All language subtitles for WWI The Final Hours BBC 720p HDTV x264 EN Sub_Subtitles01.ENG

On the 8th of November,
1918 three men met in a railway

carriage in the woods
in northern France.

They were there to negotiate the end
of the First World War.

This is a dark day with tension,
as this is the greatest war

the world has seen, thus far.

Their meeting lasted three days.

At stake were hundreds
of thousands of lives.

Leading historians from each country
have taken us inside the minds

of those involved.

Foch keeps saying to the British,
"My country was devastated.

"Yours wasn't."

Too much bonhomie is not
going to get you very far in this.

People of 70 million can suffer,
but we will not die.

You will not get rid of us.

The results of the meeting would
echo down through the 20th century,

often with terrible consequences.

Now, exactly 100 years later,
this is the story of that meeting.

This is the story of
the Armistice of 1918.

In 1918, German military
headquarters were in Spa,

in occupied Belgium.

It was from here, at 12 noon
on November the 7th,

that the Germans set off for
the negotiations

to end the First World War.

Leading the delegation
was a mild-mannered former

schoolteacher turned politician,
Matthias Erzberger.

Matthias Erzberger is
courageous and selfless.

He is a man of conviction,
and not a game player.

He looks like a kindly man.

I think of him as a good German.

To get to the negotiating table,
Erzberger had to take

a 200 mile road trip
and cross enemy lines.

On the way, his car crashed
and he had to change vehicles.

It felt like a bad omen.

At La Capelle he reached the
front line...

..where he had to hand himself
over to the French.

Here, before the negotiations
had even begun, the French

made their first psychological move.

They took him on a detour, a guided
tour of the horrors

of the Western Front.

The war had been raging
for four years...

..with soldiers dying at the rate
of a thousand a day.

who were in Berlin for the war,

had never seen what the
Front looked like.

The destruction that he witnesses
is really extremely harrowing.

He writes it was worse
than being on his son's deathbed,

his young son's deathbed,
who died of the Spanish flu

just some three weeks before.

Seeing first-hand the devastation
that German troops had actually

caused in Belgium and France,
I think, for him,

would have been very shocking.

At 3am, Erzberger boarded a train
with blacked out windows.

Four hours later,
he pulled into an empty railroad

siding deep in the forest
of Compiegne.

Waiting for him were two men
who could not have been more

different from the German.

Britain had sent Rosslyn Wemyss...

..who joined the military at just
13, and grew up to be the commander

of the most powerful
Navy in the world.

Rosslyn Wemyss is the right man
in the right place in 1918.

Wemyss was knighted for his
actions in Gallipoli.

He was well connected
and politically astute.

He has a capacity, it seems to me,
to bring out the best in other

people, as well as in himself.

For over 100 years,
Britain had ruled the waves,

and Wemyss's main interest
was keeping it that way.

For Britain, one of the key concerns
is the need for a lead

after the war over Germany

to ensure the security of the
Empire, which would underpin,

as he would see it,
Britain's prosperity.

France sent Marshal Ferdinand Foch,
in charge of the Allied armies.

A short man with
a fondness for cheap cigars,

his only son was killed
by the Germans in 1914.

But he only grieved for half
an hour

before getting back to work.

General Foch is a professional.

Cold.

Proud. It's all about fighting
for the Fatherland.

Allons-y. Let's go.

Let's attack.

Foch keeps saying to the British,
"I have a bleeding country.

"My country was devastated.
Yours wasn't.

"My country is bleeding.

"I know because I am bleeding,
because I am wounded."

So, Foch wanted one thing
more than anything else...

..to make sure that Germany was
never able to invade France again.

Of the three of them,
Erzberger was, by far,

in the most desperate position.

For years, the Western Front
had been locked in stalemate.

Millions had died.

But the front line had only moved
a few miles in either direction.

Then, in early 1918, German
stormtroopers smashed

through Allied lines.

But they went too far, too fast,
and supply lines couldn't keep up.

With the help of American
troops, the Allies launched

a decisive counter attack.

Soon German troops were deserting
in droves and there was unrest

in the streets of Berlin.

And in just two hours, the Armistice
negotiations would begin.

Erzberger arrives at
the Armistice negotiations,

not exactly in the best physical
and psychological frame of mind

to undertake these
momentous negotiations.

Foch shows up, looking
like a statue of himself.

Perfectly shaved, his
moustache perfectly groomed.

Foch appears in Erzberger's
account as very aloof,

very cool. And Erzberger is
unimpressed with Foch's manners.

Also, not terribly
won over by Wemyss.

He was, essentially,
like a fish out of water, I guess,

being a civilian in this
military environment.

These are the enemy.

You do need to be pretty
firm, pretty strong.

And too much bonhomie is not going
to get you very far in this.

Each group facing the other
across a table, divided crucially

by the table, not united by
the table.

This is not a dinner party
where people are leaning across.

They are looking at each other
pretty stony-faced,

with a sense of tension, as this is
the greatest war that the world

has seen, thus far.

Erzberger expects there
to be a handshake.

There is no handshake.

There are no friendly formalities.

The very fact that Foch
doesn't want to shake hands

with the Germans indicates that,
in his eyes, the horror of the war

goes far beyond the normal rules
or conventions of chivalry.

And he wants to show the Germans
that this war

has gone far too far.

That something was broken
in civilisation, or in humankind.

Erzberger's first move
was a humanitarian one.

He requested a ceasefire
whilst negotiations took place.

Foch refused.

Erzberger's next move was to point
to a peace proposal,

laid out by the American President,
Woodrow Wilson.

The proposal set out a
new world order

and was known as the Fourteen
Points.

Its aim was to place
all countries on an equal footing,

and spread the American values
of democracy and peace.

Wilson's Fourteen Points were his
dream.

He was a constitutional historian,

the only American
president with a PhD.

He was a learned man.
He understood these issues.

Arrogance, perhaps.

Vision, certainly.

Humility, not really.

Erzberger assumes that this will be
a matter of negotiation to agree

an Armistice along the lines
of Wilson's suggestions.

He has lots of ideas of how he

thinks he might use the Fourteen
Points

as a vehicle for trying to arrange a
favourable peace for Germany.

The proposals by Wilson are
very nice and very interesting,

but they miss the point.

The point is ending the war
and breaking the German might.

Quickly, Foch and Wemyss disabuse
them of the notion

that the Fourteen Points will be the
basis of the Armistice talks.

Erzberger's memoirs give a sense
of the confusion, I think,

and surprise also that he clearly
felt, given the position he now

finds himself in.

Foch and Wemyss put
forward their own terms.

First, they wanted the
German weapons.

Those are very high numbers.

They are there to crush the Germans,

to make the German Army
unable to fight.

Then they wanted their Navy.

Wemyss is making sure that the ships
are delivered to the British

so they cannot be used again.

That's end of story.

Erzberger would have been aware
that this will be considered

an absolute outrage
by everyone in Germany.

And they certainly did not
want to hand their beautiful fleet

The German Navy will be reduced
to a point of ineffectiveness.

And the Allies wanted land.

The long disputed areas
of Alsace and Lorraine,

5,000 square miles of fertile
territory that both France

and Germany believed was theirs.

They also demanded to occupy
a piece of Germany, the Rhineland.

The first reason is
technical and military.

It's a bridgehead
to the German territory.

That's the first thing.

The second reason is psychological.

For four years, the Germans
have been occupying France.

Foch, by sending his
troops over to Germany,

wants to show the Germans
that, from then on,

they are occupied themselves.

And they wanted money.

Germany must pay reparations
for all the damage done in the war.

The notion that the defeated power
should pay for defeat has been well

established in European
practice before 1918.

The point is there that if you
lose a war, you pay.

I think what Erzberger worries
about more than anything else

is that if Germany does not agree
to the Armistice conditions,

it would be occupied. It would be
divided by the Allies,

it would be completely destroyed.

I think it dawns on him then that
this really is

the end of the road.

Erzberger focused on the thing that
mattered most to the German people -

the naval blockade of their country.

In place since 1914, a blockade of
its ports

was preventing food and supplies
from reaching the German people.

Erzberger pleads with them.
He says,

"Look, Germans are starving."

But there is no pity
in that railway carriage

for starving Germans at that point.

Wemyss doesn't give indication
that he is concerned

about the German
civilian population.

In continuing the blockade, Foch and
Wemyss's aim was strategic.

The Allies wanted a way to maintain
the upper hand over Germany,

even if it meant hundreds
of thousands of civilians

would starve to death.

The blockade is hostile,
there is no doubt about that.

And it's designed to be hostile.

What Foch and Wemyss are trying
to do is to continue to exert

pressure in order to make sure
that they get the right outcome

at the peace settlement.

For Wemyss, the moment to get
Germany is at the Armistice.

This is the moment.

The continuation of the blockade was
a major blow for Erzberger.

Foch sees some German delegate
crying, but what is the weight

of some tears of a German
politician in front of him,

compared to the 1.5 million
dead people in France?

What does it weigh compared
to the 15% of the French territory

that was devastated by the
German army? Nothing.

When all the conditions
had been read out,

Erzberger was asked if he would
agree to the Armistice terms

on behalf of Germany.

For Erzberger, this is a really
difficult position to be in because,

of course, he is also
a patriotic German.

He does not want to put his name
to something that is going

to be so hateful to many,
many Germans.

Because this really spells
defeat for Germany.

Erzberger had been presented
with tougher terms than he could

possibly have imagined.

Then Foch and Wemyss told him
he had just 72 hours to decide.

Erzberger had to give them
an answer by the 11th hour

of the 11th day, of the 11th month.

But he didn't have the authority
to just sign away

the future of his country.

The terms were too long
to encrypt and radio back.

So a document had to be sent
all the way to German High

Command, at Spa,

a journey of over 200 miles back
across the Western Front.

Erzberger tries to negotiate
on this with Foch and says,

"Look, we're going to struggle
to make his deadline."

And Foch is nonplussed, really,
and says, "That's your problem."

Foch is inflexible about
the deadline

because it's part of the game.

It's part of showing the enemy
that he sets the rules.

It's an agonising wait,
during which time Erzberger

has a lot of time to reflect on how
he had got to that point.

The clever son of a tailor,
Erzberger was a self-made man.

The journey that he had, to being
the Imperial German representative

at these Armistice negotiations,
is actually quite staggering.

He really, in a sense, pulled
himself by his boot strings.

Erzberger knew that back
in Germany there were many people

who weren't going to take
these terms well.

People like the strategic
mastermind of the German army,

General Erich Ludendorff.

I see in Ludendorff a man
who is convinced that the normal

state is war,

that peace is abnormal -

it is only time between two wars -

a social Darwinist who believes
in the benefit

of wars over humanity.

Ludendorff detested
politicians like Erzberger,

yet was, in part, responsible for
sending him to Compiegne.

When Ludendorff realised
that Germany was losing the war,

he didn't want the military
to have to carry the can.

Ludendorff was seeking
for a scapegoat, for putting

the blame of a defeat on
shoulders that, so far,

had no say in this war.

Now the people who had,
as he phrased it,

"boiled the soup,"
they should eat it.

He was clearly using
these people to say,

"They who brought us into the mess
should now

"actually get us out of it."

That's why Erzberger
had been sent to negotiate.

The messenger had been delayed
by the chaos of the Western Front,

where the German army
was being pushed back,

but was putting up a fight.

He spent hours struggling to find
a route through no man's land

to German territory.

GUNFIRE

Erzberger is just desperate
for news, desperate

for an authorisation or some sort
of guidance as to what he should do.

He needed that answer back.

By this point, Erzberger will have
been just exhausted.

Not knowing how these negotiations
will eventually pan out,

I think he must have
been, basically,

just at the end of his tether.

Wemyss has every reason
to be nervous

about whether these terms
will stick.

There is a real possibility
that the Germans

might actually not sign
the Armistice.

If the terms are too Draconian,
then why shouldn't they dig in,

to get ready to continue the
conflict into 1919?

So Wemyss has good
reason to be concerned.

Awaiting news in London was the man
who sent Wemyss to Compiegne,

British Prime Minister
David Lloyd George.

Lloyd George is a bit
of a chancer, a gambler,

I'd say. And he was ruthless.

He grew up without much money.
He didn't go to university.

He was this figure who had come
from the ranks, and I think

he was someone who felt
that he was a man of destiny,

you know, his hour had come.

Lloyd George saw the Armistice
as a chance to crown

his political career,

to win the war for Britain
and keep him at No 10.

He was a politician
to his fingertips.

He gets elected to the
House of Commons at 27,

and he's there for 55 years.

I think he was a humane,
compassionate man.

And he felt that we needed to stop
the war, because people were dying

and it seemed like
a futile exercise.

David Lloyd George is very much seen
as the man who can get the war

to a successful conclusion.

A conclusion that was up
to Wemyss to deliver.

Extraordinarily, just as the
messenger was stuck

on the Western Front,
events in Germany were unfolding

at an incredible pace.

That day, riots turned
to revolution.

Armed protesters took
to the streets of Berlin.

Furious at lives lost
in a futile war,

they were threatening to shoot
up the city unless heads rolled.

Ludendorff was a frightened man.

He immediately left Berlin,
went into hiding.

A huge mob descended
on the Reichstag

and demanded that politicians got
rid of the Kaiser

and brought the war to an end.

Parliament contacted German
High Command at Spa.

Either the Kaiser abdicated
within minutes, or Berlin would fall

to the revolution.

Commander of the Army,
General Paul von Hindenburg,

with tears in his eyes,
met with Kaiser Wilhelm.

At 3pm, the Kaiser abdicated.

Germany was now a republic.

So, remarkably, when the messenger
finally arrived with the Armistice

terms, it was no longer
clear who was in charge.

10th of November. In just 24 hours,
the deadline

given to Erzberger would pass.

For Wemyss, the worry in Compiegne
when the news of the revolution

comes through is that there
will be no government,

and with no government, Germany will
not be able to agree terms.

It won't have a recognised authority
and legal authority do that.

With no response from Germany,
Wemyss's fears

seemed to be confirmed.

At 6:30pm, Foch sent
a message to Erzberger,

reminding him that
time was almost up.

The very fact that the Kaiser
is abdicating, as far as Foch

is concerned, means the German army
is not able to resist strong attack

from the Allies.

Foch saw opportunity.

He had hundreds of thousands of men
and 600 tanks awaiting the order

to attack the German line.

For him, it will be a cup of tea.

Foch knows that, first, the German
Army is at the end

of its capacities, and second, that
there is a revolution in Germany.

So Foch is convinced that the
Germans will yield,

and will accept each and
every condition.

Wemyss, too, was thinking
strategically.

So far the war had not presented him
with a decisive naval victory

like Nelson's at Trafalgar.

Wemyss feels frustrated that there
has been no Battle of Trafalgar.

And says, you know,
"We will deliver Trafalgar.

"We will deliver the outcome
at the Armistice."

Lloyd George also wanted to use
the Armistice

to reassert Britain's role at sea

and help secure its empire.

The British strategy was
Britannia rules the waves.

So it made sense to essentially
de-fang Germany, to remove

all the naval infrastructure
they'd built up, to prevent them

from starting a war, starting that
kind of arms race again.

At 9pm, a message
arrived for Erzberger.

It was from German High Command.

General Hindenburg told Erzberger
to try and get concessions

from the Allies. But if he
couldn't, sign anyway.

For Erzberger, the highest military
leader in the land

does not feel we can
continue fighting.

So he's not being told,
"Do what you can,

"but otherwise we'll carry on."

There's a clear message - "Try
and get the best outcome you can."

This Armistice gives clear
conditions which are difficult

to swallow, and Erzberger
was under no illusions,

even at the time, that this "walk of
the cross," as he called it

in his memoirs, would be his
cross to bear.

11th of November, 1918.

The war continued with
unremitting savagery.

2,738 soldiers lost their lives
on this last day

of the First World War.

Shortly after two in the morning,

with just hours left before the
deadline, negotiations finally

began in earnest.

Erzberger only had a few short hours
left to fight his corner...

..with the fate of his
nation on his shoulders.

By this point, Erzberger
has been essentially on the road

for four days. So he will have had
a little bit of sleep,

on and off. Certainly not in a
position to argue as forcefully,

and well as he might have,
under better circumstances.

As far as Erzberger is concerned,
it's very much a case

of damage limitation.

Erzberger picked his
fights carefully.

He had three priorities.

Foch had demanded the German army
hand over 30,000 machine guns.

But Hindenburg told Erzberger
the Army needed weapons to quell

the revolution that was
still threatening to tear

the country apart.

Erzberger tries very hard
in these negotiations,

these very uneven negotiations,
to make little tweaks,

at least, to the conditions
of the Armistice.

Foch was now so sure of victory,
he agreed to reduce the number

of machine guns by 5,000.

Foch also agreed to Erzberger's
request to decrease the Allied

occupation east of the Rhine
by 30km.

Erzberger had at least
secured some concessions.

He's proud of that.

His memoirs reflect this,
the fact that he, you know,

"I managed at least to get them
to reduce the zone of occupation

"by a few kilometres.

"Or to reduce the amount of military
hardware we have to hand over."

He lists all this. These were
my achievements.

Next, Erzberger turned
to the naval demands.

Wemyss had insisted that the German
Navy hand over 160

of its prized submarines.

Erzberger knows that this was
perhaps the most unpalatable

for the military and naval
elites in Germany,

because the Navy, at that point,
had not been defeated in war

and it was just a
complete surrender

that essentially hands Britain
the German Navy on a plate.

Right up until the end, there is a
fear that the German Navy

will come out and be a real
threat to Britain through

the submarine campaign.

And certainly, in Wemyss's mind,
as he reported,

there is no scope for negotiation.
It is take it or leave it.

Wemyss had asked for 160 submarines
because he hoped that would account

for most if not all of them.

He was told Germany
didn't have that many.

So he said he would take
whatever they had.

At the stroke of a pen,
Wemyss secured the entire

U-boat fleet and his
decisive naval victory.

Wemyss has a sense of... A sort of,

I suppose, both impishness
and celebration,

when he realises that by getting his
figures wrong,

he's actually got the right result.

You know, there's no attempt
to pretend he had greater knowledge

than he did. No attempt to say that
this was the result

of superior wisdom.

But it is a reflection, of course,
of his determination

to make sure that this is
the outcome.

Then Erzberger made his
most important request.

He pleaded with them to lift
the naval blockade

that was killing innocent
German civilians.

But Foch and Wemyss refused.

At 5:15am, the terms of
the Armistice were finally agreed.

Not wanting to delay the end
of the war a moment longer,

incredibly, only the last page
of the agreement was typed out

for the men to sign.

You might think that Wemyss,
having had no sleep,

would have felt exhausted,
emotionally drained,

ready to go to bed.
It's not what he says.

What he says is, "This is
wonderful."

This, you know, "We've got there."
This is a moment of success,

a moment of real achievement.

For Foch, after four
years of total war,

of a horrible war, what he feels is
victory. This is victory.

Erzberger signed
on behalf of Germany.

I think Erzberger is in no doubt
that signing the Armistice

will expose him to a tirade
of hatred from those who felt

that Germans should have
continued to fight.

As he signs that document,
I'm sure he must have realised

how fateful that action was,
for Germany,

and for himself, personally.

Erzberger says to Foch, "People
of 70 million can suffer,

"but we will not die. You will not
get rid of us."

So a final act of defiance, perhaps.

To which Foch simply
replies, "Tres bien."

Very well.

Foch and Wemyss posed for this
photograph on the steps

of the carriage.

Erzberger wasn't asked to be in it.

The train left Compiegne
and headed for Paris.

Aboard, a complete copy of the
Armistice was finally typed out,

starting with the time
hostilities would cease.

Every unit along the Western Front
was ordered to stop shooting

at the 11th hour, of the 11th day,
of the 11th month, of 1918.

CHEERING

War was replaced by peace...

..despair, by hope.

News of the Armistice travelled
quickly around the globe.

The people of Paris, who
just a few months earlier

were almost in reach of the German
guns, breathed

a collective sigh of relief.

French Prime Minister
Clemenceau had been supportive of

his army, urging them to fight on,
even during the darkest moments

of the war.

Now, at the outbreak of peace,
crowds rushed to embrace him.

Clemenceau was really happy.
For the first time in his life,

he was almost speechless,
and it was a feeling

of victory for France. And there's a
success of his policy.

In London, thousands
poured onto the streets

in a spontaneous celebration.

The Royal family waved
from the balcony.

Then the tidal wave of joy
moved to Downing Street,

where David Lloyd George
was waiting.

For Lloyd George, it was a moment
of great exaltation.

It was probably the finest
moment in his career.

The appalling slaughter
had come to an end.

And it was a great
moment for the country.

We'd defeated the German Empire
and the British Empire stood,

really, at the head of the world.

In America, it was party time.

An impromptu ticker tape parade
attracted thousands in New York.

Wilson's reaction was
one of exhilaration.

He'd made the United States
into a carrier of the message

that the world order
could be changed.

This may not have been the Armistice
that Wilson proposed,

but it was peace nonetheless.

The Allies weren't the only
ones celebrating.

Even for the Germans, the end of
such a bloody conflict

was initially met with relief.

Around the time the guns fell
silent, Erzberger arrived

at Spa to report back
to German High Command.

Erzberger is congratulated
by Hindenburg for having done such

a good job. And others in the
delegation also point out

that he fought like a lion, says one
of the men who was there,

to try and get the best deal
possible for Germany.

So there is a sense that his
efforts are appreciated.

Erzberger's memoirs make the
point, they knew

it was the only thing
they could have done.

For those actually in the trenches,
the end of the war

brought a complex mix of emotions.

The silence was... I can only
describe it as terrible.

Everything dropped away from me.

I thought, "Now, what do I do now?
There's no objective.

"There's nothing in front of us.
I've just got to wait."

You were scared stiff.

In the trench, you were all right.

If you kept down, snipers
couldn't get you.

Those that didn't come back,

that's the people that
should be honoured.

Those that didn't.

They gave their life,
and that is it.

As the world began to dust itself
off after four years of war,

the main architects of
the Armistice,

Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and
Wilson, travelled to Paris to turn

its sketched out clauses into the
terms for a permanent peace...

..later known as the
Treaty of Versailles.

The terms Erzberger had agreed
to at Compiegne had been quickly set

in motion, and the consequences
were already starting to unfold.

Britain's Admiral Wemyss
had demanded that the Germans make

the largest surrender
in naval history.

After the Armistice,
the entire German Fleet had sailed

across the North Sea to Britain,
to hand itself over

to the Royal Navy.

Wemyss did regard what he'd achieved
as a naval victory,

and was anxious
to present it as that.

The German Navy is handed over,
to all intents and purposes,

lock, stock and barrel, to Britain.

For some of Germany's sailors,
the humiliation was unbearable.

So they decided to sink
their own ships.

The entire German Navy was lost just
off the north coast of Scotland.

The sinking of the German Navy,
from all accounts we have,

was an extremely traumatic event.

The naval officers were absolutely
devastated at this happening.

And they blamed Erzberger personally
for signing the Armistice,

for handing over the Navy
to Britain.

Europe, after the war, was broke.

In France, Clemenceau started to
take stock

of what was left of his nation.

France was the country which most
suffered from the devastations

and destructions of houses,
of fields, of factories.

So the question of reparation
was a crucial question

for all French people.

And the main motto in France
would be, "Germans will pay."

In Britain, too, tens of thousands
of wounded soldiers and war widows

desperately needed
financial support.

The country's in a big
amount of debt.

It's borrowed huge amounts
of money to finance the war.

Lloyd George says, "Let the
Germans pay for all the damage

"and destruction they brought."

Lloyd George says, "They will pay to
the utmost farthing.

"The Germans will pay to the
utmost farthing."

He's swept up by his own rhetoric.

However, if Britain and France
had troubles,

it was nothing compared to Germany.

The reparations they had to pay,
combined with the naval blockade,

led to a humanitarian disaster.

At least 300,000 men, women
and children died

as a result of malnutrition.

For Erzberger, the fact
that he hadn't been able

to take out the continuation of the
blockade would have worried him,

because hundreds of thousands
of German women and children

continued to starve.

The backlash against
the Armistice steadily grew.

And the war lord,
General Erich Ludendorff,

started to rewrite history.

He now claimed that the German army
was not defeated in the war.

And that Erzberger betrayed
the trust of his country

when he signed the Armistice.

The accusation that Erzberger
had stabbed Germany in the back

obviously was upsetting for him,
because he had acted in the best way

he thought he could to
save Germany.

Erzberger becomes one of the most
hated men of the new Republic.

There are countless articles
written against him,

books published against him.

He is absolutely vilified,
and aware of it.

Knowing that Germany had borne
the brunt of the Armistice terms,

Wilson tried to ensure,
at Versailles,

that some concessions were made,
such is the French occupation

of the Rhineland being
declared temporary.

But the Allies did impose a final,
additional clause.

Article 231, the notorious
War Guilt Clause.

Germany had to accept
sole responsibility

for the outbreak of war.

And that was something
that, basically, nobody in Germany

was willing to accept.
Erzberger included.

The reparations on their own
will have been a pill

that could have been swallowed, but
combining it with this

allocation of blame and of guilt
caused an uproar in Germany.

Despite the uproar, threatened with
the resumption of hostilities,

the Germans had little option
but to sign.

There were fierce critics
on the Allied side too.

Foch saw the Versailles Treaty
not as a peace treaty,

which would settle things for ever.

And I quote here, "Merely
an Armistice for 20 years."

For Foch, it was the
worst solution ever.

In his eyes, it is obvious
that Germany is still existing,

and the conditions of the peace
treaty being far too harsh.

The Germans of course
will want to take revenge.

Of course.

Revenge too was a concern
for Erzberger.

Erzberger knew that his
life was endangered.

There had been several
attempts on his life.

A hand grenade thrown
into his office in the Reichstag,

and he was shot outside
the courtroom and injured.

His friends are worried for him.

He is advised to learn to shoot
a gun, to defend himself,

which he refuses to do.

GUNSHOT

When Erzberger is assassinated,
he is still a young man

with a young daughter of
seven years old.

Erzberger's assassins were former
German naval officers

who were still bitter about being
forced to hand over their ships

by the Armistice.

It seems very tragic,
Erzberger's fate.

Because he does seem to be somebody
who puts his convictions

before his own personal advantage.

Erzberger's very much a person
who did the right thing.

And he did it really selflessly.

Meanwhile, General Erich Ludendorff
returned to public life,

throwing his weight behind a new
political movement.

In the 1920s and '30s,
the resentment created

by the harsh conditions imposed on
Germany proved fertile ground

for the far right.

HITLER SHOUTS IN GERMAN

CROWD: Heil! Heil!

Hitler, a Lance Corporal
during the First World War,

claimed to have wept when he heard
the Armistice had been signed.

Once in power, he systematically
dismantled the peace settlement.

In France, the train on which the
Armistice was signed

had been treasured as
a monument to German defeat.

They added a statue of Foch
and a memorial

featuring a slain German Eagle.

In June 1940, as Europe descended
into the Second World War,

Hitler took a very public revenge.

The Fuhrer, with his generals,
passes along in front of the guard

of honour, and salutes.

He demanded that the French
surrender to him here,

in the very carriage where
Erzberger, Foch and Wemyss

met in 1918.

With their leader, General
Huntziger,

the French delegation arrives.

After reading out the preamble
and the German conditions,

the Fuhrer leaves Compiegne.

that the end of the First World
War, the suffering and humiliation

the Germans felt, was a cause
of the next world war.

Those who had fought in the trenches
had a clear message.

I don't think ever there
should be any wars.

I don't believe in them.

Although I was a soldier,
I don't believe in them.

Not after what I've seen, anyway.

The age between 17, and 23 or 24,

and you had to be fighting in a war.

There's no doubt about it,
that the cream, the cream age

were killed. It was unnecessary.

What for?

It's painful.

I've got three mates
buried somewhere.

I don't know where.

It's too many.