Age of Industry Andrew Marr's History of the World


Age of Industry

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The 23rd of September, 1877.

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A band of rebel samurai warriors was dug in on a hillside in southern Japan.

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The samurai had been the elite warrior class for more than 700 years.

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Now they faced oblivion at the hands of the Japanese army.

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Japan's government was modernising fast,

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rushing to embrace the Industrial Revolution.

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The revolution that has shaped today's world.

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The samurai would rather die than accept this new way of life.

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This was a battle between the rural, traditional past

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and the urban, industrial future.

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And in the 19th century, it was raging all round the world.

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From America...

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..to Russia.

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From China...

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to Japan.

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The old world of kings and landowners was crumbling

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under the force of the Industrial Revolution.

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The world was accelerating,

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and the modern age of superpowers was being born.

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But this is not the simple-minded story of progress.

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It's also the story of all of those who said no.

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300 years ago, something new appeared above the surface of the planet.

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A thick, oily spectre, hanging in the air.

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For longer than the cooking smoke from any town or city,

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and larger than a forest fire or a volcano.

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The Industrial Revolution was the biggest story to happen to mankind

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since we invented farming.

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And that dirty smear of smoke spread across North America,

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much of Europe, China, Japan.

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But it first billowed into the air over a modestly sized little island

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which called itself, rather immodestly, Great Britain.

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The engine for all of this was...the engine.

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Steam engines burned up the buried energy of millennia, captured in coal,

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and used it to create immediate power.

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What a moment!

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Through all of history, one thing had never changed -

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there was a fixed limit on the amount of power that humans could use.

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The own muscles, a few animals, the odd windmill and water wheel.

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But soon, steam engines would be doing as much work in Britain

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as 40 million people flat-out.

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Why did this happen in Britain?

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Was it because the British were uniquely clever?

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No.

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Was it because the country seemed to be half built on coal? Not really.

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It was because the British had developed a new political system

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which limited monarchy, gave everybody legal rights,

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allowed the free flow of ideas,

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and ensured that British geniuses owned their ideas,

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so they could make a buck.

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Enough liberty for free ideas, enough law for profit.

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Allowing the emergence of new men,

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far from the haunts of the rich and powerful.

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Men like George Stephenson,

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who in 1825 was busy connecting two towns in the north of England...

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..Stockton and Darlington.

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A man who'd been illiterate until he was 18,

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driving his own invention,

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an awkward-looking mash-up of pipes and fire

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he called simply "Locomotion".

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ENGINE GROWLS

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PEOPLE GASP

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Stephenson's machine was the biggest news of the age.

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"Locomotion" had been built to carry coal,

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but on its maiden voyage, people clambered into the coal carts.

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There was even an experimental passenger carriage called..."Experiment".

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Never before had so many people been carried so far...

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so fast.

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Now railways would start to knit together nations.

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First Britain...

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but soon the United States, Germany

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and the rest of Europe.

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Restless change, restless revolution.

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Like most revolutions, the Industrial Revolution would have many casualties.

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Men and women and children as young as eight or nine

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worked 12-hour days in vast factories.

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Many were maimed or even killed by the new machinery,

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and they were working by artificial light and the factory clock,

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not the rhythms of nature.

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Protests were widespread and angry.

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Every great new technology produces changes in society and politics,

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and these new engines didn't just push pistons and locomotives,

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they pushed ahead trade unionism, town planning,

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political reform, new schools, democracy.

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Quite powerful things, steam engines.

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Britain went through the fastest social transformation in history.

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People flooded from the countryside to work in urban factories.

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Within a century, Britain went from a country

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with just two cities with more than 50,000 people

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to a country with 29 cities of this size.

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It's very similar to what's happening in China right now -

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a world of peasant farmers becomes a world of factories,

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villages empty, and tall, angular buildings spring up.

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HORN BLOWS

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By 1860, Britain was tied together by more than 10,000 miles of railways.

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Production of coal and steel and iron skyrocketed.

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The cities sprawled, and new inventions - from steamships and iron bridges

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to brilliantly lit streets - tumbled out of these damp and smoky islands.

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And it was really this energy,

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this restless search for raw materials, new markets and bigger profits,

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that drove the British as they threw together

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the biggest empire in the history of the world.

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There have always been powerful empires and weaker peoples,

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rich countries and poor ones.

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What was new about the Industrial Revolution

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was that it brought a great steel barrier crashing down

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between the nations with the new power and the rest without it.

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Which, in 1839, included China.

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Britain wanted to do business with this Eastern giant.

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Her 400 million people were a vast and lucrative market for British goods.

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And Britain's new industrial middle class were eager to buy luxuries from China.

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But there was a problem.

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For 300 years, China had been closed off.

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It was self-sufficient. It didn't need British goods.

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There was only one place that merchants from outside

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could come to get what they wanted, which was here,

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what they called Canton in those days.

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And what British merchants wanted most of all was tea.

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Tea had become the national drink.

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But it was a lot more than that.

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A tenth of all the British government's revenues came from taxes on tea.

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That was enough to pay for half of the Royal Navy.

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So we had an nation of tea addicts

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and a government that had become addicted to tea taxes.

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And the Chinese didn't want to buy any British goods in return.

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All they'd accept as payment for tea was silver.

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Silver reserves were pouring out of Britain into China's coffers.

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There must surely be something else that the British could trade in return for tea?

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There was.

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Opium.

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The Chinese had a taste for this highly addictive and illegal drug.

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And the British grew it in their imperial possession, India.

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So there was a deal.

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We could smuggle in the dangerous drug, opium,

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and use it to pay for our benign drug, tea.

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By the 1830s, the most successful drug pushers in the world

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weren't Mexican bandits or Afghan warlords, but the British.

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By March 1839, there were an estimated 12 million opium addicts in China.

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The emperor sent one of his most trusted officials,

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the famously incorruptible High Commissioner Lin, to Canton.

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He began a thorough search of the trading district,

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where the British merchants were smuggling opium into China.

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HE SPEAKS CANTONESE

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All pushers were to be sentenced to death.

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Foreigners by beheading, Chinese by strangling.

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HE SPEAKS CANTONESE

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HE GIVES ORDERS IN CANTONESE

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HE SHOUTS

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Lin demanded that the British hand over all their opium supplies.

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When they refused, he locked down the trading district.

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Lin was ruthless.

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No food was allowed in.

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500 troops were drilled up and down outside the windows,

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and huge gongs were sounded all night.

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After 24 hours of sleep deprivation, the British surrendered.

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The merchants handed over 20,000 chests of opium,

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worth more than £160 million in today's money.

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Lin destroyed it all.

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Lin was triumphant, but he'd fatally misunderstood his enemy.

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He had no idea how important this trade was.

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Selling Indian opium for Chinese tea

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was one of the most lucrative deals Britain's Empire traders had.

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They weren't going to let it slip through their fingers.

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Two great empires were now on collision course.

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The Chinese fleet of wooden-built junks

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was confronted by Britain's new weapon of the industrial age,

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the world's first ironclad battleship.

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The Nemesis.

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The British blockaded the Pearl River and then sailed up the coast

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bombarding and seizing the major towns.

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On land, a Chinese army with bows and arrows

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and spears and muskets were mown down.

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Over two years, China was bludgeoned into submission.

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The Chinese had no choice but to open up to British trade.

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The terms were humiliating.

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China was forced to pay the equivalent

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of £2 billion in today's money for the lost opium,

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and to pay for the war against them.

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Five Chinese ports were forced to open to British traders.

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Oh, and Hong Kong was thrown in as part of the deal -

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a British colony on China's doorstep.

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China had been forced at gunpoint to open herself up to the modern global economy.

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The message was clear - industrialisation could transform

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a tiny country like Britain into a world superpower.

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To ignore this was to be doomed to the status of second-class nation.

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All around the world, traditional rural societies took note.

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19th-century Russia thought of herself as a European power,

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but she was, in her way, just as trapped in the past as China.

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22 million Russians were serfs, owned by aristocratic landlords.

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Like slaves, serfs were property

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and could be ordered to do any kind of work.

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Many suffered physical and sexual abuse.

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The system created a stagnant economy based on old-fashioned agriculture.

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But now, this huge, proud nation came up against

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industrialised Britain and her ally, France, in the Crimean War.

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And, fighting right on her doorstep, lost.

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But change was in the air.

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After the humiliating defeat of the Crimean War,

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the new tsar, the reforming Alexander II, realised

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that if Russia was going to compete against the industrial powers in the West,

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she'd have to sweep away the serf economy.

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Easier said than done.

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Russia's nobility and landowners were going to fight hard

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to hang on to their power and their property.

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In many ways, Russia's fate was now in the hands of its nobility.

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And in the spring of 1853,

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one young aristocratic landowner was gambling with his fellow army officers.

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The stakes were high.

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The young count had already gambled away entire villages he owned

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and the serfs who lived in them.

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HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

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Now he'd lost the house where he'd been born.

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His name was Leo Tolstoy.

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He'd go on to become a titan of Russian literature,

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the author of War And Peace.

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But he'd also become a key player in the political drama gripping Russia -

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the fight to throw off serfdom.

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Tolstoy was only 18 when he inherited the estate of Yasnaya Polyana,

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which means "bright meadow".

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It was vast and included 11 villages and 200 serfs.

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This was a world in which entire villages and the people who lived in them

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could be won or lost on the toss of a coin.

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But Tolstoy was different.

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The guilt so tore him apart that he came to believe that not only he had to change,

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so did Russia.

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Was there a different path between brutal industrialisation and rural tyranny?

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Finding one became Tolstoy's mission.

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He returned to what was left of his estate

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and, dressed as a peasant, worked alongside his serfs.

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In truth, he was a pretty rotten farmer,

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and to start with, there must have been a bit of rural sniggering

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behind his Lordship's back.

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But Tolstoy was a dedicated, even reckless reformer.

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Tolstoy decided to free his serfs,

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which meant giving them or selling them land as well,

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because the land was worth nothing without the serfs,

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and the serfs would starve without the land.

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So he offered them very generous terms - 12 acres apiece,

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some of it free, some of it very cheap.

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Noble, generous Count Tolstoy.

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The serfs didn't see it like that.

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They'd already heard rumours

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that the Tsar was going to give them their land and liberty for nothing.

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The count must be trying to swindle them.

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So they looked at his offer

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and, to his amazement and horror, said, "No, thanks."

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But Tolstoy wasn't easily discouraged.

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He believed that Russia was never going to move forward

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while most of its people couldn't read or write.

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So, in October 1859, he set up a school on his estate to educate young serfs.

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Quite a few of whom, it has to be said, were his own illegitimate children.

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Within three years, Tolstoy had opened 21 schools in the local area.

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HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

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Tolstoy was shunned by infuriated local landowners.

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All round the world, it was the landowning class

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with their privileges and traditions

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who'd be the most threatened by change.

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And in Russia, they fought a formidable rearguard action

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against the Tsar's reforms.

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It was one successful enough to sabotage them.

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When, on the 3rd of March, 1861, the detailed plan was finally announced,

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it turned out the serfs would be free in name,

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but burdened by debts and many rules.

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It was a tragic missed opportunity.

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Had the Tsar had pulled this off, Russian history would have been very different.

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And surely happier.

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There was a great wave of anger and disappointment.

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There were nearly 2,000 serf revolts,

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some of which had to be put down by troops.

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Tolstoy himself freed all his serfs and asked for no payment,

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but across Russia, most peasants, though now technically free,

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still had to pay for their land, they had to ask permission to travel

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and they could still be beaten.

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Alexander's reforms had failed.

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Eventually many of the serfs drifted to the cities,

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where they would eventually become the foot soldiers

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for a revolution which would sweep away old Russia.

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At exactly the same time, a remarkably similar problem was tearing America apart.

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Here, too, a rural underclass lived alongside the modern industrial world.

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The nation that had been built on the ideals of liberty and equality

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was polluted by a system even worse than serfdom...

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slavery.

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In the mid-1800s, there were around 4 million slaves in the United States,

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almost all of them in the South, working on plantations like this,

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growing cotton and tobacco and much else.

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Economically, slavery was a dynamic and efficient system,

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and as America started to spread towards the West,

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the Southern states wanted to see slavery spreading too.

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But in the North, where many states had banned slavery,

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they thought very differently.

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They were determined that slavery would not grow.

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America was split down the middle.

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Things came to a head in 1860,

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when the Northerner Abraham Lincoln became president.

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But can we, while our votes will prevent it,

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allow slavery to spread into the Northern Territories?

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Lincoln believed that slavery was wrong,

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but he also said that he had no intention of abolishing it,

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hoping instead it would die out over time.

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But Southern politicians realised that Lincoln's arrival in the White House

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meant slavery would not now spread further, as they had hoped.

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11 Southern states decided to break away from the union

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and establish an independent government -

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the Confederacy.

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Lincoln had no choice but to declare war on the South to defend the union.

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This was a struggle between two different ways of life.

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In the South, it was an agricultural society -

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traditional, conservative,

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many people living on plantations which were virtually self-sufficient,

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cut off from the rest of the world.

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"Yes," said the North, "but all your wealth depends on slavery."

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In the North - urban, industrial America,

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based on steel and railroads and a rising middle class.

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"Ah, yes," said the South, "whose prosperity is based on wage slaves."

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So, two Americas, now no longer able to properly speak to each other.

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On April the 12th, 1861, these two Americas duly went to war.

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Lincoln mobilised the North's industrial might,

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using railways to transport men and munitions.

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But to start with, it went badly for him.

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The South had better generals and a bolder fighting spirit.

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SCREAMING

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After 18 months, Lincoln was desperate.

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He decided to destroy the foundation on which the South was built.

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He'd free the slaves.

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"We must free the slaves," he said, "or be ourselves subdued."

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He hoped this would destroy the Southern economy and demoralise the people.

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And so, on New Year's Day, 1863,

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just two years after the Russians had announced the emancipation of the serfs,

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Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation -

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that all the slaves in the rebel states would immediately be free.

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Liberated slaves flocked to fight with the Northern forces...

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..while the South struggled with shortages and inflation.

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The tide of war turned in the North's favour.

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On April the 9th, 1865,

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after a devastating invasion, the South surrendered.

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620,000 soldiers had been killed.

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Nearly as many as in every other war the United States has fought put together.

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In the final days of the war, Lincoln did something extraordinary.

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He simply turned up at the Confederate rebel capital of Richmond, Virginia,

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not very far from Washington.

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His troops had just taken it, it was still burning.

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No-one had any idea what to expect

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when he arrived here by boat at Rocketts Landing.

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There was a huge crowd, entirely black.

0:27:510:27:55

Lincoln had the most recognisable face in America

0:27:550:27:59

and he was spotted immediately.

0:27:590:28:01

There were cries of "Our Messiah!" and "Jesus Christ!"

0:28:010:28:06

One man knelt to him, and Lincoln said, "No, no, you only kneel to your God."

0:28:060:28:12

And then the group started to walk the two miles into the centre of Richmond,

0:28:130:28:18

and gradually there were more and more white faces in the crowd.

0:28:180:28:21

Sullen, silent, staring back from windows and the tops of buildings.

0:28:210:28:26

The people that he had just defeated.

0:28:260:28:29

And Lincoln's group were expecting shouts of abuse, possibly even shots.

0:28:300:28:35

Nothing.

0:28:370:28:39

And at that moment,

0:28:390:28:40

it seemed as if Abraham Lincoln had won all of America back.

0:28:400:28:45

I can see one means at least of keeping the Ravensdale estate in the family.

0:28:490:28:55

What is it?

0:28:550:28:56

By marrying your daughter to the mortgagee.

0:28:560:28:59

To you?!

0:28:590:29:01

LAUGHTER

0:29:010:29:03

Ten days after Richmond, Lincoln went to the theatre in Washington.

0:29:050:29:09

He hadn't been keen, but his wife had begged him to come.

0:29:100:29:14

A night off for the hero.

0:29:150:29:18

Did you see him?

0:29:180:29:19

No, but I see him!

0:29:190:29:22

AUDIENCE GASPS

0:29:230:29:26

CHEERING

0:29:260:29:29

But the defeated South would inflict one last act of bloodshed.

0:29:300:29:36

A second-rate actor and Southern Confederate supporter

0:29:370:29:41

called John Wilkes Booth saw Lincoln as a tyrant.

0:29:410:29:45

The actor Booth was about to make his final appearance.

0:29:480:29:50

And he knew the reviews would be mixed.

0:29:520:29:55

Well, I know enough to turn you inside out,

0:29:550:29:58

you sockdologizing old man-trap!

0:29:580:30:01

LAUGHTER

0:30:010:30:03

GUNSHOT

0:30:060:30:08

GASPS

0:30:080:30:10

SCREAMING

0:30:140:30:15

Booth cried out the Latin motto of the state of Virginia.

0:30:200:30:24

Sic semper tyrannis!

0:30:240:30:26

"Thus always to tyrants."

0:30:260:30:29

Help me!

0:30:290:30:32

Help!

0:30:320:30:34

The North mourned an immortal political hero.

0:30:430:30:46

In the South, they celebrated.

0:30:480:30:50

One Texan newspaper professed itself "thrilled by the death of our oppressor".

0:30:520:30:57

The American Civil War left a bitter legacy.

0:30:590:31:02

In the South, burned and devastated,

0:31:020:31:05

the whites remained very angry about what had happened,

0:31:050:31:10

and black Americans faced many, many decades of grinding rural poverty,

0:31:100:31:16

segregation laws and lynchings for those who stepped out of line.

0:31:160:31:20

But the union was preserved.

0:31:220:31:26

And in the North, this extraordinarily industrious, vigorous economy,

0:31:260:31:32

now linked together by railroads, stormed ahead -

0:31:320:31:36

the American colossus striding towards the 20th century.

0:31:360:31:41

Freed of its slave economy, the United States rushed to modernise.

0:31:440:31:49

For the first time, Americans began to impose themselves around the world.

0:31:510:31:56

Already, they were looking west, across the Pacific.

0:31:570:32:00

Japan had deliberately cut herself off from the rest of the world

0:32:050:32:09

for more than 200 years,

0:32:090:32:11

uninterested in the industrial West.

0:32:110:32:14

When Japan closed her doors, the United States didn't even exist.

0:32:150:32:20

So when, in 1853, the American Navy turned up under Commodore Matthew Perry,

0:32:220:32:28

it all came as a bit of a surprise.

0:32:280:32:31

The Japanese had never seen anything like the American steamships.

0:32:350:32:39

Some thought they were "giant dragons, puffing smoke".

0:32:410:32:45

Commodore Matthew Perry handed over a letter from the US President

0:32:480:32:53

insisting that Japan open her doors.

0:32:530:32:56

In effect, free trade or we shoot.

0:32:560:32:59

Remembering what had happened to the Chinese at the hands of the British,

0:33:050:33:09

Japan's rulers gave way to the Americans.

0:33:090:33:12

Realising they needed to strengthen Japan against any further Western threats,

0:33:140:33:20

the Japanese government rushed to modernise and industrialise.

0:33:200:33:24

I'd like to show you our plans.

0:33:240:33:26

Their slogan was, "Catch up, overtake."

0:33:260:33:31

They invited thousands of Westerners to teach and give advice.

0:33:330:33:37

They built railroads, telegraph lines and factories.

0:33:380:33:42

Out went kimonos, in came business suits and top hats.

0:33:450:33:50

But one class of society was devastated by the arrival of the Industrial Revolution.

0:33:550:34:00

The samurai.

0:34:020:34:03

For hundreds of years,

0:34:050:34:07

this hereditary warrior class had dominated Japanese society.

0:34:070:34:12

They had special privileges - the only people allowed to fight,

0:34:120:34:15

the only men allowed to carry their two swords in public,

0:34:150:34:18

they were exempt from taxation.

0:34:180:34:21

But Japan had been at peace for more than 200 years.

0:34:210:34:25

It was 1870.

0:34:250:34:28

Who needed mediaeval warriors any more?

0:34:280:34:31

And so, piece by piece, their privileges were stripped away -

0:34:310:34:35

their right to carry swords went,

0:34:350:34:38

their income was taxed, and the army was opened up to conscripts - peasants!

0:34:380:34:44

By 1876, the samurai class faced abolition.

0:34:490:34:53

Some decided to fight back...

0:34:560:34:58

..and turned to one of the country's leading samurai, Saigo Takamori.

0:35:000:35:04

Saigo was an unlikely rebel.

0:35:050:35:08

To start with, he backed the reforms, including the modernisation of the army.

0:35:080:35:13

This was a man torn between his deep samurai ideals

0:35:140:35:20

and his country's need to modernise.

0:35:200:35:23

And it was only when his back was against the wall

0:35:230:35:26

that Saigo decided to fight for the past against the future.

0:35:260:35:33

HE SPEAKS JAPANESE

0:35:350:35:37

A poet and a dreamer, as well as a politician,

0:35:410:35:44

Saigo led a rebel army of 30,000 samurai to overthrow the modernisers in Tokyo.

0:35:440:35:51

And so, old Japan took on new Japan.

0:35:540:35:59

Saigo's rebel army was composed of traditional samurai warriors.

0:35:590:36:04

The government's was a modern conscript army

0:36:040:36:07

with the latest rifles and artillery

0:36:070:36:10

supplied by steamships and railways.

0:36:100:36:12

This was only ever going to end one way.

0:36:120:36:16

After seven months, Saigo's thousands were reduced to just a few hundred warriors.

0:36:160:36:22

And now they were surrounded.

0:36:220:36:24

60 to 1.

0:36:250:36:27

HE SPEAKS JAPANESE

0:36:280:36:30

Saigo told his warriors to face death with honour.

0:36:330:36:38

This was a tragic moment in Japanese history, tearing the nation apart.

0:36:380:36:44

The soldiers waiting to attack Saigo's samurai hated what they were about to do.

0:36:440:36:50

SCREAMING

0:36:580:37:00

Within two hours, the Japanese army had reduced Saigo's force to just 40 samurai.

0:37:030:37:09

At dawn, armed only with their swords,

0:37:200:37:23

the last samurai walked out to face certain death.

0:37:230:37:26

GUNSHOTS

0:37:260:37:29

Halfway down the hill, Saigo was shot in the right hip.

0:37:290:37:33

Badly injured, Saigo died after a botched act of ritual Samurai suicide.

0:37:410:37:48

Japan forged ahead with its programme of modernisation...

0:38:110:38:15

..becoming known as "the workshop of Asia".

0:38:170:38:19

No country modernised as fast and successfully as Japan.

0:38:220:38:29

In 1905, their new navy would astonish the world

0:38:290:38:34

by sending the Russian high fleet to the bottom of the sea -

0:38:340:38:39

the first time that an Eastern country had defeated a Western nation

0:38:390:38:45

since the Middle Ages.

0:38:450:38:47

And yet Japan could never quite shake Saigo off.

0:38:470:38:54

After his death, he was pardoned and became a national hero.

0:38:540:38:59

A tragic symbol of the old Japan, of honour and self-sacrifice.

0:38:590:39:06

The samurai soul that was still there

0:39:070:39:10

below the Western uniforms and the business suits.

0:39:100:39:14

Japan had saved herself from becoming a victim

0:39:210:39:25

of the new age of industry and empire.

0:39:250:39:27

Other parts of the world wouldn't be so lucky.

0:39:290:39:32

Africa was one of the least developed areas of the planet.

0:39:330:39:37

But it was rich with natural resources.

0:39:370:39:41

And it had remained almost untouched by the West.

0:39:420:39:45

But in the late 19th century,

0:39:470:39:49

the industrialised empires of Europe were on the hunt

0:39:490:39:52

for new territories to explore and exploit.

0:39:520:39:55

In 1877, the explorer Henry Morton Stanley,

0:40:000:40:03

a bit of a rogue who'd fought on both sides during the American Civil War,

0:40:030:40:08

became the first Westerner

0:40:080:40:09

to chart the entire 3,000-mile course of the Congo River.

0:40:090:40:15

The journey took him 999 days and cost the lives of 242 men.

0:40:180:40:25

But it would change the way the West saw the continent.

0:40:270:40:31

"This river," said Stanley,

0:40:320:40:34

"is and will be the great highway of commerce to the heart of Africa."

0:40:340:40:39

News of Stanley's great discovery soon reached Europe.

0:40:550:40:59

And nobody was more fascinated than Leopold II, King of the Belgians.

0:41:030:41:09

The problem with Belgium, he grumbled,

0:41:110:41:13

was that it was a small country with small people.

0:41:130:41:17

Leopold II was in the market. He wanted to rise in the world.

0:41:180:41:23

He wanted to be an emperor, so he needed a colony.

0:41:230:41:27

And he'd gone almost everywhere trying to buy one -

0:41:270:41:31

the Pacific, South America, the Far East, China...

0:41:310:41:35

the Faroe Islands!

0:41:350:41:37

Nothing doing.

0:41:370:41:39

So, when he heard of the great wealth of Central Africa,

0:41:390:41:42

he could barely contain his excitement.

0:41:420:41:45

"We mustn't lose an opportunity," he said,

0:41:450:41:47

"to gain for ourselves a slice of this magnificent African cake."

0:41:470:41:54

Leopold persuaded Stanley to work for him in the Congo.

0:41:560:41:59

His job was to negotiate with the Africans

0:42:010:42:05

and establish a network of trading stations

0:42:050:42:08

along the length of the river.

0:42:080:42:10

Leopold called his project

0:42:120:42:13

the International Association of the Congo,

0:42:130:42:18

and he sold it as a kind of benign crusade,

0:42:180:42:20

bringing religion to the Africans

0:42:200:42:22

and freeing them from the evil Arab slave-traders.

0:42:220:42:26

He built this monstrous great museum in Brussels

0:42:260:42:29

to sell his idea to the Belgian people.

0:42:290:42:33

But Leopold was - how shall we put this? - lying.

0:42:330:42:38

He was a cynical and slippery operator.

0:42:380:42:41

All he wanted was money and power for himself.

0:42:410:42:45

And he wrote to Stanley that these treaties with the Africans

0:42:450:42:48

"must give us everything".

0:42:480:42:50

And they did.

0:42:520:42:53

I bring you gifts from my kingdom.

0:42:530:42:55

From King Leopold.

0:42:550:42:57

African chiefs had no idea they were signing away their land

0:42:570:43:02

in return for European clothing, jewellery and gin.

0:43:020:43:08

To prosperity. And to King Leopold.

0:43:080:43:11

By May 1885, Leopold was in control of an area

0:43:130:43:18

76 times larger than Belgium itself.

0:43:180:43:22

His new land had vast natural resources, including ivory, rubber,

0:43:240:43:29

timber and copper.

0:43:290:43:32

We have a deal.

0:43:320:43:33

He began to strip them out and export them back to Europe.

0:43:340:43:39

Leopold now ditched the pretence of a charity

0:43:410:43:44

and declared himself King Sovereign of the Congo Free State.

0:43:440:43:49

"Free"?

0:43:510:43:52

This was in fact the most extreme example

0:43:520:43:55

of how industrial technology could allow small numbers of Europeans

0:43:550:43:59

to seize other parts of the world.

0:43:590:44:02

A truth which led to a general rush for African land.

0:44:030:44:07

The main players were France,

0:44:080:44:11

Germany

0:44:110:44:13

and Britain.

0:44:130:44:15

But Italy and Portugal were there, too.

0:44:170:44:22

This became known as "the scramble for Africa".

0:44:240:44:27

Leopold sat back and watched the money pour in,

0:44:310:44:35

but his dirty little secret was about to be rumbled.

0:44:350:44:39

In 1901, a young shipping clerk at Antwerp noticed something odd.

0:44:400:44:46

The ivory and the rubber and the profits were pouring in,

0:44:460:44:51

but nothing was going back out again.

0:44:510:44:53

Nothing except guns and ammunition.

0:44:540:44:59

CHATTERING

0:44:590:45:01

The horrible truth began to emerge.

0:45:030:45:05

Leopold's Congo was a military regime of terror.

0:45:090:45:14

Africans were forced, at pain of death, to work on Leopold's plantations.

0:45:170:45:22

If a village refused, the military were sent in.

0:45:230:45:27

GUNSHOTS

0:45:290:45:31

Africans who resisted - and many did - were systematically murdered.

0:45:460:45:52

Women and children were taken as hostages,

0:45:520:45:55

the men were used for rifle practice,

0:45:550:45:58

hanged and sometimes beaten to death.

0:45:580:46:01

The population of the Congo halved.

0:46:030:46:06

It seems almost impossible to believe,

0:46:060:46:10

but it's now thought that 10 million people died.

0:46:100:46:16

The word is genocide.

0:46:160:46:18

Leopold denied everything.

0:46:240:46:26

But in March 1908, the Belgian government finally intervened

0:46:290:46:34

and forced him to hand over the Congo to them.

0:46:340:46:37

By then, it had made him a billionaire in today's money.

0:46:390:46:44

The worst excesses of the Belgian Congo

0:46:460:46:49

ended after a campaign by Christian groups,

0:46:490:46:52

by newspapers and outraged individuals, which was really

0:46:520:46:56

the first ever international human rights campaign.

0:46:560:47:00

But the land grab went on.

0:47:030:47:05

And the later Africa of failed states can be traced back, literally,

0:47:050:47:09

to the lines drawn on the map

0:47:090:47:11

by the Italians, Germans, French, British and other Europeans.

0:47:110:47:17

Some of the worst things that happened in modern Africa,

0:47:170:47:21

from the use of amputation as a punishment, or child soldiers,

0:47:210:47:25

also go back to this European scramble,

0:47:250:47:30

this European frenzy.

0:47:300:47:33

National competition is part of life,

0:47:380:47:42

but frantic competition, driven by intoxicating industrial power,

0:47:420:47:47

now turned violent.

0:47:470:47:50

In 1914, the European tribes trained their guns not on unarmed natives

0:47:500:47:55

but on each other.

0:47:550:47:57

Britain, France and Russia against Germany and Austria.

0:47:590:48:03

The leaders may have expected a traditional war of cavalry and glitter.

0:48:030:48:08

What they got was unprecedented horror.

0:48:090:48:12

An industrial war.

0:48:120:48:14

But at least it wasn't yet a world war.

0:48:160:48:19

America's President Woodrow Wilson was determined

0:48:210:48:24

to keep his country out of the fighting.

0:48:240:48:26

But in 1917, Germany's new Foreign Secretary

0:48:300:48:34

was about to change America's mind.

0:48:340:48:37

Arthur Zimmermann had risen fast through the Foreign Service

0:48:370:48:41

to become the only non-aristocrat in the German cabinet.

0:48:410:48:46

He was good-natured, honest and loyal.

0:48:470:48:50

HG SPEAKS GERMAN

0:48:500:48:53

He was also a firm believer in world war.

0:48:530:48:57

He'd helped fund Irish rebellion against Britain

0:48:570:49:00

and he'd tried his hand at fomenting Islamic jihad in the Middle East.

0:49:000:49:04

Her, Junger. Prost!

0:49:040:49:08

But his biggest tricks were still to come.

0:49:080:49:11

Zimmermann's pen never stopped scratching.

0:49:120:49:15

His secretary's typewriter never stopped clacking.

0:49:150:49:18

He had a finger in every pie.

0:49:180:49:21

This was the golden age of the bureaucrat.

0:49:210:49:24

And Arthur Zimmermann was a near-perfect example of the type.

0:49:240:49:29

The American ambassador in Berlin described him as

0:49:290:49:32

"a very jolly, large sort of German".

0:49:320:49:35

Zimmermann dreamed of changing the world.

0:49:350:49:39

And he would.

0:49:390:49:41

Only not quite in the way he intended.

0:49:410:49:43

Indeed, there is a case to be made that Arthur Zimmermann

0:49:430:49:47

was one of the most destructive individuals of the 20th century.

0:49:470:49:52

Zimmermann's opportunity to change the world came in January 1917,

0:49:530:49:59

when the German military elite announced a new plan for victory.

0:49:590:50:03

Unrestricted submarine warfare, to destroy all merchant shipping coming to Britain.

0:50:060:50:11

They hoped this would starve the British into submission.

0:50:130:50:16

This was incredibly dangerous.

0:50:190:50:21

Why? Because it meant sinking American ships

0:50:210:50:25

and almost certainly bringing the United States into the war.

0:50:250:50:28

And once the Americans reached Europe, Germany couldn't win.

0:50:280:50:32

And yet the German high command decided it was a risk worth taking.

0:50:320:50:37

And on February the 1st, 1917,

0:50:370:50:40

they announced the start of unrestricted submarine warfare.

0:50:400:50:44

Arthur Zimmermann set about finding a way to distract America.

0:50:520:50:58

He came up with quite a distraction.

0:51:010:51:03

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

0:51:030:51:06

Zimmermann's plan was to persuade Mexico to invade America with German help,

0:51:070:51:14

seizing back Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

0:51:140:51:18

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

0:51:180:51:20

That would distract Washington, all right.

0:51:200:51:23

If Arthur pulled this off, he'd become a German national hero.

0:51:230:51:29

Eine gute Idee.

0:51:290:51:31

Danke sehr, mein Herr. Danke schoen.

0:51:310:51:33

Zimmermann drafted a telegram outlining his plan

0:51:340:51:37

to the German ambassador in Mexico.

0:51:370:51:40

He sent it on a secure line from Berlin.

0:51:410:51:45

BELL RINGS

0:51:450:51:47

Except that the line wasn't quite as secure as Zimmermann thought.

0:51:510:51:55

In Room 40 at the Admiralty in London,

0:51:570:52:00

British Naval Intelligence intercepted and decoded Zimmermann's telegram.

0:52:000:52:05

By 1pm on the 24th of February, 1917,

0:52:080:52:11

the contents of the telegram were being presented

0:52:110:52:14

to the President of the United States.

0:52:140:52:16

President Woodrow Wilson, who'd fought so hard to keep America out of the war,

0:52:190:52:25

rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

0:52:250:52:27

Then he released the news, first to the American congressmen

0:52:270:52:31

and then to the press, and all hell broke loose.

0:52:310:52:35

Yet even then, many Americans simply didn't believe it.

0:52:350:52:41

It was incredible that the Germans were up to something like this.

0:52:410:52:46

It must be a sneaky British plot to lure America into the war.

0:52:460:52:52

And they weren't that gullible, they weren't going to fall for that.

0:52:520:52:56

Re-enter Arthur Zimmermann.

0:52:580:53:00

Zimmermann was invited to deny the story about his telegram.

0:53:020:53:06

HE ASKS QUESTION IN GERMAN

0:53:090:53:10

But Arthur couldn't tell a lie.

0:53:120:53:14

HE REPLIES IN GERMAN

0:53:140:53:16

Oh, yes, he said, it was all true.

0:53:190:53:22

Well done, Zimmermann(!)

0:53:270:53:28

His surprise confession finally drove America to declare war on Germany.

0:53:300:53:36

This was now undoubtedly a world war.

0:53:360:53:40

But Zimmermann didn't stop plotting.

0:53:410:53:44

He now turned his attention to Germany's enemy in the East, Russia.

0:53:490:53:54

How could he undermine them?

0:53:550:53:57

Zimmermann's opportunity came in February 1917,

0:53:590:54:02

when the desperate, downtrodden people of Russia finally revolted against the Tsar.

0:54:020:54:08

Zimmermann wanted to pour oil on the fire.

0:54:090:54:12

He needed an anti-war Russian extremist

0:54:120:54:16

to seize power and withdraw Russia from the war.

0:54:160:54:20

Zimmermann's agents knew of just such a man.

0:54:210:54:24

He was living quietly and modestly in exile,

0:54:240:54:28

amid writers and artists, in Zurich in Switzerland.

0:54:280:54:33

Zimmermann's plan, what he called his revolutionising plan,

0:54:330:54:38

meant using this man to undermine Russia's will to fight.

0:54:380:54:42

His name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.

0:54:420:54:46

We know him better as Lenin.

0:54:470:54:49

In 1917, Lenin was leader of the Bolsheviks,

0:54:520:54:56

a revolutionary communist faction who wanted Russia out of the war.

0:54:560:55:00

Lenin was described variously as being like a plague bacillus

0:55:020:55:07

or poison gas.

0:55:070:55:09

He was so desperate to get back to Russia and try to seize power

0:55:100:55:14

that he took the German money and the German offer.

0:55:140:55:17

If he succeeded, he'd sue for peace.

0:55:170:55:20

And so Zimmermann organised a sealed train

0:55:200:55:24

to take Lenin and the rest of the Bolsheviks

0:55:240:55:27

right the way across Germany to Petrograd in Russia.

0:55:270:55:31

It was like a syringe full of poison being squirted halfway across a continent.

0:55:310:55:37

In October 1917, Lenin led a successful Bolshevik revolution.

0:55:460:55:52

In just eight months, he had been transformed from a nobody in exile

0:55:540:55:59

to a man on his way to leading 160 million people

0:55:590:56:03

in the world's first communist state.

0:56:030:56:06

This time, Zimmermann got exactly what he wanted.

0:56:080:56:13

Soviet Russia withdrew from the First World War in March 1918.

0:56:130:56:18

But by then, the Americans were helping the Allies to defeat Germany.

0:56:190:56:24

When the war came to an end in November 1918,

0:56:260:56:29

two new powers had been firmly established on the world stage.

0:56:290:56:34

One capitalist...

0:56:340:56:36

..one communist.

0:56:380:56:40

The modern world would be dominated not by empires,

0:56:410:56:44

but by these two mass ideologies

0:56:440:56:48

and the new superpowers wielding them.

0:56:480:56:51

So, one fairly ordinary German civil servant had acted as midwife

0:56:550:57:00

to the birth of the 20th century's two great superpowers.

0:57:000:57:04

America, innocent no longer, plunged into the quarrels of the rest of the world.

0:57:070:57:13

And for the Russians, the Bolshevik revolution ushered in

0:57:130:57:18

a terrible age of mass famine,

0:57:180:57:22

civil war, slave labour camps and terror.

0:57:220:57:26

Arthur Zimmermann.

0:57:270:57:29

He was sacked in 1917 and never held office again.

0:57:290:57:34

And he died in 1940,

0:57:340:57:37

just as it was starting all over again.

0:57:370:57:40

In the next programme, Power Age - the world at war.

0:57:520:57:57

Cultural revolution...

0:57:590:58:01

and the triumph of clever machines.

0:58:010:58:04

If you'd like to know a little bit more about how the past is revealed,

0:58:050:58:10

you can order a free booklet called How Do They Know That?

0:58:100:58:14

Just call:

0:58:140:58:19

Or go to:

0:58:190:58:24

and follow the links to the Open University.

0:58:240:58:27

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:330:58:37

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