0:00:03 > 0:00:06'This is the story of a remarkable journey
0:00:06 > 0:00:10'that began as the echo of the guns from the Great War died away.
0:00:10 > 0:00:15'A French pilot and his cameraman climbed into an airship
0:00:15 > 0:00:17'and flew over the Western Front.
0:00:19 > 0:00:22'They made this unique film
0:00:22 > 0:00:27'and captured with astonishing clarity the aftermath of devastating conflict.
0:00:30 > 0:00:35'90 years later, I'm retracing that journey,
0:00:35 > 0:00:39'flying on a rather safer airship over that very same landscape.
0:00:41 > 0:00:46'And visiting the battlegrounds where such terrible slaughter took place.'
0:00:48 > 0:00:50What would we have seen then?
0:00:50 > 0:00:54It would have been total devastation, very much like a lunar landscape,
0:00:54 > 0:00:58but with just the awfulness of modern war thrown in.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03'I'll also uncover another of World War One's secrets -
0:01:03 > 0:01:07'a collection of revolutionary aerial photographs.
0:01:12 > 0:01:17'They gave the generals a bird's-eye view of the battlefield.
0:01:17 > 0:01:23'Now these images can be brought to life using today's state-of-the-art technology.'
0:01:27 > 0:01:30Three, two, one...
0:01:33 > 0:01:40'And I'll be taking to the air in one of those flimsy early aircraft flown by those brave pilots.
0:01:43 > 0:01:48'Like most people, I've always imagined World War One from the ground.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54'But seeing it from the air will give me a totally new perspective.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58'The trench networks that ran for thousands of miles.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02'The epic destruction that the war left behind.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10'And the memory of millions advancing to their deaths.'
0:02:10 > 0:02:15The bullets are coming from this side and that side, so what you had to do
0:02:15 > 0:02:18was to walk through a stream of lead.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22'Above all, this is a story of human courage.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27'And my journey will end with an extraordinary encounter
0:02:27 > 0:02:31'when I meet the daughter of the airship pilot of 90 years ago.'
0:02:31 > 0:02:35What does it mean to you, seeing him like this?
0:02:35 > 0:02:39I couldn't expect seeing my father alive.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46'From the intimate to the truly epic,
0:02:46 > 0:02:51'here is the conflict in a way we thought we'd never see it -
0:02:51 > 0:02:53'the First World War from above.'
0:03:09 > 0:03:14Deep inside the vaults of the French army's film archives in Paris,
0:03:14 > 0:03:18a unique snapshot of our history has been unearthed.
0:03:22 > 0:03:27A 78-minute film which has spent nearly a century hidden from view.
0:03:27 > 0:03:32It follows the flight of an airship along the Western Front,
0:03:32 > 0:03:38the infamous battle line that divided the Allies and Germans during the First World War.
0:03:40 > 0:03:47The airship's pilot Jacques Trolley de Prevaux and his cameraman Lucien Le Saint captured a lost world
0:03:47 > 0:03:50just months after the end of the fighting.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55A city with its proud medieval cathedral reduced to ruins.
0:03:57 > 0:04:01Battlefields scarred with shell holes where men waited to die.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05And ghostly figures,
0:04:05 > 0:04:10people still holding their street market in front of their shattered homes.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15This breathtaking film isn't simply a record of the First World War.
0:04:15 > 0:04:20It's a showcase for two of the greatest inventions in modern times -
0:04:20 > 0:04:22flight and film.
0:04:26 > 0:04:33The First World War had brought about a revolution in the technology of the air and photography.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37What this footage represents is a marriage of the two
0:04:37 > 0:04:40to create a vision of the battlefield
0:04:40 > 0:04:44quite unlike anything that had ever been seen before.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50Over 90 years later, I'm about to look down
0:04:50 > 0:04:54on those former battlegrounds from a modern-day airship.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58I'll fly over the same landscape filmed in 1919
0:04:58 > 0:05:01to see what remains of the Western Front.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13This heavily defended line of trenches stretched for 400 miles
0:05:13 > 0:05:17from the English Channel down to the Swiss Alps.
0:05:18 > 0:05:23The French airship made a series of journeys along that front line.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28The story starts at Nieuport on the Belgian coast,
0:05:28 > 0:05:33a town just 50 miles across the Channel from England,
0:05:33 > 0:05:37but marking the most northerly point of the Western Front.
0:05:38 > 0:05:43Here in the early years of the war, the Belgians flooded the low-lying fields with sea water,
0:05:43 > 0:05:47slowing the German advance and pushing the enemy inland.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53After Nieuport, the airship flew down from the coast,
0:05:53 > 0:05:58its camera capturing some of the worst killing grounds of the war.
0:06:00 > 0:06:04One infamous combat zone was Chemin des Dames.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08This plateau in northern France lay between the German army and Paris
0:06:08 > 0:06:12and saw some of the fiercest fighting in the war.
0:06:13 > 0:06:18This footage shows French tanks lying abandoned in No Man's Land.
0:06:22 > 0:06:27And enormous trenches stretching as far as the eye can see.
0:06:28 > 0:06:33Today, there are very few trenches left in the former battlefields.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36This small area of woodland near Wytschaete in Belgium
0:06:36 > 0:06:40still contains part of the old German front line.
0:06:40 > 0:06:45I've come here with archaeologist Nick Saunders, an expert on trench warfare.
0:06:47 > 0:06:53How much protection was provided by these trenches? How safe could a soldier feel in here?
0:06:53 > 0:06:56Well, they could feel safe from horizontal shrapnel,
0:06:56 > 0:07:00but they certainly couldn't feel safe from a direct hit
0:07:00 > 0:07:07or indeed a hit on the other side which blew in vast amounts of earth on top and often buried people alive.
0:07:07 > 0:07:12- Why did they dig in a zig-zag pattern? - This was basically for protection.
0:07:12 > 0:07:17They found out in the beginning of the war that when artillery shells landed,
0:07:17 > 0:07:23the blast effect near a trench could go all the way along a trench and kill half a dozen soldiers,
0:07:23 > 0:07:29so the basic idea of the design was a quick change to a zig-zag, so that only one or two or three got killed
0:07:29 > 0:07:33and the other three, four, five on the other side of the zig-zag were safe.
0:07:33 > 0:07:38We're in one tiny section of trench, but it was a vast network on both sides, wasn't it?
0:07:38 > 0:07:44Yeah, because you had the Allied trenches and these were mirrored on the other side by the Germans.
0:07:44 > 0:07:49And they have support trenches and communication trenches.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51So it just goes on and on and on.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55There are literally tens of thousands of miles of interconnected trenches
0:07:55 > 0:07:58from the English Channel to the Swiss border.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04Using exact details from Allied and German trench maps,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08we can re-create the scars that ran across the Western Front.
0:08:08 > 0:08:12An alien landscape of man-made furrows.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16Rat runs where men lived, fought and died.
0:08:17 > 0:08:23The trenches were not only photographed by the French airship in 1919.
0:08:23 > 0:08:29During the war, there had been another revolutionary way of looking at these vital communication lines.
0:08:31 > 0:08:37For the first time, commanders would no longer rely on the worm's eye view from the trenches.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40Now they could look down on enemy positions.
0:08:40 > 0:08:44Photography from aeroplanes would change warfare for ever.
0:08:51 > 0:08:57'Today, many of World War One's aerial photographs, the first ever taken,
0:08:57 > 0:09:03'are kept safe by the Imperial War Museum in their original wooden caskets.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09'Dave Parry, the museum's aerial photography expert,
0:09:09 > 0:09:13'has brought me to see these images known as the Box Collection.'
0:09:13 > 0:09:15Look at all of these.
0:09:16 > 0:09:18How many?
0:09:18 > 0:09:21In all, about 145,000 to 150,000 remaining.
0:09:21 > 0:09:26There were about half a million, but these are the only ones that survive.
0:09:26 > 0:09:31What were these pilots looking for as they were flying over the Western Front?
0:09:31 > 0:09:35What kind of material can we see in these incredibly heavy boxes?
0:09:35 > 0:09:38- LAUGHTER - That is so...
0:09:38 > 0:09:42All right, here's one. Let's take a look at this. Wow, look at that!
0:09:42 > 0:09:45Now, what are we seeing here? What's all this?
0:09:45 > 0:09:48These look like trenches under construction.
0:09:48 > 0:09:54Because it's a negative, all the spoil which is thrown up by the trenches looks dark,
0:09:54 > 0:09:56- but it is in fact chalk.- Chalky soil.
0:09:56 > 0:09:59- Chalky soil.- In northern France. - That's right.
0:09:59 > 0:10:06I'm trying to imagine the British commanders' reaction when the first box of these glass plates comes in
0:10:06 > 0:10:12and they see for the first time in the history of warfare an aerial photograph of the enemy.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14It must have been quite a moment.
0:10:14 > 0:10:19It's a revelation to them. They've never seen anything like this before.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23For the first time, they could see the depth of the defences,
0:10:23 > 0:10:26the number of machine-gun posts, trench mortars.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29It was all laid out for them with amazing clarity.
0:10:29 > 0:10:34I presume developing these must have been an incredibly primitive business,
0:10:34 > 0:10:40- given that the conditions are, to put it mildly, far from ideal. - It was very difficult indeed.
0:10:40 > 0:10:46Very often, the members of the photo section were reduced to washing them in ditches by the sides of the roads.
0:10:46 > 0:10:52- And they've survived. It's our last link with these men and their flying machines.- Indeed it is.
0:10:54 > 0:11:00These flying machines were another revolutionary part of the First World War.
0:11:01 > 0:11:05For the first time, men took war to the skies.
0:11:05 > 0:11:09And I've come to try out one of the original aircraft
0:11:09 > 0:11:13at the Shuttleworth Collection in Bedfordshire.
0:11:14 > 0:11:19During the war, more pilots died in training than in actual battle.
0:11:21 > 0:11:24Three, two, one, go!
0:11:26 > 0:11:29And the most dangerous part of all was take-off.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32If the engine cut before you got airborne,
0:11:32 > 0:11:37the plane simply drove itself and the pilot into the ground.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53This was an advanced aircraft for its time
0:11:53 > 0:11:57as it was built in 1917 towards the end of the war.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00Travelling in it today is petrifying.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04You really do get a sense of the risks taken by the pilots.
0:12:06 > 0:12:10Flying these planes over the Western Front was phenomenally dangerous.
0:12:10 > 0:12:15You had ground fire coming up, enemy fighters trying to hunt you down.
0:12:15 > 0:12:21These early pioneers of aerial photography were men of untold courage.
0:12:27 > 0:12:31It's extraordinary to think that when the First World War started,
0:12:31 > 0:12:35men had been flying for barely a decade.
0:12:36 > 0:12:38It was only in 1909
0:12:38 > 0:12:44that Frenchman Louis Bleriot had developed an aircraft good enough to fly across the English Channel.
0:12:49 > 0:12:53Just five years later in August 1914,
0:12:53 > 0:12:59four squadrons of Britain's Royal Flying Corps flew back across the Channel to France.
0:12:59 > 0:13:04This time, they were going to fight in the Great War against the Kaiser's men.
0:13:09 > 0:13:13Britain's first wartime aircraft were a ramshackle collection.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16The technology was new and unreliable.
0:13:17 > 0:13:22One plane had even crashed before it reached Dover, killing both of its crew.
0:13:22 > 0:13:26As for the men who made it to France,
0:13:26 > 0:13:30flying over the Western Front would carry even more danger.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39Now they were targets for German anti-aircraft fire.
0:13:39 > 0:13:43And as I come to the end of my flight today,
0:13:43 > 0:13:48I can begin to understand why the life expectancy for pilots was actually worse
0:13:48 > 0:13:50than for men in the trenches.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05Well, there we are, terra firma at last.
0:14:05 > 0:14:10What an extraordinary experience! You know what I felt up there?
0:14:10 > 0:14:16- The most amazing vulnerability. - Very much so.- And we were doing this on a beautiful summer's day.
0:14:16 > 0:14:20What was it like in winter with fire coming at you from every angle?
0:14:20 > 0:14:22What was it like for them?
0:14:22 > 0:14:25Well, they were a long way up.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29They operated over the front lines at over 12,000 feet,
0:14:29 > 0:14:31so it was cold, freezing cold.
0:14:31 > 0:14:36There would be fighters to contend with. There would be anti-aircraft fire.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40There were lots of things to contend with, as well as taking photographs.
0:14:40 > 0:14:46- Which must have been pretty cumbersome if you had to lean out of this aircraft that far up?- Indeed.
0:14:46 > 0:14:50The camera was big. The air speed was high. You've just experienced it.
0:14:50 > 0:14:54Although it's an old aeroplane, we were travelling at 100mph,
0:14:54 > 0:15:01so to hold a camera over the edge steady enough to take a photograph of something 12,000 feet below you
0:15:01 > 0:15:03must have been hugely difficult.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07Despite their primitive and unwieldy cameras,
0:15:07 > 0:15:13the Royal Flying Corps managed to take hundreds of thousands of detailed photographs.
0:15:13 > 0:15:18The results of their work were invaluable for the British generals planning the war
0:15:18 > 0:15:23and 100 years later, these images still have stories to tell.
0:15:29 > 0:15:35Belgian archaeologist Birger Stichelbaut has been digging deeper into the aerial photographs.
0:15:39 > 0:15:45I think it's a major overlooked source. Nobody ever looked at the entity of world war photographs.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49Nobody ever looked at using them as a primary source of information.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53Many people who study World War One use trench maps.
0:15:53 > 0:15:56They look at perhaps some aerial photographs,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00but one mistake they make is they focus on the area of the battles,
0:16:00 > 0:16:04but much more happened 40, 50 kilometres behind the front line.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08This photograph taken over Diksmuide in Belgium shows
0:16:08 > 0:16:12how some German soldiers unwittingly gave away their position.
0:16:12 > 0:16:16The men's barracks were safely camouflaged under trees,
0:16:16 > 0:16:20but to relieve the boredom, the soldiers had been gardening.
0:16:20 > 0:16:26And to the British photographic experts, the German flower beds were clearly visible from above.
0:16:27 > 0:16:33Many of the officers or men on the ground didn't have an idea of how things look like from the air.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37On this photograph, we can see a lot of military barracks, in fact,
0:16:37 > 0:16:40but we can see that something else happened here.
0:16:40 > 0:16:44When we go to a detailed photograph of this...
0:16:45 > 0:16:48..we can see that these are the barracks
0:16:48 > 0:16:51and in fact, these are actually flower beds,
0:16:51 > 0:16:54flower beds that were constructed
0:16:54 > 0:16:58to make life in this camp more comfortable, to feel more at home.
0:16:59 > 0:17:05But the new technology of aerial photography was about to bring devastation to the German soldiers.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08Once the British commanders saw the flower beds,
0:17:08 > 0:17:13they uncovered the barracks and directed the big guns on to the position.
0:17:13 > 0:17:18The act of making flower beds really draws the attention towards the site.
0:17:18 > 0:17:22This is actually what happened a couple of months later.
0:17:22 > 0:17:28Around the area, we can see that the landscape is already peppered with these shell holes
0:17:28 > 0:17:32and a lot of the barracks have already been destroyed.
0:17:32 > 0:17:38The art of interpreting aerial photographs soon became highly developed in the war.
0:17:38 > 0:17:42As experts scrutinised each inch of the enemy front line,
0:17:42 > 0:17:45life on the ground would no longer be hidden.
0:17:49 > 0:17:55As the war progresses, you have aerial photography and it completely changes life
0:17:55 > 0:17:59for men in the trenches because now everything can be seen from above
0:17:59 > 0:18:02and there's much more accurate targeting.
0:18:02 > 0:18:08That's true, but as time went on, different sides decided that they could develop the idea of camouflage,
0:18:08 > 0:18:12so there was a lot of feint and counter-feinting going on here.
0:18:12 > 0:18:18And basically, it was much more developed, the systems were deeper, they were more organised,
0:18:18 > 0:18:23yet at the same time, the aerial photography from the other side enabled them to take camouflage.
0:18:23 > 0:18:28- Let me have a look. You've got some examples of aerial photography here. - That's right.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32What do these patterns tell you about the experience of the men
0:18:32 > 0:18:35who lived and died in these trenches?
0:18:35 > 0:18:38I think it was chaotic and horrific.
0:18:38 > 0:18:43The trenches gave a lot of protection. It was partly psychological.
0:18:43 > 0:18:46But it was constantly trying to outwit the enemy,
0:18:46 > 0:18:48outthink the enemy, outdig the enemy.
0:18:48 > 0:18:54There's a German side, and on the British side, you were constantly finding new trenches being built,
0:18:54 > 0:18:59new connections being made to get troops from one place to another safely.
0:18:59 > 0:19:04So, for the ordinary soldier on the ground, there was a psychological dimension to the safety,
0:19:04 > 0:19:08particularly in a dugout, but in reality, at the end of the day,
0:19:08 > 0:19:13they had to get out of the trench and go across No Man's Land and that was just lethal.
0:19:17 > 0:19:22No Man's Land, the thin strip of ground separating the two armies,
0:19:22 > 0:19:27turned into a vision of hell after unceasing pounding by heavy artillery.
0:19:28 > 0:19:33Villages and towns were reduced to shells.
0:19:33 > 0:19:37And the French airship captured this destruction in intimate detail.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44Flying over Armentieres on the border between Belgium and France,
0:19:44 > 0:19:49pilot Jacques Trolley de Prevaux flew so close to the shattered church,
0:19:49 > 0:19:52he and his cameraman nearly came to grief.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58The two men filmed mile after mile of the ruined landscape.
0:19:59 > 0:20:03But there's one infamous battlefield you won't find in the footage -
0:20:03 > 0:20:07the Somme, the place where I'm heading now.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11In summer 1916,
0:20:11 > 0:20:15this 15-mile stretch of the Western Front would see the darkest days
0:20:15 > 0:20:18in the history of the British army.
0:20:18 > 0:20:23And the build-up to this epic battle was captured by tens of thousands of photographs
0:20:23 > 0:20:27of the German defences taken by British aerial photographers.
0:20:30 > 0:20:35Using these images, we can reconstruct a part of the German front line
0:20:35 > 0:20:39just days before the Battle of the Somme began.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43The photos show just how complex the German trenches had become.
0:20:44 > 0:20:49A network of interlocking lines and heavily defended redoubts.
0:20:49 > 0:20:53Crucially, the Germans also held the high ground,
0:20:53 > 0:20:57in some cases, just yards above the British positions.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04The attack was planned for the 1st of July.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08For seven long days before, there was a massive artillery barrage,
0:21:08 > 0:21:11an attempt to weaken the German defences.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16120,000 soldiers assembled in the front-line trenches,
0:21:16 > 0:21:19ready to go over the top.
0:21:20 > 0:21:25These men now sat waiting in the tense moments before the start of the battle.
0:21:33 > 0:21:36On the day of the battle, the pilots were out early,
0:21:36 > 0:21:39photographing the German front lines.
0:21:39 > 0:21:4418-year-old Cecil Lewis was one of those flying above the Somme that morning in July.
0:21:44 > 0:21:49Years later, he wrote about one of the most shocking things he'd witnessed -
0:21:49 > 0:21:53a massive explosion just moments before the attack began.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59"The earth heaved and flashed.
0:22:00 > 0:22:04"A tremendous and magnificent column rose up into the sky.
0:22:04 > 0:22:07"There was an ear-splitting roar,
0:22:07 > 0:22:12"drowning all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15"Then the dust cleared.
0:22:16 > 0:22:18"The infantry were over the top.
0:22:18 > 0:22:20"The attack had begun."
0:22:24 > 0:22:29Up in the air, Lewis could have had no real idea of what was about to unfold.
0:22:29 > 0:22:34On the ground, as soon as the men climbed out of their trenches,
0:22:34 > 0:22:37the battle plan went catastrophically wrong.
0:22:40 > 0:22:45Historian Peter Barton is taking me across a stretch of No Man's Land at La Boisselle,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48one of the Somme's most notorious killing fields.
0:22:48 > 0:22:51We're just crossing the British front line now.
0:22:51 > 0:22:56You would have climbed out of a trench here to go into the attack across No Man's Land,
0:22:56 > 0:23:02so all those German front lines ahead of us would have been erupting day and night for a week
0:23:02 > 0:23:06and that filled everybody with a tremendous sense of confidence.
0:23:06 > 0:23:11You can see that in the testimony and letters. "We're going to do great things tomorrow." And...
0:23:11 > 0:23:17- Within seconds of getting... Many men didn't make it over the parapet. - Yes, the Germans were prepared.
0:23:17 > 0:23:23The moment that barrage lifted, that was the signal for the Germans to start firing.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26Across this ground here, at the height of this wheat,
0:23:26 > 0:23:32they would fire their machine guns at the height of this wheat, so you were being cut down here.
0:23:32 > 0:23:38That's why you read so many accounts of people being cut down as if they're being scythed down.
0:23:38 > 0:23:43They were being scythed down. And the bullets were coming from this side and that side.
0:23:43 > 0:23:47So what you had to do was to walk through a stream of lead.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49And men kept going.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52I think that's what the...
0:23:53 > 0:23:59The thing that affects me so much is that the second wave would have seen what happened to the first wave.
0:23:59 > 0:24:04The third wave would have seen what happened to the second wave and on and on.
0:24:04 > 0:24:11One of the things which a lot of the accounts tell us is that whenever the firing stopped,
0:24:11 > 0:24:15men could suddenly hear the sound of skylarks and other birds.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19We can hear it now, what they would have heard.
0:24:19 > 0:24:23BIRDS SING That's right. There were little windows in that barrage.
0:24:23 > 0:24:25The birds just kept on singing.
0:24:30 > 0:24:34By the end of the first day of the Battle of the Somme,
0:24:34 > 0:24:3860,000 British soldiers had been killed or wounded.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41All but a handful of the attacks had failed
0:24:41 > 0:24:45and the slaughter would continue for another four months.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51By the time the battle ended in November 1916,
0:24:51 > 0:24:55there had been more than a million casualties.
0:24:55 > 0:25:00To this day, here in No Man's Land, they're still finding fragments of the lost
0:25:00 > 0:25:04like this button belonging to the tunic of a French soldier.
0:25:04 > 0:25:08A British private, J McCauley, who was assigned to bury the dead,
0:25:08 > 0:25:13remembered how for weeks afterwards the smell of decay lingered in his nostrils.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16"If only the world could see this," he wrote,
0:25:16 > 0:25:20"how nearer we would be to perpetual peace."
0:25:20 > 0:25:26McCauley must have known, of course, that he was writing more in hope than anticipation.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31Today, it's hard to imagine
0:25:31 > 0:25:35that this peaceful landscape was the scene of such terrible slaughter,
0:25:35 > 0:25:39but inside this area of woodland, owned by a local French family,
0:25:39 > 0:25:44the ground has been left pretty much as it was when the fighting stopped.
0:25:45 > 0:25:51- What was in here? - You're walking through a German communication trench,
0:25:51 > 0:25:53leading to the front line up here.
0:25:53 > 0:25:59- This path takes us up to the German front line from where they could easily have seen the British.- Yeah.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02At the top of this crest, you can see how close they were.
0:26:02 > 0:26:05Here is your German front line along this crater's edge.
0:26:05 > 0:26:09On the far crater's edge is the British front line, 35 metres away.
0:26:09 > 0:26:15- They would've seen them very, very close.- They could smell each other's cooking.
0:26:16 > 0:26:18What's this down here?
0:26:18 > 0:26:23It looks like a German shell. This is the most common shell that the Germans used.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27- That's a large shell. Is that still live?- It is, yeah.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30It's been fired. You can tell by the band at the back of it.
0:26:30 > 0:26:34The fuse is still on it, that is still live, so we don't kick it.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36Let's move on.
0:26:36 > 0:26:40Areas like this which, as you can see, there's craters within craters,
0:26:40 > 0:26:46over 18 months of war, this ground has been thrown up in the air and landed back on top
0:26:46 > 0:26:48and again and again and again,
0:26:48 > 0:26:51and whoever was buried in here is still buried in here.
0:26:51 > 0:26:56We know there are many Frenchmen beneath our feet, British and Germans,
0:26:56 > 0:27:01so this is a mass grave that we're walking on and there's no way these men could ever be found.
0:27:01 > 0:27:04- And there you have the dead. - That's right.
0:27:04 > 0:27:11And that's precisely why this family preserve this piece of ground on their behalf.
0:27:17 > 0:27:23'One feature of the Battle of the Somme still stands out among the wheat fields -
0:27:23 > 0:27:28'an immense crater right in the middle of what was once the German front line.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31'This is a different part of the Somme story.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34'The great explosion Cecil Lewis saw from the air
0:27:34 > 0:27:37'was really a drama played out underground
0:27:37 > 0:27:40'because it was on the Somme
0:27:40 > 0:27:44'that the British High Command turned to an old form of warfare -
0:27:44 > 0:27:48'tunnelling under the enemy and setting off enormous mines.'
0:27:48 > 0:27:52To create this mine, what did they have to do?
0:27:52 > 0:27:57They started tunnelling several hundred metres back in that direction, in the valley behind,
0:27:57 > 0:28:03dug down to a depth of about 90, 95 feet, then went under No Man's Land to this point here,
0:28:03 > 0:28:06planted the mine in two chambers,
0:28:06 > 0:28:09and then blew it at a time given by the divisional commander.
0:28:09 > 0:28:15What's it like when a man is digging or a group of men are digging their way towards the German lines?
0:28:15 > 0:28:20The tunnelling war was a very particular kind of conflict.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24It was private, it was secret, it was in tiny, constricted spaces
0:28:24 > 0:28:27underneath No Man's Land, underneath the enemy lines.
0:28:27 > 0:28:32You're either listening for the enemy coming your way and trying to destroy them underground
0:28:32 > 0:28:35or you are trying to undermine his trenches.
0:28:35 > 0:28:40The closer you get to the enemy, although you're 90 feet down, you have to be ever more quiet,
0:28:40 > 0:28:45so by the time they've reached this spot, they'd pick out lumps of chalk with a bayonet
0:28:45 > 0:28:50and catch them before they hit the ground, so they couldn't be heard by the Germans.
0:28:50 > 0:28:55One of the strange things about this is although they're only working, digging with one candle,
0:28:55 > 0:29:00they are surrounded by pure white chalk and they became snow-blind in these tunnels.
0:29:00 > 0:29:05They had to be taken out of the tunnels until their vision came back again
0:29:05 > 0:29:08and you'd go back in and it would happen all over again.
0:29:08 > 0:29:14If you're tunnelling and you hear the enemy, how do you kill him if you can't see him?
0:29:14 > 0:29:17Well, you can hear him tunnelling towards you.
0:29:17 > 0:29:23What you do is, after his tunnel has got close enough to yours, you plant a charge in your tunnel,
0:29:23 > 0:29:27block your tunnel off with sandbags and then blow that charge.
0:29:27 > 0:29:33You either obliterate him or entomb him or gas him underground with gas from the explosion.
0:29:33 > 0:29:38Those men are trapped down there. And if you got trapped underground,
0:29:38 > 0:29:42your comrades would make every possible effort to find you.
0:29:42 > 0:29:44If you are killed underground...
0:29:44 > 0:29:50Try to imagine. Decay on the surface is bad enough, decay of the human body on the surface.
0:29:50 > 0:29:54Trapped within a tunnel, deep under No Man's Land...
0:29:54 > 0:29:58Tunnels are always dug on a slight upward angle for drainage purposes,
0:29:58 > 0:30:05so the remains of that man would drain back towards the rescue team, if you know what I mean.
0:30:05 > 0:30:11- So the blood would run through the chalk.- One of the starkest images of warfare I've ever heard.
0:30:11 > 0:30:14It's utterly unimaginable.
0:30:14 > 0:30:20And anybody who was on top of this in the German positions, they were obliterated in an instant.
0:30:20 > 0:30:22Vaporised, these men. Yeah.
0:30:24 > 0:30:30As a result of the tunnelling, this mine and nine others exploded on the first day of the Somme.
0:30:30 > 0:30:33This was a war of annihilation,
0:30:33 > 0:30:36as seen in this Box Collection photograph.
0:30:39 > 0:30:44The Somme proved that tunnelling could be devastatingly effective.
0:30:44 > 0:30:50The British would escalate their use of mines in 1917 at Messines,
0:30:50 > 0:30:57an area of high ground, stretching south from the most famous city on the Western Front, Ypres.
0:31:00 > 0:31:06The story of Ypres in Belgium has come to symbolise the First World War's epic destruction.
0:31:09 > 0:31:16Over the course of the war, the medieval city was pounded relentlessly by artillery fire.
0:31:18 > 0:31:24Using data from aerial photographs, we can re-imagine those four long years of bombardment.
0:31:29 > 0:31:35When the guns were at last quiet and the French airship flew over the city centre,
0:31:35 > 0:31:38all that was left of this once-beautiful place were
0:31:38 > 0:31:43the remains of its 13th-century cloth hall and cathedral.
0:31:44 > 0:31:50Pilot Jacques Trolley de Prevaux waved down at people wandering through the ruins.
0:31:50 > 0:31:56He then directed his airship towards the battlefields, beyond the city's medieval moat.
0:32:03 > 0:32:09Today Ypres has been rebuilt in almost the exact image of what it once was.
0:32:10 > 0:32:16Beyond the city, you can look down on the scene of a surprising British breakthrough.
0:32:18 > 0:32:23The Messines Ridge is a line of villages stretching for nine miles,
0:32:23 > 0:32:27on high ground that in 1917 was held by the Germans.
0:32:27 > 0:32:32If you look today, there are 17 deep craters now filled with water.
0:32:33 > 0:32:39These holes were all made within 30 seconds of each other, with huge amounts of high explosive,
0:32:39 > 0:32:43450 tonnes of it planted right under the Germans' feet,
0:32:43 > 0:32:49culmination of the biggest British tunnelling operation of the war.
0:32:53 > 0:32:59These photos show the heavily-defended Messines Ridge before the start of the battle.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04The audacious British plan was to dig tunnels for over a year
0:33:04 > 0:33:07and place mines beneath the German lines.
0:33:08 > 0:33:14The would all be detonated at three in the morning, shortly before the infantry attacked.
0:33:14 > 0:33:20When the mines exploded, the enemy defences would be obliterated in an instant.
0:33:22 > 0:33:28In the early hours of June 7th, 1917, a British general turned to his officers and said,
0:33:28 > 0:33:35"Gentlemen, we may not make history, but we'll certainly change the geography." In fact, they did both.
0:33:35 > 0:33:40The biggest explosion in the long, bloody story of warfare
0:33:40 > 0:33:42ripped through this countryside.
0:33:42 > 0:33:48Mankind came face to face with his own capacity for destruction.
0:33:54 > 0:33:59One by one, the mines exploded, sending pillars of flame into the sky.
0:34:08 > 0:34:14The explosions echoed across Western Europe, even rattling the teacups in Downing Street.
0:34:20 > 0:34:25Two years later, the French airship filmed parts of this battlefield.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30Pilot Jacques Trolley de Prevaux flew over Mont Kemmel,
0:34:30 > 0:34:34the highest point overlooking the Battle of Messines.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41Kemmel offered the perfect viewpoint for the British generals
0:34:41 > 0:34:45to see if their tunnelling operation would work.
0:34:45 > 0:34:52'At three in the morning on the day of the attack, the top brass gathered here to watch.'
0:34:52 > 0:34:58There had been an artillery bombardment, so the Germans were pretty shaken up as it was,
0:34:58 > 0:35:02but they had no idea of what was coming next.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06No, they didn't. They knew that there was probably a battle coming
0:35:06 > 0:35:10and they might have expected artillery and perhaps a mine or two,
0:35:10 > 0:35:16but they had no idea there would be 19 mines in sequence. That would take them completely by surprise.
0:35:16 > 0:35:22- That's one reason why the battle was such a success for the British. - That crucial element of surprise.
0:35:22 > 0:35:27- And this awesome explosive power. - Yeah. And also, psychologically,
0:35:27 > 0:35:31they saw the mines exploding and coming towards them,
0:35:31 > 0:35:35so by the time you get down to the south, by Plug Street Wood,
0:35:35 > 0:35:39- they'd had a chance to see and hear the others.- In quick sequence.
0:35:39 > 0:35:44- Just in a few seconds.- There's nowhere to run.- Nowhere to go.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47By the time the last one went off,
0:35:47 > 0:35:51the Germans around there were in complete shock. Totally paralysed.
0:35:51 > 0:35:56They had never heard or seen anything like this before.
0:35:56 > 0:36:02I read that the largest part of a German they found after these explosions was a foot in a boot.
0:36:02 > 0:36:08I think that was true. A foot in a boot is probably what they found after the battle,
0:36:08 > 0:36:14but when we do archaeology here, we find bits and pieces of humans no bigger than a fingernail clipping.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18- Completely fragmented.- Tiny pieces of bone.- Yeah, miniscule fragments.
0:36:18 > 0:36:22That's all that's left of the Germans who were underneath the mines.
0:36:28 > 0:36:33To understand the underground attack on Messines, it's best to take to the air.
0:36:35 > 0:36:42The craters left by 17 of the mines that exploded look today like pretty ponds on the landscape.
0:36:45 > 0:36:48Until you think of how they were made.
0:36:49 > 0:36:54Basically, we have three big craters here that have been reincorporated
0:36:54 > 0:36:57into a rebuilt farm after the war.
0:36:57 > 0:37:03They're now part of people's gardens. And this is the southernmost part of those mines.
0:37:03 > 0:37:06They stretch up towards Ypres.
0:37:08 > 0:37:12This big one over here. What's that? Is that from a mine?
0:37:12 > 0:37:16That's almost certainly two mine craters
0:37:16 > 0:37:23because of the huge size of these things. They've also been incorporated into modern buildings.
0:37:23 > 0:37:26In fact, they've been incorporated into a golf course.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32Quite extraordinary.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36It's also something to bear in mind
0:37:36 > 0:37:42that almost certainly there are many, many human remains at the bottom of these lakes.
0:37:42 > 0:37:47So although they may be landscaped for a golf course or as part of somebody's garden,
0:37:47 > 0:37:53if you dried them out and excavated them, you'd almost certainly find human remains.
0:37:58 > 0:38:02'Below the craters, many of the tunnels are still there
0:38:02 > 0:38:06'and relics of the underground war can be found across this region.
0:38:06 > 0:38:10'Even today, solid ground can suddenly collapse,
0:38:10 > 0:38:14'as one farmer's wife discovered to her terror.'
0:38:14 > 0:38:20TRANSLATED: I'd finished cleaning the windows and was taking my ladder to the barn.
0:38:22 > 0:38:24I looked down and I saw some weeds.
0:38:25 > 0:38:27Right here.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31So I came back to get my bucket,
0:38:31 > 0:38:35but when I stepped here I fell down a hole.
0:38:37 > 0:38:44It led into a network of tunnels, the roof of which was just three feet below the farm's foundations.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47Waist-deep in the muddy water,
0:38:47 > 0:38:53Simone Duleux had no idea of what had just happened or how she'd get out.
0:38:53 > 0:38:57TRANSLATED: At first, I thought I'd fallen into a cesspit.
0:38:57 > 0:39:01Then I had to wait an hour for my husband to get home.
0:39:01 > 0:39:04I knew he wouldn't be out forever.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08I was already in for a ticking off for staying out too long.
0:39:08 > 0:39:13I had to look for her. I searched everywhere, even in the attic.
0:39:13 > 0:39:17Then I changed into my normal clothes and went to look again.
0:39:17 > 0:39:24While I was standing by the kitchen table, I looked out of the window and I saw her hand sticking out,
0:39:24 > 0:39:28just her hand, that was all. She had her hand up like that.
0:39:28 > 0:39:35Then, of course, I ran to find a ladder. I lowered that in and she was able to get out.
0:39:36 > 0:39:41For the men who dug the tunnels, Messines was a stunning victory.
0:39:41 > 0:39:47Once the mines had exploded, the British infantry easily overran the German trenches on the ridge.
0:39:49 > 0:39:54After Messines, it seemed as if the stalemate was at last over.
0:39:54 > 0:40:00The British commander General Haig told his men they were now to wear down the enemy's resistance.
0:40:00 > 0:40:04But on the German side, General Erich Ludendorff ordered
0:40:04 > 0:40:10that every piece of ground lost was to be retaken by ferocious counter-offensive.
0:40:10 > 0:40:16It was that determination which created the mud and the slaughter of a place
0:40:16 > 0:40:20whose name has become synonymous with the sacrifice of World War One.
0:40:20 > 0:40:22Passchendaele.
0:40:24 > 0:40:30The Battle of Passchendaele would be defined not by trenches or tunnels, but by weather.
0:40:31 > 0:40:36The summer of 1917 was one of the wettest since records began.
0:40:38 > 0:40:43The French airship would film a stretch of the Western Front
0:40:43 > 0:40:47that had been turned into a sea of mud and blood.
0:40:47 > 0:40:53During the fighting, men were as likely to drown as they were to be shot dead.
0:40:58 > 0:41:05Today Passchendaele has returned to what it once was - a tranquil village in rural Belgium.
0:41:06 > 0:41:12But the Box Collection photographs show how the fighting in World War One flattened everything here.
0:41:12 > 0:41:16Britain and its allies fought for control of the village
0:41:16 > 0:41:20in an attempt to outflank the German army.
0:41:20 > 0:41:25After four months of shelling, Passchendaele was almost wiped off the map.
0:41:25 > 0:41:29All that was left were the shattered ruins of the church.
0:41:30 > 0:41:37'I've met up with the historian Nigel Steel to find out more about those aerial images.'
0:41:37 > 0:41:41- The photographs tell a huge amount of the story.- Yes.
0:41:41 > 0:41:45We can learn a lot by looking at the sequences you can find.
0:41:45 > 0:41:48This is a nice example here.
0:41:48 > 0:41:53This is a photograph taken before the battle begins. It shows Passchendaele.
0:41:53 > 0:41:57You can see the roads from Zonnebeke, going around the top.
0:41:57 > 0:42:01You can just see the church in the middle of the village.
0:42:01 > 0:42:06And when the battle reaches the top of the ridge and washes over it,
0:42:06 > 0:42:10- it becomes something almost inconceivable.- Good lord!
0:42:10 > 0:42:15- That is extraordinary.- This is something you only see from the air.
0:42:15 > 0:42:21You can still see - just - the shape of the road, the remains of the church that sits in the middle.
0:42:21 > 0:42:24Everything else obliterated.
0:42:24 > 0:42:30- And everywhere these shell craters filled with water. In which men drowned.- That's right.
0:42:30 > 0:42:37Carry any weight of equipment, you'd go down. If you fell into it, often you'd drown, get sucked down.
0:42:37 > 0:42:39It was like crossing quicksand.
0:42:39 > 0:42:46How many lives did it take to capture small pieces of ground? If you wanted to advance a mile?
0:42:46 > 0:42:48Well, over the course of the battle,
0:42:48 > 0:42:56275,000 casualties are thrown up as a result of moving from the start line to the top of the ridge.
0:42:56 > 0:43:02We're talking about 20,000 plus casualties to gain 1,500 yards, at one point.
0:43:02 > 0:43:06And that's for something that looks like a relative success.
0:43:06 > 0:43:10When you see this period in September and October, when it stops raining
0:43:10 > 0:43:14and they're able to go forward and hold the ground,
0:43:14 > 0:43:18you still incur casualties of around 20,000 per step.
0:43:18 > 0:43:22When you say those words nowadays, people find them hard to believe.
0:43:22 > 0:43:26You simply wouldn't accept that in a modern war with the British Army.
0:43:26 > 0:43:32No, it's inconceivable and it's something which today still makes people shudder.
0:43:32 > 0:43:37It sits at the back of your mind as the worst of the First World War.
0:43:39 > 0:43:45If you know what to look for, this aerial photograph of No Man's Land contains a secret story -
0:43:45 > 0:43:49a famous British tank bogged down in the mire.
0:43:50 > 0:43:56The crew of nine men inside it found themselves stranded between British and German lines
0:43:56 > 0:44:02at the height of the battle for Passchendaele. The tank's commander had a sense of humour
0:44:02 > 0:44:07and he gave it the nickname Fray Bentos, after a famous tinned meat.
0:44:09 > 0:44:15'And now the photograph has helped to pinpoint the very spot where this happened.'
0:44:15 > 0:44:19We're right in the middle of the German battle zone.
0:44:19 > 0:44:25Almost smack bang in the middle - British front lines over here, Germans coming up to here.
0:44:25 > 0:44:31The British bring up tanks ahead of the infantry and one tank gets isolated.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35Yeah, the Fray Bentos tank ditched in this hollow here.
0:44:35 > 0:44:41It ground to a halt. The problem was that it was in the front line with the infantry,
0:44:41 > 0:44:45but they were driven back by the Germans,
0:44:45 > 0:44:49so Fray Bentos found itself way out in front of the British line
0:44:49 > 0:44:53and it gradually became surrounded by Germans. Over three days,
0:44:53 > 0:44:58the guys inside the tank fought off the Germans. They were on the roof, firing at them,
0:44:58 > 0:45:03trying to blow them up, they were hit by shells coming over the top.
0:45:03 > 0:45:09All they could do was try to make their way back over here, past where they'd come from,
0:45:09 > 0:45:13to get back to the British lines, which they did. This stands out
0:45:13 > 0:45:18because that little group became very heavily decorated.
0:45:18 > 0:45:24Two Military Crosses for the officers, two Distinguished Conduct Medals and four Military Medals.
0:45:24 > 0:45:30Eight people with a gallantry award, which is a testament to the repeated bravery that they showed
0:45:30 > 0:45:34in fighting off the people who were literally swarming over their tank.
0:45:34 > 0:45:41Passchendaele was eventually taken by Canadian troops on 10th November, 1917.
0:45:42 > 0:45:47Corporal HC Baker wrote that, "the village was so thickly strewn with shell-exploded bodies
0:45:47 > 0:45:52"that a fellow couldn't step without stepping on corruption".
0:45:53 > 0:45:55Just over a mile from the village,
0:45:55 > 0:46:00Tyne Cot, the largest cemetery for Commonwealth forces in the world,
0:46:00 > 0:46:02holds 12,000 of the men who died.
0:46:03 > 0:46:09When you add the names of those whose bodies were never found, the numbers are even more sobering.
0:46:11 > 0:46:17140,000 men killed just to capture five miles of enemy territory.
0:46:18 > 0:46:22Barely two inches of ground for each man lost.
0:46:25 > 0:46:31A senior British officer who came to Passchendaele after the battle and saw the destruction
0:46:31 > 0:46:37burst into tears and asked, "My God, did we really send men to fight in this?"
0:46:37 > 0:46:42Well, they did. And again and again for another year of war.
0:46:47 > 0:46:53In the year following Passchendaele, the tide of war turned in favour of the Allies.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57America finally committed to joining the conflict
0:46:57 > 0:47:03and by the middle of 1918 the influx of new soldiers was helping to tip the balance.
0:47:03 > 0:47:08As the year came to a close, German soldiers started to surrender in massive numbers
0:47:08 > 0:47:12and in October Germany admitted defeat.
0:47:15 > 0:47:20At 11am on the 11th of November, the guns were at last quiet.
0:47:29 > 0:47:35Slowly, the people of France and Belgium came back to their shattered lands.
0:47:35 > 0:47:41The airship filmed extraordinary scenes as communities tried to rebuild lives out of nothing.
0:47:42 > 0:47:47Jacques Trolley de Prevaux flew low over the French city of Lens.
0:47:48 > 0:47:52Here they still held their weekly market,
0:47:52 > 0:47:58next to houses so damaged all that remained were the gaping holes of what were once cellars.
0:48:00 > 0:48:06'Therese de la Rouelle still lives in the same area that her parents returned to in 1918.'
0:48:06 > 0:48:13After the war, when your parents came back, what did they find? What was here?
0:48:13 > 0:48:17TRANSLATED: Everything was demolished. There was nothing left.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20It was a field of ruins.
0:48:20 > 0:48:26My father had always dreamed of going back to his farm, and he was ruined.
0:48:26 > 0:48:32But they wanted to have a nice family and what mattered to them most was the children's education.
0:48:33 > 0:48:38What did they find? Was there anything left of what they'd owned?
0:48:38 > 0:48:42When they came back, my parents had absolutely nothing,
0:48:42 > 0:48:47but they did find one thing under the ruins of the house.
0:48:47 > 0:48:49I'll show it to you.
0:48:49 > 0:48:54It's what people used in those days for a bread knife, before the First World War,
0:48:54 > 0:48:59because my grandparents had a bake house, with a bread oven.
0:48:59 > 0:49:05This was the only thing that was left from the ruins of the war? A bread knife.
0:49:08 > 0:49:10Yes, a bread knife.
0:49:10 > 0:49:14And she also had her clock. My grandmother had taken it with her.
0:49:15 > 0:49:17It was her treasured possession.
0:49:19 > 0:49:23She'd taken it to Normandy when they were refugees.
0:49:23 > 0:49:29And these are the only two things we have left that belonged to our grandparents before WWI.
0:49:31 > 0:49:37In the months and years that followed the war, life began again in this ravaged corner of Europe.
0:49:38 > 0:49:42But there remained the task of burying the dead.
0:49:42 > 0:49:48Hundreds of British and Commonwealth cemeteries were built along the Western Front.
0:49:52 > 0:49:58'There were also a handful of German cemeteries, like this one at Fricourt on the Somme,
0:49:58 > 0:50:01'where 17,000 soldiers lie buried.'
0:50:03 > 0:50:09By the time the war ended, there were a million and a half dead Germans
0:50:09 > 0:50:15and the country faced a massive bill for reparations - six and a half billion pounds.
0:50:15 > 0:50:18Already broken, Germany would now be humiliated
0:50:18 > 0:50:21and made to pay.
0:50:23 > 0:50:27After his epic journey along the Western Front,
0:50:27 > 0:50:31Jacques Trolley de Prevaux turned his airship back home to Paris,
0:50:31 > 0:50:35filming the French capital untouched by war.
0:50:36 > 0:50:43Near here, the world's leaders had gathered to discuss how to deal with Germany in the fighting's aftermath.
0:50:48 > 0:50:52At the grand Palace of Versailles, they drew up a peace treaty
0:50:52 > 0:50:59designed to punish Germany and to ensure that this really was the war to end all wars.
0:50:59 > 0:51:05By the time the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 7th, 1919,
0:51:05 > 0:51:09most of the men who had fought in the war and survived
0:51:09 > 0:51:13had gone back home to try to rebuild civilian lives they'd known before.
0:51:13 > 0:51:17But the conflict had also created a restless generation,
0:51:17 > 0:51:21men who now looked to the future for adventure and challenges,
0:51:21 > 0:51:26men like the airship pilot Jacques Trolley de Prevaux.
0:51:26 > 0:51:32De Prevaux's flights over the Western Front had been a unique experience,
0:51:32 > 0:51:37starting with its most northerly point and the floods over Nieuport,
0:51:38 > 0:51:44flying over landscapes studded with shell holes and scarred with lines of trenches.
0:51:44 > 0:51:48And filming towns and villages that lay in ruins.
0:51:52 > 0:51:56But just 20 years later, the great promises of Versailles were broken
0:51:56 > 0:52:00and de Prevaux's country threatened once again.
0:52:00 > 0:52:05A new world war began and Paris was occupied by the Germans.
0:52:07 > 0:52:13Jacques Trolley de Prevaux would fight the enemy in very different circumstances.
0:52:13 > 0:52:18Flying the airship along the ruins of the Western Front had turned de Prevaux
0:52:18 > 0:52:23into a staunch patriot, determined to defend France in the future.
0:52:24 > 0:52:29And that determination would lead him, ultimately, to tragedy.
0:52:34 > 0:52:3820 years after his flight, when the Second World War began,
0:52:38 > 0:52:42Jacques Trolley de Prevaux was living in Paris.
0:52:45 > 0:52:49There he met and married a beautiful Polish fashion model, Lotka.
0:52:51 > 0:52:56Three years into the fighting, in 1943, they had a daughter named Aude.
0:52:59 > 0:53:05'Aude still lives in Paris, and I'm going to meet her to find out more about her father.
0:53:05 > 0:53:11'Both her parents died when she was still a baby, but in the last few years, Aude's been piecing together
0:53:11 > 0:53:14'their incredible life story.'
0:53:16 > 0:53:20By the time of WWII, your father is a captain in the French navy,
0:53:20 > 0:53:26but he decides he's not going to give up, not going to surrender. And so he stays.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30- And he acts as an agent, a spy, along with your mother.- Yes.- A team.
0:53:30 > 0:53:34What was their life like during that period?
0:53:34 > 0:53:38Em, my mother was always on the roads...
0:53:39 > 0:53:42..with documents to deliver.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46Or accompanying people to hide them
0:53:46 > 0:53:49or to bring them to a safe place.
0:53:49 > 0:53:53And my father was pretending he was a shopkeeper,
0:53:53 > 0:53:57travelling with goods to show and to sell.
0:53:57 > 0:54:03- That was his cover.- Yeah. His cover. - The Gestapo eventually closed in on your parents, they arrested them.
0:54:03 > 0:54:06Mm-hm. There was among them a traitor.
0:54:06 > 0:54:11And they went to my mother's house and arrested her
0:54:11 > 0:54:15and she had just a few seconds to take me
0:54:15 > 0:54:19and give me very quickly to my nurse.
0:54:19 > 0:54:24Saying, "Hide the baby!" So she was taken, too, and they were arrested
0:54:24 > 0:54:29and tortured and nobody...nobody told anything.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32They kept a silence.
0:54:32 > 0:54:39- It was pretty brutal torture. - It was.- They used electric shocks, they immersed them in water.
0:54:39 > 0:54:44- Yes.- Among other things.- Yes. - But they never spoke. - They never spoke.
0:54:44 > 0:54:48After their arrest, did they ever see each other again?
0:54:49 > 0:54:53They saw each other when they were killed, when they were shot, yes.
0:54:54 > 0:54:58- They took them to this airfield and they dug trenches?- Yes.
0:54:58 > 0:55:02- Stood them in front of the trenches and machine-gunned them.- Yes.
0:55:05 > 0:55:08And...yes. That was the end.
0:55:08 > 0:55:12Do you know...that your father
0:55:12 > 0:55:18took an airship right across the Western Front at the end of the Great War?
0:55:18 > 0:55:21- No.- Yes.- Uh-huh?
0:55:21 > 0:55:26And he also brought with him a cameraman and they filmed it.
0:55:26 > 0:55:28- Ah?- Yes.- Really?
0:55:28 > 0:55:30Yeah.
0:55:30 > 0:55:36- And there is footage, there is a film...- Uh-huh? - ..which was taken by your father.
0:55:36 > 0:55:41- Are you sure? - I'm absolutely positive.- Well!
0:55:41 > 0:55:45And you can see your father in this film.
0:55:45 > 0:55:49- Would you like to see it? - Oh, yes! A film?- Yeah.
0:55:49 > 0:55:51Yes.
0:56:11 > 0:56:13He was smiling. Was he?
0:56:13 > 0:56:16- Yeah.- I never...
0:56:17 > 0:56:21In all the photos, he is always so severe.
0:56:21 > 0:56:26I couldn't imagine him smiling. And now I saw him smiling.
0:56:30 > 0:56:34What does it mean to you, watching him like this, seeing him like this?
0:56:34 > 0:56:36It's very moving.
0:56:36 > 0:56:41I couldn't expect seeing my father alive.
0:56:42 > 0:56:44Ah. It's a complete shock.
0:56:53 > 0:56:54Ahh.
0:57:02 > 0:57:05This is a happy moment?
0:57:05 > 0:57:07Oh, yes. Happy, but painful, too.
0:57:07 > 0:57:09Yes.
0:57:09 > 0:57:11It's a great moment.
0:57:11 > 0:57:15- It's like as if he was alive. - Really?- Ah, yes.
0:57:25 > 0:57:31The story of men like Jacques Trolley de Prevaux epitomises a generation
0:57:31 > 0:57:34that faced the challenge of total war.
0:57:37 > 0:57:42On the other side of Paris, beneath the Arc de Triomphe, is a monument
0:57:42 > 0:57:46commemorating those who died in the First World War.
0:57:47 > 0:57:50The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
0:57:51 > 0:57:55A single grave containing the body of one unidentified combatant.
0:57:57 > 0:58:03Killed in a struggle that had claimed the lives of some 16 million people.
0:58:04 > 0:58:08Those four years between 1914 and 1918
0:58:08 > 0:58:12would change forever the way war was fought,
0:58:12 > 0:58:16but couldn't alter a fundamental truth of the battlefield -
0:58:16 > 0:58:19war is fought between individuals.
0:58:19 > 0:58:23And to them belongs its courage, its terror
0:58:23 > 0:58:26and its sacrifice.
0:58:46 > 0:58:50Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2010
0:58:51 > 0:58:54Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk