,420 Valleys and valleys, scrub-covered hillsides. 71 00:07:54,580 --> 00:07:57,900 Men getting about everywhere and looking all the world like ants. 72 00:08:01,140 --> 00:08:03,767 But above all, the thing that meets, or 73 00:08:03,768 --> 00:08:07,581 rather hits the eye, is the number of dugouts. 74 00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:10,220 The whole landscape is covered with them. 75 00:08:10,820 --> 00:08:13,160 It looks for all the world like a mining camp. 76 00:08:17,840 --> 00:08:22,120 Cyril Lawrence was one of the Anzacs, Australian and New Zealand soldiers, 77 00:08:22,500 --> 00:08:26,360 who went ashore at Gallipoli one month into the campaign. 78 00:08:31,180 --> 00:08:34,080 The trenches are totally different to what I expected. 79 00:08:34,880 --> 00:08:37,320 It is sure death to put your head up to look around. 80 00:08:38,800 --> 00:08:42,028 Even the periscope mirrors, measuring three inches 81 00:08:42,029 --> 00:08:44,720 square at most, are picked off one after the other. 82 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:52,740 When the Turks charge, they usually cry, Allah! 83 00:08:53,060 --> 00:08:53,400 Allah! 84 00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:58,620 And our boys reply, come on you bastards, we'll give you Allah. 85 00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:02,987 And from the frequent use of this word, poor old 86 00:09:02,988 --> 00:09:06,181 Turk wants to know if bastard is one of our gods. 87 00:09:09,710 --> 00:09:13,470 At some places, the trenches were very close. 88 00:09:14,590 --> 00:09:17,450 They could hear the voice of each other. 89 00:09:18,010 --> 00:09:22,450 They could hear the Turks singing songs in the evening. 90 00:09:23,230 --> 00:09:25,470 They asked questions at each other. 91 00:09:25,850 --> 00:09:27,130 Why are you fighting? 92 00:09:27,410 --> 00:09:28,570 Why are you here? 93 00:09:30,010 --> 00:09:31,250 It's very interesting. 94 00:09:31,490 --> 00:09:32,810 I mean, can you imagine a war? 95 00:09:33,610 --> 00:09:42,370 During the eight and a half months, they were fighting, thousands of soldiers 96 00:09:42,371 --> 00:09:46,250 were killed on both sides, and still they were not hating each other. 97 00:09:48,930 --> 00:09:52,030 The Turks were not simply fighting for their homeland. 98 00:09:52,750 --> 00:09:58,330 The Turkish soldier, Hasan Etem, a teacher and law student before the war, 99 00:09:58,550 --> 00:10:01,950 described how they were also fighting for their faith. 100 00:10:13,380 --> 00:10:17,721 My dearest mother, I can see a line of soldiers washing 101 00:10:17,722 --> 00:10:21,620 their clothes in the stream near the emerald green hillside. 102 00:10:22,380 --> 00:10:25,920 One soldier, with a beautiful voice, is saying prayers. 103 00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:31,580 Everyone, everything, is listening to that heavenly voice. 104 00:10:32,440 --> 00:10:36,380 I forgot all about the chaos and the war and the worldly troubles. 105 00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:42,000 I opened my hands, looked up at the heavens and said, God of Turks, 106 00:10:42,500 --> 00:10:45,849 master of the birds, the sheep, the leaves, the 107 00:10:45,850 --> 00:10:48,660 mountains, you have given all this to the Turks. 108 00:10:48,940 --> 00:10:50,760 Please leave it to the Turks. 109 00:10:51,220 --> 00:10:55,860 God, all this soldier wants is to keep this land from the British and the French. 110 00:10:56,220 --> 00:10:57,480 Grant me this wish. 111 00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:02,680 Please make the bayonets of the soldiers sharp and destroy our enemies. 112 00:11:05,440 --> 00:11:09,100 By summer, the allied troops had still not moved. 113 00:11:09,880 --> 00:11:14,320 Hamilton realized that to take the high ground, he needed more men. 114 00:11:14,860 --> 00:11:20,520 His badly planned campaign and poorly equipped army had nowhere to go. 115 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:33,837 The war office urged me to throw my brave troops 116 00:11:33,838 --> 00:11:37,580 yet once more against the machine guns in redoubts. 117 00:11:38,680 --> 00:11:40,180 To do it on the cheap. 118 00:11:40,680 --> 00:11:45,660 To do it without asking for the shells that give the attack a sporting chance. 119 00:11:48,420 --> 00:11:52,378 People slur over my appeal for the shells and yet 120 00:11:52,379 --> 00:11:55,940 continue to urge us on as if we were hanging back. 121 00:11:58,900 --> 00:12:04,240 The allied troops clung to their strip of sand throughout autumn and into winter. 122 00:12:08,420 --> 00:12:12,131 In November, Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary 123 00:12:12,132 --> 00:12:15,341 of State for War, took a look for himself. 124 00:12:17,220 --> 00:12:22,560 He concluded the Gallipoli campaign, a waste of officers and men. 125 00:12:27,380 --> 00:12:33,300 In December 1915, with a quarter of a million men killed, wounded or missing, 126 00:12:33,720 --> 00:12:36,460 the allies began to evacuate the peninsula. 127 00:12:38,900 --> 00:12:42,280 They had got little further than their original beachhead. 128 00:12:53,890 --> 00:12:59,810 The encounter of Turk against Anzac on the cliffs of Gallipoli was confirmation that 129 00:12:59,811 --> 00:13:03,330 the European war had now expanded into something else. 130 00:13:03,650 --> 00:13:05,790 The First World War. 131 00:13:31,070 --> 00:13:36,930 By 1915, nearly every family had at least one son who had marched off to battle. 132 00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:48,486 Left behind at home were millions of women, for whom 133 00:13:48,487 --> 00:13:51,680 every day brought the possibility of terrible news. 134 00:13:59,130 --> 00:14:03,666 21-year-old Vera Britton, a student at Oxford University, 135 00:14:03,667 --> 00:14:07,770 described the endless wait for news of her fiancé, Roland. 136 00:14:10,890 --> 00:14:13,650 Ordinary household sounds became a torment. 137 00:14:16,370 --> 00:14:20,279 The clock, marking off each hour of dread, struck into 138 00:14:20,280 --> 00:14:23,470 the tension with the shattering effect of a thunderclap. 139 00:14:26,510 --> 00:14:29,430 Every ring at the door suggested a telegram. 140 00:14:31,630 --> 00:14:35,530 Every telephone call, a long-distance message giving bad news. 141 00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:42,080 Vera's fiancé was serving at the front. 142 00:14:42,480 --> 00:14:46,000 So were her brother, Edward, and their close friend, Victor. 143 00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:52,820 They'd been known as the Three Musketeers, and Vera saw herself as a fourth. 144 00:14:53,600 --> 00:14:56,660 She left Oxford to become a nurse in London. 145 00:14:58,440 --> 00:15:03,560 In a surgical ward, I had told Roland, the nurses hardly occupy the 146 00:15:03,561 --> 00:15:07,020 silent-footed, gliding role which they always do in storybooks. 147 00:15:08,780 --> 00:15:14,060 The mixture of gramophones and people shouting or groaning after an operation 148 00:15:14,061 --> 00:15:16,480 relieves you of the necessity of being quiet. 149 00:15:20,420 --> 00:15:23,300 They were blaring, blatant gramophones. 150 00:15:24,380 --> 00:15:27,210 Though the men found them consoling, perhaps 151 00:15:27,211 --> 00:15:30,741 because they subdued more sinister noises. 152 00:15:30,900 --> 00:15:33,916 They seemed to me to add a strident grotesqueness 153 00:15:33,917 --> 00:15:36,960 to the cold, dark evenings of hurry and pain. 154 00:15:48,500 --> 00:15:53,180 As Christmas 1915 approached, Vera received good news. 155 00:15:53,181 --> 00:15:54,900 It was a note from Roland. 156 00:15:55,860 --> 00:15:57,560 Shall be home on leave, it read. 157 00:15:58,220 --> 00:15:59,500 Land Christmas Day. 158 00:16:03,690 --> 00:16:06,290 Two days later, the phone rang. 159 00:16:07,610 --> 00:16:10,970 Believing that I was at last to hear the voice for which I had been waiting, 160 00:16:11,310 --> 00:16:13,810 I dashed joyously into the corridor. 161 00:16:16,010 --> 00:16:18,030 But the message was not from Roland. 162 00:16:18,950 --> 00:16:22,150 It was not to say that he had arrived home that morning. 163 00:16:23,650 --> 00:16:28,330 But to tell me that he had died of wounds on December 23rd. 164 00:16:35,840 --> 00:16:40,373 Roland, I reflected bitterly, was now part of the corrupt clay 165 00:16:40,374 --> 00:16:43,720 into which war had transformed the fertile soil of France. 166 00:16:45,120 --> 00:16:48,920 He would never again know the smell of a wet evening in early spring. 167 00:16:52,900 --> 00:16:55,040 It was a bitter, grey afternoon. 168 00:16:56,180 --> 00:17:00,200 I wondered however I was going to get through the weary remainder of life. 169 00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:03,320 I was only at the beginning of my twenties. 170 00:17:03,920 --> 00:17:07,840 I might have another 40, perhaps even 50 years to live. 171 00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:16,620 Victor died next. 172 00:17:19,020 --> 00:17:21,940 Vera prayed that her brother, Edward, would survive. 173 00:17:24,860 --> 00:17:28,620 But in the war's final year, he too was killed. 174 00:17:31,100 --> 00:17:35,940 Edward, like Roland, had promised me that if a life existed beyond the grave, 175 00:17:35,941 --> 00:17:38,880 he would somehow come back and make me know of it. 176 00:17:40,760 --> 00:17:44,260 I'd thought that of the two, Roland, with his reckless determination, 177 00:17:44,800 --> 00:17:46,969 would be the more likely to trespass from the 178 00:17:46,970 --> 00:17:50,121 infinite across the boundaries of the tangible. 179 00:17:51,780 --> 00:17:53,420 But he had sent no sign. 180 00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:55,320 And Edward sent none. 181 00:17:57,120 --> 00:17:58,700 Nor did I expect one. 182 00:18:00,340 --> 00:18:02,960 I knew now that death was the end. 183 00:18:03,960 --> 00:18:05,900 And that I was quite alone. 184 00:18:08,380 --> 00:18:09,740 There was no hereafter. 185 00:18:10,180 --> 00:18:11,500 No Easter morning. 186 00:18:11,940 --> 00:18:13,380 No meeting again. 187 00:18:15,300 --> 00:18:17,280 I walked in a darkness. 188 00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:18,860 A dumbness. 189 00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:20,000 A silence. 190 00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:22,640 Which no beloved voice would penetrate. 191 00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:45,580 The manpower of Europe was not enough to satisfy the appetite of war. 192 00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:50,440 Imperial powers had to call for reinforcements, millions of them, 193 00:18:50,840 --> 00:18:52,620 from their colonies and dominions. 194 00:18:57,790 --> 00:19:00,050 Through local newspapers, the voice of the 195 00:19:00,051 --> 00:19:03,911 Empire demanded that Africans rally to the flag. 196 00:19:07,930 --> 00:19:10,530 The present war is a world war. 197 00:19:11,930 --> 00:19:15,770 Without you, your white comrades cannot do anything. 198 00:19:20,120 --> 00:19:23,840 Everyone who loves his country and respects the British government, 199 00:19:24,160 --> 00:19:27,120 join this war without hesitation. 200 00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:38,380 A West African, Kande Kamara, was one of those who volunteered for the French army. 201 00:19:39,320 --> 00:19:42,421 The decision upset his father, who saw no 202 00:19:42,422 --> 00:19:45,581 reason why his son should die for white men. 203 00:19:49,190 --> 00:19:50,610 Please forgive me. 204 00:19:51,310 --> 00:19:54,070 I'm simply doing this for our house. 205 00:19:55,250 --> 00:19:58,710 If I die, I die as a man. 206 00:19:59,810 --> 00:20:02,170 I'll simply be buried as a man. 207 00:20:08,060 --> 00:20:12,076 Within particular strata of African society, service in 208 00:20:12,077 --> 00:20:16,260 the war represented an opportunity to serve the Empire. 209 00:20:16,261 --> 00:20:23,020 The Great War opened up for people like Kamara, a great opportunity to reach back 210 00:20:23,021 --> 00:20:27,400 into the past, reconnect with the warrior lineage of his 211 00:20:27,401 --> 00:20:32,200 father, and to demonstrate his worth and value as a warrior. 212 00:20:32,540 --> 00:20:37,200 Not just in Africa, but in a great worldwide conflict. 213 00:20:39,420 --> 00:20:42,480 Tens of thousands of Africans were shipped off to Europe. 214 00:20:42,780 --> 00:20:46,620 Some served as labourers, others as frontline soldiers. 215 00:20:53,560 --> 00:20:56,260 Kande Kamara never forgot the journey. 216 00:20:57,560 --> 00:21:01,024 Huddled in the lower decks of a transport ship, he found 217 00:21:01,025 --> 00:21:04,020 his six-day voyage was not the adventure he had expected. 218 00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:16,420 Some were getting very seasick. 219 00:21:16,421 --> 00:21:18,800 Some were vomiting. 220 00:21:21,080 --> 00:21:23,380 The smell of the ship. 221 00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:25,220 The oil. 222 00:21:26,020 --> 00:21:27,020 The gut. 223 00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:29,320 Was too unbearable. 224 00:21:34,120 --> 00:21:34,900 Some people. 225 00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:36,760 Some people didn't know where they were going. 226 00:21:37,220 --> 00:21:38,600 Even why they were fighting. 227 00:21:44,300 --> 00:21:47,320 A lot of people spread the rumour that we would never come back. 228 00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:51,040 That we were going to be sold as slaves. 229 00:21:56,340 --> 00:22:00,060 Some said, if the ship sinks, who gives a damn? 230 00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:03,280 Because we're all going to die anyway. 231 00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:16,620 After arriving in France, Kamara's unit began training. 232 00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:23,860 When we arrived at Bordeaux, we were sent directly for parades. 233 00:22:25,540 --> 00:22:30,780 After resting, we went back for more parades. 234 00:22:35,610 --> 00:22:38,330 There were all kinds of nationalities. 235 00:22:38,331 --> 00:22:40,530 There were Fulas. 236 00:22:41,210 --> 00:22:42,210 Karanko. 237 00:22:43,670 --> 00:22:44,670 Yelonkas. 238 00:22:45,330 --> 00:22:46,330 Pambaros. 239 00:22:48,010 --> 00:22:49,010 Sanufis. 240 00:22:49,730 --> 00:22:50,730 Kese. 241 00:22:51,710 --> 00:22:52,710 Toms. 242 00:22:53,790 --> 00:22:54,790 Becerra. 243 00:22:55,490 --> 00:22:56,750 And a lot more. 244 00:23:03,130 --> 00:23:06,710 Kamara described the site of his first aircraft as... 245 00:23:06,711 --> 00:23:09,110 a steamship that flies in the air. 246 00:23:14,140 --> 00:23:18,260 But at the front, he was puzzled by orders to dig what he called gutters, 247 00:23:18,261 --> 00:23:22,900 where soldiers hid for weeks while fighting continued both day and night. 248 00:23:27,220 --> 00:23:29,840 It seemed a strange way of waging battle. 249 00:23:32,300 --> 00:23:38,060 For many African warriors, or those who inherited a warrior tradition or a warrior 250 00:23:38,061 --> 00:23:44,035 lineage, were baffled and had great difficulty in comprehending 251 00:23:44,036 --> 00:23:47,900 the way in which this war was being waged in Europe. 252 00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:55,240 The First World War seemed to be a war without meaning, a war without gain. 253 00:23:56,280 --> 00:24:01,200 It's one aspect that comes across really strongly for African soldiers in the 254 00:24:01,201 --> 00:24:03,980 Western Front, that there seems to be a war without benefit. 255 00:24:04,580 --> 00:24:10,300 And what they meant by that was that this was a war which was not only a war which 256 00:24:10,301 --> 00:24:14,180 was not conducted honorably, in terms of the treatment of your opponent, 257 00:24:15,180 --> 00:24:19,660 but it was a war that produced, for them individually, no gain. 258 00:24:23,410 --> 00:24:26,310 You couldn't hold your teeth because of all your trembling. 259 00:24:26,790 --> 00:24:30,110 Because during those days, everything was going boom. 260 00:24:32,130 --> 00:24:34,090 It was terrible and hard. 261 00:24:39,250 --> 00:24:42,130 In the white man's war, you never say I'm thirsty. 262 00:24:43,250 --> 00:24:45,010 You never say I'm hungry. 263 00:24:46,230 --> 00:24:51,150 You fight and fight and fight until your heart tells you you're afraid. 264 00:24:58,150 --> 00:25:01,670 Precise casualty figures for Africans are unknown. 265 00:25:04,380 --> 00:25:06,661 But it is thought that at least a quarter of 266 00:25:06,662 --> 00:25:09,971 a million men were killed, wounded or missing. 267 00:25:10,110 --> 00:25:14,810 Their sacrifice did not always get them the recognition they deserved from their 268 00:25:14,811 --> 00:25:18,570 imperial rulers or from the men in the opposing trenches. 269 00:25:19,790 --> 00:25:22,330 We were black and we were nothing. 270 00:25:27,340 --> 00:25:31,700 Because of the color of our skins, the Germans called us boots. 271 00:25:34,360 --> 00:25:39,020 This hurt every black man because they actually underestimated us. 272 00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:43,340 Disgraced and dishonored us. 273 00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:49,080 Not all imperial troops shared this experience. 274 00:25:49,081 --> 00:25:54,621 In the Middle East, Indian troops made an essential contribution to allied victories. 275 00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:59,780 But for Kamara, in the French army, what he experienced on the battlefield 276 00:25:59,781 --> 00:26:03,660 made him doubt what Western civilization had to offer. 277 00:26:30,740 --> 00:26:33,020 The guns out there are roaring fast. 278 00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:35,560 The bullets fly like rain. 279 00:26:37,060 --> 00:26:39,160 The aeroplanes are cavetting. 280 00:26:39,420 --> 00:26:41,040 They go and come again. 281 00:26:42,100 --> 00:26:43,960 The bombs talk loud. 282 00:26:44,180 --> 00:26:45,640 The mines crash out. 283 00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:47,820 No trench their might withstands. 284 00:26:50,260 --> 00:26:52,240 Who helped them all to do their job? 285 00:26:52,900 --> 00:26:55,120 The girls with yellow hands. 286 00:27:02,020 --> 00:27:06,000 As men marched off to war, women marched off to work. 287 00:27:06,700 --> 00:27:09,774 The result was a dramatic, if temporary, gender 288 00:27:09,775 --> 00:27:12,781 shift in the workforce of every fighting nation. 289 00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:32,620 Of all the trades women took over, none was more important than shell making. 290 00:27:35,890 --> 00:27:40,650 In Britain, one million women poured into munitions factories. 291 00:27:42,530 --> 00:27:47,590 28,000 of them worked here, on Warren Lane in South East London. 292 00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:55,240 The Woolwich Royal Arsenal was Britain's largest. 293 00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:02,440 But like all munitions factories, it was a hazardous workplace. 294 00:28:07,020 --> 00:28:11,880 The first time you go around, you think, what an interesting place. 295 00:28:17,060 --> 00:28:20,540 Then the evil smell becomes more noticeable. 296 00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:28,766 The particles of acid land on your face and make 297 00:28:28,767 --> 00:28:32,841 you nearly mad, feeling like pins and needles. 298 00:28:37,860 --> 00:28:40,543 Gabrielle West had shocked her father by 299 00:28:40,544 --> 00:28:43,660 joining the newly formed Women's Police Service. 300 00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:47,180 Her assignment was to keep order inside factories. 301 00:28:49,460 --> 00:28:53,740 The fumes often mean 16 or 18 casualties a night. 302 00:28:55,820 --> 00:28:59,900 You're blind and speechless by the time you escape. 303 00:29:05,290 --> 00:29:07,410 The conditions varied a lot. 304 00:29:07,890 --> 00:29:11,870 Some women had very, very bad conditions and women were killed. 305 00:29:11,871 --> 00:29:16,370 So there were the immediate dangers of industrial accident and injury, 306 00:29:16,610 --> 00:29:18,490 and lesser injury as well. 307 00:29:18,670 --> 00:29:23,572 I mean, women cut their fingers, got grit in their eyes, 308 00:29:23,573 --> 00:29:26,870 experienced noxious fumes from all sorts of processes. 309 00:29:27,250 --> 00:29:31,008 But the other really major danger for women, which 310 00:29:31,009 --> 00:29:34,890 was very much hushed up at the time, was from TNT. 311 00:29:35,310 --> 00:29:38,470 And several hundred women did die from TNT poisoning. 312 00:29:47,430 --> 00:29:51,920 The first signs of TNT poisoning resembled those of the 313 00:29:51,921 --> 00:29:55,750 common cold, nasal congestion, headaches and coughs. 314 00:29:56,210 --> 00:30:02,270 But prolonged exposure produced more alarming symptoms, as one young worker, 315 00:30:02,550 --> 00:30:04,390 Caroline Webb, would discover. 316 00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:13,940 It was all bright ginger, all our front hair. 317 00:30:16,380 --> 00:30:18,820 And all our faces were bright yellow. 318 00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:24,280 They used to call us canaries. 319 00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:34,487 This doctor, he was looking at us girls one day, 320 00:30:34,488 --> 00:30:37,920 and he'd say, half you girls will never have babies. 321 00:30:39,100 --> 00:30:41,180 And the other half are too sick. 322 00:30:42,580 --> 00:30:43,740 God help you. 323 00:30:48,490 --> 00:30:52,130 The Woolwich Arsenal employed virtually no women before the war. 324 00:30:52,790 --> 00:31:01,590 By December 1917, there were 24,719 of them, making up 73% of the workforce. 325 00:31:02,790 --> 00:31:05,386 Women knew that without their supply of shells 326 00:31:05,387 --> 00:31:08,571 and bullets, their men would lose the war. 327 00:31:09,650 --> 00:31:13,030 It was very important for them that they were actually supporting the war effort. 328 00:31:13,630 --> 00:31:17,210 Although lots of them didn't really think much about what the war was about, 329 00:31:17,530 --> 00:31:22,750 they knew that their friends' relations, husbands, sons, were abroad, they were 330 00:31:22,751 --> 00:31:26,084 dying, there was a shells shortage, and they felt they 331 00:31:26,085 --> 00:31:29,270 really could do something to support the war effort. 332 00:31:30,610 --> 00:31:32,917 Sometimes, when we come upon our little train, 333 00:31:32,918 --> 00:31:35,291 it will be all packed with different people. 334 00:31:36,970 --> 00:31:39,210 There'd be all the officers sitting there. 335 00:31:40,550 --> 00:31:43,350 Some of them used to look at us as if we were insects. 336 00:31:44,330 --> 00:31:48,050 And others used to matter, well, they're doing their bit. 337 00:31:51,090 --> 00:31:55,330 We said, well, we don't mind dying for our country. 338 00:32:09,660 --> 00:32:11,920 No end of Zep excitements lately. 339 00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:16,140 A few weeks ago, we heard distant guns in the middle of the night. 340 00:32:17,100 --> 00:32:24,441 We looked up, and there was the Zep, so low you could see the cars hanging underneath. 341 00:32:25,140 --> 00:32:27,120 My word, we did scoot! 342 00:32:28,380 --> 00:32:34,020 There was a tremendous din of firing, and things began to patter on the roof. 343 00:32:35,660 --> 00:32:38,440 I thought I was dead that time. 344 00:32:41,220 --> 00:32:44,977 The war on the battlefields of France had spread across 345 00:32:44,978 --> 00:32:47,920 the Channel, and was reaching out to civilians in Britain. 346 00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:56,660 Zeppelins first appeared over London in 1915. 347 00:32:57,900 --> 00:33:04,741 A favourite target, Gabrielle West recorded in her diary, was the arsenal at Woolwich. 348 00:33:05,300 --> 00:33:09,780 We were just going back to our hut, when we heard wild yells of cheering. 349 00:33:10,900 --> 00:33:13,200 Saw the whole sky turn red. 350 00:33:15,340 --> 00:33:18,920 Then we saw the Zepp, in flames to the north. 351 00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:24,960 All the workers in the arsenal roared and shrieked. 352 00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:28,550 All the boys sang Tipperary, and all the neighbours 353 00:33:28,551 --> 00:33:31,581 scattered about congratulating each other. 354 00:33:36,420 --> 00:33:40,133 Even as the first Zeppelins bombed London, the rules 355 00:33:40,134 --> 00:33:43,221 of engagement were changing on the battlefield. 356 00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:55,200 In April 1915, at Ypres, the German army used a new weapon. 357 00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:57,300 Poison gas. 358 00:33:59,340 --> 00:34:01,320 First came chlorine, the yellow gas. 359 00:34:01,500 --> 00:34:02,500 Then came the green gas. 360 00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:05,340 Then came mustard gas, the granddaddy of napalm. 361 00:34:05,460 --> 00:34:10,940 And each of these had appalling effects on men who were trapped in the trench system. 362 00:34:12,500 --> 00:34:15,700 It didn't break the defensive lines. 363 00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:20,580 It made the level of suffering much worse than it had been before. 364 00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:31,960 Wilfred Owen witnessed a man dying from gas poisoning. 365 00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:42,121 In one of his most famous poems, he captured another dimension of total war. 366 00:34:45,720 --> 00:34:46,320 Gas. 367 00:34:46,700 --> 00:34:47,020 Gas. 368 00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:48,440 Quick, boys. 369 00:34:48,580 --> 00:34:52,180 An ecstasy of fumbling, fitting the clumsy helmets just in time. 370 00:34:53,900 --> 00:34:56,466 But someone still was yelling out and stumbling 371 00:34:56,467 --> 00:34:59,280 and floundering like a man in fire or lime. 372 00:35:02,380 --> 00:35:05,204 Dim through the misty panes and thick green 373 00:35:05,205 --> 00:35:08,940 light as under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 374 00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:21,600 In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, 375 00:35:22,180 --> 00:35:25,120 choking, drowning. 376 00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:35,640 If in some smothering dreams you too could pace behind the wagon that we flung him 377 00:35:35,641 --> 00:35:41,057 in, and watch the white eyes writhing in his 378 00:35:41,058 --> 00:35:46,261 face, his hanging face like a devil's sick of sin. 379 00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:54,000 If you could hear at every jolt the blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted 380 00:35:54,001 --> 00:35:58,193 lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud 381 00:35:58,194 --> 00:36:02,721 of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues. 382 00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:08,572 My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to 383 00:36:08,573 --> 00:36:13,940 children ardent for some desperate glory, the old lie. 384 00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:20,620 Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. 385 00:36:30,130 --> 00:36:36,590 In 1915, the Germans declared that passenger ships, sailing to allied ports, 386 00:36:37,210 --> 00:36:39,470 were at risk of being sunk without warning. 387 00:36:42,590 --> 00:36:46,990 Civilian passengers too were now potential targets at sea. 388 00:36:50,500 --> 00:36:56,580 It was rapidly becoming evident that there was no way in which you could advance the 389 00:36:56,581 --> 00:37:02,740 war unless you broke with early ideas of rules of engagement. 390 00:37:04,220 --> 00:37:09,114 and conceptualize the war as a totalizing experience, accepted 391 00:37:09,115 --> 00:37:13,340 the fact that the war would now have to be a total war. 392 00:37:13,660 --> 00:37:17,734 And the way in which to break the enemy would not just 393 00:37:17,735 --> 00:37:20,440 be through slaughtering soldiers on the battlefield. 394 00:37:20,441 --> 00:37:24,780 The way in which you would break your enemy would be by attacking the home 395 00:37:24,781 --> 00:37:31,140 front, by waging the war against civilians as much as against soldiers. 396 00:37:34,180 --> 00:37:40,140 On May the 1st, 1915, the Lusitania, the world's finest luxury liner, 397 00:37:40,720 --> 00:37:42,520 set sail from New York for Britain. 398 00:37:43,220 --> 00:37:48,280 It was owned by citizens of a so far neutral country, the United States. 399 00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:53,600 On board were nearly 2,000 passengers and crew. 400 00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:11,974 On the evening of May the 6th, the ship's captain received 401 00:38:11,975 --> 00:38:14,980 warnings of German U-boats off the coast of Ireland. 402 00:38:27,140 --> 00:38:31,080 Among the first-class passengers was Margaret Rhonda. 403 00:38:35,500 --> 00:38:39,820 We were, most of us, very fully conscious of the risk we were running. 404 00:38:42,380 --> 00:38:43,980 We used to discuss our chances. 405 00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:49,321 I can't help hoping, said one girl, that we 406 00:38:49,322 --> 00:38:52,801 get some sort of thrill going up the channel. 407 00:38:59,130 --> 00:39:02,470 My father and I had just come out of the dining room after lunching. 408 00:39:03,370 --> 00:39:07,590 I think we may stay up on deck tonight to see if we get our thrill, he said. 409 00:39:09,010 --> 00:39:10,830 I had no time to answer. 410 00:39:17,050 --> 00:39:20,290 I saw that the water had come over onto the deck. 411 00:39:20,870 --> 00:39:24,450 We were not, as I had thought, 60 feet above the sea. 412 00:39:24,930 --> 00:39:26,930 We were already under the sea. 413 00:39:28,570 --> 00:39:32,810 The ship sank, and I was sucked right down with her. 414 00:39:41,730 --> 00:39:46,910 When I came to the surface, I remember looking round at the sun, and pale blue 415 00:39:46,911 --> 00:39:53,530 sky, and calm sea, and wondering whether I had reached heaven without knowing it. 416 00:39:55,010 --> 00:39:57,270 And devoutly hoped I hadn't. 417 00:40:01,430 --> 00:40:04,730 Twelve hundred men, women, and children were drowned. 418 00:40:20,720 --> 00:40:22,500 Everyone was now a target. 419 00:40:23,260 --> 00:40:25,862 On a scale never seen before, children were 420 00:40:25,863 --> 00:40:29,221 becoming exposed to the violence of total war. 421 00:40:32,330 --> 00:40:34,230 They fled from their homes. 422 00:40:35,930 --> 00:40:37,890 They feared being gassed. 423 00:40:39,210 --> 00:40:41,230 And they were bombed from the skies. 424 00:40:44,490 --> 00:40:48,810 But they were absorbed into the war in a more insidious way. 425 00:40:49,370 --> 00:40:51,270 As tools of propaganda. 426 00:40:55,380 --> 00:41:02,460 You can find a very young baby of less than one year old with a gun in the hands 427 00:41:02,461 --> 00:41:08,220 going out from an egg and asking if there are some Bosch's, some Germans somewhere, 428 00:41:08,500 --> 00:41:09,880 because they want to kill them. 429 00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:18,280 To consider that a baby less than one year old has to be a fighter and has to kill 430 00:41:18,281 --> 00:41:22,560 the enemy, that is, I think, impossible to stand. 431 00:41:22,561 --> 00:41:26,360 But that was the reality of the propaganda of these times. 432 00:41:30,180 --> 00:41:33,900 Children were taught to hate in specially adapted nursery rhymes. 433 00:41:36,060 --> 00:41:38,480 This is the house that Jack built. 434 00:41:41,300 --> 00:41:44,760 This is the bomb that fell on the house that Jack built. 435 00:41:48,350 --> 00:41:52,850 This is the Hun that dropped the bomb that fell on the house that Jack built. 436 00:41:55,930 --> 00:41:58,692 This is the gun that killed the Hun, that dropped 437 00:41:58,693 --> 00:42:01,850 the bomb, that fell on the house that Jack built. 438 00:42:08,770 --> 00:42:13,025 Through their magazine, Little Folks, British children as 439 00:42:13,026 --> 00:42:16,290 young as three would learn certain verses off by heart. 440 00:42:16,291 --> 00:42:24,973 Little girls and little boys Never suck your diamond toys 441 00:42:24,974 --> 00:42:33,230 Diamond sodders it will make Turning baby's tummy ache 442 00:42:37,420 --> 00:42:40,760 Mobilisation of men required mobilisation of minds. 443 00:42:41,220 --> 00:42:44,220 The emerging film industry added an epic dimension. 444 00:42:44,221 --> 00:42:47,900 Hollywood's The Little American became a box office hit. 445 00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:56,384 The propaganda against the German was extremely widespread, 446 00:42:56,385 --> 00:43:00,840 but nowhere was it more powerful than in the cinema. 447 00:43:01,340 --> 00:43:05,820 The Little American was really an attack on America's neutrality. 448 00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:07,220 Cecil B. 449 00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:13,660 DeMille put in the lead Mary Pickford, the most popular star of the era, 450 00:43:13,661 --> 00:43:17,920 the most popular figure of the cinema that has ever lived. 451 00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:19,520 And this has to be borne in mind. 452 00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:21,920 She was even more popular around the world than Chaplin. 453 00:43:22,460 --> 00:43:25,920 So the power of that propaganda cannot be underestimated. 454 00:43:26,180 --> 00:43:28,696 And he went into production a few days after 455 00:43:28,697 --> 00:43:31,060 the United States obligingly went into the war. 456 00:43:31,061 --> 00:43:35,082 So he had an ideal vehicle of Hun hatred into 457 00:43:35,083 --> 00:43:39,221 which he piled everything he could think of. 458 00:43:50,680 --> 00:43:53,660 Total war demonised the enemy. 459 00:43:54,300 --> 00:43:56,800 It demanded all the resources of a nation. 460 00:43:57,260 --> 00:44:00,640 It transformed civilians into military targets. 461 00:44:00,641 --> 00:44:06,760 But in 1915, total war went a step further. 462 00:44:19,740 --> 00:44:25,420 Only hours after the first Allied soldiers had stepped onto the beaches of Gallipoli, 463 00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:29,500 the 20th century's first genocide began. 464 00:44:32,420 --> 00:44:37,480 The presence of a thriving and wealthy community of Christian Armenians in 465 00:44:37,481 --> 00:44:42,120 northeast Turkey was seen by Turks as a festering irritation. 466 00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:48,280 Armenia's cultural links with Russia, a wartime enemy, 467 00:44:48,281 --> 00:44:51,400 provided Turkey with the excuse it had been looking for. 468 00:44:51,900 --> 00:44:54,240 Their leaders were rounded up and executed. 469 00:44:54,700 --> 00:44:58,400 Then entire communities were marched off into the desert to die. 470 00:45:14,110 --> 00:45:18,790 A young medic in the German army, Armin Wegner, defied 471 00:45:18,791 --> 00:45:22,670 orders and smuggled the camera into a refugee camp. 472 00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:37,860 In the last few days, I've taken numerous photographs under penalty of death. 473 00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:43,420 I do not doubt for a moment that I am committing an act of treason. 474 00:45:49,010 --> 00:45:55,830 Hunger, death, disease, despair, shout at me from all sides. 475 00:45:57,750 --> 00:46:03,430 I was seized by terror and hurried out of the camp, my heart pounding. 476 00:46:05,230 --> 00:46:08,574 I was overcome by dizziness, as if the earth were 477 00:46:08,575 --> 00:46:13,270 collapsing on both sides of me into an abyss. 478 00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,620 The First World War was the biggest war ever to date. 479 00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:28,440 The Second World War was bigger still. 480 00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:31,840 It's no accident in my mind that both of them were marked by genocide. 481 00:46:32,300 --> 00:46:35,680 That is the logic of the brutalization of total war. 482 00:46:56,090 --> 00:46:59,895 In years to come, Armin Wegner would send a letter 483 00:46:59,896 --> 00:47:03,371 to Adolf Hitler, pleading for the Jewish people. 484 00:47:11,860 --> 00:47:14,396 It was a plea which fell on deaf ears, for 485 00:47:14,397 --> 00:47:18,101 Hitler had learned a totally different lesson. 486 00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:28,260 He told his inner circle, who remembers the Armenian massacres today? 487 00:47:45,450 --> 00:47:50,030 The BBC's 90 Years of Remembrance website gives you the opportunity to share your 488 00:47:50,031 --> 00:47:53,570 family members' personal stories on the BBC Remembrance Wall. 489 00:47:53,571 --> 00:47:59,510 And 1914 to 1918 continues here on BBC4 on Thursday at 20 to 8.