All language subtitles for The.First.World.War.S01E04.DVDRip.MVGROUP.en

NARRATOR:
The call goes out for Jihad - Holy War.

Germany hoped her new ally Turkey
would do just what it was told,

and the Allies thought Turkey
would be a pushover.

But the war in the Middle East
went its own, wild way.

The Kaiser had been cultivating
the Ottoman Empire long before the war began.

He wore a fez on state visits.

He was nicknamed Haji Wilhelm,

following rumours that he had become a Muslim
and made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

The 300 million Muslims scattered
across the globe can be assured

that the German Emperor is
and will at all times remain their friend

Part of Germany's interest in Ottoman Turkey
was that they shared a common enemy: Russia.

Turkey's position, controlling
the Dardanelle Straits, gave her the power

to lock Russia up in the Black Sea.

And Turkey shared a volatile border with Russia
in the Caucasus.

Russia is the hereditary enemy
of the Ottoman Empire

and her greatest desire
is the possession of Constantinople

The Ottoman Empire once stretched from
the Arabian Peninsula to the gates of Vienna.

But it had lost a third of its territory
in a run of disastrous wars.

The Ottoman Empire was the sick man of
Europe, broke and on the verge of collapse.

The great powers have grasped us
by the throat

The Government can't pay monthly salaries

All the public services are under the control
of privileged foreign capital

It would be very easy for a patriot
to go out of his mind

But one group of nationalist reformers planned
to stop the rot - the Young Turks.

In 1909, they replaced the Sultan
with his brother as a puppet,

and started a programme of modernisation.

They looked for an ally
to ward off predators and bankroll the future.

The ambitious Minister of War
favoured Germany.

Just 32 years old,
Enver Pasha had risen through the ranks,

married the Sultan's niece,

and lived in splendour in Constantinople,
also known as Istanbul.

Enver Pasha had been military attach� in Berlin.

The Germans had the power
his country needed.

I watched a parade of 33 000 German soldiers

It was so excellent it makes one's mouth water

The reason I love Germany is not sentimentality

but the fact that she is not a danger
to my beloved country

On the contrary
our two countries' interests go hand in hand

Chief of the German General Staff,
Helmuth von Moltke, ruled out Turkey as an ally.

Turkey is militarily a non-entity

If Turkey was described before as a sick man
it must now be described as a dying man

The flamboyant Baron Max von Oppenheim
made the Kaiser think again.

An archaeologist and consular official,

Oppenheim passed himself off
as an Islamic expert.

He was also a German agent.

He advocated a Holy War
to bring down the British Empire.

When the Turks invade Egypt and India
is set ablaze with the flames of revolt

only then will England crumble

For England is at her most vulnerable
in her colonies

By the outbreak of war, the Kaiser had come to
see Jihad as the way to ferment revolution

among the millions of Muslims under British rule.

Our consul and agents in Turkey and India

must inflame the whole
Mohammedan world to wild uprising

for if we are to be bled to death
at last England shall lose India

The Ottoman Empire had found its ally
Germany.

Enver bypassed the Turkish cabinet,

secretly signing an alliance
on 2 August 1914,

while maintaining a public stance of neutrality.

Constantinople became the jump-off point
for subversion to set the East ablaze.

The German Embassy became a hive
of Oppenheim's raffish spies.

One group arrived from Berlin
disguised as a travelling circus.

The word was, the Emir of Afghanistan
had 50,000 Muslims ready to invade India.

The circus slipped out of Constantinople
bound for Afghanistan, if only they could find it.

One of the Turks on the mission
was Huseyin Rauf.

What do we know
about Afghanistan beyond its name?

I can't even visualise its place on the map

I don't know how to get there

Do I go via America?

The irony was that Enver Pasha and the
Young Turks weren't fanatical believers at all.

They went along with Germany's Jihad idea
out of opportunism.

What Enver wanted was to draw together the
Turkic peoples of the East into a new empire.

Enver had an army of 800,000, mainly from
Anatolia, but also Arabs, Macedonians, Kurds.

It was thought to be a spent force,
but Enver had reformed it.

Germany trained it.

Very considerable progress is being made
in the Ottoman Army's efficiency

The Turkih forces must now be regarded
as a factor to be taken seriously into account

But Turkey still had not publicly declared herself
as Germany's ally.

And her cabinet was split over whether to fight.

But Turkey was desperate for money.

So the Germans decided to sweeten the deal,
and force the Turks' hand.

Two of Germany's cruisers,
the G�ben and the Breslau,

were being chased across the
Mediterranean by the Royal Navy.

Rather conveniently, they took refuge
in Constantinople on 11 August 1914.

The presence of two German cruisers
riding proudly at anchor by the Golden Horn

undermined the Turk's pretence at neutrality.

So they shrugged,

and told the world they had bought the ships.

Their German crews were given fezzes to wear.

Their fancy-dress antics
were the talk of Constantinople.

The G�ben sailed up the Bosporus
halted in front of the Russian Embassy

Officers and men solmnly removed their
Turkih fezzes and put on German caps

The band played Deutschland Uber Alles

Deutschland Uber Alles

When they had spent an hour or two
serenading the Russian Ambassador

they put on their fezzes then picked up anchor

leaving in the ears of the Russian diplomat
the dying strains of German war songs

The Turkish fleet, led by the G�ben
and the Breslau, steamed out of the Bosporus.

On 29 October 1914,
they attacked several Russian ports.

Enver Pasha had the gateway
to the Black Sea mined.

The Germans paid over �5 million in gold,
securing Turkey as their ally.

Turkey had joined in the First World War,

pretty much on her own terms,
and with her own agenda.

The Persian Muslims are threatening trouble

There is a dry wind blowing through the East
and the parched grasses wait the spark

And the wind is blowing
towards the Indian border

Fiction by novelist John Buchan,
but based on real fears of an Islamic Holy War.

By late 1914, Enver was looking East.

He had big ideas both for Jihad
and for uniting the Turkic peoples.

Beyond the frontiers there are brethren to be
liberated and bits of fatherland to be redeemed

Nearly 40 years before,

Russia had stolen a chunk of Eastern Turkey,
along its Caucasian border.

Enver was desperate
to kick the Russians off Turkish soil.

But it was an area riven with ethnic friction:
Russians, Turks, Georgians, Kurds,

and, on both sides of the frontier,
Armenian Christians.

Loyalties in the Caucasus were hard to read,
hard to be sure of.

Here at Erzurum Castle in November 1914,

encouraged by the Germans,
Enver Pasha took a key decision .

Though winter was closing in,
he threw his army at the Russians.

Now he played the Islam card.

300 million Muslims
are sighing under their chains

and all our former fellow countrymen
are praying for our victory and success

Happy is he
who falls for religion and fatherland

Forward always forward for victory
and fame and martyrdom and paradise

In December 1914,

the Turkish Ninth Corps marched through
the high passes of the Allah Akbar mountains.

The aim was to sweep down on the town
of Sarikamis and encircle the Russians.

The Russians at first panicked and retreated.

Enver's bold gamble nearly paid off.

But then the temperature plummeted and
the Turks struggled into worsening conditions.

Enver tried to reassure them.

I see that you don't have shoes or coats
but the enemy is afraid of you

The Germans complained about our slowness
but the snow was so deep

Soldiers got lost at night some tried to light fires
but many fell asleep never to wake again

We realised in the morning
that half the diviion had frozen to death

The weather and terrain killed 25,000 Turks

before they even made contact
with the Russians.

The soliers were terrified of seeing the frozen
corpses and they began deserting their posts

We were trying to fire at the Russian troops
but the mechanims of the guns had iced up

We tremble to think what we lived through
during those long and deadly days

The scenes made one shudder.

The depressing sound of the trundling ox carts

the corpses mouths open

eyes staring
thrown into the greedy stomach of the soil

(Says Muslim prayer)

On the Allah Akbar mountains, local men
still say prayers for the dead of Sarikamis.

In 1919, Imdat Demir helped bury the bones.

Enver's grand offensive
had ended in catastrophe.

He addressed his soldiers
before leaving the front.

My friends for almost a month

I have seen with my own eyes
how you have attacked the enemy

In spite of the harshness of the weather and all
kinds of shortages you broke their resitance

The Sultan and the whole nation
congratulates you

I am returning to Istanbul

I pray that you will get more victories
and not let the enemy rear his head any more

I entrust you to the safekeeping of Allah

Now the search for scapegoats began

(Crowd cheers)

Enver blamed the defeat not on himself,

but on Turkish Armenians
serving with the Russians in the Caucasus.

Tension between the Turks
and their Armenian population was nothing new.

But now Turkey had serious fears that the
Armenians were bidding for independence.

From all countries Armenians are hurrying to
enter the ranks of the glorious Russian Army

Let peoples remaining under the Turkish yoke
receive freedom

Let the Armenian people of Turkey
who have suffered for the faith of Christ

receive resurrection for a new free life
under the protection of Russia

The Russians now advanced,
and the Turks fell back through Armenian areas.

Local Armenian resistance
was more imagined than real.

The Turks responded with disproportionate,
pre-emptive action .

Turkish Minister of the Interior Mehmet Talaat
issued the following decree on 26 May 1915.

Because some of the Armenians

who are living near the war zones have attacked
the military forces and the innocent population

certain measures are being adopted

among which is the deportation
of the Armenians

The German Ambassador in Turkey,
Baron von Wangenheim,

warned Berlin of the imminent disaster.

Such a mass deportation to a destination
many hundreds of kilometres away

without sufficient means of transport

via areas
that offer neither accommodation nor food

and are plagued with epidemic illness
such as typhus will cost many lives

especially amongst women and children

The town of Harpout, key transit point
of the forced Armenian exodus.

Thousands passed through here to exile
in Syria, then part of the Ottoman Empire.

American Missionary Tacy Atkinson
saw terrible sights in Harpout.

Thousands herded together
mostly women and children

the sick lying everywhere

These people have been on the road six weeks

They don't know where they are to go

They have been attacked robbed and killed

Armin T Wegner,
a German medical officer stationed in Turkey,

photographed the plight of the Armenians.

And the American Consul on the spot
reported to his ambassador.

Sir I have to report one of the greatest tragedies
in all history

A revolutionary movement on the part
of some of the Armenians was dicovered

and severe measures taken to check it

little distinction being made
between people who were entirely innocent

and those suspected
of being participants in the movement

The Armenians were marched
across these mountains.

Even those who survived the journey
were not safe when they reached Syria,

as a German diplomat in Aleppo reported.

Out of 2000 to 3000 peasant women
from the Armenian Plateau

who were brought here in good health
only 40 or 50 skeltons are left

The prettier ones are the victims
of their jailers' lust

The plain ones succumb to blows
hunger and thirst

Every day more than a 100 corpses
are carried out of Alppo

Perhaps 800,000 Armenians died in all.

Whether this was an act of centrally directed
genocide is still a matter of furious debate.

The Turks deny the charge,

saying the Armenians died of exposure,
famine and the actions of bad officials.

In June 1916,

Mehmet Talaat, the Minister of the Interior
who had issued the deportation order,

spoke to a newspaper
about Turkey's role in the disaster.

''The removal of the Armenians
has become a military necessity

but unfortunately through the fault
of bad officials

grave excesses occurred
when this order was being executed''

At this point the miniter is stated to have
paused and covered his eyes with his hand

as if to avoid the contemplation of the
terrible vision after which he continued

"We are no savages"

Care for the security of Turkey had to
predominate over all other considerations''

On 3 January 1915, the Russian Tsar,
panicking at the Turkish advance on Sarikamis,

urged the Allies to attack Turkey.

The British agreed.

This is one of the greatest campaigns in history

Think what Constantinople is to the East

It is more than London, Paris and Berlin
all rolled into one are to the West

Think what its fall will mean

This was the battle which might turn the war.

It could cut Germany's route to the East,

unlock the Balkans
and open up Russia via the Black Sea.

But first, the Navy would have to force its way
through the Dardanelle Straits.

The French insisted on being involved,

not wanting the British
to dominate the Mediterranean.

On 18 March 1915,

a combined French and British fleet
attacked the Straits.

The flagship was hit
by a large number of high calibre shells

A turret was put
out of action and all its crew killed

The flames didn't spare anything

Our young men
a few minutes earlier so alert and courageous

were all skeltons lying on the
bare steel blackened carbonied

The Turkish guns survived
the naval bombardment.

The Allied ships were sitting ducks.

I told the battery commander Rifat Bey
to increase fire

He replied that shells are exploding
on the decks of the enemy ships

There is considerabl damage to them

The French battleship Bouvet hit a mine.

Three battleships were sunk that day,

three crippled, four damaged.

The Allies lost over 700 men.

It was a remarkable victory
for the Ottoman Empire.

The Allies tried again.

This time, the Navy would support
an amphibious landing of troops.

The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps,
known as Anzacs,

joined French and British soldiers.

Contrary to later myth, the Anzacs weren't
rough, tough diggers from the outback.

They were mostly city dwellers,

many first-generation British immigrants,
fighting for the mother country.

Turks like Behzade Kerim knew
this would be a fight for their country's survival.

I will sacrifice myself for my faith
my country my dear Istanbul

I will crush the dirty loathsome hands reaching
out to threaten my old father's happiness

my innocent baby's life
my beloved wife's honour

I shall be as hard-hearted as an Englishman

I salute you oh apple of my eye Istanbul

Those who are about to die bid you farewell

On 25 April 1915,

70,000 Allied troops went ashore
on the peninsula of Gelibolu - Gallipoli.

A post-war film reconstructed the battle.

Private Robert Atkinson witnessed what was
then the greatest seaborne invasion ever.

Troops in small boats being towed ashore
effect a landing

Terrific bombardment awful noie
rolling round the cliffs surprise the Turks

Splendid gunnery by the Navy

Awe-inspiring scene

My first experience of battle

The Anzacs were landed in the wrong place.

(Gunfire)

8,000 men struggled ashore on a narrow strip
of sand hemmed in by steep hills.

The men christened it Anzac Cove.

The Turks welcomed us with shrapnel
and sprayed up the sea all about us

but very few of us got hit

There didn't seem much organiation
on the shore

In fact it was disorganiation

Breaking out of Anzac Cove,
the casualties soared.

New Zealander William Malone blamed the folly
and incompetence of Australian officers.

General Braund had no defensive position
no plan

nothing but a murderous notion
that the only thing to do

was to plunge troops out of the neck of the ridge
into the jungle beyond

It was on these Turkish hills that Australian and
New Zealand national identities were forged.

We were singing
''This bit of the world belongs to us''

Much swearing and cheering
we charged up a hill

so steep in places
we could only just scramble up

Clean over a machine gun we went
men dropping all around me

It was mad wild thrilling

The Anzacs would have had an easier time,

if it had been left
to the German General Liman von Sanders.

He was holding troops back
for an attack nine miles away that never came.

But a 34-year-old Turkish officer, Mustafa
Kemal, climbed the peak of Chanak Bair

and saw the Anzac troops approaching,
and his own men fleeing.

"Why are you running away?" I asked

''The enemy sir'' they said

''You mustn't run away from the enemy''

"We've no more ammunition," they replied

I ordered them to fix their bayonets
and lie down

and as they did so the enemy too lay down

We had won time

Mustafa Kemal issued a stark command.

I don't order you to attack

I order you to die

By the time we are dead

other units and commanders will have come up
to take our place

He sent an angry letter to Enver Pasha,
damning their German allies.

Liman von Sanders did not know
either our army or our country

and did not have
time to study the situation properly

I urge you strongly not to rely on the mental
ability of the Germans headed by von Sanders

whose hearts and soul are not engaged
as ours are in the defence of our country

The Turks contained the Anzac break-out
at the cove.

Gallipoli made a hero out of Mustafa Kemal.

Within eight years,
he became his country's leader,

earning the name Ataturk, father of the Turks.

The British landing at V beach went badly.

The plan was to run the ship River Clyde
onto the shore,

her hold no longer full of coal, but men.

But she went aground further out,

exposing the British to withering Turkish fire.

The enemy commanders
were sending the men down the ramps

But they could not escape the Turkih bullets

Our fire was very effective

knocking the enemy into the sea

The shore at V beach was full
of enemy corpses like shoal of fish

The colour of the sea changed
with the blood from their bodies

(Machine-gun fire)

The other landings went well,
but initial success was not quickly exploited.

The Allied campaign, under General Sir Ian
Hamilton, was cursed by poor co-ordination.

As on the Western Front,
the two sides dug in to a bitter trench war.

Here, an Australian cameraman scrambles
back to help his assistant under fire.

French officer Jean Giraudoux
watched the war turn brutal.

The Australians massacre all the Turks

One Australian told me that the Turks
are their national enemy

The conditions at Gallipoli were terrible.

Intense heat,

bitter cold, little water.

Major Burge wrote home to his mother.

Respected madam

Sitting fearlssly about 200 yards from two
million bloodthirsty Turks I take up my pen

I forgot to mention I've got about six feet
of solid earth between me and them

The sun is very hot and I am very thirsty

The only thing there is to drink is water
that comes from a nasty well

which tastes as if it had a dead mule in it

However we are given purifying tablets

which are very good and make the water taste
as if it had two dead mules in it

To my high born royal wife Ayesha

from your husband Mustafa Mahomet
Captain 13th Turkish Infantry

Oh Ayesha my morning star
I pray God to bring this all to an end

I can see our lovely Constantinople in ruins
and our houses burnt to the ground

These English are very persitent
and there is no fear of death for them

They are very cruel

They watch us like wolves in the night

and are upon us like the devil in the day

Oh why did we join in this wicked war?

Ayesha I must now take my leave of you as the
sun is sinking and I must away to my devotion

God bless you Ayesha

I wish I were at home to give you my adorations

But Ayesha never received Mustafa's letter.

It was found on his dead body
by a British soldier.

The Turks lost 10,000 men in one afternoon.

As spring turned into summer,
the stench of the dead became unbearable.

Eventually an armistice was called
to bury the dead.

Many Turkish soldiers were illiterate.

Their experiences were reflected in their songs.

Turkish ballad

(Gunfire and explosions)

Disease became a major killer,

particularly typhus and dysentery.

My old pal
he was smart and upright as a guardsman

After about 10 days

to see him crawling about
his backside hanging out

We were trying to lower him
down into the latrine

I don't know what happened
but he simply rolled into this foot-wide trench

We couln't pull him out
we didn't have any strength

He drowned in his own excrement

Allied resolve was weakening, as Lieutenant
Colonel Fahrettin realised, writing to his father.

The moral of his troops has sunk so low
as to be beyond description

These fellows will eventually
have to embark their troops

and remove them one of these nights

On 20 December 1915, they did just that.

Turkish officer Izzettin Bey was woken by
the duty officer at three o'clock in the morning.

They had spotted many frigates
and military transport ships

They thought it was a new invasion but
on the contrary the Britih were running away

Their situation had become hopeless

What had happened was victory
and the will of Allah

Turkish troops enter abandoned Allied trenches.

They did not fire on the retreating Allies,
happy just to see them go.

After nine terrible months,
the hills of Gallipoli fell silent.

Both sides had suffered
around a quarter of a million casualties.

But for the Turks it was a triumph.

When the enemy finally withdrew

Constantinople was decorated
from one end to the other

At night the minarets were lit up
with oil lamps

Everyone was full of joy
Pal faces began to smile

Constantinople came back to life

The Germans were still trying to ignite
a Holy War, Jihad, in the Middle East.

In the mosques
fiery speeches are made against the English

The excitement of the population is increasing

60 000 Afghan riders are ready to march

The German agents, who'd slipped into
the Ottoman Empire as a travelling circus,

were now crossing Persia,
disguised as tribesmen.

On 19 August 1915, they evaded Russian
patrols and entered Afghanistan.

Their mission, to raise a Muslim army
against the British and invade India.

The team had been on the road for nine months

and had spent much of the time arguing about
what route to take, and who was in charge.

The answer to that
was German spy Oskar von Niedermayer.

Then Enver Pasha had second thoughts.

The Germans, in stirring up countries to revolt
against their Russian and British masters,

encouraged ideas of independence.

This clashed with Enver's vision of uniting
all Muslims in an expanded, all-Turkic empire.

Enver pulled the Turks out of Niedermayer's
mission, leaving the Germans to go it alone.

And when they finally reached Kabul,

the Emir of Afghanistan kept them waiting
another two months, before he'd even see them.

His Excellency listed the reasons
why he could not receive us earlier

It of course had nothing to do
with anything political

He compared us with tradesmen
with lots of wares

from which he could pick
whatever he fancied and considered necessary

Everything seemed to be
a business transaction for him

The Emir played the Germans off
against the British.

Great riches, even his country's independence,
were at stake.

He hit Niedermayer with a demand
for �10 million and 100,000 rifles and guns.

While Niedermayer's party waited for the Emir
to decide whether to invade India,

they blundered about,
offending Muslim sensibilities.

In order to enjoy some forbidden alcohol
the soldiers secretly brewed schnapps

The first drunkard

a sight never before witnessed in Afghanitan
as it is a religious blasphemy

caused severe public anger

The Emir had long been on the British payroll.

Now they upped the bribe
to keep Afghanistan on side.

There were rumours of the arrival
of huge money transports from India

We worked it out
that the closer this caravan got

the icier our relationship
with the Emir became

Niedermayer and the Germans finally realised
they were pawns in the Emir's game

and abandoned the operation.

Jihad wasn't setting the East ablaze,
but it still had the power to petrify the British.

And Enver had no intention
of halting his expansionist plans.

He sent Colmar von der Goltz,
a distinguished German Field Marshal,

to take over command in Iraq
and drive the war through Persia into India.

Then 72 years old,
von der Goltz kept in touch with his family.

I could never have imagined that in my old age
fate would take me so far out into the world

and that I would travel
in the steps of Alxander the Great

through countries that filled our imaginations
when we were young

Britain decided a show of strength
was needed in the Middle East,

to persuade the Arabs that the British were
the masters there, not the Germans or Turks.

The capture of Baghdad would create
an immense impression in the Middle East

especially in Persia
Afghanitan and on our own frontier

and would counteract
the unfortunate impression

created by want of success on the Dardanelles

By May 1915, a British division,
under Major-General Sir Charles Townshend,

was advancing up the Tigris through Iraq,
then part of the Ottoman Empire.

Just 25 miles short of Baghdad,
they were halted by the Turkish Sixth Army.

The British fell back on Kut,
a town on a loop in the Tigris.

The Turks surrounded them
and the British settled in for a siege.

Major Dunn, who drew this map,
wrote home on Christmas Day.

A very good dinner today

mutton scotch broth salmon mayonnaise

chicken confley roast duck and green peas
Italian eggs chocolate

and of course we toasted
all our dear ones at home

The British found themselves
up against Colmar von der Goltz,

now in charge of the besieging
Turkish army, his conquest of India on hold.

Unfortunately the English have dug in well

and we don't have the
technical means to get rid off them

Whether we will meet again in good health
is in God's hand

Townshend was optimistic
they'd all be rescued within days.

But by January, with the food running out,
their own cavalry came reluctantly to the rescue.

About three weeks ago
the first horse fell under the butcher's knife

Since then they have been slain daily
about 20 a time

We have it in steak and kidney pie

horse mince, horse risols, potted horse

horse soup, stuffed horse meat etc
ad nauseam

Hundreds of British soldiers died,
trying to save Townshend's garrison.

This morning there was a strong English attack

Between the battle lines
the field is covered with English corpses

The relieving force downstream
has again failed to get through

General Townshend has issued
a communiqu� to us

''The eyes of India and England are on us
and we shall go down as heroes''

Which doesn't do us much good

I'd sooner not be a hero in Kut
and have plenty to eat

The men are dying off fast now from starvation
scurvy pneumonia

The Tommies are sticking it out better than the
Indian troops who refuse to eat mule or horse

On 24 April,
during the last, desperate days of the siege,

a gallant attempt was made to send a ship
carrying 270 tons of food up the Tigris to Kut.

Ali Ihsan was one of a group of Turks
who stretched a cable across the Tigris,

ensnaring the supply ship.

We conficated an English boat
which contained all kinds of food

enough to feed 5 000 for two months

It was called Julnar
but we renamed it Kendi Geln the Godsend

Townsend became so desperate

that the British made an offer to Turkish General
Halil Pasha for the freedom of the garrison.

General Townshend offered to me
one million English pounds

for the freedom of the English Army

Had this offer been made
in other circumstances

my answer would have been one word
out of the barrel of my rifle

Trying to keep my calm
I replied that I took this offer as a joke

Finally on 29 April 1916, after 146 days
of siege, Townshend surrendered.

An even more humiliating defeat than Gallipoli.

All up now

A terrible pity
Never shall I forget that morning of surrender

We settled down to the melancholy task
of destruction

Poor gunners

Some were in tears as the guns they were
so proud to have tended were blown to pieces

The Turks marched in at noon
and took over the place

By the waters of Babylon
we sat down and wept

Field Marshal von der Goltz died of typhus
just before the Turkish victory at Kut,

but it was in line with something he wrote,
an unusually modern and prophetic view.

For me the present war is only the beginning
of a long hitorical development

at whose end will stand the defeat
of England's world position

The hallmark of the 20th century must be
the revolution of the coloured races

against the colonial Imperialism of Europe

The evening after the fall

Turks and Arabs
moved through the narrow streets of the city

to where we had buried the much loved
Field Marshal a few days earlier

The Turkih commander wanted

to bring the news of the fall of Kut-el-Amara
to the dead leader whose achievement it was

Townshend sailed off to a comfortable captivity
in Constantinople.

During the siege, 1,750 of his British and Indian
soldiers had died, but the worst lay ahead.

12,000 men were marched
through the desert to Baghdad.

A large percentage of the men were quite done
for and couldn't possibly march another inch

They were lying on the ground
suffering from high fever and dysentery

and were smothered from head to foot in filth
and covered with flies

By the war's close, over 4,000 veterans
of Kut had died in prison camp,

victims of wilful neglect
by both Turkey and Britain.

''Never come back no more boys
never come back no more

The camp is becoming a bore boys
it's becoming a terrible bore

Shut up the old shop window
put a notice over the door

We're packing our kits for the jolly ol Ritz
and we'll never come back no more''

The Allies had written off the Ottoman Empire
from the start,

but then suffered major defeats at its hands.

The Turks would see out the war.

It wasn't Allah or the Germans
that kept them fighting to the end,

but self-defence and political ambition.

In the next episode of The First World War,

the giants Russia and Germany
clash on the Eastern Front,

and millions get caught in the middle.

A war without pity or rules.