All language subtitles for The.First.World.War.S01E09.DVDRip.MVGROUP.en

NARRATOR: Spring 1918.

Revolution had taken Russia out of the war,

releasing half a million German soldiers
from the East.

For a brief moment, Germany outnumbered
the Allies on the Western Front.

Here was her chance to win the First World War.

We must strike at the earliest moment,

before the Americans
can throw strong forces into the scales

We must beat the British

Behind the German lines, great armies
rolled into position for the ''Michael Offensive'',

named after Germany's patron saint.

All the roads were crowded
with columns on the march

eagerly pressing forward
with countless guns and endless transport

The German and the Allied Air Forces
were closely matched,

but Germany had the legendary ace,
Baron Manfred von Richthofen.

A special train
carried his famous fighter squadron .

Their brightly-painted aircraft and daring antics

had earned the nickname
''The Red Baron's Flying Circus''.

These pilots were Germany's heroes,

among them, the future Nazi leader
of the Luftwaffe, Hermann G�ring.

The Red Baron's dog, Moritz,
with his own flying gear.

Von Richthofen had already downed
66 enemy planes.

He looked to the Michael Offensive
to swell his tally.

The Allies knew the Germans were about
to hit them. They just didn't know where.

The French reinforced
the Chemin des Dames ridge,

the British strengthened
the line guarding the Channel ports,

but the Germans had their sights
on the gap between,

concentrating on a 12-mile sector
where they knew the British were weak.

Here, the British Fifth Army's trench system
was shallow and incomplete.

General Sir Hubert Gough had few reserves.

Germany's supreme commanders
had chosen well.

Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff
carried their country's hopes.

Virtually worshipped
as demigods for past triumphs,

they complemented one another's characters.

Hindenburg, the rock, steady and unflappable.

Ludendorff, the brains, but erratic, nervous.

The plan was a short,
intense bombardment to stun the British,

then a shock attack by storm troopers.

Evolved since 1915,
these were elite, mobile soldiers,

armed with grenades and flame-throwers,

trained to seek out soft spots
and penetrate deep and fast into enemy lines.

(Gunfire)

Ludendorff fixed the offensive
for dawn on 21 March 1918.

The Germans hit the British
with a million shells in just five hours.

Just before the bombardment ended

the battalion commander Major Scherer started
to sing ''Deutschland Deutschland Uber Alles''

We all joined in

It was the first time I had heard our men singing
the national anthem since the autumn of 1914

9:40 is zero hour

One division after the other
breaks through in a gigantic leap

through the smashed-wire entanglment

across no-man's-land
into the first enemy trench

Our bayonets are stuck in their bodies

The morning fog was thick with poison gas.

Some British never saw them coming.

We heard the sentry shout that the Germans
were here and we all made a grab for our arms

A party of Germans came behind us
and called on us to surrender

Well we hadn't anything to say in the matter
as there were hundreds to one

Seeing that the case was hopeless
we were taken very much against our will

Lieutenant Stewart was one of
21,000 British captured that day.

Panic spread, as senior officers, used to years
of static trench warfare, lost control in the havoc.

As soon as communications
with brigades ceased to exit

diviional headquarters
in many cases became paralysed

They'd become so wedded to a set-piece type
of warfare that they were unable to function

General Gough ordered
what was left of the Fifth Army to withdraw.

We could hear large numbers
of Boche on the roads in front

The tramp tramp tramp

made one imagine the whole German Army
was advancing against my company

This was the biggest breakthrough in over three
years of trench warfare on the Western Front.

What our enemies never achieved
not even after month long battles

we managed within two days

How happy and jolly the Kaiser must be

Finally the initiative is back with us
It's a wonderful feeling

Demoralised British troops retreated
over the Somme battlefield of 1916,

giving up ground
for which so much blood had been shed.

It is pathetic to think that the old places
where we were two years ago

are now in the hands of the Hun
as also are the graves of many people we know

Edward's sister, Vera Brittain, was a nurse
at Etaples, now flooded with casualties.

VERA: ''There's only a handful of us Sister
and there seems to be thousands of them''

It was the perpetual cry whether the patient
came from Bapaume or P�ronne or St Quentin

Day after day while civilian refugees
fled in panic into �tapls

some fresh enemy conquest
was incredulously whipered

P�ronne Bapaume
Beaumont-Hamel were gone

The huge German advance put Paris
within range of the biggest gun in the world.

This morning the bombardment of Paris began
with the three new Krupp cannons

The target is 120 kilometres away

and from launch the shell takes 3 1/2 minutes

The first French prioners I speak to

ask me anxiously whether it's true
that Paris has actually been shelled

VON ElNEM:
Travelling will be all the rage in Paris

Allied newsreels portrayed life in the city
continuing as normal.

But away from the cameras,
civilians hurriedly packed their bags.

183 of the giant shells fell on Paris.

The battle's going well

The enemy is in retreat though fighting
courageously and with heavy bloody losses

A brilliant offensive

with great loot and over 3 000 prioners
60 artillery and 200 machine guns

I receive a telegram from Crown Prince Wilhelm
honouring me and my army

This evening His Majesty The Kaiser

returned from Avesnes
bursting with news of our successes

As the train pulled in he shouted ''The battle
is won The English have been utterly defeated''

The Kaiser declared 24 March 1918
a national holiday.

He awarded Hindenburg and Ludendorff
the highest military honours.

Days later, Ludendorff's troops
were still advancing.

Some of the British
started to think the unthinkable.

I shall never forget the crushing tension
of those extreme days

Nothing had quite equalled them before

not the Somme not Arras

not Passchendael

For into our minds had crept for the first time

the secret incredible fear
that we might lose the war

(Mortar fire)

But German success in the Michael Offensive
masked deep problems at home.

The biggest threat to Germany and her allies

had increasingly come,
not from their enemies, but their civilians.

The crucial link between fighting
and home fronts became decisive in 1918.

The Central Powers
were running a desperate race

between victory on the battlefield
and collapse at home.

(Sniper fire)

There are signs
of the increasing scarcity of metal

In a small town near here
a sad ceremony took place

The ancient church bell

which had rung the people from cradle to grave
for 300 years was requisitioned

The inhabitants performed
a funeral service for it

The bell was covered with wreaths and flowers

and handed over to the military authorities
under tears and protestations

Lead pipes were ripped up from the streets
and melted down into bullets.

The war was gnawing
at the vitals of Germany and Austria-Hungary

and people's hearts were turning against it.

They wanted change, peace and democracy.

After a while
joy at the victory announcements abated

People stopped believing them

They weren't sure any more what the truth was

I saw that the war had become old
and like an old person was no longer wanted

Surely peace must come soon?

Something dangerous was building up
in people something that smelled like rebellion

Dangerous ideas were coming in from Russia
antiwar, revolutionary,

carried by German troops being moved from
Eastern to Western Front for the great offensive.

At railway stations and on leave, these ideas
took root amid the pessimism of the home front.

Dominik Richert was one of the soldiers
ordered from East to West.

We were off to the front, so, once again,

we had the plasant prospect of being allowed a
sweet heroic death for the beloved Fatherland

We went through East Prussia
West Prussia Brandenburg

Train after train crammed full
of soliers and war supplies

rolled over from Russia to the West

Farm workers were in the fields We waved

Almost all of them
made the sign of having your throat cut

Since 1917,

letters from home to Germany's soldiers
carried an increasingly defeatist message.

Beloved Fritz hard work never seems to lessen

We would all do it ever so willingly
if only this cursed war would end

Tomorrow it will be two years
since our beloved brother was killed

and what a number has fallen in those years

In this small area we can count 33
and yet there is no end

The Central Powers' censorship of letters

revealed the extent to which
dangerous pacifist ideas were infiltrating society.

An understandable yearning
for one's home family job

can be detrimental to the soliers' resolution

The heavier these burdens
weigh down on the spirit of the army

the more the army needs to rely on
a strong foundation of belief

Ludendorff used propaganda
to boost the nation's morale.

By now, his authority had spread
into all aspects of life, military and civilian.

In July 1917, he launched
a ''patriotic instruction programme''

to restore the army's faith in nation and cause.

One of the propagandists
was Major Walther Nicolai.

A German victory is necessary and possible

It is the only means of reaching a peace
which is appropriate to its sacrifices

We must eradicate all doubt
in a German victory

Film became a key propaganda tool.

A massive new studio, UFA,
secretly funded by the military,

made films to encourage the war effort.

(Dramatic piano accompaniment)

Here, Neptune, king of the seas,
learns that the feast his mermaids bring him

has floated down from British ships
sunk by U-boats.

He goes to Berlin to urge the public
to keep buying war bonds.

Propaganda also taught the importance
of security and secrecy.

In this film,

a soldier's careless talk on the telephone
to his wife is intercepted by the British.

Ludendorff enlisted German women to spy on
their fellow citizens and root out defeatism.

Politician Hans Peter Hanssen
described in his diary

the covert mission
of the Women's Home Army.

These women are given
special Instruction in espionage

They are to pay attention
to conversations everywhere

They are to post themselves
in front of food shops to prevent complaints

If they hear people making improper utterances

they are to demand their identity immediately
and turn them over to the state attorney

In these repressive times,
politics grew more extreme.

In July 1917,
the German Parliament, the Reichstag,

passed a resolution
calling for a negotiated peace with the Allies.

But Hindenburg and Ludendorff
welcomed the formation of the Fatherland Party

to reunite the nation.

Financed by industry and the army,
and backed by the right,

it launched savage propaganda attacks
against all antiwar factions.

But the party only fuelled Germany's slide
into dissent and division.

All outward distinctions of class and rank
have to be avoided

The many who have grown rich
through war are detested

Finer ditinctions are not always made

and anyone wearing a fur mantle or well made
boots is suspected of being a war profiteer

Hindenburg and Ludendorff
were running Germany as a military dictatorship.

They had marginalised the Kaiser.

PRINCESS BLUCHER: The Kaiser is more
and more the shadow of a king

and people talk openly of his abdication
as a possibility very much desired

ln January 1918, frustration,
war weariness and hunger

drove 400,000 people
onto the streets of Germany.

WOMAN : Enough with the murder at the front!
Down with the war!

We don't want to starve any longer!

MAN : This war will only end when
Kaiser Wilhelm has to queue up for potatoes!

WOMAN : We're all croaking with hunger!

There has been a heavy battle
between strikers and police at Moabit

A policeman has been shot

The strike is spreading

In North Berlin streetcars were stopped
overturned and used as barricades

Kurt Eisner, a radical socialist leader
addressed the crowd.

Comrades! The battle has begun!

For three and a half years
you have swallowed shameful lies

and become accomplices
to the terrible slaughter

If you give in now
the oppression will start all over again

and you will be sent to die in the name
of the economic and military interests of a few

If you stand firm now we will be victorious!

The German Army responded by arresting
150 strike leaders and putting them on trial.

We are now entirely at the mercy
of the military courts of justice

Anyone who strikes
is being sent off to the front at once

In the darkest days of serfdom

men could not have been more in a state of
slavery than we are in these days of militarism

Over 3,000 strikers were sent to the front.

It was a foolhardy decision, only likely to spread
radical and pacifist ideas into the army.

The company was ordered to attend the burial
of the cavalry captain in the military graveyard

where thousands of poor victims
of European militarism already lay buried

Of course there was a speech

The main words featured were
''Fatherland'' ''hero's death'' ''honour'' etc

In reality that's all lies and deceit

The only people who die
purely for the Fatherland are the basic soliers

The higher ranks are paid so die for the money

By March 1918, Germany's ally,
Austria-Hungary, faced bankruptcy and famine.

Josef Redlich, a member
of the Austrian Parliament, was in despair.

The financial worries are crushing

All in all the national debt is 75 billion

and all around the country
hunger is crushing the masses

Has such hunger ever been experienced
by a hundred million people and more?

Emperor Franz Joseph had died in 1916.

His successor, Kaiser Karl, liberalised Austria

and had a French wife Zita,
who disliked Germany.

In 1917, he opened
secret peace negotiations with France.

The Germans felt betrayed,

then Austria started to waver in the one area
where Germany was relying on her to hold firm,

the Italian Front.

ln November 1917, Austria-Hungary
had beaten Italy at the battle of Caporetto,

capturing rich farmlands
and thousands of prisoners.

But the troops soon slaughtered the animals
and emptied the granaries.

By February 1918, warnings reached Vienna
that Austro-Hungarian troops in the Alps

and on the Venetian plains were near starvation.

The troops are no longer moved by incessant
empty phrases that the hinterland is starving

or that one must hold out

They must be adequately supplied
to be able to live and fight

I therefore beg again

for vigorous measures to overcome
the present food crisis as quickly as possible

But Vienna couldn't feed herself,
let alone supply an army.

In April 1918,

Austrian General Landwehr, in charge of food
distribution, took matters into his own hands.

Grain barges from Romania passed through
the city down the Danube to Germany.

Landwehr ordered his men to hijack one.

Now Vienna had no bread

Something had to be done

The confication of the German grain barge
was the only way out

This was simply street robbery
albeit an official one dictated by need

It was a violent action I had to take
if I was to save Vienna from starvation

Ludendorff was so enraged,
he considered declaring war on Austria.

And trouble was brewing with Germany's
other main ally, Ottoman Turkey.

Germany needed Turkey to hold the line
against the British advance into the Middle East.

But, after 600 years,
the Ottoman Empire was crumbling

and the British Empire was licking its lips.

In March 1917, the British captured Baghdad.

In December, they entered Jerusalem.

The loss of both cities was a severe blow
to Ottoman authority in the Middle East.

The words ''Jerusalm has fallen''
spread like news of a death in the family

Jerusalm was in the hands of the English

How heroically the last Turks fought

We did not leave Jerusalm
like the sons of Israel

We left it like Turks

Through the Mount of Olives
the evening shadows deepen and widen

like a grave sucking in
the whole of the Ottoman Empire

We now had to prepare our tears for Beirut
Damascus and Aleppo

Now we thought only of Anatolia and Istanbul

Goodbye to the Empire
and all its dreams and fancies

(Camels bray and grunt)

The Britih Army had it all. They had built roads
even pipes to ditribute water to the troops

We did not have any clean drinking water

A flask full of clean water
was sold for a gold coin on the Turkih side

In Turkey, as with her allies, the situation
on the home front was so desperate

it threatened her capacity to wage war.

Turkey hadn't known peace for seven years.

The First World War was just the latest,
and most terrible, in a string of conflicts.

Most able-bodied men were in the army

or wounded or dead.

The land was impoverished,
the people near breaking point.

An old farmer with a seven year-old girl
his grandchild came to see me

The child's father had died in Gallipoli
and the mother had died as well

He begged me ''For God's sake take this child
and save her from starvation and death''

I took the child

Back in Istanbul I discovered
that almost all of my officer friends

had taken in poor children like that
from the villages of Anatolia

General Mustafa Kemal, Turkey's future leader,

warned that this was
a recipe for national disaster.

There are no bonds between
the Government and the people

What we call ''the people'' is now composed
of women disabld men and children

For all alike the Government is the power which
insitently drives them to hunger and death

Every new step taken by the Government

increases the general hatred
the people feel for it

But far from relaxing
the pressure on the Turkish people,

their war leader, Enver Pasha,
had even bigger demands to make on them.

While Britain swallowed up
the old Ottoman Empire in the south,

Enver looked east, dreaming of a new
Turkish Empire extending into Central Asia.

Our destiny forces us to move from the south
to the east where our blood

our roots our language
and most importantly our future lie

Ludendorff also had plans, which ignored
the parlous state of the Turkish Army.

By May 1918, he had a crazy idea, for Enver
to strike at the heart of the British Empire.

LUDENDORFF:
Even if we are victorious in France

it is still in no way certain that we can force
the English to a peace acceptable to us

if we are not able to threaten
their most sensitive spot India

But Enver stuck to his own agenda

and that included
sending his newly-formed Army Of Islam

to capture the oil-rich city of Baku.

Britain and Germany
also had Baku in their sights.

Now the scramble for Central Asia was on.

The speed and energy of the Turkish advance
seems to have taken Europe by surprise

They hadn't thought
Turkey was able to carry out such deeds

Ludendorff was furious to find, yet again,
an ally trying to steal resources from Germany.

Unlss the Turkih advance
on Baku is halted at once

and the troops are withdrawn
to their original positions

I shall have to propose to His Majesty the Kaiser

the recall of the German officers
in the Turkish High Command

While they were bickering,
Britain sneaked into Baku first.

Turkey's commanders, like Vecihi Bey,

were growing bitter
over the cost of her alliance with Germany.

We thought
we were sacrificing ourselves

for the common good
of the Germans and Turks

Oh! This shining silvered plan

We've sacrificed millions
of our sons for a dream

A woman is asking everyone she
sees ''Have you seen my Ahmed?''

"Which Ahmed?"

"Which of the hundred thousand Ahmeds?"

''He went this way'' she said

"That way?

To the Suez Canal Sarikami or Baghdad?

Was your Ahmed swallowed by ice
sand or bitten by scorpions?

No none of us has seen your Ahmed

But he has seen hell"

If we could only explain to a mother what
we gained from it, news to make her proud

But we lost Ahmed in a gamble

(Mortar fire)

Regardless of the Central Powers'
mounting problems,

Ludendorff's push on the Western Front
was storming ahead.

We're going like hell on and on day and night

Our baggage is somewhere in the rear
and nobody expects to see it again

We're glad if ration carts and field kitchens
can get up to us at night

Now we go forward past craters and trenches

captured gun positions

ration dumps and clothing depots

Our cars now run on the best English rubber
tyres, we smoke none but English cigarettes

and plaster our boots
with lovely English boot polish

all unheard of things
which belong to a fairyland a long time ago

The British Fifth Army fell back
in disorder before the Germans.

Von Hutier's 1 8th Army
had advanced the furthest.

They encountered slight resistance,

because the areas they reached
were of lesser strategic importance to the Allies.

Instead of reining von Hutier in
and turning his army against Allied strongholds,

Ludendorff rewarded him
with medals and reinforcements.

Crown Prince Rupprecht, commanding four
of the German armies, saw big trouble ahead.

German High Command has changed direction

It has made its decisions
according to the size of its territorial gain

rather than according to operational goal

The problem was Ludendorff.

He had an eye for detailed battlefield tactics,
but was blind to the big strategic picture.

His armies' spectacular advance
had no vital objective.

Indeed, woe betide a staff officer
who dared ask Ludendorff

what the operation was meant to achieve.

LUDENDORFF: I object to the word ''operation''

We will punch a hole into their line

For the rest we shall see

Rudolf Binding, at the cutting edge
of the Second Army,

realised that the speed of the German advance
across this open, undefended ground

was a problem in itself.

One cannot go on victoriously for ever

without ammunition
or any sort of reinforcements

Behind us lies the wilderness

The thing which annoys and upsets us
again and again

are the exaggerations of the newspapers
and the telegrams to crowned heads about

''the decisive victory''

The German advance,
which looked so good on paper,

had dangerously outstripped its supply lines.

Some units were so far ahead,
no-one was quite sure where they were

and the Germans had neither the horses
to pull the supply carts, nor enough fodder.

The sun dries out the poor earth to dust

I don 't know what we will live off
Already we have no oats

If we have a bad harvest then we can send
the horses to the sausage factory

The deeper the Germans
penetrated Allied lines,

the more their own deprivations
were forced home to them.

Like a vision from the Promised Land
we are already in the English rest areas

a land flowing with milk and honey

Our men can hardly be distinguihed
from English soliers

Everyone wears at last a leather jerkin
a waterproof either short or long

There's no doubt
the army is looting with some zest

On 23 March, Ludendorff suddenly
dreamed up a real objective, the city of Amiens.

Amiens was a hub of the Allied railway system,

the key junction
between Northern France and Paris.

Amiens's loss would be a calamity for the Allies,
as French General Ferdinand Foch realised.

We must fight in front of Amiens
We must fight where we are now

As we have not been able to stop
the Germans on the Somme

we must now not retire a single inch

The German Second Army set out for Amiens,
but slowed and halted on the way.

Rudolf Binding was sent to investigate.

Today the advance of our infantry
suddenly stopped near Albert

Nobody could understand why

Strange figures who looked like soldiers
were making their way back out of town

men carrying a bottle of wine
under their arm and another in their hand

The advance was held up and there was
no means of getting it going again for hours

The German troops had found
French towns full of food and drink,

in quantities and qualities
they hadn't seen for years.

Whole divisions had entirely
gorged themselves on food and liquor

and failed to press the vital attack

The Second Army had lost
precious time and momentum.

Here, outside Amiens on 4 April,

a combined Australian and British force
stopped the Germans.

Ludendorff called off the Michael Offensive.

His lack of a strategic plan
and the failure to supply his troops

had squandered a priceless opportunity.

His officers were now seriously concerned.

VON LEEB:
Ludendorff has totally lost his nerve

VON EINEM: How will this war end?

England is still unbeaten

GERMAN OFFICER: The physical exhaustion
of the infantry was so great

that finally the men could hardly fire their rifles

They let themselves be slowly wiped out
almost without caring

Then Germany's greatest hero,
Baron von Richthofen,

was shot down behind British lines,
on 21 April, shortly after his 80th kill.

The Allies buried him with full military honours.

A British plane then flew over his headquarters,

dropping a photograph
of von Richthofen's grave.

The Baron's was the most public German death,

but he was one of over 230,000 casualties
in just one month.

Germany was running out of men,

having failed to capitalise
on Russia's withdrawal from the war.

Germany had left one and a half million troops
on the Eastern Front,

soaking up vital resources, food and transport.

Germany's leaders were out of their depth,

fighting what Ludendorff
would later call ''a total war'',

but with the administrative structures
and thinking of a small 19th-century state.

Now Ludendorff's nightmare unfolded.

Germany had failed to achieve decisive victory
before the Americans poured into France.

A quarter of a million by March 1918.

But General Pershing
gave the Germans some breathing space

by refusing to allow American troops
to serve under British or French command.

America declared war
independently of the Allies

and she must face it
as soon as possible with a powerful army

The moral of our soliers
depends upon fighting under our own flag

Pershing Obstinate and stupid hankering after
a ''great self contained American Army''

Ridiculous!

What changed the situation was a radical
reorganisation of the Allied command structure.

During the bleakest moments
of the Michael Offensive,

General Ferdinand Foch was appointed Allied
Supreme Commander on the Western Front.

If Petain and Haig could take orders from him,
so could Pershing.

But the Americans went their own way
over how to fight.

Captain Christison gave a training lecture
to some of the newly-arrived American troops.

I held forth
adding a few personal experiences and lessons

When I had ended an old Colonel
dressed more like a sheriff said

''Gentlmen l'd like you all to accord
the Scottish major

a hearty vote of thanks
for his very interesting lecture''

Then he shook his finger and went on
''But l'd have you guys remember

the Britih have been trying these tactics
for nearly four years

and they ain't done much damn good!"

The Americans were raring to fight.

We all seemed to go crazy

for we gave a yell like a bunch of wild Indians

and started down the hill running and cursing
in the face of the machine-gun fire

Men were falling on every side
but we kept going yelling and firing as we went

(Gunfire)

We threw hand grenades
as if they had been baseballs

A boy next to me threw a hand grenade
and hit a tree It bounced back and exploded

We saw it just in time to hit the bottom
of the trench and keep from getting killed

By refusing to learn from the Allies,

the Americans fought in 1918
the way the Allies had done in 1914...

..charging across open ground,
without adequate artillery support.

German Intelligence noted their inexperience
from interrogation of prisoners.

The attacks were carried out
with dash and recklessness

Regarding military matters however
they show not the slightest interest

For example most of them
have never seen a map

They are not able to describe the villages
and roads through which they marched

The Americans had a lot to learn, but their
presence gave the Allies a huge morale boost.

They looked larger than ordinary men

their tall straight figures were in vivid contrast
to our undersized armies of pale recruits

I pressed forward with the others to watch
the United States physically entering the war

So godlike

so magnificent

so splendidly unimpaired in comparion with
the tired nerve-racked men of the Britih Army

So these were our deliverers at last

With the knowldge that we were not after all
defeated I found myself beginning to cry

The failure of the Michael Offensive
further depressed German morale at home.

Pacifism and defeatism now seeped through
to the soldiers in the German rear.

Military transports lanterns

windows from block stations and trains
have been smashed by stone throwing

Troops standing on top of the wagons
cut through telephone cables and signals

In other trains brakes were tampered with

making it impossible
to stop in time for signals and in stations

Also wagons have been uncoupled

Colonel Albrecht von Thaer became so worried
about the state of the German Army

that he voiced his concerns to Hindenburg.

His soothing voice said

''My dear Thaer while it may be the case that
things recently have not gone so well for you

you must remember
that you are talking about a front of 12 miles

I daily receive reports from the entire front

Moral is splendid

while according to our reports
enemy moral is rather poor''

But morale in Hindenburg's own headquarters
was sliding and the root cause was Ludendorff.

By July 1918, his nerves were shot.

He'd only had three days off in four years.

His beloved stepson had been killed
in the Michael Offensive.

Ludendorff became morbidly attached
to the boy's body,

refusing to send it back to his wife in Berlin.

If I didn't send you Pieckchen
then that was pure selfishness

I wanted to keep him

I go to him often

It's a lovely feeling to have him here

Ludendorff's inner circle
feared for his mental health.

There's a serious question about Ludendorff's
nervousness and his incoherence

He's working himself to death

The situation is really serious

It looks as if he's lost all hope

Throughout June, the Germans grew weaker
and the Allies stronger.

On 15 July, Ludendorff launched
the last German offensive of the First World War.

I have lived through
the most disheartening day of the whole war

The French deliberately lured us
across rusty snakes of barbed wire

We only managed to advance
about three kilometres

Everything seemed to go wrong

Then the French struck back at the Marne.

Their counteroffensive
battered the exhausted German Army.

It looks as though we are being thrown against
the largest enemy counteroffensive of all time

and it was supposed to be our offensive

We could never have dreamt
that this would happen ever

Germany had suffered nearly a million
casualties since the glory days of March.

Her great gamble had failed
and the tables were turning against her.

In the next episode of the First World War:

the strange, sudden ending of the war,

the bitter legacy of Versailles and the search
for meaning in the terrible losses.