All language subtitles for Life After WWI in Colour Ch4 PDTV EN SUB_Subtitles01.ENG

Fire!

For four years, from 1914 to 1918,

Europe seemed hellbent on
self-destruction.

In 1914, the Germans attacked.

War spread...

..like the Grim Reaper wielding his
scythe...

..all over the planet...

..but mostly in Russia, Belgium,

Italy, France, the Near East

and the Balkans.

The First World War was a massacre
of humanity.

A monstrous crime.

Ten million people died.

In France alone, more than a quarter
of all men in their twenties

were killed.

In 1915, an anonymous soldier

dares to film a burial brigade
at work.

In 1916,

a survivor of the Battle of Verdun
writes,

"Emotion itself has died."

Widows, orphans, desperate mothers

number in the millions.

But, on November 11th, 1918,

Madam Diaz in Bourges, France,

learns of the ceasefire.

The Armistice has just been signed.

Corporal Pierre Sellier,
sounding his bugle,

is the first to signal
an end to the fighting.

For 1,562 days,

they have waited for this moment.

They dig a makeshift grave
for the last

of the war's artillery shells.

A billion shells have been fired.

The First World War cost

the equivalent of $6 trillion
in all.

On the 11th of November, 1918,

these men and women dream of another

kind of world.

Fair and just.

Where their children will be happy.

One of the greatest minds of the
20th-century,

Austrian writer Stefan Zweig,
writes,

"The war was over.

"But it wasn't over.

"We just didn't know it."

The soldiers of the British Empire,

the United States,

France and its colonies,

Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Serbia,

Romania, Russia

and so many other countries have
defeated the German Empire,

the Austro-Hungarian Empire
and the Ottoman Empire,

precursor of Turkey.

The war is over.

The crowds roar as their leaders
proclaim that the side

of good has won.

Novelist Albert Simonin is witness

to the jubilation in the streets.

He writes,

"In the crowd, factory girls
and fashionable ladies alike

"were caught up in the hugging

"with hands everywhere, on backsides
and bodices, kissing on the lips."

Everyone believes it's the end of
what they call

The War To End All Wars.

Private Louis Barthas writes,

"I was free.

"I had finally escaped the clutches
of militarism

"for which I developed a hatred that
I will instil

"in my children, my friends,
my family.

"I will tell them that Fatherland,
glory, military honour

"are but so many words intended to
conceal the fact that war

"is unspeakably horrible,

"ugly and cruel."

Which of the great empires will
survive?

The war that killed so many people
has also fanned

yearnings for independence.

The British Empire has been rocked
since 1916 by attacks in Ireland,

still part of the United Kingdom.

Irish rebels are forced to parade
through the streets attached

to the British flag.

The defeated empires implode.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire
and its many peoples seethe

with the fever of independence.

Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Slovenes...

..all want their own state

and are counting on
American support.

The President of the United States,

Woodrow Wilson, has won the war

and now wants to win the peace.

He promises national independence,

proclaiming the right of peoples
to self-determination.

Wilson wants to give everyone the
right to choose their nation,

their borders, their government.

Empires collapse.

People revolt.

Kings flee.

Charles I, the Last Emperor
of Austria-Hungary,

and his beautiful princess, Zita,

give up their palaces for a much
less glorious exile.

In Turkey, Sultan Mehmed VI

submits to the dismemberment

of the Ottoman Empire

and, from its ruins,

the Arab world emerges.

Those who resisted return home
as heroes.

In Belgium, the Soldier King,
Albert I,

with Elisabeth, German-born
but whose warwork

earned her the title of
the Nurse Queen,

are acclaimed by their subjects.

King Albert introduces
universal suffrage to men.

On this 11th day of November, 1918,

the Belgians erupt with joy

after four years of occupation.

They pay tribute to
their liberators,

the Canadians, the principal victors

of the Hundred Days Offensive,

the last battle of the war which
added two million wounded

and dead to the massacre.

The war seems to come to a sudden
standstill.

In Flanders, Scots discover a German
train with thousands

of stick hand grenades.

In the north of France,

the Germans have withdrawn,

leaving an apocalyptic scene behind.

They have methodically destroyed the
factories and their machinery.

Life is reborn after the Armistice.

The numbers from that day

are memorable.

November 11th at 11am,

the 11th hour of the 11th day

of the 11th month.

But what is an armistice?

It's not peace.

Only a suspension of fighting while
a treaty is being negotiated,

which promises to be difficult.

The novelist, Henri Falcone,
writes to his fiancee,

"I fear that we are hardly
more ready for peace

"than we were for war.

"We are entering the most
critical period.

"Fortunately, we are the victors."

But do the Germans really
feel defeated?

They must evacuate Belgium

and the north of France,

which they've occupied since 1914.

They retreat to the left bank
of the Rhine,

abandoning even Alsace-Lorraine.

A few days later,

a symbolic demonstration
is organised

in Paris's Place de la Concorde

by the far-right movement
L'Action Francaise.

Soldiers who fought in the trenches

scatter dirt from Alsace

to honour its return to France.

In 1870, France had lost Alsace,
along with part of Lorraine,

following a disastrous war with the
German Empire.

In Alsace, once again, French
veterans, defeated 50 years earlier,

demonstrate their loyalty to France.

FRENCH SINGING BEGINS

And schoolchildren,

in traditional costume, along with
their mothers,

kiss the flag.

Not everyone shares this enthusiasm

at the return of the French.

The German government protected
Catholics far better than

the anti-clerical French
Republic...

..and many Alsations had appreciated

Germanic efficiency and order

during the last half century.

But no-one asks their opinion.

The President of the French
Republic, Raymond Poincare,

is from Lorraine.

When, by late 1914, the death toll

had already exceeded anything

that France had ever known,

Poincare should have done everything
in his power to halt

what would become the biggest
butchery in history.

But all attempts at peace failed

because Germany would not give
up Alsace-Lorraine.

And so the carnage continued.

The Germans returned to their
country in strict order

and with a smile.

But they will find Germany
deeply shaken.

Their Kaiser, Wilhelm II,

who declared war on France in 1914,

has just abdicated and left
for a comfortable exile

in the Netherlands.

His departure is one of the
conditions of the Armistice

that, for Germany,
is so humiliating.

Returning to their cities
and villages,

German soldiers are met by cheering
throngs.

They do not feel they have lost
the war.

For them, the Armistice is a stab
in the back.

A bitterness that Corporal Adolf
Hitler will masterfully exploit.

The soldiers feel betrayed by the
politicians who took power

and proclaimed Germany a republic,

as does the socialist,
Philip Scheidemann.

The German Marxist revolutionary,

Rosa Luxemburg, proclaims,

"Bourgeois society calls itself
order, peace and the legal state

"but it wades in blood.

"It is stained, dishonoured.

"The Russian Revolution saved the
honour of international socialism."

In Russia,

Lenin and the Bolsheviks

have taken power and launched

the Red Terror in a bloody civil war

to eliminate the anti-Communists.

In their propaganda films,

the Bolsheviks show prisoners,

among them British, French and
American soldiers,

who had come to Russia to fight
alongside the anti-Communist forces.

Lenin denounces this foreign
intervention in a rare recording.

Lenin's call rouses an entire

generation in Russia and in Europe.

In Hungary, the rumble of revolution
is also swelling.

Ultraviolent communists The Lenin
Fiuk, or Lenin Boys,

will, in a matter of weeks,

be responsible for nearly
a thousand deaths.

Funded and organised
by the Russians,

they are instructed to,

"make mincemeat of the
counter-revolutionaries.

"Suffocate them in their own blood

"before they stifle the revolution."

An allied intervention will put an
end to their murderous frenzy

and to their lives.

Toward the end of 1918,
Central Europe is in flames.

After Russia and Hungary, Germany.

The Communists begin their attacks.

They call themselves
the Spartacus League

after the rebel slaves
of Ancient Rome.

Fighting against them are
the Freikorps,

paramilitary groups, volunteers

recruited from the army who stamp
out the Communist revolt

and execute its leaders,

including Rosa Luxemburg.

Some German families still feel
nostalgia for the war.

But most want to return to peace
and prosperity.

Yet what fate awaits their sons

20 years later at the Battle of
Stalingrad

in the snows of Russia?

What fate awaits this Jewish family?

On December 1st 1918,
the Allied forces,

in accordance with the
Armistice Agreement,

entered Germany to occupy the entire
region along the Rhine.

The Rhine is a natural border.

The valley of all invasions.

The very symbol of the confrontation
between France and Germany.

Many Germans welcome the French
troops with a sense of relief.

Anything is better than chaos.

But soon, resentment and hostility
resurface.

Among these German children

is the future film director
Max Ophuls.

In his memoirs, he recalls his
feelings and his tears

at seeing the cruel brutality of the
French soldiers.

Some African soldiers are
accused of rape.

In 1940,

the Germans will exact cruel revenge
on the French Colonial POWs

and Hitler will sterilise the
children born of mixed race unions.

In the Allied occupation of 1918,

the Germans dislike the
British Army, too,

including the Canadians, whose only
wish is to return home.

The war years have seen the
rise in Canadians

of a deep national sentiment
against the British Empire

to which they still belong.

Feelings toward the 100,000
Americans stationed

on the banks of the Rhine are
quite different.

Uncle Sam's troops, the Sammies,
are much more popular.

One of them writes...

"We fought against the Krauts, the
Sauerkrauts, as we call them."

"But they didn't invade the
United States

"and New York had not come
under siege.

"We had no desire for revenge.

"All we wanted was peace

"and a great many of us were of
German origin."

As Christmas of 1918 approaches,
a historic event is announced.

The arrival of the first President
of the United States

ever to leave the Americas -

Woodrow Wilson.

Seen here with Franklin D Roosevelt,

then Under Secretary for the Navy
and future President.

Wilson has come for the
peace conference.

He arrives in Paris on December 14th
1918 with his wife, Edith -

the great-great-granddaughter
of the Native American princess
Pocahontas.

Paris offers him a triumphant
welcome.

Wilson says,

"We shall build for you a good
and prosperous world

"where all nations will enjoy
the legacy of freedom

"for which France, America, England
and Italy have so dearly paid."

The future Communist leader
Marcel Cachin

writes in his newspaper,
L'Humanite,

"Wilson connects deeply
with the proletariat.

"He's the only politician to have
discovered the language

"of goodwill and justice."

Wilson, a lawyer and former
president of Princeton University,

was elected in 1912 as a Democrat,

then re-elected in 1916
thanks to the slogan,

"He kept us out of the war."

But only weeks into his second term,

he decides to send American forces
into the conflict.

By January 1918,

Wilson has outlined a 14-point plan
for negotiating peace.

It calls for a vast programme of
economic and political liberalism

and the creation of an assembly
of nations to prevent future wars.

In Paris, he will face another
political legend...

The Prime Minister of France
Georges Clemenceau.

After taking power during the worst
period of the war,

Clemenceau led the conflict
with an iron fist.

Nicknamed "The Tiger", he burns
with only one desire -

to humiliate Germany and make the
country pay reparations

for the ravages it inflicted
on France.

The British and Americans fear
this will mean financial ruin

for the defeated powers and
push them towards

extremism, Bolshevism and civil war,
like in Russia.

On January 3rd 1919,

Woodrow Wilson travels to Rome
to visit the King of Italy,

Victor Emmanuel III.

The purpose of Wilson's
European tour

is to win support for his doctrine.

His programme for world peace.

Above all, he wants to recognise

the right of peoples to
self-determination.

Wilson is pleased by the enthusiasm
of the Italians

when, in fact, they're cheering not
for his programme,

but for the Allied victory.

Nationalist movements fear
that Wilson's

right of self-determination
could lead to a loss of territory.

One of their most fervent militants
is the journalist Benito Mussolini.

The future dictator calls Wilson, "A
bandit of international plutocracy."

Wilson returns to Paris on
January 18th 1919

for the peace conference that will
formally end the First World War,

found a new European order,

and establish new
international rules.

Even though 27 nations are
represented,

only Wilson and the other
victors of the war count.

The Big Four of the era.

France's Clemenceau,
who shuns the cameras.

Britain's Lloyd George,
who seeks them out.

As does Italy's Orlando.

For six months, they will discuss

the terms of the treaties imposed
on the vanquished -

the German Empire,
the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
and the Ottoman Empire,

none of which have been invited
to the negotiating table.

But the Germans trust Wilson.

His doctrine strikes them
as moderate

and should allow them to preserve
the territory of their homeland.

The Germans fear Clemenceau
most of all.

He is obsessed about the security
of his borders

and his more populous and more
productive German neighbour.

After six months of discussions,

representatives of all countries
that fought in the war

are summoned to the Palace of
Versailles.

This is no random date.

It's a grim anniversary.

Exactly five years earlier,
on June 28th 1914, in Sarajevo,

the Crown Prince of Austria
was assassinated.

That event triggered the
First World War.

The setting is itself symbolic,
and not only for the French.

It was here in 1871,

after France's defeat in the
Franco-Prussian War,

that the German Empire
was proclaimed

and the world witnessed the
emergence of Germany's power.

The desire for revenge also explains
Clemenceau's decision

to order four "gueules cassees",
or mutilated faces,

to stand at the entrance as the
German delegates arrive.

The Germans report at three o'clock.

They are given only a few
minutes to sign.

In the centre of the Hall Of
Mirrors,

on this table, the treaty is laid.

The German army will be slashed
to 100,000 men

and stripped of aviation support and
heavy artillery.

Germany will lose its colonies and
its naval fleet will be reduced.

Above all, it will have to pay
reparations.

A colossal sum for the time -
132 billion gold marks.

Germany loses 10% of its territory.

To contain it in the east,

the Allies want to resurrect Poland,
partitioned in the 18th century,

and give Poland access to
the Baltic Sea,

thereby dividing Germany in two.

A dangerous absurdity that will make
lasting peace impossible.

It is 3.15.

The Treaty of Versailles
has just been signed.

The Big Four will now greet
the international press.

Only weeks before, Wilson had
cautioned,

"Our greatest error would be to give
Germany powerful reasons

"for wishing, one day, to
take revenge.

"Excessive demands would most
certainly sow the seeds of war."

Clemenceau thinks otherwise.

He declares with confidence,
"Germany will pay."

But he is tired. He adds,

"Waging war was easier than
making peace."

The truth is that the scale
of the disaster

provoked a kind of shock.

One of the great minds of the time,
Paul Valery, writes in 1919...

"We civilisations know now
that we are mortal.

"We had heard tell of
vanished worlds,

"empires gone down with all their
men and all their machines.

"But these disasters were
none of our affair.

"And now, we see that the
abyss of history

"is deep enough to hold us all.

"We are aware that a civilisation
is as fragile as a human life."

July 14th, 1919.

Bastille Day.

This year is a celebration of
victory but also of the crushing

humiliation of Germany by
the Treaty of Versailles.

It is also a bittersweet celebration
for the widows of France.

Many survivors have trouble turning
the page.

In a letter, censored by military
postal authorities,

a soldier writes,

"You don't celebrate when millions
are dead."

But, just six months after the war,

Clemenceau orders a grand parade

on Paris's magnificent
Champs-Elysees

of all the armies that fought

for four long years.

To cover the event,

the leading American magazine of the
time,

Outlook, sends its best journalist,

Elbert Baldwin.

He writes,

"The ample sidewalks are densely
crowded.

"People are on stepladders and
balconies and roofs. A cannon booms,

"its echo taken up by the cheering
thousands."

"Here comes Joffre, the victor of
the Marne,

"Foch, the commander in chief of
the Allied Forces

"and the leader of the American
troops, Pershing,

"with a severe military air.

"In the crowd, someone shouts,
"Smile!"

"And the Belgians smiled.

"They're more relaxed.

"But the British received the most
applause, especially the Scots.

"And the people scream when they see
the Japanese, the Greeks, the Poles,

"the tanned Portuguese,

"the nervous Serbs.

"But where are the Russians?

"Not the Bolsheviks, but the ally
that sacrificed

"two million men to make this day
possible?

"And now here comes Petain on his
white horse.

"I did not imagine him so young, the
hero of Verdun."

A renowned author, Robert De Fleur,

writes in the daily paper Le Figaro,

"All these uniforms, from every
country, were dyed the same colour.

"That of blood.

"The mutilated, whose arms and legs
were left behind,

"hobble in their glory.

"After this procession, glorifying
the victors,

"what has become of the real losers?

"The eight million invalids from

"every warring country who lost
limbs

"being gassed...

"..shell-shocked...

"..blinded?

"And what of the men whose teeth,

"noses, eyes were obliterated

"by the shells?"

A Swiss Red Cross nurse,
Henriette Remi, recalls,

"Never in my life had I seen
anything so atrocious.

"Immersed in a disgusting stench
were some 20 monsters,

"men who no longer had anything
human about them,

"with mutilated debris for faces."

Henriette Remi is present as one of
these wounded men

meets his young son, who screams in
terror at the sight of him.

'He weeps, saying, "I am so
horrible.

'"To have once been a man and now to
be only this.

'"A terror to my child. A burden for
my wife.

'"A disgrace to humanity.

'"Let me die."'

He later commits suicide.

And this man,

who was married in 1914, the day
before he left for the Front.

He writes,

"The image reflected in the mirror
scares me.

"I scream in despair.

"No mouth, but a maw.

"And from my gaping maw comes only
the gruntings

"of a wild beast."

"The war left us nothing but
cemeteries and ruins," writes

Marcel Cappy, one of the women who,
for four years, had replaced

the men who worked in munitions
factories.

French women demand, in vain, the
right to vote

already granted to British women.

Worse, they are fired from factories
to make room

for the returning soldiers.

"But at least," they implore, "let
peace return once and for all."

Now a dedicated pacifist,
Marcel Cappy writes,

"The so-called peace treaties are,
in reality, sources of conflict

"inspired by revenge.

"They make injustice a doctrine
and have plunged Europe into chaos.

"The Treaty of Versailles is an
absurdity."

The Treaty of Versailles will be

the foundation of the vengeful

speeches given by Hitler,

filmed here for the first time in
1919 at a far right demonstration.

At this point, he is merely an
anti-Bolshevik informant

for the army, but he knows how to
use this deeply-flawed peace treaty

to his advantage.

He will write, "Versailles was a
disgrace

"and this dictated peace is an
incredible plundering

"of our people.

"France, the mortal enemy
of our people,

"is strangling us ruthlessly."

Hitler looks around him and sees
only misery.

He says, "Let the shame and rage
that lies within 60 million Germans

"become a torrent of flame."

The Treaty of Versailles requires
Germans

to surrender all their weapons

for which they receive compensation.

They see their planes and their
artillery destroyed

by order of the Allies.

German military leaders share in
this sense of humiliation.

Now commanding a reduced army,

they will transform it into an elite
fighting force to wreak revenge

on France and Britain.

They will fail in their attempts to
seize power...

..but will pressure successive
governments until they find

in Hitler the ideal man for their
plan.

By 1919, the swastika begins to
appear on helmets.

One of these officers, Ernst Junger,
writes,

"The war is not the end

"but the beginning of violence."

Lieutenant Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz
says,

"When they told us the war was over,

"we laughed because we ARE war.

"Its flame continues to burn in us."

Respectable society in Germany
supports the army

and will support Hitler...

..industrialists who manufactured
thousands of machine guns

and millions of uniforms

form a new, moneyed elite.

Berliners invent a word for them,

Rathke.

"Those who rake in money."

They live surrounded by extreme
poverty.

They are intoxicated with cynicism.

In France, the trenches are empty
and the birds have begun

to sing again.

But the Allied armies are still
struggling,

two years later, to demobilise nine
million men.

Censorship of military mail
continues until all men

have returned to civilian life.

A letter intercepted from one of
these forgotten men reads,

"Why won't they set us free?

"We're sick of this.

"Now that the war is over,

"let those of us who saved you
return to our families...

"..and wives will be reunited with
their men."

Just like the most famous singer of
the day, Mistinguett.

SINGING IN FRENCH

Five million demobilised French
soldiers are entitled to a civilian

suit of clothes, but supplies run
short.

Attempts to dye uniforms are
considered ridiculous

and so an allowance of about $50 is
paid to each man.

Many are farmers who return to their
fields

but factory workers in all countries
have a harder time finding work.

Women have been forced out of their
wartime jobs

but arms production has been
slashed, too.

Industrialists cannot transform
their businesses overnight.

Demobilisation is hardest of all
for the Australians

and New Zealanders,

known as the Anzacs.

They linger in filthy transit camps.

Soldiers from distant continents
and their disillusioned officers

now have nothing to kill but time.

They create strange shows,

like this skit about death.

After eluding it in the trenches,

they are now stalked by death from
the Spanish flu,

the global epidemic thought to have
originated in Spain.

In fact, it is an especially
virulent bird flu that kills

over 20 million people,

more than the war itself.

Returning soldiers face many
challenges.

Bill Sutherland of Toronto writes to
his mother,

"I hope you will not condemn me for
marrying a girl whose

"father was German.

"Rosa is a very kind and earnest
girl

"who has been very kind to me.

"Please, don't condemn her before
you see her."

Lieutenant Arthur Lapointe of the
famous Van Doos,

the mainly
French Canadian 22nd Regiment,

returns home to Quebec.

He writes, "I feel my heart
overflowing with joy for this land

"that I never thought I would see
again."

Some members of his family have died
of the flu.

His neighbour lost her husband in
the Battle of Vimy in 1917.

Repatriation ends.

A special commission reports,

"Most of the men come back from
the war in a kind of

"mental lethargy.

"They were so long subjected to
military discipline, fed, dressed

"and accustomed to obeying orders

"that they have lost their
autonomy."

The Canadian Military Hospitals
Commission confidently states,

"What every disabled soldier must
know

"is that the word "impossible" is
not in our dictionary.

"The success he will have later in
his work depends on the energy

"and perseverance he shows during
his rehabilitation."

478,000 Americans also leave France.

But not before being disinfected
and cleansed of all parasites

picked up in the trenches and other
dangerous places,

like brothels.

But it's the Spanish flu that
especially worries doctors.

African-American troops are
particularly uneasy.

In France, they didn't encounter
racism.

But now they're heading home to
the segregation of the Deep South

and the growing violence spearheaded
by the sinister and secretive

Ku Klux Klan.

On the cotton plantations,

life has changed little since
slavery

and children sing an old spiritual
later sung by Louis Armstrong.

THE WOMAN SINGS

THE CHILDREN SING

# Oh, nobody knows the trouble I've
seen

# Nobody knows but Jesus

# Nobody knows the trouble I've seen

# Glory

# Hallelujah. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media

February 1919. In New York, the
return of African-American soldiers

is a celebration.

Their band leader James Reese
Europe recalls...

"Hoorah's were shouted from
window's, from roofs,

"from the street.

"As the regiment moved along,

"they were joined by mothers,

"sweethearts and brothers."

The 369th Regiment was nicknamed
the Harlem Hellfighters.

The French had pulled them
from their deployment

on the loading docks and rail lines
to fight alongside them.

And they had fought heroically.

One of the great activists
of their cause

Marcus Garvey proclaims,

"We believe the Negro

"should not be deprived of any
of those rights or privileges

"common to other human beings."

President Wilson, however,
believes in the segregation

of blacks from whites.

At the same time, outside the US,
he defends the right

of peoples to self-determination.

Back in the US, he embarks on a
long tour

to mobilise public opinion in favour
of the Treaty of Versailles.

Wilson knows that, in Washington,
the Senate remains deeply reluctant.

He knows that voters of German
origin are furious

about the clauses of the Treaty
that they find insulting,

unfair to their former homeland.

Wilson also knows that the Senate is
hostile to the founding covenant

of the League of Nations.

It imposes a mutual defence
pact on member states.

This could potentially lead to a new
American military intervention,

which nobody wants.

Wilson tries to hold back the tide.
He says,

"Failure to back the
League of Nations

"would break the
heart of the world."

Wilson works to the point
of exhaustion

and suffers a stroke that leaves him
paralysed and mute.

What will the US Senate do?

If it rejects the Treaty of
Versailles and the League of
Nations,

will peace be possible?

While awaiting ratification by the
Americans,

Europe's most urgent priority
is rebuilding.

Belgium and Serbia are
severely damaged.

But in France, the destruction
is far worse.

The north and east of France
are devastated.

Stefan Zweig writes,

"All the livid steeds of the
Apocalypse have reared up.

"Revolution and famine, terror,
epidemics and, above all else,

"that arch plague - nationalism -

"which has poisoned our
European culture."

The war destroyed one third
of France's wealth.

The numbers are staggering...

..of villages wiped off the map...

..of unexploded shells
and land mines...

..of fields contaminated
with toxic gas.

The Earth must be cleansed
of this ocean of poisons.

A long and dangerous task,

as these farmers in Picardy show,

whose fields are littered with
shells they must dispose of.

LOUD EXPLOSIONS

In spite of everything,
they resume their lives,

as they always have
in centuries past.

The French order German prisoners
of war to de-mine the country,

in violation of the
Geneva Convention,

the international agreement that
protects captured forces.

There are still 300,000 of these
unfortunate men in France.

Interned at the horrible Souilly
camp near Verdun,

the German soldier
Hellmuth Korth writes...

"I have the impression I'm
considered a criminal.

"Every hour it becomes clearer,

"the cynicism of the French
and their hatred of us.

"They now want us to pay."

22,105 prisoners die in the ruins

or simply from hunger.

But the French suffer too.

In the markets, the price of beans
and potatoes is four times higher

than before the war.

Rich Americans come to the
aid of the French,

like the heiress of a large bank,
Anne Morgan,

who, along with Dr
Anne Murray Dike,

founded this first NGO...

..the American Committee
for Devastated France.

They replant forests
destroyed by shells.

They transform a chateau
into a dispensary.

Anne Morgan writes to her mother,

"Our work is a joy.

"We are useful here.

"These people lived under the German
occupation.

"Their only food was beetroot that
is fed to cows.

"They sleep at night on bare
floors in the bitter cold.

"They are now coming back to life."

Six million orphans are adrift
in Europe.

These Polish children,

who miraculously survived the many
battles in their homeland,

are welcomed to the United States.

In Paris, the sparring
orphans of Montmartre

are spared from misery as the
French government makes them

wards of the state until
they reach adulthood.

Russia has untold numbers
of orphans...

..especially after the Civil War.

The victory of the Communists
in 1922 brings the Gulags,

the concentration camps of
Lenin and then Stalin.

And so, more orphans are thrown
into the streets,

becoming "blatnoys" -
little criminals.

Britain has its own urgent problem
of orphaned delinquents.

The solution is radical.

A one-way ticket on the first ship
to the farms

in the wide-open spaces
of Western Canada.

In Ottawa, Member of Parliament
JS Woodsworth points out,

"We are turning children
into cheap labourers."

Today, one in ten Canadians

is a descendent of these
displaced children.

In a similar vein, the UK begins
exporting young women

who now cannot find husbands.

These so-called surplus women

from the Women's Army
Auxiliary Corps

are headed to Australia.

THEY CHEER

How will the survivors mourn?

One of Lithuania's greatest
poets Oscar Milosz expresses

what the parents, widows
and children feel

walking through the endless rows of
graves marked

by the cross, Star of David or
crescent moon.

He says, "Ah, the dead,

"the dead, the dead,

"are at least less dead than I."

Many families seek to repatriate
their dead,

to be able to visit their loved
one's grave in the local cemetery.

But, first, the remains
must be dug up.

Special units of the
American Army

are filmed carrying out
this grim task.

230,000 bodies are returned
to their families.

In France,

where most of the military
cemeteries are located,

there remain to this day

the graves of 700,000 French
and colonial soldiers...

..750,000 German soldiers...

..300,000 British soldiers,

including 60,000 Canadians, and
34,000 Americans.

Everywhere, people try desperately
to get in touch

with the spirits of the dead.

Spiritualism has been very popular
since the 19th century.

The High Priest of spiritualism at
the time is a certain Leon Denis.

He writes, "Innumerable legions
of souls hover over us,

"eager to communicate.

"Those who died in battle seek
only to manifest themselves

"to their loved ones on Earth."

Sadly, these seances are just
another swindle.

To remember the dead, honour them,

and unite the people in
their memory,

every country, every city,
every village

must have a memorial.

They can celebrate heroism
in combat, pacifism

or dignified strength.

Like this bronze caribou, a tribute
to 814 men from Newfoundland,

then part of the British Empire,
who died serving in the war

and who had no known grave.

Around the world, sculptors work
day and night

to fill the thousands of orders
for war memorials.

King George V and his sons,
the future sovereigns,

begin the first ceremony honouring
the unknown soldier.

In this coffin lie the remains
of an unidentified body

chosen at random to commemorate the
500,000 missing and unburied

and all from the British
Empire who died.

The French had learned a
month earlier

that the ceremony was
being organised.

The government had not planned
a similar commemoration

and the press was indignant.

A leftist Member of Parliament
recorded a vengeful speech,

one of the first filmed with sound.

France's unknown soldier lies
beneath the Arc de Triomphe...

..with an eternal flame
over his grave.

Many other countries also adopt
this powerful symbol.

In Belgium, the Soldier King
Albert I

turns the dedication into a ceremony
of unity for his people.

The ceremony for the unknown
American soldier

is attended by Marshall
Ferdinand Foch,

the Supreme Allied Commander
at the end of the war.

This is the Crow Chief
Plenty Coups,

who, only 30 years earlier, had
allied with the American Army

in the tragic Indian wars against
the Sioux Nation.

At Arlington National Cemetery
near Washington,

Plenty Coups presents the unknown
soldier with a coup stick,

a warrior's weapon of bravery.

Foch tells the former Commander
of American forces in France

General Pershing,

"I want to see the tribes
of the Wild West."

In North Dakota, he meets
the Crow Nation's mortal enemy,

the Sioux Chief, Red Tomahawk.

A welcoming committee gives him
a fur coat and a peace pipe.

CHANTING

General Foch is given the name
Charging Thunder.

In Washington, President Wilson,

severely weakened by his stroke,

is devastated by a defeat
in Congress.

The United States refuses to ratify
the Treaty of Versailles.

The vote reflects American public
opinion,

which is deeply isolationist.

The American people no longer want
to get involved

in the affairs of others,
nor go to war again.

JAZZ MUSIC

Typical of this 1920s generation,
here is how Zelda Fitzgerald,

the young wife of novelist
F Scott Fitzgerald,

describes her peers.

"The flapper awakes from
her lethargy of sub-deb-ism,

"bobs her hair, puts on her
choicest pair of earrings,

"and a great deal of audacity
and rouge and goes into battle.

"She flirts because it is fun
to flirt,

"and wears a one-piece bathing suit
because she has a good figure,

"and she refuses to be bored,
chiefly because she isn't boring.

"She is conscious that the things
she does are the things

"she's always wanted to do."

But happiness is fragile.

By refusing to sign the Treaty
of Versailles, the United States

has jeopardised Wilson's other
dream, of the League of Nations.

The League, however, has already
been established in the country

of neutrality, Switzerland,
on the shores of Lake Geneva.

But without America, will this
precursor of the United Nations,

assembled from most of the
world's countries,

be able to keep the peace?

The various treaties that follow
the Treaty of Versailles

will set off endless conflicts.

The treaties of St Germain in 1919
and Trianon in 1920 will break up

the Austro-Hungarian Empire
by creating new nation states

such as a smaller Austria,
Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia,

and also reshape Hungary
and Romania.

The famous right of peoples
to self-determination

has not really been respected.

Germans are now in Poland
and Czechoslovakia,

Hungarians in Romania,
Croatians in Yugoslavia.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire had
held together all these people

in relative peace.

Similarly, the Ottoman Empire
had prevented various Arab tribes

from tearing each other apart.

But at the Treaty of Sevres,
August 10th, 1920,

the Ottoman Empire,

severely punished for having
supported Germany,

is stripped down to
the Turkey of today,

minus the Greek enclave
of the city of Smyrna.

The map of the Middle East is
redrawn by Britain and France.

The French want to expand their
colonial territories by taking

control of Syria and Lebanon.

The British create new countries -
Trans-Jordan, now Jordan,

Palestine,

and crucially, Iraq,
giving themselves control

of oil production.

Wilson had supported the creation
of a Kurdish state and,

for a few months, it did exist
before disappearing,

swept away by the Turks.

In Palestine, the Romans had driven
the Jews out of Jerusalem

2,000 years earlier.

The Arabs, now 600,000 strong,
are less than welcoming

to Jewish Zionists who have been
fleeing to the promised land

since the late 19th century
to escape persecution

in Central Europe and Russia.

During the war, the British,
like the famous Colonel TE Lawrence,

seen here at the Treaty of Sevres
talks, made many promises

to the Arabs in exchange for their
support against the Turks,

one being to halt
Jewish immigration.

But Lawrence of Arabia
had been manipulated

and the promises made
will not be kept.

The British authorised the creation
of a Jewish homeland that,

three decades later, would
become the state of Israel.

Its first president, Chaim Weizmann,
calls for emigration.

He says, "We must make Palestine
as Jewish as England is English

"and America is American."

It is the beginning of war
without end.

In 1920, in a defeated Turkey,
in Constantinople, now Istanbul,

the situation is tense.

The Allies still occupy both
the city and part of the country,

which is unacceptable to the
Nationalists and leads to a

large scale insurrection.

At its head is General Mustafa
Kemal, who in 1916 had resisted

a British and French landing
in Turkey.

This revered officer refuses
to accept the Treaty of Sevres

and the loss of the city of Smyrna.

He says, "If we give
in to all the Allied demands,

"it will be impossible to curb
their greedy intentions."

Mustafa Kemal raises an army
of volunteers then fights the Allies

and Greeks for two years to recover
the territory they occupy.

On September 9th, 1922,

his army enters the last stronghold
occupied by the Greeks - Smyrna.

The city is set on fire.

The Turks want to drive out
not only the Greeks

but also all non-Muslim minorities,

especially the Armenians.

Only a lucky few are able to escape
and embark for exile in Europe.

In Geneva, the League of Nations,
though it has failed to put an end

to war and slaughter,

nonetheless succeeds at
rescuing millions of people,

thanks to an extraordinary man,
Fridtjof Nansen,

a Norwegian polar explorer who
became the High Commissioner

for Refugees and who will be awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize.

He creates the Nansen passport...

..a precious document
for all those who are stateless,

like the painter Marc Chagall
and the composer Igor Stravinsky.

It enables them to cross borders.

Nine million men, women and children
become peace refugees.

Many of them want to leave
for the United States.

They all end up at the port of
Cherbourg in the north of France,

which becomes a bottleneck.

The French build the famous
Hotel Atlantique, a transit centre

for emigrants with its own medical
and administrative services.

And the long voyage can begin.

America has always welcomed
the world's castaways,

such as the Irish, the Italians,
the Jews.

On the pedestal of
the Statue of Liberty,

created by the French sculptor
Auguste Bartholdi,

are engraved the words of the Jewish
poet Emma Lazarus,

"Give me your tired, your poor,

"your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free,

"the wretched refuse
of your teeming shore."

In Montreal, 30,000 Jews demonstrate
to draw attention

to the fate of those left behind
in Ukraine.

100,000 Jews were murdered,

trapped in the civil war between
the White Russians, the czarists,

and the Reds, the communists.

After four years of fighting,
the Reds, the Bolsheviks,

eventually prevail

because they are even more ruthless
than their opponents.

Russia becomes the Union Of Soviet
Socialist Republics, the USSR.

A massive portion of the planet
becomes communist.

The USSR's entire economy
has collapsed.

The harvest had been requisitioned
to feed the troops.

Its first great famine, in 1922,
leaves five million dead.

Humanitarian aid pours
in from all over the world.

A member of the American
Relief Administration,

who will save thousands of lives,
William Shafroth, recounts,

"People have been reduced to eating
weeds mixed with ground bones,

"tree bark and clay,

"as well as horses, dogs, cats, rats

"and the straw from roofs.

"I see emaciated little skeletons

"with gaunt faces
and toothpick legs.

"Every day, a dozen of them die.

"The stench is nauseating."

RUSSIAN FOLK MUSIC PLAYS

At the end of the Civil War,

1.5 million Russians
escape the country.

400,000 White Russians settle
in Nice on the French Riviera,

or Paris, in well-to-do
neighbourhoods.

Those who have escaped with
their fortunes can live like kings

and, indeed, they do.

RUSSIAN FOLK MUSIC CONTINUES

Prince Yusupov -
one of the assassins of Rasputin,

the shadowy adviser
of Tsar Nicholas II - writes,

"How can one not feel
confident in Paris, which knows

well how to lift a stranger's
spirits with a smile?"

WOMAN LAUGHS

The Prince has a lover,

the young Grand Duke Dmitri,
who is, himself,

living with the already-famous
fashion designer Coco Chanel.

When she decides to launch
her perfume, Chanel No. 5,

Dmitri convinces her to adopt,
for its bottle,

the shape of the vodka flasks used
by Russian officers.

But it's not just the rich
aristocrats who remain steeped

in their devotion
to the last tsar.

Yusupov notes in his memoirs,

"Everywhere one sees
Russian businesses

"springing up - restaurants, shops,

"new Orthodox churches,
with their schools

"and retirement homes."

Paris is becoming a natural
destination for immigrants.

MEN HARMONISE

The tsar's generals and former
officers of the Imperial Guard

have no skills beyond
the military,

but they can drive

and, so, become taxi drivers.

They will long be part
of Parisian folklore.

The last will retire
in 1970, at the age of 92.

MEN CONTINUE TO HARMONISE

White Russians,
like this taxi driver,

watch, with concern, the spread
of Soviet influence in the world.

CHANTS

Exorbitant wartime spending has led
to deep social tensions.

People everywhere are joining
Communist parties,

with their vision
of common prosperity,

in London, Berlin,

New York, Milan and Rome.

CROWD SING IN ITALIAN

The Italian communist leader
Antonio Gramsci returns from Moscow

and takes his place as an early
Marxist theoretician.

He says,
"To live is to be partisan."

Opposing the communists, war
veterans initially band together

behind a fiery poet, a war hero,

Gabriele D'Annunzio.

He has denounced the Treaty
of Versailles because,

in redrawing the map of Europe,
the Allies have handed to Yugoslavia

territories populated by Italians,

including Dalmatia
and the city of Fiume.

MILITARY MARCH AND SINGING

Gabriele D'Annunzio laments,

"Our victory has been mutilated."

MARCH AND SINGING CONTINUE

He launches his militia,
proclaiming,

"Italy, your hour has come.

"Wonderful years.

"I hear the thunder of eagles which,
with their talons,

"tear up the night."

CROWD CHEERS

Gabriele D'Annunzio was able
to seize the city of Fiume.

CROWD CHEERS

The regular army drives him out,
but respectfully.

For the communist Gramsci,
this tragicomedy is yet another sign

of the decadence
of the bourgeois state.

He says, "The old world is dying.

"The new world struggles to be born

"and, in this twilight,

"monsters suddenly appear."

That monster is Benito Mussolini.

His wife, Rachele, writes,

"His eyes were phosphorescent,

"his gaze piercing.

"His pupils seemed
to flash lightning.

"He knew that his eyes held
incredible power over everyone."

Mussolini began his career
as a socialist journalist.

He became a nationalist
during the war.

In 1919,
he created the fascist movement

named after his
Fasci di Combattimento -

fighting squads.

Mussolini rides on the prestige
of Gabriele D'Annunzio,

copying everything - the black
shirts, the Roman salute,

the raised dagger,

and the cry, "A noi, a noi!" -

"To us, to us!"

But Gabriele D'Annunzio
had 2,500 men in 1919.

Mussolini has 300,000 in 1922.

With his populist slogans,
Mussolini unites veterans,

war invalids,

the unemployed,

the middle class,

and even the feeble-minded,

who have trouble making
the fascist salute.

And all the underclass, who,
after their street fights,

write on their bandages,

"Me ne frego" -

"I don't care."

Mussolini promises
to restore social order.

He gives his squads a weapon,

a wooden cane, to beat the
communists

and set fire to the houses
of the people.

Mussolini says,

"I will restore discipline
in the factories."

Which pleases
the big industrialists,

like Agnelli, the founder of Fiat,

and Pirelli, the tyre manufacturer.

ITALIAN FOLK MUSIC PLAYS

Mussolini organises,
on October 28th 1922,

a show of force, pompously called

the March On Rome.

MUSIC: The Anvil Chorus from
Il Trovatore by Guiseppe Verdi

He, himself, arrives in comfort,
on the train from Milan.

ANVIL CHORUS CONTINUES

He has exchanged his black shirt
for a suit and tie,

meant to be more statesman-like

in the midst
of his fascist henchmen.

King Victor Emmanuel III
hands him the reins of power,

much to the misfortune
of the Italian people.

Supported by the church, Mussolini
makes clever use of propaganda

and fills concentration camps
with his opponents,

ushering in an authoritarian
anti-communist regime.

In 1923, German veterans also unite

around their wartime leader,
General Ludendorff,

who now supports
the leader of the Nazi Party -

Adolf Hitler.

Hitler says,

"Our people are subject
to such misery

"that, if we do not act now,

"they will join the communists."

The Allies will assist Hitler
through a series of blunders...

..like the Belgian
and French occupation

of Germany's Ruhr mining region...

..where coal is seized
in forced reparations,

which leads to an economic crisis

and staggering inflation.

With banknotes being printed
as fast as possible,

the currency depreciates
at an unimaginable rate.

A loaf of bread costs
460 billion marks.

A 13-year-old German girl,
Irma Lang, recounts,

"When our father comes home
with the day's wages,

"we rush right out to spend it,

otherwise, in no time,
it would be worthless.

TRAIN HORN SOUNDS

Between the Germans of the Ruhr

and the French
and Belgian occupiers,

tension is rising.

On March the 10th, 1923, a French
officer strikes German onlookers

who failed to remove their hats
for the funeral cortege

of a victim of an attack.

Amidst such instability,

Hitler tries to seize power

on November the 9th, 1923.

But the army and police remain loyal
to the German Republic

and the putsch fails.

Hitler is imprisoned...
CELL DOOR CLANKS

..for now.

Stefan Zweig speaks for many
when he writes,

"In this year, 1923,

"the swastikas have disappeared.

"The storm troopers and
the name of Adolf Hitler

"have all fallen into oblivion."

But Zweig is terribly wrong.

From his cell, Hitler
will prepare his revenge.

He writes his book,
Mein Kampf - My Struggle,

a screed against
the Treaty of Versailles and France.

The totalitarian menace is real.

In Spain, General Primo de Rivera,
also inspired by Mussolini,

seizes power on September 23, 1923,
and establishes a dictatorship.

This military coup d'etat delights
an ambitious officer -

Francisco Franco.

Noted for his discipline
and ferocity, Franco, at 33,

will become the youngest
general in Europe

and the next dictator of Spain.

In 1921, he is one of the leaders
of the Spanish Foreign Legion,

responsible for maintaining
order in the Rif,

an area of Morocco
controlled by Spain.

The French dominate
the rest of the country.

During the World War, in the iron
mines of the region,

Moroccans were forced to work
beyond exhaustion

to supply French munitions
factories.

The Moroccan people rebel
against this exploitation.

A Nationalist leader emerges
in the Arab world -

his name is Abd el-Krim.

He's a well-read scholar,
about 50 years old.

He has successfully unified
the Berber tribes around him.

He begins by inflicting a crushing
defeat on the Spanish

at the Battle of Annual on
July 21, 1921.

20,000 Spaniards are defeated
by the Rif tribesmen -

13,000 of them are
killed or wounded.

The survivors retreat in chaos.

The French intervene to fight
alongside the Spaniards.

Is this the beginning of the
end of colonisation?

The Rif War foreshadows
all the horrors of the future.

Here, a Moroccan soldier
has beheaded his rebel brother.

There is an escalation of
atrocities on both sides.

The French and Spanish use every
weapon in their arsenal,

including aerial attacks.

Some bombs are loaded with the same
horrific mustard gas

used by the Germans in 1917.

Landing their forces behind enemy
lines, and advancing with tanks,

they finally defeat Abd el-Krim.

He surrenders to the French
on May 27th, 1926.

His surrender is filmed for
movie house newsreels,

which seek to reassure
viewers, proclaiming,

"His elderly father and his family

"placed themselves under the
protection of the victors."

The Rif War will become the
inspiration for every subsequent

war of decolonisation in Africa
and around the world.

It also marks a decisive
turning point.

From now on, the world
will be structured around

a new fault line.

People had lost their
religious bearings

and their identity during the war.

They will find new meaning,
a new project, a vocation

in political engagement.

Fascist fever rises everywhere,
like here, in Britain.

Communist fever also rises
everywhere, even in New York.

The United States tries
to expel its communists.

They will be given a one-way ticket
to the homeland of socialism,

on this boat renamed

the Soviet Ark.

Bye!

In addition to the Red Scare,

Americans are dealing with
prohibition.

By banning alcohol, conservatives
hope

to impose morality on a society
at full war.

And so begins the wild pursuit
of smugglers

of every type of alcohol

distilled in Canada or at home.

American police resort to all the
means at their disposal

to destroy the contraband.

Prohibition is a boon for the
Italian-American Mafia,

now strengthening its
grip on America.

Al Capone takes centre stage
in the history of gangsterism.

Americans are giddy with life.

The rhythms of jazz give
rise to new dances,

like the Charleston.

They want to forget everything.

They don't want to have
to think any more.

The American writer John Dos Passos
predicts,

"The 20th century will be American.

"American thought will dominate it.

"American progress will give
it colour and direction.

"The regeneration of the world,
physical as well as moral,

"has begun and revolutions
never move backwards."

Jazz has crossed the Atlantic.

In Paris, Josephine Baker
sets the tone.

When the French writer Jean Cocteau
first sees her, he exclaims,

"Eroticism has just
found its style."

These are the Roaring '20s of
Montmartre and Montparnasse.

Ernest Hemingway's Paris
memoir A Movable Feast

will be his last book.

He writes,

"Living in Paris is like having a
great treasure given to you."

In Berlin, too, the rhythms of the
Charleston echo everywhere.

Stefan Zweig writes in his book,
The World Of Yesterday,

"As the value of money dwindled,
all other values began to crumble.

"It was a time of high ecstasy,

"a singular mixture of
unrest and fanaticism."

Everything that was extravagant
and uncontrollable

experienced a golden age.

In the madness of these
post-war years,

some want to feel alive,
to bury once and for all

the memory of disaster and death.

Others will wait for Hitler to put
an end to the Treaty of Versailles

by rearming Germany.

Financial crises will weaken
democracies

and another World War,

which once seemed unthinkable,
then a distinct threat,

could become inevitable.

And yet, after November
11th, 1918,

people everywhere proved their
tremendous capacity

to start living again.

Will they know how to fight
to ensure that the next war

will finally be the last?

And will they be able
to keep the peace?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media