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During the First World War,

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just a few miles away from the fighting,

there were soldiers playing football,

jogging, jumping, even
boxing in a makeshift ring.

They were, most of them,
discovering sports.

It helped them forget all
the violence and death.

Surprisingly enough, the Great
War played a crucial role

in the history of sport.

Troops from all over the world,

from America, Britain, Holland,

New Zealand, Australia, Belgium, Italy,

and France turned to
sport like never before.

For four years, sport
was a breath of fresh air

that blew across the greatest,

most tragic battlefield
of the 20th century.

This is the story of how it happened.

June, 1914.

So, before the war,
who was playing sports?

Well, not many people actually.

It took time and in mainly rural Europe

leisure time was just
for the privileged few.

In 1914, the French
were waiting for summer.

That year, the Tour de France,

a veritable 15 episode soap opera,

was to truly go down in
history in every sense.

Sporting the favorite's colors

were Belgian's Philippe
Thys, the 1913 winner

and his fiery, mustached
French rival Henri Pelissier.

As well as former winners
such as Octave Lapize

or Luxembourg's Francois Faber.

The tour was organized by "L'Auto",

France's highest circulation sports daily

and its headline set the tone:

the great battle is on.

Meaning, of course, cycling.

The 20th of June, the first stage.

Paris-Le Harve. 388 kilometers.

It'll be quite a tour, the spectators

who lined the roads were saying.

The front runners were through Abbeville.

It was 10:45 a.m.

At that very moment in
Sarajevo, shots rang out.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the
heir to the Austrian Empire

and his wife were assassinated.

Right then though, the cyclists

couldn't care less about
events in Sarajevo.

However, thanks to the
rusty springs of diplomacy,

the jostling for position

on the downhill slope of human affairs,

within a month war was just down the road.

As for the Tour de France, it
was the Belgian Thys who won.

No sooner were the
cyclists off their bikes

than they found themselves in uniform.

Mobilization had begun.

What were they thinking about

as they marched along, these brave chaps?

The same thing as their enemies.

They were hoping for a quick victory

and to be home by the end of the year.

Henri de Grange, the editor of "L'Auto"

and creator of the Tour de France

had dipped his pen in patriotic ink

to write his editorial.

He talks to his little cyclist chaps

as if they were soldiers.

My little chaps!
My dear little chaps!

My French chaps! Listen here!

Those Prussians are bastards.

You have to get 'em!

Because if you don't get
'em, they'll get you!

You've got a big match
to play, but watch out.

When you've got 'em at
the end of your bayonet,

they'll beg for forgiveness.

Don't listen to 'em,
just thrust with no pity.

Ah, just imagine all humanity's
sigh of relief if you win.

It's up to you, my little chaps.

My dear little chaps. My French chaps.

After three
months of deadly combat

the war settled at its winter quarters.

Most sportsmen had chosen
to be in the front line.

How many were killed in action?

The brave heroes and the unknown soldiers.

Soldier Jean Bouin, 5,000
meters silver medalist

at the Stockholm Olympics,

died in battle on the
29th of September, 1914.

He was a big star of athletics

and one of the first
sportsmen to be sacrificed

in what would soon become a slaughter.

He was 26-years-old.

The war put an end to the
great upcoming sports events

like the Five Nations Rugby Tournament

and the 1916 Berlin Olympics.

At the same time though,
it would play its part

in the development of
many sporting activities,

bringing in a new wave of sportsmen

from among the soldiers
and the working class.

A soldier looks out at us
across a whole century,

amused perhaps by the
presence of the camera.

They call them the poilu, the hairies.

These men stuffed into uniform

and with 70 pounds of gear on their backs.

he'll turn away and disappear
into the heart of darkness.

From 1915 on, this static war

got bogged down in the trenches.

It was no kind of a life.

The mud, the rats, the blood, the stink.

The soldiers weeping or screaming.

To relieve the troops,
the military authorities

arranged a rotation system.

The men spent 10 to 15 days at the front

then were billeted behind the lines.

A kind of life grew up,

a monotonous one around meal times,

the drudgery and the exercises

that the men quickly tried to get out of.

But they were allowed some distractions.

They helped them not to think.

They soothed the disappointment

of the leave they were often
promised and never got.

In a soldier's billet, the
worst enemy is boredom.

These two playing with
their guns for the camera

are trying to kill time.

To keep busy, some sports
loving foot soldiers

brought a football along with them.

These previously unseen
and ordinary looking images

in fact show the origin of friendly games.

Right behind the lines,

everywhere there were sporty squaddies

teaching their pals from
the trenches to play.

It was a new dawn for the troops.

Elsewhere, the ball was oval.

Corporal Andre Eun, a former rugby player,

tells of a great moment.

It's very relaxing

to play rugby from time to time.

It doesn't tire the men, it energizes them

and gets their articulations working

which they really need.

And tackling your mates is great.

I've got a few friends
here on the campaign

who'd never played this noble game

and now they're just fanatical about it.

Sports
helped them forget the war

and they wanted more of it.

Enthusiastic young officers

suggested replacing square
bashing with sports.

The high command knew

this would make life easier for the troops

and they agreed.

These bodies glowing with energy

make quite contrast to
being stuck in the trenches.

Being free to move made the
troops feel human again.

Sport was just a short respite

for the infantry men, though,

and all too soon over.

Then it was back into uniform again,

back to the frontline,

and back to constant mortal danger.

In the spring of 1915,

a Legionnaire from Luxembourg called Faber

was billed in the Artois region of France.

Hardworking and built like a mountain,

he'd won the Tour de France in 1909.

In the 1914 tour, he won two of the stages

then enlisted in the Foreign Legion.

On the 8th of May,

on learning he'd become
the father of a baby girl,

he wrote to his wife.

There, I was right.

You see? My instincts are never wrong.

It's a girl.

How is she?

How did it go? How are you?

I think the big push won't be long coming.

Here at the camp, we're
all highly prepared

and I don't think the Boche
are going to enjoy it.

I'm feeling confident and
hoping to get through it all.

Your big man who adores you.

In the next day's assault,

Legionnaire Francois Faber
fell under enemy fire.

He was 20-years-old.

In 1916, with Verdun and
the Battle of the Somme,

real life was further away than ever.

The rise of sports was cut short

by the intensity of the fighting.

It was the British who
got things going again.

Every soldier who went up to the front

was plunged into the poignant solitude

that comes with facing death.

These are soldiers too,
but they're on leave

and divided into two teams.

Ball games had started
out as just a pastime

but now they were being played
on a proper football pitch

and wearing football gear.

Up near the front, sport was now

more than just a way to
forget about the war.

All the troops now took part,
as this officer explained.

In some units
they're playing football

and organizing matches.

More and more senior
officers are going to them

and say they're very good
for the men's morale.

Elsewhere they're setting up rings

and the noble art is
attracting many enthusiasts.

This footage is from 1916,

we don't know exactly where or when.

It is, however, very special.

It shows how much sport was
making its mark on army life.

In an improvised stadium in a park

the men, from their touching
clumsiness obviously beginners,

are taking part in athletics trials.

Most of them were farmers or working men,

discovering sport for the first time.

Working all the time in the
fields or at the factory,

how could they have had time
for any sporting activities?

Now, they were giving it all they'd got.

These were men who really
needed to feel human again.

This long line of figures was
heading straight into hell.

It was 1916, Verdun.

When the guns were
silenced, there it all was.

The dead and the living.

The grief and the fear.

And the trenches that at some
point you'd have to leave

and risk your life.

It was on every soldier's mind,

that race against the
clock, against death.

In a few moments,

we'll have to run 200 meters

over open ground, under fire.

If we hurry, it'll take
us a minute and a half.

Fit men could certainly
manage it in 50 seconds.

That's a clear gain of 40
seconds of killing time.

10 cartridges per enemy rifle
and 300 machine gun rounds.

That isn't armchair strategy,

it's a cold blooded calculation

made just 200 meters from the Boche

while waiting for the starter's gun.

Verdun was in ruins.

But what about the health
of those roped into a war

that shows no sign of ever ending?

At least they were alive, for the moment.

The army was starting to run short of men

so they called up the reservists,

youngsters of 18 or 19.

Muscles and mustaches,

the very picture of virility at the time.

The race was on to train
physical education coaches.

From May, 1916 on they
were bringing in new troops

who had to be got into shape

before being sent up to the front.

They got them running, jumping, lifting.

Climbing.

Or learning to fence with a bayonet.

A sport of war that would later

lead to official championships.

And there was grenade throwing,

which a lieutenant here enthuses about.

Grenade
throwing is a real sport

with real champions.

It's a very important part
of our sports training

because we have great need of well-built,

well trained men with good
lung power and staying power.

These qualities that
our young sportsmen have

mean they've become very important

when it comes to grenade battles.

At the request
of those young sportsmen

grenade throwing was included

in the military sports championships.

The winners were throwing
averages of 54 meters.

And in the speed and precision trials

the champions could throw
45 grenades in 60 seconds

In war, though, it wasn't a competition.

A grenade was a weapon

and was constantly used
to devastating effect.

From the very start it
was the British troops

who gained everyone's respect,
including all the other men.

People admired their courage.

They were known as the Tommies.

4 million of them landed

with a lot of military strength,

style, and sportsmanship.

The Tommies were actively encouraged

to play sports by their military command.

It was considered important
to their wellbeing,

to their military training,

and to their group morale.

And this attitude influenced

the officers of all the other armies.

A soldier who was a sportsman

might well make a better fighter.

On the 1st of July, 1916,

the Battle of the Somme kicked off

in a most extraordinary act

of both sportsmanship and tragedy.

With his men frozen in fear

at the idea of going over the top,

a British captain, Neville,

offered a reward to any soldier

who could get to the enemy
lines dribbling a football.

At 7:27, the Eighth Battalion
launched their assault.

When a man fell, another would replace him

and take the ball.

Captain Neville never saw his men

take a village from the Germans.

On this 1st of July,

he was one of the 20,000
British troops to die in combat.

It was the British Army's darkest hour.

The war killed so many,

but it also left dreadful traces

in the minds and on the
faces of the wounded.

These men may look more
or less human again,

but the war has marked them for life.

In 1916, a soldier called Eugene Criqui

was found on the
battlefield close to death,

his lower jaw shattered

and his tongue pierced by a bullet.

After two years of operations and therapy,

and against medical advice,

he resumed his pre-war career as a boxer.

With all his training,
he was soon winning again

in the only way he could, by
getting in the first punch.

In 1923, he became World
Featherweight Champion

by beating the American
Kilbane with a knockout.

They called him Iron Jaw.

The Battle of the Somme
went on for four months

and left 450,000 dead.

A priest performs the last rites

out in the middle of nowhere

for there was nothing left.

No nature, no landscape,

hardly anyone still alive.

Yet still, the living
took care of their dead.

They buried the German dead too

or, with no sense of
pride, took their photo.

An 18-kilometer cycling event

was organized within range of the shelling

on regimental bicycles

and with a squad of delighted soldiers.

The practice of sport was approved

by the French Army in 1917

as indispensable to the troops' morale.

How they wished they were somewhere else,

these soldiers marching to
the slaughter of the trenches

where so many had lost their lives.

At Vincennes near Paris,

the France-New Zealand rugby game

featured two military teams

made up of soldiers on special leave.

The sport's authorities
had launched a big campaign

to popularize the game.

Entry was free.

60,000 spectators were transfixed

by the All Blacks' famous Haka.

In sporting terms,

it was France's greatest
defeat of the war.

40-nil.

The captain that day was Maurice Boyau.

A three quarters wing,
but also an aviation ace

with 35 victories.

Six months later, he died in battle.

French rugby paid the heaviest price

of any sport during the war.

121 of its best players
would never come home.

1917 was the year of the
Chemin des Dames offensive

but at the end of this
road lay a terrible defeat

for the allied armies.

In just two months, 200,000
soldiers were killed.

As for those who'd been
fighting for three years,

they'd simply had enough.

They felt they were just
lambs to the slaughter.

They'd had enough of the rats,

of the lousy food, of hardly
getting any leave, the lot.

Insubordination was on the rise

as we hear from this member
of the 36th Infantry Regiment.

We refused to go up

to the frontline Tuesday night.

We didn't want to march.

They take us for cattle

and there's not enough to eat.

We were pretty much on strike

and a lot of other regiments
have done the same.

You might not even get this letter.

They might open them all and keep back

or burn the ones that
talk about what happened.

I don't give a damn, I've
had enough of their war.

General Philippe Petain

took command of the French Army.

He listened to the men and
heard their complaints.

Petain in fact put a stop to the mutinies

by improving living
conditions for his troops

both at the front and behind the lines.

From then on, the men at the front

would get a full three days of rest.

Sports were on the increase

at the initiative of the senior officers

who allowed their men unrestricted access

to sporting activities.

They recognized that sport contributed

to both physical strength
and all round wellbeing.

In the wake of the mutinies,

there had never been so
many officers at the games,

nor so much contact between the regiments.

In 1917, the War Ministry
ordered 5,000 footballs

to be delivered to the troops.

Sport was now part of the war effort.

The tragic conflict was also
played out in the skies.

Flying was now one of the arts of war,

whereas it had recently
been seen as a sport.

Wartime aviation attracted
its own champions.

In 1916, the racing cyclist Octave Lapize

was trained in aerial combat.

He obviously had a head for heights.

An excellent climber, he'd
won the 1910 Tour de France,

the first Tour to include
a Pyrenees mountain stage

Cresting a particularly
high pass and red with fury,

he yelled at the organizers,
"You are murderers!"

On the 14th of July, 1917,
Lapize's plane crashed

after a fight.

A cycling hero in life,

in death he was now a true hero.

Lapize, like
so many of our champions,

has just heroically met
the finest of deaths.

We have lost an ace among aces,

one of the best of us,

a perfect complete athlete

as well as an intelligent man.

We all mourn the loss of Lapize.

Lapize was
almost 30 when he died.

From the summer of 1917,
two million American troops

would land in battle array.

The French called them the Sammies.

The Sammies landed in France

with a very American style of army life.

Bare-chested, their heads shaved,

the 1st Infantry Division
stationed at Meuse

kept up a strict regime
of exercise, discipline,

and esprit de corps.

The Sammies brought with
them a lot of money.

All along the frontline,
they built their barracks,

more than 1500 of them.

A kind of Little America on French soil.

They chewed American gum.

They listened to American music.

They smoked American cigarettes

and read American books.

Their YMCA looked after the
religious side of things

as well as the sports.

The Sammies arrived with
their American sports

and the equipment to play them.

They brought hoops and balls
for their basketball games.

They played baseball too,

but it was just too
American for all tastes

and it never really caught on in Europe.

The US also sent over 100,000
African American soldiers

but they mainly held logistical posts.

This was segregationist America's way

of making sure there wouldn't
be any Black war heroes.

When it came to sport,

the Black soldiers usually stuck together.

In this village square near Verdun,

a curious audience watches them boxing.

There's a big knockout
punch, but no real harm done.

After all, this was sport, not war.

Between June, 1917 and November, 1918,

120,000 Sammies died in battle.

When it left, America
with its competitiveness,

with its stake on playing the game,

would bequeath to the old continent

the richness of its sporting culture.

He was a star.

And this smile, one of the
most famous in all showbiz,

belonged to the boxer, Georges Carpentier.

At the outbreak of war he was only 20

but he'd done a lot of living.

He was the son of a miner,
but with his shining talent

he preferred the boxing
ring to the mine shaft.

He was European Heavyweight
Champion in 1913.

He was a smooth talker, a charmer,

a prince, and the cameras loved him.

War offered other ways to fight

and Georges chose aviation.

Not without its risks.

Lieutenant Carpentier
escaped death many times

to obtain the French Military
Cross and the Military Medal.

In 1917, Carpentier was
teaching the noble art

to other soldiers

and staying in shape

while he waited for better days to come.

At the request of the high command,

he toured a boxing demonstration

around the provincial camps.

It was a recruiting drive for sports.

He was immensely popular

and would be even more so after the war.

In 1920, he would be World
Middleweight Champion.

The next year he would square up

to Jack Dempsey in Jersey City, USA,

in a sea of 120,000 spectators

at the World Heavyweight Championship.

And down
goes Carpentier, one, two!

A US journalist would say

that Dempsey that day was the strongest,

but Carpentier was the better fighter.

He's up, just in time!

And Dempsey goes after
him and down he is again.

But Georges went down

to a knockout in the fourth round.

Five, six,
he's trying to get up.

Eight, nine, ten, and out!

And Jack Dempsey remains
Heavyweight Champion of the world.

After boxing,

Carpentier went into
the movies in Hollywood,

into music hall on Broadway,

and lived a thousand lives
before he died at 81.

But in 1917 the war was still raging.

Sometimes a puff of wind
was all that stirred

in the hearts of the dead villages.

But the heart of sport was still beating.

At the front, more and
more soldiers were playing.

And in Paris, there was
a new spirit in the air.

War or no war, in 1917, Paris was a city

in perpetual motion.

Paris had never held its breath.

You could see the troops on
leave passing through town,

a bit lost in all the coming and going.

Or a young soldier flirting with a girl

in the middle of it all.

The ever more numerous sporting events

were part of a new wave of patriotism.

The war effort seized on it.

Money had to be raised.

All the propaganda was
aimed at showing the public

that these soldiers they
saw playing football

would be able to tough
it out in the trenches.

Meanwhile, the war kept
up its toll on human life.

In 1918, sports attracted
more new followers

and gave birth to new competitions.

The troops were now nearing
complete physical exhaustion.

But when it came to sports,

they'd get their second wind.

Here, each and every soldier
is wearing a race number.

This is Colombes, near Paris,

where the 1900 Olympic Games were held.

Now, it was where

the biggest wartime
sporting competition ever

set against each other the
British, the Americans,

the Italians, the
Portuguese, and the French.

It's a long way from
sport's clumsy beginnings.

For the athletes, it meant a
bit less time in the trenches,

worried sick and waiting for a bullet.

The 14-18 war was a world
war, total, industrial,

and fatally destructive.

But out of it was born
a great sporting event.

Football's Coupe de France.

48 teams took part in
the first Coupe de France

in memory of Charles
Simon, who died in battle

on the 15th of June, 1915.

Simon was a big football
fan who before the war

had founded the forerunner

of the French Football Federation.

In his honor, the
competition bore his name

before becoming the Coupe de France.

Paris, the 5th of May, 1918.

The first final in front
of 2,000 spectators

and Olympique de Pantin in white

beat Le Football Club de Lyon three-nil.

The teams were mostly
made up of young players,

the older ones are off at war.

The competition still goes on today

and will soon have its centenary.

How many soldiers were
aware that in 1917 in Paris

there was an all-women football match

between two teams from
the Feminin Sport Club?

In their way, these young
women were pioneers.

They were obviously
girls from good families

whose brothers and cousins
were off at the war.

Doubtless they'd all already mourned

the loss of a loved one,

for the Great War spared nobody.

1917 to 1918 saw the beginning

of all-female competitions in athletics,

football, and cross country.

Doctors at the time, however,

were claiming that all this was dangerous

for women's reproductive systems.

Pierre de Coubertin, the
father of the modern Olympics

wasn't exactly against it,
but he wasn't keen either.

The role of women should be,

like in the tournaments of old,

to crown the victors.

As I see it, the true Olympic hero

is an individual male adult.

Right after the
war, 1200 thousand spectators

watched an all-women football game

between a side selected
from France's best players

and an English side from
Preston, in the striped jerseys.

Did the girls have a laugh

at the Baron de Coubertin's expense?

Who knows?

In the early autumn of 1918

the war was not yet at an end.

The aviator Roland Garros was
an accomplished sportsman,

a university cycling champion,
rugby player, and athlete.

In 1913, he'd been the first

to make an aerial crossing
of the Mediterranean.

On the 25th of October, 1918,

he was not yet 30-years-old

when his plane exploded after a battle.

He gave his name to the famous
tennis tournament in Paris.

He died just two weeks
before the end of the war.

The 11th of November, 1918 in Paris.

On this Armistice Day the
streets are full of joy

rather than sadness.

Later, all the tears will be shed

for the 18 million dead,
both civilian and military.

At the year's end, the
still-mobilized troops play football

and keep the fun going
with a snowball fight.

Among the war dead were thousands

of the great names of sport,

and yet the years ahead

would be among the greatest for sport

that Europe had ever known.

The flower of military
athletics on parade.

1,415 participants, 18
nations, 90,000 spectators.

From the 22nd of June to
the 6th of July, 1919,

the Inter-Allied Games were held in Paris.

The military version of the Olympics.

It was the first post-war
international sporting event.

The games were presented as
an occasion of fraternity,

but it was a fraternity of victors.

The countries that lost were not invited.

It was the Americans

who paid for the
construction of the stade,

which was named after General Pershing,

Commander of the American
Army throughout the conflict.

The General awarded the medals in person.

The Americans came first
in the nation's ranking,

ahead of the French and the Italians.

When the Tour de France got
back on the road in 1919,

its route had changed a
bit thanks to the war.

Now it passed through Alsace and Lorraine,

the two areas of Germany that
were now French once again.

It was a meager pack of just 69 cyclists

at the starting line.

But then there were so
many absent friends.

During the war, French
cyclist Lucien Petit-Breton

had spoken of a rosy future.

Men will have
learned how better to suffer.

They'll remember their
suffering in the trenches

and it will give them new strength.

When peace comes,
everyone will be so happy

to live without fear, without regret,

that all will seem simple and easy.

Then cycling will enjoy a golden age.

On the 27th of July, 1919,

a happy crowd at the Parc des Princes

hailed the victory of
Belgium's Firmin Lambot.

After the war, sport enjoyed
a genuine boost in popularity.

Sports were no longer the
preserve of just a few,

they were now open to all social classes

as well as to women and the young.

Football, so popular with the
troops during the conflict,

now became the number one sport,

the one that won the public's favor.

And that's one of the
most notable legacies

of the Great War.

After the 14-18 conflict,

it was the stadiums that
replaced the battlefields.

The human body could now
achieve feats of athleticism

instead of military ones.

In the minds of the crowd,

the sporting champion had
replaced the soldier hero.

The athlete Joseph Guillemot

first discovered sport at the front

then lost a lung due to
a mustard gas attack.

In 1920 at the Antwerp Olympics

he took the gold medal
in the 5,000 meters.

Guillemot was an Olympic champion.

He'd come such a long way.

It was as if sport had triumphed over war.