All language subtitles for The.First.World.War.S01E07.DVDRip.MVGROUP.en

NARRATOR: ln August 1914, the two
greatest navys in the world made ready for war.

Now the Royal Navy will settle the question
of the German Fleet

And if they do not come out and fight
they will be dug out like rats from a hole

But the two fleets rarely met.

Instead, a new kind of war evolved:
more stealthy, more cruel.

A war not against battleships, but people.

The world's capital ships in 1914
were the products of a cold war.

Britain's HMS Dreadnought
had set the benchmark:

heavy armour, big guns, fast.

Dreadnoughts were bargaining chips
in a great naval poker game.

Germany had thirteen
and seven building.

Austria-Hungary: three.
America: ten .

Britain: twenty.

They kept the peace.
But then the cold war turned hot.

Britain and Germany were the main opponents,
staring each other down across the North Sea.

The longer the two sides looked at the map,
the more obvious their problems became.

Germany's ships couldn't get clear
of the North Sea.

To the south, the Channel blocked
by mines and the Dover Patrol.

To the north, the British Grand Fleet
at Scapa Flow.

But Britain couldn't get at the German Fleet

unless it came out from
its heavily-protected bases.

And if they actually met in the North Sea,
the result could be catastrophic.

The sight everyone feared.

Austro-Hungarian battleship, the Istvan,

sunk late in the war
by a tiny Italian torpedo boat.

ln 1914, the German Navy believed torpedoes
and submarines might tip the balance their way.

A hit-and-run war with little history and no rules.

Jacky Fisher, Britain's sharpest admiral,
predicted radical change ahead:

The use of submarines has convinced us that
in wartime nothing can stand against them

The submarine is the coming type of war vessel
for sea fighting

It means that the whole foundation of
our traditional naval strategy has broken down

Two days into the war, Germany unleashed
ten U-boats into the North Sea

to hunt down the British Fleet.

One of them, U-21,
made her way to the Firth of Forth,

where the British cruiser, HMS Pathfinder,
was leaving Rosyth naval base.

U-21 sunk her with a single torpedo.

Within a fortnight,
the Germans had more good news.

This 1927 film celebrates the voyage
of Captain Weddigen and the U-9.

Through my primatic glasses
I noticed a small masthead coming into view

near the Maas Lightship

It looked like the mast of a warship

Could this be the first sight of the enemy
that we were to have during the war?

The U-9 had found the British cruisers,
Hogue, Aboukir and Cressy,

on patrol off the Dutch coast.

Practically obsolete, they were
nicknamed the "Live-Bait Squadron".

Captain Weddigen seized his chance.

Fired torpedo at 500 metres

Target was middle ship
in a three-ship formation

31 seconds later, the torpedo struck Aboukir.

On board was Kit Musgrave.

We were woken by a terrific crash

and the whole ship shook
and all the crockery in the pantry fell

Then Cressy and Hogue arrived
and let down their boats

The Aboukir went down suddenly
and we slid down her side into the water

Musgrave jumped into the North Sea

and became the only man in the war
to be sunk on three ships within one hour.

I swam to the Hogue
and was just going on board

when she was struck and sank in three minutes

I then swam on to the Cressy
and was hauld up the side with a rope

But she was struck also and we sank

George von Muller was chief of Germany's
Imperial Naval Cabinet.

On our return from the morning ride
the first news of the successful torpedo attack

by the U-9 on three English cruisers

We are all delighted
and the Kaiser is in seventh heaven

The British were appalled.

First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill,
got the blame.

Over 1,400 men, many of them young cadets,

had died in a single submarine attack.

"Winston's War Babies", they were called.

British submarine lieutenant Ronald Trevor
wrote to his parents:

The news tonight is sad but what
we submariners have been expecting for weeks

The Commodore has repeatedly
warned the Admiralty

that those ships ought not to patrol
the North Sea

What has happened
is exactly what we predicted

ships stand by to rescue the sinking one's crew
then the submarine gets two sitting shots

Commander in chief of the British Grand Fleet
was Admiral John Jellicoe.

He'd joined the Navy in 1874 as a midshipman .

(Piping aboard)

Known as Silent Jack, he was experienced,
capable and cautious.

He ended patrols off the German coast,

confining his most valuable ships
to Scapa Flow and Rosyth,

at the very limits of the U-boats' range.

He warned the Admiralty:

The Germans have shown that they rely
to a very great extent

on submarines mines and torpedoes

and there can be no doubt that they
possess an actual superiority over us

in these particular directions

Germany's forward submarine base
was on the island of Heligoland.

The U-boats were ordered
to sweep the North Sea.

But the British had gone.

On 16 December 1914,
hoping to lure the British out,

five German warships
steamed across the North Sea.

At seven in the morning, they opened fire
on Scarborough and Hartlepool.

There was a terrific crash
We thought it must be sudden thunder

But when another crash came
we rushed to the window

and saw a lot of smoke and cried
"It 's the Germans!"

Two of the wee girl hung on to me and said
''Are the Germans going to kill us?''

122 people died in the attack.

It was the first time enemy warships

had killed anyone on the
British mainland in over a century.

Jellicoe too had been thinking about attacking
the enemy's homeland,

but his weapon would not be a hit-and-miss
naval bombardment,

but a blockade, tight as a drum, and lethal.

What we have to do is starve
and cripple Germany

The destruction of the German Fleet
is a means to an end and not an end in itself

Here was a use for those huge battleships

as sentinels sealing the exits
from the North Sea.

Stopping Germany's fleet getting out,
and her vital food and war supplies getting in .

The North Sea would become no-man's-land,
a dead sea.

Jellicoe was helped by an invention

more important than Dreadnoughts
or even submarines: wireless.

(Morse code)

Every day, every German ship
radioed its position

back to Fleet headquarters at Wilhelmshaven.

(Morse code)

Across the North Sea, in the coastguard station
at Hunstanton in Norfolk,

British Naval lntelligence was listening.

(Morse code)

The German messages were passed on
to a group of code breakers

working in one of Britain's
most secret departments:

Room 40, deep in the heart
of the Admiralty Old Building.

According to one of their officers,
the men in Room 40 were a mixed bag.

They knew ordinary literary German fluently
and they could be relied on

But of cryptography of naval German

of the habits of war vessel of any nationality
they knew not a jot

Some, like Dillwyn Knox, would help crack the
German Enigma code in the Second World War.

But in 1914,
they desperately needed some clues.

The break came in the Baltic Sea,
where a German cruiser, the Magdeburg,

was captured by the Russians.

On board, they found one of the
most valuable documents of the war

and passed it on to their British allies.

This is the Magdeburg's code book.

It allowed the men in Room 40 to read nearly
everything the German Navy was planning.

''Oh, well,'' the Kaiser said,
on learning of the Magdeburg's capture.

''Sparks are bound to fly at a time like this.''

But the Kaiser had no idea
his enemies had his code book.

No idea of the immense advantage
they now possessed.

Britain's sea strategy in the First World War
was simple: to isolate and starve her enemies.

At Scapa Flow and Rosyth to the north,
at Dover and Harwich to the south,

the Royal Navy closed the North Sea
to German ships.

The blockade was a brutal vision

brainchild of Maurice Hankey,
of the Committee of Imperial Defence.

My belief in sea power
amounted almost to a religion

The Germans like Napolon
might overrun the continent

This might prolong the war
but could not affect the final issue

which would be decided by economic pressure

The Director of Naval lntelligence agreed.

Grass would sooner or later grow
in the streets of Hamburg

and widespread death and ruin
would soon be inflicted

Germany began the war with a merchant
fleet of nearly four million tons.

Within months she lost a quarter of her ships,

seized in harbours or caught making a dash
into the no-man's-land of the North Sea.

Lloyds of London kept a log
of every vessel sunk.

Their records show that on one day alone,
8 August 1914, Germany lost 41 ships.

Neutral countries - Holland, Denmark, Sweden
were not spared.

Germany depended on ports like Rotterdam
for grain and raw materials.

So Britain forced neutral ships
to submit to the blockade.

Starting with Holland, the British pressured
shipping companies into declaring their goods.

In every country,
she built up a network of agents.

They tracked ships coming and going,
who was sending what where.

Any ship could be stopped.

Any found with banned supplies for Germany
had its cargo seized.

Within weeks,
the German government started to ration food.

Caroline Ethel Cooper was an Australian
stranded in Leipzig since the start of the war.

Every week, she wrote to her sister in Adelaide.

My Dear Emmie the Government has seized

the whole bread flour
and meal supply of the country

We are allowed only four pounds of bread and
can only buy one pound of white flour at a time

Now that the war against neutral ships and
food supply has begun prices rise every week

Sailors like Richard Stumpf were
stuck in harbour, frustrated and hungry.

2 April 1916

We spend most of our time
worrying about our bellies

Even the officers are embittered
and disatified

To end Germany's isolation,
her navy came up with a revolutionary plan:

an unarmed submarine over 200 feet long
that could carry a cargo of 1,000 tons.

ln June 1916,
the Deutschland set out for America

the first time a submarine
had ever tried to cross the Atlantic.

Because of the wet weather
and the high running seas

the deck hatches were closed most of the time

and the diesel engines pumped hot
humid air throughout the boat

Sweat ran down the bulkheads
and water leaked around loose rivets

The drinking water tasted like diesel

and every meal the cook cooked
had a layer of oil across the top

As we approached the American coast

Captain K�nig ordered the crew
to say nothing to anyone

about the strains we'd undergone
during the trip

and to especially avoid
mentioning our seasickness

Now, after two world wars,

it's taken for granted
that America and Britain are the closest of allies,

naturally on the same side.

But in the First World War it wasn't so clear.

Eight million Americans had
German parents or grandparents.

Four and a half million were of Irish descent.

Many of them had little love for England.

At the outbreak of war, thousands of US citizens
had tried to enlist in the German Army.

And America was enjoying
a massive economic boom.

Half Britain's war budget
was spent in the States.

Companies like Bethlehem Steel
were swamped with orders.

They hauled in six times the profits
they had made before the war.

The Deutschland was just
another good customer.

Her brave Atlantic crossing,
dodging Royal Navy warships,

became a rallying point for anyone
who had suffered from the British blockade.

Our crossing gradually became a triumph

All the neutral steamers we met
American or others

greeted us with three hoots or with their sirens

Only an English steamer sailed past
in deadly silence

while we were proudly raising
the black white and red flag in the wind

The Deutschland's crew
received a hero's welcome.

There were dinners in their honour.

Captain K�nig was invited
to meet the President.

The three weeks we spent in the United States
were a non stop party

Everywhere we went
people gathered round us

They all wanted a souvenir of some kind

I even sold the buttons off my shirt
and the stripes off my tunic

German families introduced us to their
daughters and we never had to pay for beer

The Deutschland returned to Germany
with a vital cargo of nickel and rubber.

The help it gave the economy was nothing
compared with the boost to German morale,

as even Caroline Ethel Cooper had to admit.

The town is flagged today
because the Deutschland has got safely back

The sight of those red white and black flags
always makes me sick

but I am glad she got across all the same

It was a sporting run

But the Deutschland was too
small to break the blockade.

ln Germany and Austria, there were
not enough people to work the land,

and too many officials trying
to ration what food there was.

The situation with the hunger and queues
is turning nasty

People wait for potatoes in their hundreds

four deep
from four in the morning until the afternoon

Every morning there are queues
lined with armchairs and cushions

upon which people sit and sleep

The shortages worsened after
the terrible harvest of 1916.

The Germans called it the Turnip Winter.

Many had nothing to eat but cattle fodder.

There were fifty food riots that year.

Oh what days of terror! Everything's in turmoil!

There was havoc in town last night

The windowpanes were smashed in
at Caf� Kaierhof

Angry crowds were shouting
outside bakeries and inns

Up at the castle they cursed the Major
in words I shan't repeat

The army appeared at eleven

It's horribly cold and because the rolling stock
has all been taken for the war effort

there is an extreme shortage of coal

We're learning how to be freezing
which isn't the most pleasant feeling

School theatres and cinemas
have all been closed until further notice

because of the lack of coal

(Ship's hooter)

The German Navy did nothing to help.

Even if large parts of our battle fleet
were lying at the bottom of the sea

it would have accomplished more than
it does now lying well preserved in our ports

At Wilhelmshaven, people
wrote graffiti on the walls.

''Dear Fatherland you may rest assured

the Fleet's in harbour safely moored''

Admiral Reinhardt Scheer had been ordered
not to risk his ships against the full British Fleet.

But by mid 1916,
the pressure to do something was intense.

On 31 May, Germany's High Seas Fleet
steamed out of Wilhelmshaven,

hoping to engage the
Royal Navy's battle cruisers.

But the British were one jump ahead.

The men in Room 40 had
already decoded Scheer's orders.

Three hours before the Germans
had even left harbour,

the entire British Grand Fleet
was on its way to intercept them.

Now the world would get the great sea battle
it had been waiting for.

Jutland.

It was a titanic clash.

250 warships, 100,000 men.

Britain's first great fleet action since Trafalgar.

It was a fight they had to win .

lf Germany ended up masters of the North Sea,
the blockade would be finished,

the British army in Europe cut off,
Britain herself open to invasion.

Admiral John Jellicoe was,
Winston Churchill said,

''The only man who could lose the war
in an afternoon.''

Less well-armoured than Germany's,

Britain's ships preferred to fight
at very long range.

But at Jutland, the range was just five miles.

We fired very slowly with deliberation

while the Kaier-class ships in front of us
shot like mad

Now the English were in
an unfavourable position

MAN : Our first shot hit the bridge
of a German destroyer and blew it to hell

Shells fell all around us
and what with ships sinking

and dying and dead bodies floating about
it made one shiver at the sight of it

At 4:30pm, the battle cruiser Queen Mary
was hit by a shell

which exploded in the ship's magazine.

A horrible sight it was

First an enormous height of dull red flame
followed by a great mass of black smoke

amongst which was the wreckage
thrown in all directions

The blast was tremendous

Admiral Beatty watched from HMS Lion .

There seems to be something wrong
with our bloody ships today

About seven o'clock
we passed the wreck of a large ship

which at that time we hoped was a German
but later larned was one of ours

She was broken right in two

The bow and stern were sticking up
about fifty feet and quite independent

But the British had the Germans
out-gunned and outnumbered.

As evening fell,
the German Fleet broke off the action.

We were in a regular deathtrap

There was only one way to escape
the unfavourable tactical situation

turn the line about
and withdraw on the opposite course

We had to get out of this dangerous
enemy envelopment

To ''Silent Jack'' Jellicoe,
peering through the fog of battle,

it didn't look as though
the Germans were running for home,

but lulling the British into a trap.

If the enemy battle fleet were to turn away
from an advancing fleet

I should assume that the intention was
to lead us over mines and submarines

So Jellicoe ordered the British to turn as well,
away from their vulnerable foe.

As night fell on 31 May 1916,

the men in Room 40 tracked
the retreating German Fleet.

(Morse code)

They passed its positions on to the Royal Navy,

giving Jellicoe a last chance
to finish the Germans off.

But the Royal Navy failed to catch them
and the German Fleet made it home.

During the night telgrams arrived
giving the estimated losses of the English

which are 2 to 3 in our favour

The Kaiser was therefore able
to announce at breakfast

"We have won a great victory in the North Sea"

Funeral dirge

Based on the maths alone, the Kaiser was right.

Germany had 11 lost ships and 2,500 men.

Britain : 14 ships and 6,000 men.

But that wasn't the point.

The Kaiser's battleships were back in harbour,
and stayed there till the end of the war.

The British Fleet still ruled the North Sea,
evermore tightening the blockade.

From the start, Germany had replied to
the British blockade with her own economic war.

She, too, tried to cripple the enemy
by cutting off supplies.

This light raider, the M�we,

was one of the few surface ships
Germany ever sent into the North Sea.

Her target not warships, but cargo boats.

She sunk 20,000 tons, building a
large collection of captured crews.

According to the English
we are in league with the devil

and have acquired the Flying Dutchman

The captain of the M�we said recently
''You can imagine what a great moment it was"

when I had eight English captains
standing in front of me

and l could tell them all
''This is the work of the German Fleet''

Germany's U-boats joined in the war
against Allied trade.

One British admiral was horrified.

Submarines are underhand
unfair and damned un-English

As for U-boats attacking civilian ships
it is impossible and unthinkable

If they do their captured crews
should be hanged as pirates

The U-boat blockade of Britain
would have to be ruthless.

But Germany's chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg,

realised the effect this would have on
world opinion, as he told Georg von Muller.

Spent the afternoon with the Chancellor

who wished once more to dicuss
the U-boat question

Bethmann enviaged the remaining neutral
united against us

as the ''mad dog''
among the peoples of the world

That would mean the end of Germany

Germany's admirals were furious
at having their hands tied.

But submarines were ordered
to stick to the old rules of war.

They gave warnings of their attacks.

They did not attack underwater.

They gave merchant crews time to escape.

German submarines sunk a quarter
of a million tons in 1914.

But Britain built new ships
faster than the U-boats could sink them.

Far from being choked by the German blockade,
the British economy flourished.

The British firm Vickers,
with a workforce of 78,000,

turned out guns, aeroplanes, battleships
and record profits.

If Germany was trying to play fair, Britain wasn't.

Q-ships looked like unarmed traders,
but carried hidden guns.

They looked like easy prey,
but when submarines came close,

the Q-ships uncovered their guns and attacked.

To add to the deception ,
they often sailed under foreign flags.

Lieutenant Heinrich Crompton on the U-41
was caught by just such a trick.

As the two ships came within 300 metres
of each other

the steamer opened a heavy accurate
rifle fire from all along the railing

immediately joined by
large-calibre guns hidden fore and aft

The U-41 immediately returned three rounds
from the forward gun all hits to the hull

Throughout the action
the steamer continued to fly the American flag

On 1 February 1915, in response to the British
blockade, the Kaiser stepped up his campaign.

He declared that all the waters around Britain
were a war zone, in which any ships

including neutrals - might be sunk.

This decision set Germany
on a collision course with America.

The pride of the Cunard Line, the Lusitania,
was the largest, most luxurious liner in the world.

She could carry over two thousand passengers.

There was a ragtime dance
written in her honour.

Ragtime piano

On 1 May 1915, Cunard posted a list
of her departures in the New York Times.

Next to it was an advertisement
placed by the German ambassador.

Those sailing to Britain, it said,
did so at their own risk.

(Ship's hooter)

At 11:30 that morning,
the Lusitania left New York for Liverpool.

Her captain made light of the submarine threat.

It's the best joke I've heard in many days
this talk of torpedoing the Lusitania

This is the last picture of her ever taken.

The Lusitania sighted the Irish coast on 7 May.

The lighthouse on the Old Head of Kinsale

was traditionally used by ships
on the Atlantic run to get their bearings.

At 2:10,
the Lusitania was hit by a single torpedo.

WOMAN : As I watched one funnel went

then the other then the other
until the ship had gone and the sea was calm

and all you could see was bodies
and wreckage of furniture

and everything that had been in the ship
floating in the water

AMERlCAN WOMAN :
My husband and I got into a lifeboat

the ropes of which jammed and had to be cut

since when I have not seen
or heard of my husband

MAN : I've lost all I ever possessed and
my dead boys ages eleven years and eight

WOMAN : I was rescued by a trawler

My dear husband was lost but I had the
great satifaction of finding him on Saturday

and seeing him laid to rest
in the cemetery in Queenstown

Police reports were sent to relatives
to identify the bodies.

1,200 people died on the Lusitania,
including 128 Americans.

At the battle fronts in Europe,
tens of thousands were dying every day,

but the fate of the great Cunard liner
overshadowed them.

It led to the most widespread
anti-German riots of the war.

In Liverpool, a newly-arrived American
joined the mob outside a German-owned shop.

The crowd was muttering
and growling and the shop was dark

but there were people upstairs

So I just picked up a brick
and heaved it through the window

Then everyone took to shying them
and in a few minutes the place was a wreck

There were several policemen at the corner
and they just grinned

With the sinking of the Lusitania,
Germany had crossed a line.

The whole world hates us because we are
conducting the war in such a brutal manner

And the brutality is increasing

I was at a party when the report
of the torpedoing of the Lusitania arrived

I saw two officers' wives who mad with joy
started to dance about the room

''Don't forget'' I said''that there were aslo
women and children aboard''

''That doesn't matter''
they said and danced on

''The more who go to the bottom the better''

The Lusitania came to stand
for German barbarity.

Britain stirred the indignation
with its own propaganda.

Posters and even posed photographs
rammed home what had happened.

The German Embassy in Washington
received bomb threats.

President Woodrow Wilson himself began to see
Germany as the ''mad dog of the world''.

In God's name how could any nation
calling itself civilied do so horrible a thing?

lt seemed America might clamber down
off the fence.

But outrage soon gave way to caution.

Wilson reassured the nation
that America would not go to war.

There is such a thing as a man
being too proud to fight

There is such a thing as a nation being so right

that it does not need to convince others
by force that it is right

And anyway,
war would be very bad for business.

Wilson kept the United States
prepared but neutral for two more years.

The sinking of the Lusitania was terrible,

but that didn't seem reason enough
to throw away more lives

and profits - by joining in a distant war.

Germany's policy in America,
after sinking the Lusitania, was complex.

She kept her U-boats in check, but not her spies.

In 1916, German agents
blew up Black Tom lsland,

a loading depot in New York Harbour.

lt held 900 tons of ammunition ,
destined for the Allies.

Several thousand persons lined the sea wall

and acquired a real picture of what the firing line
in the European war looks like

The waterline was one mass of red glare

The explosions were so strong,
they were felt in Philadelphia, 90 miles away.

German agents slipped bombs onto ships
in American ports.

There were several assassination attempts,
and even a bomb planted in the US Capitol.

German agents are everywhere

Extraordinary measures of precaution have now
become necessary in all the arms factories

at the docks and on board vessel
even vessel of the United States Navy

Hard evidence tying Germany
to espionage operations against America

came from one of the spies himself.

Heinrich Albert left his briefcase
on New York's elevated railway.

It held documents proving the German Embassy
was bankrolling the sabotage.

Two senior diplomats,
including Franz von Papen,

Hitler's future Vice-Chancellor, were expelled.

But nothing got in the way of business
on the New York Stock Exchange.

When Germany won a battle, Allied stocks fell.

When Britain won, her shares rose.

American investors were betting on the war.

For British cabinet minister David Lloyd George,

there was a direct connection
between battle and bank.

Success means credit

Financiers never hesitate
to lend to a prosperous concern

France and Russia paid for the war
by borrowing from Britain.

Britain in turn raised money
on the American stock market

through her Wall Street bankers, JP Morgan.

It was spent buying American armaments,
American supplies.

Of all the money raised in America to pay
for the war, 99% went to Britain and the Allies.

lt was something that made many Germans
wonder just how neutral America really was.

30 January 1916

In financial circles it is openly said
that England has won the war already

and every day that it goes on after March
can only make the ruin of Germany completer

no matter what her military successes may be

America lent so much that, by the end of 1916,

the central bank warned that people
were betting too heavily on Britain .

lf the Allies lost,
they might never get their money back.

The mere thought that American cash
might be backing the wrong side

wiped a billion dollars off Allied stocks in a week.

Germany's generals felt the odds
were stacking up against them.

They grew impatient at hesitant politicians
tying their hands.

In view of the military situation
we must lose no time in adopting the measure

of torpedoing armed enemy merchantmen
without notice

The Entente are continuing the war
with all the resources at their diposal

Our ambassador prophesies war with America
if we persit in our intention

of torpedoing armed merchantmen
without warning

The Kaiser wrote in the margin of the report
''I do not care''

The Kaiser didn't care
because of some key German calculations.

His generals gambled that,
if America joined the Allies,

she would not have a decisive impact on
the fighting in Europe until 1919.

Long before then , the U-boat campaign would
have brought Britain and France to their knees.

One thing stayed Germany's hand.

In December 1916,
she put out a peace feeler to the Allies,

believing she could hold on to her gains.

The French and British leaders met in Paris
and rejected the offer.

(Cheering)

Germany now staked everything on
a new submarine campaign.

U-boats would sink all ships on sight,
without warning.

February 2 is a special and uplifting day
for us Germans

the beginning of the all out submarine war

We're all holing our breaths and hoping that
with this radical medicine

we will finally cure England of her arrogance
and secure a quick peace

the terms of which we will dictate

ln April 1917, Germany sunk over 800,000 tons,
causing panic at the British Admiralty.

But Germany didn't have enough U-boats
to sustain the success,

and Allied ships were getting better
at protecting themselves.

Merchant ships now travelled not singly, but in
convoy, with more destroyers to protect them.

Airships and aeroplanes scouted overhead,

looking for the telltale signs
of submarines lying in wait.

63 U-boats were sunk in 1917,
three times the losses of the previous year.

One captured U-boat
was put on display in London.

13,000 people paid to view it on the first day.

Its German sailors couldn't believe the contrast
between the Allied home front and their own.

We remained in Dover for two and a half days

and we were plentifully supplied with food
drink and smokes

for you notice nothing of the war here

There are no wooden sols
or bicycles with wooden tyres

and the butchers' shops have
rows and rows of pigs hanging up

There is no prospect of starving England

I am glad for the war is over for me

The second U-boat campaign
was a double failure.

lt didn't deliver militarily:

German submarines could not sink enough
Allied ships to make a difference.

And it was a diplomatic disaster,
pushing America to the very brink of war.

The final shove came from the men in Room 40.

(Morse code)

On 16 January 1917,

Britain intercepted a coded telegram
from German Foreign Secretary Zimmerman

to his ambassador in Mexico City.

The Zimmerman telegram was made up of
1,000 numerical code groups.

It took two weeks to decypher

And as the meaning emerged,

the men in Room 40 realised they were holding
the most extraordinary intelligence of the war.

Destined for the Mexican Government,

the telegram outlined Germany's plan
for Mexico to invade the United States.

We make Mexico a proposal of alliance
with an understanding on our part

that Mexico is to reconquer Texas
New Mexico and Arizona

The settlment in detail is left to you

Zimmerman's scheme was harebrained.

Mexico was in the middle of a revolution.

US troops were already fighting bandits
on the border.

There was no way the Mexican Government
wanted more trouble.

But Germany's proposal
was a godsend to Britain.

It was just what she needed
to end America's neutrality.

Two weeks into the U-boat campaign , Britain
called the US ambassador to the Foreign Office

and passed over the Zimmerman telegram.

It was, said Britain's Foreign Secretary,

''as dramatic a moment
as I remember in all my life.''

On 2 April,
President Wilson went to the Capitol.

The United States had not declared war
when the Lusitania went down.

lt had not declared war
when spies blew up its shipyards.

But Germany urging Mexico to attack America
was in a different league.

On 6 April 1917, the United States
declared war against Germany.

For three years, the country had played
the war's banker and supplier.

Now as far as president Wilson was concerned

America was fighting a crusade
for international justice and democracy.

The North Sea would remain
dead until the very end.

The Germans now set themselves
a desperate task.

To win the war before
American Troops arrived in Force.

And President Wilson's Liberal Crusade
Would be up against new ideas.

Of socialism and Revolution

In the next episode of the
First World War

German Spies so rebilion in Ireland and Russia

And French Troops mutiny on the Western Front

A war against war itself