Only War, Nothing But War The Great War

The war was four years old and still the Western Front remained,

like a chronic disease that men had become accustomed to live with, but conveying a daily reminder of death.

This ragged line etched into the broad surface of the earth

was the focus of the largest effort ever generated by the human race.

More than 1,000 million people were staking their lives, their treasure, and their happiness

to upset the equilibrium of power traced out by the Western Front.

The Western Front dominated the thoughts of generals.

Only here, they were certain, could the issue of the war be decided.

Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig believed -

"We cannot hope to win until we have defeated the German army."

Defeat the enemy's army - Falkenhayn had tried.

Joffre had tried.

Nivelle had tried.

Haig had tried.

The human cost was appallingly evident.

For the dead, the war was over.

For the maimed, the shell-shocked of all the armies, the war would never be over.

They had been through horrors whose memory would never fade -

horrors that obliterated even the mind.

MUSIC DROWNS SPEECH

War had made soldiers into children.

Children into soldiers.

This was a new kind of war,

whose scale dwarfed the traditional means to victory - victory by success on the battlefield.

This was a conflict of armies and peoples -

peoples armed with all the powers of modern industry and invention,

and obsessed by a vision of total victory.

They wished to stand triumphant over a smashed, crushed, humiliated and prostrate foe.

Desire for total victory rode the human soul and spurred it on.

The mainspring of the world's catastrophe was the mind of man.

Victory lay with he who conquered it.

Propaganda became the deadliest weapon and truth the first casualty.

One got the impression, from reading the papers and hearing the talk,

that the Germans, or the Huns, as we called them then, were a horde of barbarians descending upon Europe

and were about to plunge Europe into the dark ages.

I read about how they slaughtered women and children

and threw babies up in the air and caught them on their bayonets.

I didn't believe all that.

In fact, I wondered, if the Germans were such barbarians,

why we hadn't heard more about it before the war.

Government censorship in every country made sure that all news was slanted or suppressed.

Read all about it! Paper! Paper!

Read all about it! Evening Standard! All the news!

Paper! Standard! Standard! Read all about it!

A British instruction laid down:

"No suggestion of offensive actions by the captains of merchant ships should be made.

"Statements in regard to the use of neutral flags by British merchantmen should not be published."

"The press are requested to make no mention of the use of dogs

"as messengers with armies in the field."

Government propaganda machines disseminated mental poison by the newest inventions -

the cinema film, wireless, telegraphy, faked photography.

The unproven atrocity story was one means by which hatred was nourished among the home populations.

The world was told that the Germans made candles and fats

out of bodies taken from the battlefields.

Such malicious inventions were widely believed.

Relentlessly, the enemy was portrayed as a monster of savagery,

worthy only of hate.

The message never varied. Hate. Total hate.

It was total hate that sustained the demand for total victory.

"What is the war itself but the outcome only of British cunning, lying, hypocrisy, cant and treachery?

"No means can be too unholy to combat this hideous octopus,

"whose tentacles have too long encircled the peoples of the world."

"The Huns, vicious in victory, cowardly in defeat,

"deserve no more consideration than a mad dog or a venomous snake.

"It is our duty to take devastation into the heart of their country.

"We're out for war. Let it be war to the death."

"There are only two divisions in the world -

"human beings and Germans."

The conflict became, for both sides, a holy war to rescue civilisation.

"I believe in the powers of right and the crusade of civilisation,

"in the purity of our cause and the stainless glory of our flag."

"Such a war is a heavy price to pay

"for our progress towards the realisation of Christ's Christianity, but duty calls."

"One thing is clear - God must stand on Germany's side."

"We fight for truth, culture and civilisation, human progress and true Christianity."

Few were immune from the contagion of this universal hysteria.

Even the novelist Arnold Bennett wrote with sincere conviction after a visit to a war cemetery:

"And then a tomb with a black cross. Very disconcerting, that black cross.

"It is different both in colour and shape from the other crosses. Sinister.

"The whole devilishness of the Prussian ideal is expressed in that black cross."

Mercy, truth and love had died,

along with respect for the ancient decencies of civilisation.

People had obediently followed the leaders without questioning the harsh requirements of their cause -

victory by any means.

Now, for the first time, the starvation of whole nations became a weapon of victory.

The Allied blockade of Germany was complete.

Germans were eating less than half the daily food necessary for health.

In four years of war, more than 700,000 Germans -

men, women and children - died as a result of the Allied blockade.

The young and the weak suffered most.

Our diet consisted of turnips one day and barley and prunes the next.

Then it started again - turnips and barley and prunes. There was no fat.

Potatoes were roasted in a little water. Bread got worse and worse.

German bread was made with grass, tree bark,

turnips, or even a flour made from dried blood.

Coffee was made from walnut shells, tea from raspberry or nettle leaves.

There were 7,000 food substitutes in German shops.

The food situation got worse. We were always very hungry,

especially those who didn't get anything else.

I remember my mother was so thin that I, a small child, could easily lift her up.

A great nation was being ground down to soul-destroying poverty.

A German soldier on the Western Front was being struck at through the sufferings of his family.

In a forlorn attempt to break the ring of warships that were starving her industries,

Germany built the first submarine merchant ship in the world - the unarmed Deutschland.

Before America's entry into the war, the Deutschland made two successful voyages to US ports.

Her crew were feted for the daring of their enterprise.

She could carry some chemicals and metals, but she could not solve the problem of the blockade.

Only ruthless counter-blockade of Britain could do that.

The German government announced:

"From 1st February 1917, sea traffic will be stopped with every available weapon

"in the following blockade zones - around Great Britain, France, Italy,

"and the eastern Mediterranean."

Henceforth, any ship, even neutrals, in these waters,

would be sunk by German submarines.

The vessel that, in 1914, had been thought too frail to venture far from Germany,

became their greatest hope of victory.

The great battle fleets of Britain and Germany were impotent onlookers

on this unforeseen struggle at sea.

There were no stately deployments into line ahead,

no thundering broadsides, no victory bells in this continuous, pitiless war of starvation.

Two great nations had each other by the throat with a grip that tightened in convulsive desperation,

and one must die.

January 1917 - 150,000 tonnes of British shipping lost.

February - 300,000 tonnes.

March - 350,000 tonnes.

April - nearly 550,000 tonnes.

Then, slowly,

month by month, the U-boat was mastered.

Convoys, counterattacks

by convoy escorts and by merchant ships now armed with guns,

new hydrophone listening gear, depth charges - each step made the British counterattack more deadly.

Aircraft searched the seas ready to bomb and machine-gun.

Even apparently helpless victims were used to tempt U-boats to destruction.

These were the famous Q-ships.

Lloyd George wrote:

"It was Britain's grandest struggle at sea,

"in its magnitude, in its intensity,

"in the issues that depended upon it.

"The battle was fought in every ocean, and on every trade route.

"Never were the skill, the daring, and the endurance of British sailors

"put to so stern a test."

The sea war went on. The submarines went still further afield for gain,

refilling their tanks with captured oil

and their galleys with captured eatables.

British survival still depended on the courage of her merchant seamen.

"I have heard of one man who has been in no less than seven vessels that have been torpedoed.

"Many, last winter, experienced days of agony in open boats.

"Many have had to have limbs amputated."

Although the British had averted outright starvation, food became scarcer and scarcer.

Compulsory rationing was hateful to British traditions.

Instead, the nation rationed itself using a published weekly scale.

"I know that in Government circles, deep anxiety prevails. Famine is feared.

"Stocks of wheat are down to nine weeks' supply."

On 25th February 1918, compulsory rationing was introduced in London and the Home Counties,

and in April to the rest of Britain.

"Meat - approximately 2lbs a week, sugar and fats - 0.5lbs each a week."

Rationing did not put an end to shortages.

I remember going into a shop after not having milk for several days,

and they said, "If you can produce a baby, you can have some milk."

That was out. I went to a butcher's shop to get some meat because we were beginning to be rationed...

..and I said, "That looks like cat." He said, "It is."

The fight against food shortages

fell upon a nation short of fertilizers, animal feed and labour.

In 1917, the Women's Farm Labour Force -

over 230,000 of them by 1918 - put on their uniforms

and the fight for higher food production was carried into the fields by the Women's Land Army.

The "lilac sun-bonnet brigade"

overcame the scepticism of farmers

and formed a vital replacement to farm workers

drafted, by the inexorable demands of war, to the Front.

Timber - a vital commodity in a war which demanded more and more for pit props,

for ammunition boxes, for huts, duckboards, trench works, and for building -

called for more and more labour.

Again, women came to help and invaded a man's world with energy and unexpected skill.

Nations came to accept the breaking down of traditions and firm beliefs,

intrusions upon old ways, personal liberties.

Motor vehicles, when requisitioned for Government purposes,

rolled impressively into military depots.

Compulsory rationing, requisition, national control of industry, shipping and railways,

conscription, women in work normally done by men, national scientific research,

now even Britain with her traditional dislike of large-scale organisation and state direction

had yielded to the shrill imperatives of total war. Lloyd George wrote:

"The scope of Government control widened steadily and ineluctably

"until it covered practically the whole industrial life of the nation.

"The nation concentrated all its great strength and skill on victory."

In each country, the individual had become a cog in a huge war machine.

Whole new industries had been created since 1914 -

for making aero engines, for making all the instruments required by modern aircraft,

a small chemical industry had become a national asset.

Prefabricated ships slid down the slipways one after another.

Steel for guns, or steel for shells. Steel for ships, or steel for tanks.

There was not enough for all.

Engines for tanks, or engines for lorries, or engines for aircraft. Not enough for all.

Britain was now the war factory of the Allies.

In France, the losses of four years had drained the land of fit men.

Her farms needed labour as much as her factories.

She worked and strove for victory to the limits of her strength.

So did Germany.

Endlessly, the trains rolled away from her factories loaded with war material.

In every country, the worker was a cog in the machine,

often better looked after as a cog than as a citizen in peacetime - a strange irony of total war.

Factory canteens became commonplace instead of showpieces of a few progressive firms.

National kitchens were set up in industrial areas.

"The purpose of this movement organised by the Ministry of Food

"is to instruct the poorer classes how food by proper cooking

"can be made to yield the most nutrition with the least waste.

"The food's distributed to the poor residents - women and children - who come in large numbers with dishes."

Better working conditions, medical centres, housing for workers, high wages -

these also were the fruits of war. Lloyd George told an audience:

"It is a strange irony, but no small compensation,

"that the making of weapons should afford the occasion to humanise industry,

"yet such is the case.

"Old prejudices have vanished, new ideas are abroad.

"This opportunity must not be allowed to slip."

It could not be allowed to slip. Victory depended on industry.

The enemy knew this too.

"His Majesty the Kaiser hopes

"the air war against England will be carried out with energy.

"He has designated as attack targets all war material, barracks,

"oil and petroleum tanks, and the London docks."

Scientists and engineers had created a new dimension in warfare - the air.

The demands of total war changed the marvellous toy of 1914

into an instrument to carry death to the enemy's unarmed civilians,

and destruction to his war factories.

In the autumn of 1916, as many as 14 zeppelins at a time

set out for England. 200,000 cubic feet of hydrogen lifted them.

The zeppelin crews were pioneers in the upper air.

Each mission was an epic of danger.

For the attacking aircraft, and also for the anti-aircraft guns,

a zeppelin of that size was a sitting target.

About, er...over 300 feet long,

50 feet in diameter,

and a speed of 60 miles per hour. That was all.

It was a very cold affair to go across to England.

It was so cold that, er...if you forgot that you didn't wear a glove,

and you touched any part of the aluminium structure,

you would burn your fingers.

The sandwiches, which were kept in a container in the gondola,

were absolutely frozen stiff.

You had to melt part of it in your mouth until it could be bitten off.

German science gave her airmen triumph over England.

British science made that triumph brief.

The incendiary bullet transformed a zeppelin

into a blazing funeral pyre in the sky.

The death of a great airship was terrible, even to the men who destroyed it.

I approached it from the stern, 300 feet below,

and fired four drums of explosive ammunition into its stern,

which immediately started to light. At the same time,

one of the other pilots was flying across the zeppelin from the top.

And to his horror, he saw a man in the machine-gun pit

at the top of the zeppelin run to the side and leap overboard.

I saw that this zeppelin had been picked out by the searchlights.

Then there was a small glow which gradually spread the whole length,

and afterwards the whole thing burst into one big conflagration.

There was a gasp of...

I don't know if it was abhorrence or whatever it was from the...people.

Very much like the sound you get when there's a big firework display.

And as it came down, very very slowly,

I heard my mother say, "Oh, those poor men up there."

But there was an old Boer War veteran next door

who said, "Let 'em frizzle."

And so it came gradually down,

but someone, I don't know whom,

started to sing Land Of Hope And Glory,

and it was taken up one after another

by the people that were congregated there,

until the whole place seemed to be resonant with this singing.

However terrible his death, there was no pity now for the enemy.

"Since an airship raid on London is impossible,

"the air service is required to make a raid with Gotha bombers soon."

On June 13th, 1917,

14 Gothas went on the first daylight bomber raid on London,

twin-engined aeroplanes, each carrying one tonne of bombs.

Out of science and total war, strategic bombing had been born.

Wherever an aircraft could fly was now part of the battlefield.

Cities resounded to the roar of the barrage.

Each raid left its tragic human litter.

162 dead and 432 injured in London in June,

54 killed in August.

The British public was moved to deep anger,

anger at a terrifying ordeal, and the feebleness of London's defences.

The Government reorganised the defences at frantic speed.

An air raid warning system began.

Whistles and the firing of maroons heralded the coming of the Gothas.

Bugles sounded the all clear.

In the autumn of 1917, the Gothas flew by night.

The terrifying noise of air raids frayed the nerve of a population

born in the safe tranquillity of the Victorian and Edwardian age.

War production began to suffer. General Robertson warned Haig:

"Continuous air raids are interrupting munitions work

"and having some effect on the public."

At Woolwich Arsenal, production fell to one fifth after an air raid.

The British and French air forces hit back at German industry.

As Allied bombers ranged over industrial towns of the Rhineland,

the Germans proved no more steady under bombardment than the British.

Everybody was frightened.

We had to go to the cellar,

and we had no electric light in our flat.

All clothes had to be put on a chair so that one could dress in no time

and rush down to the cellar, where the whole house met.

Air raids mainly occurred on cloudless nights.

We heard the planes coming, we heard the anti-aircraft guns,

and everybody got more and more frightened.

The bombers turned cities into a battlefield strewn with dead or maimed civilians. Women, children.

There were no non-combatants in a total war. Everyone was drawn in.

Everyone was doing their bit.

The war was insatiable.

The men had marched and died in millions.

Now, women had to don service uniform.

"Today, we had a unique and inspiring war pageant.

"A procession of 3,000 young women,

"representing branches of war work in which female labour is employed,

"each section distinguished by its own uniform."

The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, the WAACs, serve as cooks, typists,

telephonists and transport drivers.

Some decode messages in every modern language.

The Women's Royal Naval Service, the Wrens, clean torpedoes,

signal, make mine nets, gas masks, depth charges, and sails.

The Women's Royal Air Force, the WRAF, fit aircraft and airships.

Women gained an importance in war they had never enjoyed previously.

Total war, rather than Mrs Pankhurst and her suffragettes,

gave women the right to vote.

The Representation Of The People Act of 1918 went even further.

Women could now stand for election to Parliament.

Everywhere, the most ancient of privileges and prejudices

were swept away by the ruthless struggle for victory.

The needs of war, so simple in 1914, so demanding by 1918,

had been met by the scientist and the engineer.

The small of 1914 had become mighty.

The few of 1914...had become many.

The novelties of early days had become vital weapons of war.

Modern war changed continuously.

Refinements of invention multiplied.

The most significant war innovation

was achieved by man's most urgent need -

to break the deadlock of the Western Front.

The glowing hatred of the nations

put no bounds to the ingenuity and horror of their inventions.

Gas that choked was not good enough.

In summer 1917, a new gas appeared.

It smelled of garlic, some said, or mustard.

It was an oily liquid, which evaporated very slowly.

Because it had such a faint smell, troops tended not to notice it.

When they did feel their eyes smarting, they were too late.

It was a dreadful substance. If it got on the soles of their boots, it would penetrate and burn their feet.

If they went with it on their boots into a dugout,

and slept there, they would gas everyone in the dugout.

A man could even go with some on his boots into a hut,

and gas everyone in the hut.

What total war demanded, scientists and engineers diligently provided.

Paris, twenty past seven in the morning, 23rd March, 1918.

EXPLOSION An explosion. And another.

And another, at intervals of 15 minutes.

Yet no German aircraft was nearby,

and the nearest German lines were 75 miles away.

A new fear came to a great city. What had caused these explosions?

Rumours, speculations seethed through the streets of Paris.

Then the French authorities announced:

"The enemy has fired on Paris with a long-range gun.

"There are about a dozen dead, and about 15 wounded."

A gun with a range of 75 miles?

Allied experts believed it beyond the scope of technology,

but Germany had made it. She had made three.

Each gun weighed 154 tonnes. It rested on a 26-tonne cradle,

on a railway wagon of 210 tonnes.

The most colossal gun ever made.

When the French railway guns began to counter-bombard the Germans,

the war of artillery and technology reached its fantastic climax.

The city and the trenches shared the same conflict.

Man cringed beneath the weight of the horrors he'd made for victory.

Yet victory belonged to no-one, the horrors, to everyone.

Subtitles by Annie Dodwell and Nitole Rahman, BBC Broadcast - 2003

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