0:00:09 > 0:00:11It was the invention that changed the war.
0:00:16 > 0:00:19The invention that changed all wars.
0:00:23 > 0:00:27Ingenious. Impersonal. Totally overwhelming.
0:00:27 > 0:00:29This, the machine gun.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36A weapon that could fire ten bullets per second.
0:00:37 > 0:00:39Lethal at a distance of three kilometres.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44A machine of mechanical annihilation.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52The bullet's not making a smooth path through the body,
0:00:52 > 0:00:55it's churning and spinning, and mincing the flesh.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01Born from the fire and steel of the Industrial Revolution.
0:01:01 > 0:01:05Forged by inspired, maverick inventors.
0:01:05 > 0:01:07Men like Richard Gatling,
0:01:07 > 0:01:09who proclaimed that his gun would save lives.
0:01:11 > 0:01:12Or Hiram Maxim,
0:01:12 > 0:01:15the American who built his gun in Britain,
0:01:15 > 0:01:18then sold it to the Germans.
0:01:20 > 0:01:23Their products were masterpieces of military design.
0:01:25 > 0:01:30But for some in the British Army their products just weren't cricket.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34There was a feeling that the machine gun was
0:01:34 > 0:01:38an ungentlemanly weapon - that it killed in great droves
0:01:38 > 0:01:43but it took away concepts like nobility, heroism, personal dash.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48Yet, the machine gun became the great killer of the Great War.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54In the final reckoning, only artillery shells killed more men.
0:01:56 > 0:02:03One burst of fire could destroy a unit, a company, a community.
0:02:05 > 0:02:07To really understand the impact of the machine gun,
0:02:07 > 0:02:09you have to come to terms
0:02:09 > 0:02:13with the sheer scale of the slaughter it unleashed.
0:02:13 > 0:02:17Across Europe, across the world, entire communities were devastated.
0:02:22 > 0:02:27From the farthest corners of Britain, young men,
0:02:27 > 0:02:30their friends and brothers
0:02:30 > 0:02:33lost their lives to this new, terrifying weapon.
0:03:00 > 0:03:04This is a story that begins at its end.
0:03:06 > 0:03:08A story that begins with the victims
0:03:08 > 0:03:12of the bloodiest war the world had ever known.
0:03:19 > 0:03:23These are the rolls of honour in the Scottish National War Memorial,
0:03:23 > 0:03:25here in Edinburgh Castle.
0:03:25 > 0:03:30These books are really just lists of name after name after name.
0:03:32 > 0:03:34Husbands, sons, brothers.
0:03:34 > 0:03:38The scale of it, it's heart-breaking to look at.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41What you have throughout all the books
0:03:41 > 0:03:46are repeated, localised clusters of deaths.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Now, if I look through here, for example...
0:03:49 > 0:03:54..you have Arthur Cunningham from Hawick.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58He died in the Dardanelles on 12th July 1915.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00Directly below, there's Eli Cunningham.
0:04:00 > 0:04:05Born in Hawick, died in the Dardanelles, 12th July 1915.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10Just over the page, there is Scott Cuthill from Hawick.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14Died in the Dardanelles, 12th July 1915.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19This pattern of same place of birth
0:04:19 > 0:04:23and same date and place of death
0:04:23 > 0:04:25happens again and again and again.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32To discover why, I'd arranged to meet Trevor Royle,
0:04:32 > 0:04:35one of Scotland's leading military historians.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41Two things come together in this particular memorial.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44One is the monstrous killing power that was unleashed
0:04:44 > 0:04:46during the First World War.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50That's because of the introduction of artillery,
0:04:50 > 0:04:51the introduction of aircraft
0:04:51 > 0:04:54and, above all, the introduction of the machine gun
0:04:54 > 0:04:58which, suddenly, could kill in huge swathes.
0:04:58 > 0:05:00Now, this is going to happen in any war,
0:05:00 > 0:05:03but what is particular about this war
0:05:03 > 0:05:07is that all the regiments here are solidly territorial.
0:05:07 > 0:05:09They recruited from communities.
0:05:09 > 0:05:13So, when a German machine gunner opened up on a rifle company
0:05:13 > 0:05:15from one of these attacking regiments,
0:05:15 > 0:05:19the odds are that he wouldn't just kill the individual soldiers,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22but he would also leave a lasting effect on the communities.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27To understand just how these communities
0:05:27 > 0:05:30had come to be devastated by the machine gun,
0:05:30 > 0:05:34I needed to step back into the bloody history of firearms.
0:05:37 > 0:05:41- She's now on full cock.- OK. - When you pull that trigger,
0:05:41 > 0:05:44that flint will hit the frizzen and it will go off.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47'I've come to an Army range near Bath
0:05:47 > 0:05:50'to try out a muzzle-loading Brown Bess.'
0:05:55 > 0:05:57There we go. Did I get him?
0:05:57 > 0:06:00- You certainly did get him, yeah. - Where did I get him?
0:06:00 > 0:06:02I'd say it was centre of the target.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12People have been shooting at each other since the 13th century.
0:06:18 > 0:06:22The Brown Bess was used in the 1700s and 1800s.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27British infantrymen would have fired it at Napoleon's armies.
0:06:29 > 0:06:30Look at that!
0:06:30 > 0:06:34It's so obvious where the impact comes from the musket ball, isn't it?
0:06:34 > 0:06:37If you can imagine the size of these lead balls
0:06:37 > 0:06:38that we've been firing there,
0:06:38 > 0:06:40if one of those just clipped you,
0:06:40 > 0:06:42or even clipped a bone as it went through the body,
0:06:42 > 0:06:44your bone would shatter.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47- Puts you down, doesn't it? - It certainly would.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50'A single musket ball could do serious damage.
0:06:53 > 0:06:56'But this weapon had a serious flaw.
0:06:58 > 0:07:01'The time it took to reload.
0:07:03 > 0:07:05'Every single shot had to be primed,
0:07:05 > 0:07:08'loaded with powder,
0:07:08 > 0:07:09'then the ball...'
0:07:11 > 0:07:13- Just drop down?- Drop down.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16'..and finally all rammed into place.'
0:07:17 > 0:07:19Now, as you can imagine,
0:07:19 > 0:07:21this drill would be performed
0:07:21 > 0:07:23with French cavalry coming down on you,
0:07:23 > 0:07:25French infantrymen, in some cases,
0:07:25 > 0:07:28no more than 50 to 60 metres away from where you were.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31So, you can imagine that the British infantrymen
0:07:31 > 0:07:33had to be well drilled in all of these matters.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36How fast would a good musketeer or a good musket man
0:07:36 > 0:07:39be able to go through that drill I've just performed?
0:07:39 > 0:07:41Generally around three to four rounds a minute
0:07:41 > 0:07:43for the elite guard units.
0:07:46 > 0:07:51In time, better weapons allowed riflemen to fire faster and faster.
0:07:52 > 0:07:55But the biggest step forward came in 1862
0:07:55 > 0:07:58at the height of the American Civil War.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02A Carolina doctor, Richard Gatling,
0:08:02 > 0:08:07filed a revolutionary patent for a king-sized two-man-operated weapon
0:08:07 > 0:08:09that could fire 200 times per minute.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15This was a weapon with a unique aim -
0:08:15 > 0:08:17to save lives.
0:08:18 > 0:08:23He discovered that for every 100 troops sent to the battlefield,
0:08:23 > 0:08:2860, 70 of them went down with diseases, trench foot,
0:08:28 > 0:08:30all kinds of problems of logistics
0:08:30 > 0:08:32of supplying them.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35So, he said that if we had a gun that was so good
0:08:35 > 0:08:37that two men could operate,
0:08:37 > 0:08:39we could have a lot less soldiers in the field
0:08:39 > 0:08:43and therefore a lot less injuries or losses because of disease.
0:08:43 > 0:08:44First, I've got to explain
0:08:44 > 0:08:47the reason that Gatling made this with ten barrels
0:08:47 > 0:08:50is because to fire rapidly with a single barrel,
0:08:50 > 0:08:53the barrel would get so hot that it could even melt the metal,
0:08:53 > 0:08:55it can cause a lot of problems.
0:08:55 > 0:08:59So, what Gatling came up with was the idea that you have ten barrels
0:08:59 > 0:09:02with ten bolts, the whole thing rotating,
0:09:02 > 0:09:05and only one barrel is firing at any one time.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09So, that gives each barrel time to cool down
0:09:09 > 0:09:12- before it's pressed into service again?- Correct.
0:09:12 > 0:09:16So, you have a hopper of cartridges which are fed down by gravity.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19The weight has the rounds going down to the feed
0:09:19 > 0:09:23and, as you crank, it picks one up and takes it in to the side.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26As it's going round, it's pushing the cartridge in.
0:09:26 > 0:09:28When it gets to the very bottom,
0:09:28 > 0:09:30it's in position and fires.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36And as it comes back round again, it throws out the empty case
0:09:36 > 0:09:38- and gets ready to take the next one in.- Wow.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41So, the whole thing is very simple, very straightforward.
0:09:41 > 0:09:43Do you think he would have had any concept
0:09:43 > 0:09:46of how devastating and dreadful
0:09:46 > 0:09:48would be the consequences of this machine?
0:09:48 > 0:09:51I'm sure he knew exactly how dreadful,
0:09:51 > 0:09:53being a medical doctor,
0:09:53 > 0:09:56but I think he thought that it would be so horrible
0:09:56 > 0:09:59that people would give up having wars.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01So, it would become some kind of deterrent
0:10:01 > 0:10:03rather than an inspiration for war?
0:10:03 > 0:10:06Yeah. Such an awesome weapon that people would be horrified
0:10:06 > 0:10:08and no-one would do any more.
0:10:08 > 0:10:10- That never worked.- It didn't work.
0:10:10 > 0:10:15- Would you like to have a go? - Yes. I would like to have a go.
0:10:25 > 0:10:27And back.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38And again.
0:10:50 > 0:10:52- It's very stiff, isn't it? - It is.- OK, leave it there.
0:10:52 > 0:10:54What a sense of power.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57What a sense of domination you get from that.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02The Gatling was notoriously unreliable...and cumbersome,
0:11:02 > 0:11:06but it was the first gun that could maintain rapid fire.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10It was truly revolutionary.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15But it was no overnight success.
0:11:18 > 0:11:20The story goes that General Custer decided
0:11:20 > 0:11:23not to take his Gatling guns to the Little Big Horn,
0:11:23 > 0:11:25cos they were a bit heavy.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27Not his best decision, eh?
0:11:30 > 0:11:34Gatling brought his invention to Europe in the summer of 1867,
0:11:34 > 0:11:36to the Great Exhibition in Paris.
0:11:36 > 0:11:38The British military were impressed
0:11:38 > 0:11:42and secured a licence to build their own Gatling guns.
0:11:42 > 0:11:46And in 1879, Lord Chelmsford took them into battle
0:11:46 > 0:11:49against the South African Zulus.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59At a place called Ulundi his men lined up in this formation,
0:11:59 > 0:12:02the square, a very traditional and very British way
0:12:02 > 0:12:05of fighting a fair and noble battle.
0:12:05 > 0:12:08But then Chelmsford placed two Gatling guns
0:12:08 > 0:12:10into the front face of his square.
0:12:10 > 0:12:12At that precise moment,
0:12:12 > 0:12:13the encounter ceased to be noble,
0:12:13 > 0:12:15far less fair.
0:12:15 > 0:12:17It was a massacre.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20The Zulus came on and took the full force of the Gatling guns.
0:12:29 > 0:12:32After the battle, a journalist from the London Standard
0:12:32 > 0:12:37counted 473 dead Zulus within 500 yards of the guns.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44This was an early and convincing demonstration
0:12:44 > 0:12:47of the power of Dr Gatling's invention,
0:12:47 > 0:12:51that it was the ideal weapon for dealing with colonial unrest,
0:12:51 > 0:12:54a role it would make its own all across Her Majesty's Empire.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13I got a call last night from Trevor Royle.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16He's been wading through mounds of regimental records.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19He's asked me to come up to Inverness
0:13:19 > 0:13:22because he thinks he's getting close to identifying a small community
0:13:22 > 0:13:25that felt the full impact of the machine gun.
0:13:30 > 0:13:34In the aftermath of the 18th-century Jacobite risings,
0:13:34 > 0:13:38the Highlands were occupied by British Government forces.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43Fort George, here on the Moray Firth,
0:13:43 > 0:13:46was a mighty British garrison.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56Today it's home to the archives of the Highland regiments,
0:13:56 > 0:14:00telling stories of the clansmen who switched allegiance
0:14:00 > 0:14:02and fought for Britain's Empire.
0:14:02 > 0:14:07In the Great War, the Highlands paid a heavy price.
0:14:09 > 0:14:10Well, I always had the feeling
0:14:10 > 0:14:13that we were going to find a cluster of casualties
0:14:13 > 0:14:15from a Highland battalion.
0:14:15 > 0:14:17The battle that's drawn me back and back
0:14:17 > 0:14:19is the Battle of Festubert,
0:14:19 > 0:14:22which was fought in May 1915
0:14:22 > 0:14:26and in which a lot of Highland infantrymen first saw action.
0:14:26 > 0:14:30And where are the clusters taking us, geographically speaking?
0:14:30 > 0:14:31Well, to discover that,
0:14:31 > 0:14:35I'm going through the list of Soldiers Died In The Great War
0:14:35 > 0:14:38and here are the names of all Cameron Highlanders
0:14:38 > 0:14:41who perished during the Great War.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45Look at the typeface, look at the point size.
0:14:45 > 0:14:51It's quite extraordinary, the names are given alphabetically,
0:14:51 > 0:14:56but better still, they say where the man enlisted and where he came from.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00So, it's possible to discover where casualties came from.
0:15:00 > 0:15:02A number from Kingussie in Inverness-shire.
0:15:02 > 0:15:04From Beauly, further north.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06But there's one particular town
0:15:06 > 0:15:09which keeps on occurring and reoccurring,
0:15:09 > 0:15:12and that really does interest me.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19Trevor's research took us west, across northern Scotland...
0:15:21 > 0:15:23..over the sea to Skye...
0:15:28 > 0:15:31..and the little harbour town of Portree.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39And in the centre of Portree, on Somerled Square,
0:15:39 > 0:15:41is the war memorial.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46- Here are the names, here. - Oh, right. Oh, dear.
0:15:46 > 0:15:48Ross...
0:15:48 > 0:15:51'104 names -
0:15:51 > 0:15:54'the final reckoning from four years of industrialised war.'
0:15:56 > 0:15:59Murdo MacLeod. William MacDonald.
0:15:59 > 0:16:01Iain MacLeod.
0:16:01 > 0:16:05When you imagine how many people were here in 1915,
0:16:05 > 0:16:08what the population was, to lose on that scale...
0:16:08 > 0:16:11- All local names. - A lieutenant colonel, as well.
0:16:13 > 0:16:19'Most of these men had grown up in the Portree of the early 1900s.
0:16:19 > 0:16:23'A remote, Gaelic-speaking, God-fearing community
0:16:23 > 0:16:25'of a thousand souls.'
0:16:30 > 0:16:32The conditions on the crofts then
0:16:32 > 0:16:36were difficult to imagine today.
0:16:36 > 0:16:41They lived in squalor and poverty, to be quite frank about it.
0:16:41 > 0:16:45And I think that is one of the reasons why things developed
0:16:45 > 0:16:49in the way that they did in the early years of the Great War.
0:16:52 > 0:16:56A special Highland blend of poverty and patriotism
0:16:56 > 0:16:59had long brought Skye men to the British colours.
0:17:02 > 0:17:06And in 1907, the Government announced plans for a new Army reserve -
0:17:06 > 0:17:09the Territorials.
0:17:13 > 0:17:17And the legendary swashbuckling Cameron Highlanders
0:17:17 > 0:17:20would raise a battalion of Territorials,
0:17:20 > 0:17:22with one company based in Portree.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28Well, it was very much a community effort,
0:17:28 > 0:17:31not just the village but also the surrounding area.
0:17:31 > 0:17:34And it was here that the men would assemble,
0:17:34 > 0:17:37it was where they trained, where they were equipped,
0:17:37 > 0:17:40and it was what they considered to be their base.
0:17:40 > 0:17:42They were the Portree company.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45And the fact that they got paid for this
0:17:45 > 0:17:48was a great inducement
0:17:48 > 0:17:50for them to sign up.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54And they got away for their fortnight's camp in the summertime
0:17:54 > 0:17:58and this was, for them, like a holiday, away from home.
0:17:58 > 0:18:01People who train together will go off to war together,
0:18:01 > 0:18:04and they'll do it because they're in the company of friends.
0:18:04 > 0:18:09That's a very great big factor in building up morale.
0:18:09 > 0:18:12- A band of brothers. - A band of brothers, yes.
0:18:16 > 0:18:21In charge of the Portree company was the local lawyer Captain MacDonald,
0:18:21 > 0:18:25the son of an evicted crofter, and a graduate of Glasgow University.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30MacDonald's right-hand man was a 45-year-old veteran -
0:18:30 > 0:18:33Company Sergeant Major Willie Ross.
0:18:33 > 0:18:37The Portree postman, a Highland Games champion.
0:18:40 > 0:18:44In 1909, MacDonald and Ross had travelled to Windsor Castle
0:18:44 > 0:18:47to be presented with their new regimental colours
0:18:47 > 0:18:50by King Edward VII.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53Under their command, the part-time recruits were nicknamed
0:18:53 > 0:18:55the "Saturday Night Soldiers".
0:18:57 > 0:19:00And of 100 or so men in the company,
0:19:00 > 0:19:0328 lived within a few hundred yards of the Portree harbour.
0:19:08 > 0:19:10On a hill overlooking the bay,
0:19:10 > 0:19:15the Portree Lodge was home to Lady MacDonald and her household staff.
0:19:15 > 0:19:17The caretaker was Kate MacDonald.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20She had five children and her eldest, William,
0:19:20 > 0:19:24worked as a clerk in Captain MacDonald's estate office.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31This is Mill Road, and here, at number 1,
0:19:31 > 0:19:34lived 24-year-old Sergeant Donald MacLeod
0:19:34 > 0:19:36with his mother Donaldina and three siblings.
0:19:36 > 0:19:39He worked for Captain MacDonald as well, in his law firm.
0:19:43 > 0:19:45Round the corner is Bosville Terrace.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48Here, at number 3, lived William Turnbull, a plasterer.
0:19:48 > 0:19:51In 1914, he was 29 years old.
0:19:51 > 0:19:54His father was the chairman of the parish council.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00On Stormy Hill lived a tailor called Donald Kemp.
0:20:00 > 0:20:04He had three sons - William, Finley and Roddy -
0:20:04 > 0:20:05and they all joined up.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14There used to be houses down here,
0:20:14 > 0:20:18and number 43, Back Wentworth Street was the home of John Grant,
0:20:18 > 0:20:21a 22-year-old stable boy. He lived with his mum.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25Down on Bayfield,
0:20:25 > 0:20:27and from this house two brothers signed up,
0:20:27 > 0:20:29John and Alex Kennedy.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32John worked for MacBrayne's, the ferry company.
0:20:34 > 0:20:36And just 100 yards along the road,
0:20:36 > 0:20:39this was the family home of John Nicholson,
0:20:39 > 0:20:41a 24-year-old fisherman.
0:20:44 > 0:20:46Down here on the harbour
0:20:46 > 0:20:48was the wartime home of the MacFarlane family.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51Thomas MacFarlane was a stonemason,
0:20:51 > 0:20:54his son, John, was underage when he joined up.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00And finally, this was the home of Private Charles Sinclair,
0:21:00 > 0:21:02he was a 21-year-old boatman,
0:21:02 > 0:21:06and it was said that he could navigate by the stars.
0:21:13 > 0:21:15In the early summer of 1914,
0:21:15 > 0:21:19the Portree company and the rest of the battalion
0:21:19 > 0:21:20camped at Kingussie.
0:21:22 > 0:21:24They pitched tents on the golf course.
0:21:24 > 0:21:27They drilled, trained and paraded.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30A month later...
0:21:34 > 0:21:36..Europe exploded into war.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49Immediately, the young men of Portree -
0:21:49 > 0:21:53the bank clerk, the fishermen, the plasterer, the stable boy -
0:21:53 > 0:21:56were all mobilised and prepared to leave their island home.
0:22:01 > 0:22:04The 28 Portree men were part of a 100-strong company
0:22:04 > 0:22:07that marched along the quayside here, in their kilts,
0:22:07 > 0:22:09towards their waiting ship.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12The soldiers, and the villagers watching them march by,
0:22:12 > 0:22:14spontaneously burst into song -
0:22:14 > 0:22:16God Save The King.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20They trusted their officers, they trusted their sergeants.
0:22:20 > 0:22:22By that stage, they were pretty well-equipped
0:22:22 > 0:22:24and they thought they could go across there
0:22:24 > 0:22:27and beat the Germans before Christmas.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34The men and women of Skye understood the meaning of farewell.
0:22:34 > 0:22:36For more than a century, they had watched
0:22:36 > 0:22:41as folk had left from these shores bound for the New World.
0:22:41 > 0:22:43Often, they had gone unwillingly.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47So, the mothers, fathers and sisters who waved and cheered
0:22:47 > 0:22:48as the soldiers went off to war
0:22:48 > 0:22:50understood only too well
0:22:50 > 0:22:54that the young men didn't always come back.
0:22:58 > 0:23:02600 miles south of Skye, the Portree company found a new home,
0:23:02 > 0:23:06the town of Bedford, headquarters of the Highland Division.
0:23:06 > 0:23:10Here the Saturday Night Soldiers would be trained for the front line.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26In London, I got back on the trail of the machine gun,
0:23:26 > 0:23:28and a new, deadlier version
0:23:28 > 0:23:31that the Portree men would soon come to know.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35In the year 1881,
0:23:35 > 0:23:37a 41-year-old American inventor
0:23:37 > 0:23:40chose this building in Hatton Garden
0:23:40 > 0:23:43to begin work on the machine gun that would take his name.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48And his name was Hiram Maxim.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54He was born in a very rural part of New England
0:23:54 > 0:23:57in the United States, and he was a compulsive
0:23:57 > 0:23:59but self-taught inventor.
0:23:59 > 0:24:04By the 1880s, he had designed everything from a mousetrap
0:24:04 > 0:24:08to gas appliances to the first light bulb.
0:24:08 > 0:24:10How did he progress
0:24:10 > 0:24:14from things as benign as light bulbs to machine guns?
0:24:14 > 0:24:17He claims, in his biography, that he was told by a fellow American
0:24:17 > 0:24:19that if you want to make some money,
0:24:19 > 0:24:21invent something that will enable these Europeans
0:24:21 > 0:24:25to cut each other's throats with greater facility.
0:24:25 > 0:24:28He came to London and he took up premises
0:24:28 > 0:24:31in that building over there, on the corner,
0:24:31 > 0:24:33and in the basement of that building
0:24:33 > 0:24:36he developed the world's first fully automatic gun.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39The words "quantum leap" are used as a cliche,
0:24:39 > 0:24:43but really this is what it was, it was a completely new technology.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48I asked Paul to explain why Maxim's gun
0:24:48 > 0:24:51was considered so much better than the Gatling
0:24:51 > 0:24:53or anything that had gone before.
0:24:53 > 0:24:55You press on the trigger
0:24:55 > 0:25:00and a whole sequence of complex mechanical operations
0:25:00 > 0:25:01happen inside the gun
0:25:01 > 0:25:04which, to simplify, when the first round is fired,
0:25:04 > 0:25:06the barrel recoils backwards,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09and it's that movement that sets everything else in motion.
0:25:09 > 0:25:11The backward movement unlocks the breech,
0:25:11 > 0:25:13the breechblock moves backwards,
0:25:13 > 0:25:16it draws out the spent, empty cartridge case,
0:25:16 > 0:25:19and pushes it down a chute to drop out the bottom of the gun.
0:25:19 > 0:25:21At the same time, it's pulling another one
0:25:21 > 0:25:23out of the belt that's feeding the cartridges,
0:25:23 > 0:25:25and that drops down into place,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28and the whole thing is forced by springs
0:25:28 > 0:25:30back into its firing position
0:25:30 > 0:25:32and at the same time, putting the new cartridge
0:25:32 > 0:25:34into the chamber of the gun
0:25:34 > 0:25:37and, simultaneously, picking up a fresh one in the belt
0:25:37 > 0:25:41ready for the next round. Now, all that is done in a split second.
0:25:41 > 0:25:44One of Maxim's early guns amazed people
0:25:44 > 0:25:48by firing 666 rounds in a single minute.
0:25:48 > 0:25:50That's 11 times a second
0:25:50 > 0:25:54that complex operation is happening inside the gun.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02So, it's that level of automation
0:26:02 > 0:26:04that's the quantum leap you were describing?
0:26:04 > 0:26:07That's right. As long as you keep pulling the trigger
0:26:07 > 0:26:09it keeps firing, as long as there are cartridges to fire.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12This is what made it different. You didn't need any physical effort,
0:26:12 > 0:26:14it's much easier than firing a rifle,
0:26:14 > 0:26:16it's certainly much easier
0:26:16 > 0:26:19than firing any of the automatic weapons that went before it.
0:26:19 > 0:26:21It was an immediate sensation,
0:26:21 > 0:26:22it was reported in the papers,
0:26:22 > 0:26:26and the greatest and good in society came round to Hatton Garden
0:26:26 > 0:26:29to have a look at the gun, and some of them even fired it,
0:26:29 > 0:26:32including the Prince of Wales - later King Edward VII.
0:26:32 > 0:26:34According to Maxim, it was Edward VII - Prince Edward -
0:26:34 > 0:26:38who persuaded the Kaiser to go and have a look at the Maxim gun.
0:26:38 > 0:26:40And what about military commanders,
0:26:40 > 0:26:44are they quick to seize the opportunity presented by the gun?
0:26:44 > 0:26:47Armies were not yet convinced that it would be of use to them.
0:26:47 > 0:26:52One of the reasons was that at the time people used cartridges
0:26:52 > 0:26:54which were propelled by gunpowder.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57Gunpowder makes an awful lot of smoke.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59So, if you were firing a Maxim gun
0:26:59 > 0:27:01you'd make a lovely target on the battlefield
0:27:01 > 0:27:05because of a huge plume of gunpowder smoke rising up from you.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08The big change came when a French scientist
0:27:08 > 0:27:13invented smokeless propellant for cartridges in the mid-1880s.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16So, overnight, it made the Maxim gun ten times more effective
0:27:16 > 0:27:20and interesting to armies than it previously had been.
0:27:20 > 0:27:22It seems inconceivable to me that, plume of smoke or not,
0:27:22 > 0:27:26a gun that fires 666 rounds a minute wouldn't just be lapped up.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28It was to do with the mindset.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31The British started showing how they could be used
0:27:31 > 0:27:33because they used them in colonial campaigns,
0:27:33 > 0:27:36used them against people who obviously weren't armed
0:27:36 > 0:27:39with sophisticated modern weapons, but they were very effective.
0:27:39 > 0:27:43But that also dissuaded armies in Europe from getting very excited,
0:27:43 > 0:27:45because they thought, "This is a weapon for colonial wars.
0:27:45 > 0:27:49"It's not a weapon for the European battlefield."
0:27:50 > 0:27:54The man then called Britain's greatest living soldier
0:27:54 > 0:27:58typified his country's inconsistency towards the machine gun.
0:28:00 > 0:28:06In 1898, General Horatio Herbert Kitchener deployed Maxim guns
0:28:06 > 0:28:10to devastating effect against Mahdist fundamentalists in Sudan.
0:28:14 > 0:28:1916 years later, Kitchener became Secretary of State for War.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24And despite what he'd seen in Africa,
0:28:24 > 0:28:27the war Kitchener planned for Europe
0:28:27 > 0:28:29was not a war of machine guns.
0:28:30 > 0:28:32Nobody could have imagined
0:28:32 > 0:28:34what the First World War was going to be like.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37I mean, let's look back at the previous 20 or 30 years
0:28:37 > 0:28:40of British military history before 1914.
0:28:40 > 0:28:45Small colonial wars, wars fought against unequal native opposition.
0:28:45 > 0:28:49Nobody understood the great industrial power
0:28:49 > 0:28:53that would be unleashed on the Western Front after 1914.
0:28:53 > 0:28:55Would it be fair to say
0:28:55 > 0:28:58they couldn't imagine what the war was going to be like
0:28:58 > 0:29:00because they were 19th-century soldiers
0:29:00 > 0:29:03confronting a 20th-century war?
0:29:03 > 0:29:05I think the central problem here
0:29:05 > 0:29:09is that people like Kitchener and his subordinate field commanders
0:29:09 > 0:29:11who took command of the armies in the field
0:29:11 > 0:29:14still dreamed of a battlefield
0:29:14 > 0:29:17where men showed individual dash,
0:29:17 > 0:29:21heroism, courage, initiative,
0:29:21 > 0:29:24and that they would lay the conditions on the front
0:29:24 > 0:29:28for the use of this wonderful, wonderful piece of weaponry
0:29:28 > 0:29:30which the British had.
0:29:30 > 0:29:34Not the machine gun, no, but the cavalry, the "armes blanches".
0:29:34 > 0:29:37The horse thundering into the enemy lines
0:29:37 > 0:29:39and cutting apart the opposition -
0:29:39 > 0:29:42that's got a much more heroic image
0:29:42 > 0:29:46than firing lead bullets at serried ranks of men.
0:29:52 > 0:29:56British politicians, in the main, shared Kitchener's view,
0:29:56 > 0:29:59but the lack of British interest
0:29:59 > 0:30:02didn't stop Maxim finding customers overseas.
0:30:04 > 0:30:06He went off on tours around Europe
0:30:06 > 0:30:08showing it to all the powers of Europe, basically.
0:30:08 > 0:30:10He showed it to the Chinese and so on,
0:30:10 > 0:30:12so he was showing it all over,
0:30:12 > 0:30:16and would do demonstrations to show how effective a weapon it was.
0:30:16 > 0:30:18When these countries decided to issue it to their armies,
0:30:18 > 0:30:21they generally made arrangements with Maxim's company
0:30:21 > 0:30:23to produce under licence.
0:30:23 > 0:30:27So, a surprisingly sophisticated European arms industry,
0:30:27 > 0:30:30many of whom licensed out their products
0:30:30 > 0:30:32to their competitors and rivals.
0:30:32 > 0:30:35And this is indeed what happened with the Maxim gun -
0:30:35 > 0:30:37it was made under licence in Germany.
0:30:41 > 0:30:45Maxim's gun had been created on these British streets,
0:30:45 > 0:30:46but it was the German army
0:30:46 > 0:30:50who would be the first to appreciate its value on the battlefield.
0:30:53 > 0:30:55In the whole of 1914,
0:30:55 > 0:30:59British factories produced fewer than 400 Maxim guns.
0:31:02 > 0:31:05German factories produced 500...
0:31:05 > 0:31:07every month.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11This is an army that's thought deeply about it
0:31:11 > 0:31:13and invested a lot of money.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17They began the war with 5,500 of these weapons.
0:31:17 > 0:31:20They reckoned that each gun was worth 80 riflemen
0:31:20 > 0:31:22in terms of firepower.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26Now, that can have a distinct effect on the battlefield.
0:31:29 > 0:31:32And ready to face those German guns
0:31:32 > 0:31:34were the men of the Portree company.
0:31:34 > 0:31:36On 19th February 1915,
0:31:36 > 0:31:39after six months of training in Bedford,
0:31:39 > 0:31:42they began their journey to the front line.
0:31:56 > 0:31:59More than two days after arriving on French soil,
0:31:59 > 0:32:01their train finally ground to a halt right here,
0:32:01 > 0:32:04at the little station of Merville.
0:32:04 > 0:32:07They had travelled crammed into horse-cars, 34 men in each.
0:32:07 > 0:32:12Portree's Saturday Night Soldiers had come to war.
0:32:19 > 0:32:23The Territorials had arrived just a few miles from the front line.
0:32:23 > 0:32:26A whole new and terrifying world...
0:32:29 > 0:32:31..punctuated by the crash of artillery shells
0:32:31 > 0:32:34and the rattle of the machine guns.
0:32:34 > 0:32:36MACHINE GUNS RATTLE
0:32:40 > 0:32:43Letters from the front were censored.
0:32:43 > 0:32:46Private John MacFarlane, the stonemason's son,
0:32:46 > 0:32:50painted a reassuring picture for his mother back in Portree.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57"My dear Mother, we meet quite a number of soldiers
0:32:57 > 0:32:59"who have been in the trenches,
0:32:59 > 0:33:02"and they tell us they are not half so bad as people imagine.
0:33:02 > 0:33:07"We are quite well and enjoying the fun immensely.
0:33:07 > 0:33:09"Much love to all, Johnnie."
0:33:18 > 0:33:21The Great War had begun in speed and movement.
0:33:24 > 0:33:29The Germans had attacked Paris and had been beaten back.
0:33:30 > 0:33:34The Allies had raced to secure the Channel ports,
0:33:34 > 0:33:38but by the end of 1914 all movement had ended.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41What remained was a tactical stalemate,
0:33:41 > 0:33:44with the Germans dug in to reinforced positions,
0:33:44 > 0:33:47defended by 5,000 machine guns.
0:33:53 > 0:33:57For the Germans, the machine gun has suddenly become the key weapon.
0:33:57 > 0:33:59It's central to their defensive system.
0:33:59 > 0:34:02The machine gun is now the queen of the battlefield.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06It gives them so many advantages in defending their positions.
0:34:06 > 0:34:10I mean, look across the road to that bunker across there,
0:34:10 > 0:34:11probably built in 1915.
0:34:11 > 0:34:15It was there for a specific purpose, to defend this area.
0:34:15 > 0:34:18This gives the Germans a priceless advantage
0:34:18 > 0:34:22because, in the hands of a determined machine gun crew,
0:34:22 > 0:34:25this position is pretty well impregnable.
0:34:29 > 0:34:33'And this is a genuine German World War I Maxim gun.
0:34:35 > 0:34:37'They called it a Spandau.
0:34:39 > 0:34:43'A century old, extremely rare, and still absolutely deadly.
0:34:49 > 0:34:52'This was the weapon that had changed everything.'
0:34:53 > 0:34:56The German soldier and the British soldier
0:34:56 > 0:34:58only had five- to ten-shot bolt-action rifles.
0:34:58 > 0:35:01Now, you can imagine the amount of firepower
0:35:01 > 0:35:03that can be brought about by those,
0:35:03 > 0:35:06but times that by ten and you've got the Maxim gun.
0:35:06 > 0:35:08- Can I have a go?- Certainly.
0:35:08 > 0:35:11- Safety on?- The safety's on at the moment.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14What I want you to do is, with your right hand gripping the pistol grip,
0:35:14 > 0:35:18- then just bring it up into the shoulder.- Yeah.
0:35:18 > 0:35:20OK, and if you just see there's a little safety catch
0:35:20 > 0:35:23- on the side of the pistol grip. - Pull it back?- Yeah.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26If you now want to align this gun onto the target
0:35:26 > 0:35:29and then have a couple of bursts.
0:35:30 > 0:35:32SHORT BURST OF GUNFIRE
0:35:43 > 0:35:46That's some awful difference from the Brown Bess, isn't it?
0:35:46 > 0:35:47It certainly is, yeah.
0:35:48 > 0:35:51And that would have been the last sound
0:35:51 > 0:35:54heard by thousands upon thousands of men 100 years ago.
0:35:54 > 0:35:57WHISTLE BLOWS
0:35:58 > 0:36:00MACHINE GUNS RATTLE
0:36:07 > 0:36:11'To demonstrate the full power of this vintage weapon,
0:36:11 > 0:36:14'we employed some very modern technology.'
0:36:18 > 0:36:21This is a block of ballistic gel.
0:36:21 > 0:36:25It's a material designed to demonstrate what happens
0:36:25 > 0:36:28when a bullet passes through human flesh.
0:36:28 > 0:36:31And we're going to fire this bullet through it.
0:36:35 > 0:36:37GEL THUMPS
0:36:38 > 0:36:42'Slowed down by a specialist high-speed camera,
0:36:42 > 0:36:45'the effect of one bullet on the gel, or the human body,
0:36:45 > 0:36:48'is truly chilling.'
0:36:57 > 0:36:58We've got the entry wound.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01As you can see, the entry wound is very small,
0:37:01 > 0:37:04and this replicates what it would be like on a human being.
0:37:04 > 0:37:06Now, the main trauma that's happened to the body,
0:37:06 > 0:37:08if we look to the front here,
0:37:08 > 0:37:11can you see this massive cavity that we've got inside the gel?
0:37:11 > 0:37:14This is where the round has entered the sealed unit of the body
0:37:14 > 0:37:18and it's created this massive energy moving in there.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21So, that's an open space, or it's churned-up flesh inside.
0:37:21 > 0:37:25It certainly is. Inside a human being we've got bones, organs -
0:37:25 > 0:37:27all of these could be ruptured, fractured
0:37:27 > 0:37:29or even broken by that energy,
0:37:29 > 0:37:32creating a massive trauma within the person.
0:37:32 > 0:37:34- And that's a single bullet. - That's a single bullet, yeah.
0:37:34 > 0:37:36And we've been looking at a machine gun
0:37:36 > 0:37:39that can fire hundreds of rounds a minute.
0:37:42 > 0:37:43Right, here we go.
0:37:44 > 0:37:46HE FIRES SHORT BURST
0:37:48 > 0:37:53'We tried the experiment again to mimic repeated rapid fire.
0:37:53 > 0:37:55'What we discovered was shocking.'
0:38:01 > 0:38:05What do you notice about the two bullets that we've got there?
0:38:05 > 0:38:07They are pointing back the way they came.
0:38:07 > 0:38:09They certainly are. This is known as "tumbling".
0:38:09 > 0:38:11This is basically where the round enters the body,
0:38:11 > 0:38:14and then once it strikes matter within the body,
0:38:14 > 0:38:17such as bones or soft flesh, it begins to tumble
0:38:17 > 0:38:21and cut the area around which it's sort of passing through.
0:38:21 > 0:38:24The bullet's not making a smooth path through the body.
0:38:24 > 0:38:27It's churning and spinning, and mincing the flesh.
0:38:27 > 0:38:29It certainly is.
0:38:33 > 0:38:37'This destructive power, this gut-wrenching power
0:38:37 > 0:38:40'was what the Portree men were set to face.'
0:38:47 > 0:38:49Military maps called it the Moated Grange,
0:38:49 > 0:38:53a farmhouse north-east of the village of Neuve-Chapelle.
0:38:55 > 0:38:58It was here that the Portree Territorials
0:38:58 > 0:39:01would face the German machine guns for the first time.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11For two nights, 10th and 11th March 1915,
0:39:11 > 0:39:14they had defended the farmhouse.
0:39:14 > 0:39:17On the third night, and armed only with Lee Enfield rifles,
0:39:17 > 0:39:20they were ordered towards the German machine guns.
0:39:24 > 0:39:28The men were exhausted after two nights without sleep.
0:39:28 > 0:39:30They marched across here in single file,
0:39:30 > 0:39:33past wounded men crying out for water.
0:39:33 > 0:39:35When they reached a point around here,
0:39:35 > 0:39:38with the German trenches about 100 yards away in that direction,
0:39:38 > 0:39:42they were ordered to stop and to lie down in a turnip field
0:39:42 > 0:39:44and await orders.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48They lay there in the mud with rifle fire, machine-gun fire,
0:39:48 > 0:39:51and flares and artillery blazing away overhead.
0:39:51 > 0:39:53But despite the noise and the flashes,
0:39:53 > 0:39:55some of them still managed to get some sleep.
0:39:55 > 0:39:59By dusk that night, they were ordered to withdraw.
0:39:59 > 0:40:01But as they stood up and turned for home,
0:40:01 > 0:40:03the Germans troops opened fire on them again
0:40:03 > 0:40:06with machine gun and artillery.
0:40:06 > 0:40:09Private John Kennedy, the man from Bayfield,
0:40:09 > 0:40:11the man who worked for MacBrayne's ferries,
0:40:11 > 0:40:14was fatally injured.
0:40:14 > 0:40:16Three others were seriously wounded,
0:40:16 > 0:40:19among them Sergeant Willie Ross's brother Angus,
0:40:19 > 0:40:22and Roddy Kemp, the tailor's son.
0:40:31 > 0:40:34The battle that had raged in these fields,
0:40:34 > 0:40:38the battle of Neuve-Chapelle, was a strategic failure...
0:40:38 > 0:40:40at a great cost.
0:40:40 > 0:40:45Over 11,000 Allied troops killed, wounded or missing.
0:40:50 > 0:40:53That's an unspent round.
0:40:53 > 0:40:55Cartridge and bullet.
0:40:55 > 0:40:57That's one that's been fired.
0:40:57 > 0:41:01Some unidentifiable-to-me bit of kit.
0:41:01 > 0:41:04It's quite exciting at first when you spot this stuff,
0:41:04 > 0:41:06but then you remember what it's all about.
0:41:06 > 0:41:09And it's this that these fields are sown with,
0:41:09 > 0:41:11apart from any crop for people to eat,
0:41:11 > 0:41:15it's steel and brass and lead from the First World War.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18And it's stuff like this that was flying around their heads
0:41:18 > 0:41:20and cutting them to bits.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32Six days after the battle, John MacFarlane wrote home once again.
0:41:33 > 0:41:35"My dear Mother,
0:41:35 > 0:41:39"no doubt you will have seen in the papers
0:41:39 > 0:41:41"John Kennedy was killed.
0:41:42 > 0:41:44"Things like that you know must be.
0:41:45 > 0:41:49"Now we are quite used to shot and shell.
0:41:49 > 0:41:53"The only thing that pains me is you worrying so much about me.
0:41:53 > 0:41:55"Your loving son, Johnnie."
0:42:04 > 0:42:06After Neuve-Chapelle,
0:42:06 > 0:42:09the Portree company were ordered back to the reserve lines.
0:42:10 > 0:42:13Two months of relative calm,
0:42:13 > 0:42:17a time of church parades, of route marches.
0:42:21 > 0:42:23But then, on 11th May,
0:42:23 > 0:42:26the company were dispatched to a new base,
0:42:26 > 0:42:30in an orchard north of the village of Festubert.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36Six days later, the Territorials would be ordered to attack
0:42:36 > 0:42:40and would face all the terrible power of the German machine guns.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46They had the misfortune to come up against a Jager Battalion,
0:42:46 > 0:42:49the 11th Battalion from Marburg in Hessen,
0:42:49 > 0:42:51who were regular troops.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54They were elite,
0:42:54 > 0:42:57they were above average in infantry skills, shooting,
0:42:57 > 0:43:00and they also had their own machine-gun company,
0:43:00 > 0:43:02so they had six guns.
0:43:05 > 0:43:09Long before the war had begun, German military scientists
0:43:09 > 0:43:13had conducted experiments in how best to deploy this new weapon.
0:43:16 > 0:43:18They tested all kinds of things -
0:43:18 > 0:43:21the ballistics, the patterns that the bullets formed,
0:43:21 > 0:43:22the way they flew through the air -
0:43:22 > 0:43:25so that's quite important in overhead fire.
0:43:25 > 0:43:28People assume that you blaze away at troops attacking to your front.
0:43:28 > 0:43:33That is not how you used machine guns then or, indeed, today.
0:43:33 > 0:43:37The key is to have them firing from a flank
0:43:37 > 0:43:41with fire intersecting with another gun, or guns,
0:43:41 > 0:43:46so you create a complete dense zone in front of the position -
0:43:46 > 0:43:50known as the killing zone, because that's exactly what happens -
0:43:50 > 0:43:53where you concentrate the fire of these weapons,
0:43:53 > 0:43:55and you try and ensure that
0:43:55 > 0:43:58nobody can pass through this curtain of fire.
0:43:58 > 0:44:00So, if you don't hit one man,
0:44:00 > 0:44:03you'll hit the man on his right or the one beyond him.
0:44:03 > 0:44:08So, in the brutal science of killing zones,
0:44:08 > 0:44:11it is a more efficient use of your fire.
0:44:11 > 0:44:13So, rather than targeting individuals,
0:44:13 > 0:44:16you're creating a force field of bullets in front of your position
0:44:16 > 0:44:18that no-one can penetrate?
0:44:18 > 0:44:21A skilled gunner with a number two putting the ammunition in
0:44:21 > 0:44:23and keeping it going continuously
0:44:23 > 0:44:27can hold the trigger and with his hand
0:44:27 > 0:44:30can tap the gun steadily,
0:44:30 > 0:44:35a little bit at a time, right out to one extremity of the traverse,
0:44:35 > 0:44:37and then take the gun the other way.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40This keeps a continuous stream of bullets
0:44:40 > 0:44:42going through the air into this zone.
0:44:44 > 0:44:46'This technique of firing from the flanks,
0:44:46 > 0:44:49'known to the military as "enfilade",
0:44:49 > 0:44:52'dated back to the time of bows and arrows.
0:44:56 > 0:44:58'In the flat land around Festubert,
0:44:58 > 0:45:01'enfilade fire from skilled machine gunners
0:45:01 > 0:45:03'could devastate an attacking force.'
0:45:11 > 0:45:15What exactly were the Skye men here at Festubert to do?
0:45:15 > 0:45:18The Skye men were on the south of the British line,
0:45:18 > 0:45:21and they had a specific objective.
0:45:21 > 0:45:23It was to attack the German lines,
0:45:23 > 0:45:26hold it and maintain their hold on it.
0:45:26 > 0:45:29The classic task of infantrymen.
0:45:29 > 0:45:31Can you orientate me on the field here?
0:45:31 > 0:45:34Where would the opposing forces have been?
0:45:34 > 0:45:37Well, for the 4th Camerons, this was their target.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40We can see this line here,
0:45:40 > 0:45:42that's all that remains of the trench system.
0:45:42 > 0:45:46It was called a breastwork, because this is very flat country,
0:45:46 > 0:45:49you can't dig down too deep without getting into water,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52so it was built up here along this line of grass.
0:45:57 > 0:46:01'This British military map, dated April 1915,
0:46:01 > 0:46:05'has the German breastwork marked, hurriedly, in pencil.
0:46:07 > 0:46:10'600 yards away, across a muddy field
0:46:10 > 0:46:15'strewn with water-filled ditches was reference point L4,
0:46:15 > 0:46:19'the very position where the Portree men would begin their attack.'
0:46:22 > 0:46:24And what about machine guns?
0:46:24 > 0:46:26Who had them? Where were they? How were they used?
0:46:26 > 0:46:28In this particular line,
0:46:28 > 0:46:31one position was there on the right flank,
0:46:31 > 0:46:33probably three or four machine guns there,
0:46:33 > 0:46:37and here, where we're standing, on the left flank,
0:46:37 > 0:46:40was the other German machine-gun position.
0:46:40 > 0:46:42And it becomes quite obvious why they've done it,
0:46:42 > 0:46:46because the machine guns on either side of the German line
0:46:46 > 0:46:48put up a field of fire
0:46:48 > 0:46:52which makes a pretty well impossible opposition
0:46:52 > 0:46:54for any attacking force.
0:47:03 > 0:47:07'On 17th May, just hours before the attack,
0:47:07 > 0:47:10'Company Sergeant Major Willie Ross, the Portree postman,
0:47:10 > 0:47:14'wrote home to his 17-year-old daughter.'
0:47:17 > 0:47:22"My dear Anna, I have just got your tobacco and matches
0:47:22 > 0:47:26"and I am enjoying a smoke of the good old twist.
0:47:26 > 0:47:29"Give my love to dearest Mama,
0:47:29 > 0:47:33"and may God bless and watch over you all."
0:47:38 > 0:47:40ARTILLERY THUNDERS
0:47:42 > 0:47:46'In advance of the attack, the British artillery
0:47:46 > 0:47:50'had launched a colossal 48-hour barrage on the German positions.'
0:47:53 > 0:47:55It was standard infantry practice
0:47:55 > 0:47:58in the British Army at that time in the war.
0:47:58 > 0:48:01You lay artillery fire down on the enemy position
0:48:01 > 0:48:05in the hope that you're going to destroy the breastwork,
0:48:05 > 0:48:08so that the British infantry can then stream through it.
0:48:08 > 0:48:12And at the same time, you hope that the artillery fire
0:48:12 > 0:48:14is going to destroy barbed wire,
0:48:14 > 0:48:16and is also going to destroy
0:48:16 > 0:48:19the machine-gun positions at either side.
0:48:19 > 0:48:21Unfortunately, that didn't happen,
0:48:21 > 0:48:24with the result that by the time the Camerons reached the German line,
0:48:24 > 0:48:27the defences were still pretty much intact.
0:48:27 > 0:48:31And for an infantryman, that really is dispiriting.
0:48:31 > 0:48:36'At 6.30pm the German Jager - or "hunter" - Battalion,
0:48:36 > 0:48:40'were reinforced by two companies of Bavarian reservists.
0:48:42 > 0:48:47'At exactly the same time, and 600 yards across the muddy field,
0:48:47 > 0:48:51'the Portree and Kingussie companies lined up,
0:48:51 > 0:48:55'joined on their right flank by two companies from the Bedford Regiment.'
0:48:56 > 0:48:58Their attack was put together in a hurry,
0:48:58 > 0:49:02so there was no time or opportunity to plan it properly.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05They were going over ground that they had never seen.
0:49:05 > 0:49:08They also had no idea of the strength of the enemy
0:49:08 > 0:49:09and only a slight indication
0:49:09 > 0:49:12of where there might be some machine guns.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16At 7.30pm the order was given -
0:49:16 > 0:49:19first line 4th Camerons, charge.
0:49:19 > 0:49:23As soon as they stepped forward they were engaged by machine-gun fire,
0:49:23 > 0:49:25firing in enfilade.
0:49:25 > 0:49:28They were in a classic kill zone.
0:49:28 > 0:49:31The commanding officer, Captain MacDonald, the Portree lawyer,
0:49:31 > 0:49:33was shot through the throat.
0:49:33 > 0:49:37His Company Sergeant Major, Willie Ross, ran to assist him.
0:49:37 > 0:49:40Realising that MacDonald would be doing no more fighting,
0:49:40 > 0:49:44Ross took command and led a bayonet charge towards the German trench.
0:49:44 > 0:49:45They got into the trench.
0:49:45 > 0:49:48Four German soldiers raised their hands as if to surrender,
0:49:48 > 0:49:50but when Ross dropped his guard,
0:49:50 > 0:49:53those same four turned on Ross and shot him dead.
0:49:53 > 0:49:56This act, this cowardly act, unleashed Highland fury,
0:49:56 > 0:49:59and those four, in fact all the Germans in the trench,
0:49:59 > 0:50:01were shot and killed.
0:50:01 > 0:50:03The Portree men had made it,
0:50:03 > 0:50:07but already four of their comrades lay dead and dying in the mud.
0:50:09 > 0:50:11Under deadly machine-gun fire,
0:50:11 > 0:50:14the Bedford companies had been forced back.
0:50:14 > 0:50:18Only the Portree men and their comrades from the Kingussie company
0:50:18 > 0:50:21had made it to the German trenches.
0:50:25 > 0:50:28700 miles from home, the Scotsmen had made it as far as this trench.
0:50:28 > 0:50:30Taking it had been a nightmare,
0:50:30 > 0:50:33holding onto it would be harder still.
0:50:33 > 0:50:36The trench itself was shallow, so offered scant protection
0:50:36 > 0:50:39from machine-gun fire and heavy artillery.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42By the early hours of the morning, with no relief in sight,
0:50:42 > 0:50:45the men were running out of options.
0:50:45 > 0:50:48The commanding officer, Captain John Campbell of the Kingussie company,
0:50:48 > 0:50:49ordered a retreat.
0:50:49 > 0:50:53Minutes later, Campbell himself was shot and killed, pistol in hand,
0:50:53 > 0:50:56while attempting to cover the escape.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59The survivors crawled through the mud and ditches,
0:50:59 > 0:51:01all the way back to the British lines.
0:51:01 > 0:51:05The retreat would claim the lives of a further four Portree men.
0:51:11 > 0:51:13A single night of battle,
0:51:13 > 0:51:16and the power and positioning of the German guns
0:51:16 > 0:51:19had devastated a faraway Highland community.
0:51:41 > 0:51:45Back in Portree, it was Captain MacDonald's maidservant,
0:51:45 > 0:51:48Maggie Matheson, who first heard the news.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52Maggie cried out in a panic,
0:51:52 > 0:51:55"They're all killed! All the boys are killed in the war!"
0:52:00 > 0:52:05Official telegrams told of men dead, injured, or missing, presumed dead.
0:52:05 > 0:52:09That morning, 13 telegrams arrived in Portree.
0:52:22 > 0:52:25Here, at what was the Lodge,
0:52:25 > 0:52:29Kate MacDonald read that her eldest son William was presumed dead.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33Back in Mill Road, and here at Number 1,
0:52:33 > 0:52:37Mrs MacLeod learned of the death of her eldest son, Donald.
0:52:39 > 0:52:41Into Bosville Terrace.
0:52:41 > 0:52:43Thomas Turnbull, the plasterer, is told that
0:52:43 > 0:52:46his eldest son, William, is presumed dead.
0:52:49 > 0:52:52Here, the family of Company Sergeant William Ross
0:52:52 > 0:52:54are told of his death.
0:52:55 > 0:52:59All three of Donald Kemp's sons fought at Festubert.
0:52:59 > 0:53:02Remarkably, all three survived.
0:53:03 > 0:53:05To Back Wentworth Street.
0:53:05 > 0:53:09John Grant, the stable boy - presumed dead.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17Back on Bayfield, John Nicholson, the fisherman - dead.
0:53:19 > 0:53:23Down on the harbour, John MacFarlane, who'd written home so many times -
0:53:23 > 0:53:25he was dead too.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34And Private Charles Sinclair, the celestial navigator,
0:53:34 > 0:53:36he was dead as well.
0:53:36 > 0:53:39A few weeks later, his mum was sent his personal effects,
0:53:39 > 0:53:41including a tiny shattered compass.
0:53:45 > 0:53:48Their commanding officer, Captain MacDonald,
0:53:48 > 0:53:50never recovered from his throat wound.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53He died in France a year later.
0:54:00 > 0:54:0328 Portree men had left from this harbour.
0:54:03 > 0:54:05They had sung God Save The King.
0:54:05 > 0:54:08One night at Festubert had claimed ten of them.
0:54:08 > 0:54:10Only eight would survive the war.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17Later that awful day, the horrors of Festubert
0:54:17 > 0:54:20arrived at the doors of Portree's old village school.
0:54:38 > 0:54:42The children would have been taken out of class individually,
0:54:42 > 0:54:44their mother would have come to the school,
0:54:44 > 0:54:46and they would have been told that their dad,
0:54:46 > 0:54:48or maybe their big brother, was dead.
0:54:56 > 0:54:58The great Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean
0:54:58 > 0:55:00was himself a pupil at the school
0:55:00 > 0:55:02a decade after the war,
0:55:02 > 0:55:05and he would come to describe how the horrors of Festubert
0:55:05 > 0:55:09were brought home to the children of Portree.
0:55:13 > 0:55:16'S dairirich nan gunnachan beaga
0:55:16 > 0:55:18Is dairirich nan gunnachan mora...
0:55:18 > 0:55:21- TRANSLATION: - Rattle of the little guns
0:55:21 > 0:55:24And clangour of the big guns
0:55:25 > 0:55:30Heavy doors being shut with the blast and crash of tempest
0:55:36 > 0:55:38Whizz and whine of the shells
0:55:38 > 0:55:42About Festubert of the mud and bloodshed
0:55:48 > 0:55:53Big, heavy doors shutting on many a brave, strong young man
0:55:56 > 0:55:59And the children going home
0:55:59 > 0:56:01To weeping
0:56:02 > 0:56:04Or to silence.
0:56:04 > 0:56:05..Agus a chlann a-dol dhachaigh
0:56:05 > 0:56:08Gu caoineadh neo gu tost.
0:56:25 > 0:56:29The death of so many Portree men, the death of millions like them,
0:56:29 > 0:56:33proved the grim value of the machine gun.
0:56:33 > 0:56:38In 1914, Britain had produced fewer than 400 of these weapons.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41In the last year of the war, she produced 41,000.
0:56:47 > 0:56:51As machine guns came to be used in the British order of battle,
0:56:51 > 0:56:55so, too, was it easier for commanders to direct a battle
0:56:55 > 0:57:00without the terror of sending young men into the fight
0:57:00 > 0:57:03with only their courage and their bare breast to protect them.
0:57:03 > 0:57:05So, all this took time,
0:57:05 > 0:57:09but it was a question, by the end of the war, of better late than never.
0:57:17 > 0:57:21The weapon that had once been considered dishonourable, unethical
0:57:21 > 0:57:23had been taken to the heart
0:57:23 > 0:57:25of British and European military strategy.
0:57:28 > 0:57:31For years to come, and all across the world,
0:57:31 > 0:57:34mothers and fathers would pay the deadly price of
0:57:34 > 0:57:37Mr Maxim's ingenious invention.
0:57:41 > 0:57:46And in Portree, one particular father would raise a lasting tribute
0:57:46 > 0:57:48to his fallen son.
0:57:52 > 0:57:55The young letter writer, Private John MacFarlane,
0:57:55 > 0:57:56his body was never found,
0:57:56 > 0:58:00and it was his dad, Thomas, who built this memorial,
0:58:00 > 0:58:02in tribute to the men of the village
0:58:02 > 0:58:07and in memory of his son, lost for ever to the guns of Festubert.