0:00:06 > 0:00:08A November morning
0:00:08 > 0:00:14in the churned battlefields of Flanders and Northern France.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17Four British platoons are making their way through the mud.
0:00:20 > 0:00:25Each stops at a mass grave and digs up one body.
0:00:45 > 0:00:50At midnight, a British general is blindfolded.
0:01:05 > 0:01:10Three days later, on the 11th of November 1920,
0:01:10 > 0:01:12the chosen coffin was carried
0:01:12 > 0:01:15in full military procession through the streets of London.
0:01:24 > 0:01:26In a solemn ceremony,
0:01:26 > 0:01:31the body was then buried deep in the sand below Westminster Abbey.
0:01:38 > 0:01:43The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is a supremely democratic memorial.
0:01:43 > 0:01:47Millions of bereaved people could half-believe
0:01:47 > 0:01:49that the person buried here
0:01:49 > 0:01:55was their own father, husband, son, brother or friend.
0:01:55 > 0:02:01At the time, some people thought it was too democratic, almost a bit common.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04But the so-called Great War
0:02:04 > 0:02:07touched people in these islands in a way that no conflict
0:02:07 > 0:02:12really since the brutal civil wars of the 17th century had done.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16First, of course, the millions who actually fought.
0:02:16 > 0:02:21But also the millions at home who felt the full force
0:02:21 > 0:02:24of modern warfare for the first time...
0:02:25 > 0:02:26Bereaved.
0:02:29 > 0:02:30Bombed.
0:02:30 > 0:02:32Uprooted or bankrupted.
0:02:34 > 0:02:40Now, we know that the "war to end all wars" didn't.
0:02:40 > 0:02:42But it tore up Europe
0:02:42 > 0:02:47and it changed the great story of the British people for ever.
0:03:25 > 0:03:32Sunday the 23rd of August 1914 was a nerve-racking day for Britain.
0:03:35 > 0:03:37In Belgium,
0:03:37 > 0:03:42British troops had just faced the Germans in battle for the first time.
0:03:45 > 0:03:50But the Prime Minister was distracted, as he often was.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54Henry Herbert Asquith was enjoying a weekend in the country
0:03:54 > 0:03:58here at Lympne Castle on the Kent coast.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02The 61-year-old premier was busy writing...
0:04:02 > 0:04:07not to his generals, but to a 27-year-old woman called Venetia Stanley.
0:04:09 > 0:04:13Asquith wrote to Venetia Stanley most days,
0:04:13 > 0:04:14sometimes several times a day,
0:04:14 > 0:04:19and often right in the middle of crucial Cabinet meetings.
0:04:19 > 0:04:24With his lengthy love letters and his leisurely country house weekends,
0:04:24 > 0:04:27Asquith himself was beginning to look as dated
0:04:27 > 0:04:31as the posh politics of Edwardian Britain.
0:04:31 > 0:04:34After one of those weekends, a hostess asked him,
0:04:34 > 0:04:38"Mr Asquith, do you take an interest in the war?"
0:04:38 > 0:04:41Asquith thought she was joking...
0:04:41 > 0:04:44but soon it was a question on many people's lips.
0:04:46 > 0:04:53Two men in Asquith's cabinet were taking a ferocious interest in the war.
0:04:53 > 0:04:55The Chancellor, David Lloyd George,
0:04:55 > 0:05:00was already speaking like the war leader Asquith plainly wasn't,
0:05:00 > 0:05:02while along at the Admiralty,
0:05:02 > 0:05:08Winston Churchill was hyperactively trying to think of ways to win the war at sea.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14But it was the Secretary of State for War,
0:05:14 > 0:05:18the imperial war hero Lord Horatio Kitchener,
0:05:18 > 0:05:21who really understood what Britain was in for.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26It was clear to Kitchener that Britain's professional army -
0:05:26 > 0:05:31a quarter of a million men compared to Germany's four and a half million -
0:05:31 > 0:05:33was nothing like big enough to win the war.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37And so he set about creating a citizens' army.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39And he was remarkably successful.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42"Your country needs you,"
0:05:42 > 0:05:46and his accusing finger had a dramatic effect.
0:05:46 > 0:05:52By September 1914, three-quarters of a million men had signed up.
0:05:52 > 0:05:56Kitchener's army would go on to become
0:05:56 > 0:06:01the biggest volunteer army raised by any country in history.
0:06:03 > 0:06:05# Good-bye-ee, good-bye-ee
0:06:05 > 0:06:09# Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee... #
0:06:10 > 0:06:15Many men would do anything to fight.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18Boys lied about their age...
0:06:18 > 0:06:22men with health problems did their best to hide them.
0:06:22 > 0:06:26Recruiting officers were paid a shilling for every new recruit,
0:06:26 > 0:06:28so they cheerfully played along.
0:06:32 > 0:06:38For tens of thousands of young men brought up on stories of British heroism,
0:06:38 > 0:06:40this was the great adventure.
0:06:43 > 0:06:47In the words of the future prime minister Harold Macmillan,
0:06:47 > 0:06:53"Our major anxiety was, by hook or by crook, not to miss it."
0:06:53 > 0:06:57Little did they know what "it" would mean.
0:07:14 > 0:07:19Within three months, the war on the Western Front had frozen into deadlock.
0:07:22 > 0:07:25The German advance through Belgium and France had been halted.
0:07:25 > 0:07:27Both sides had dug in.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33The trenches stretched nearly 500 miles
0:07:33 > 0:07:37from Ostend in the north all the way to the Swiss border.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42The meat-grinder war had begun.
0:07:53 > 0:07:57The shock of war was also hitting hard at home.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02At eight o'clock in the morning of the 16th of December 1914,
0:08:02 > 0:08:07eight German warships appeared off the northeast coast of England.
0:08:07 > 0:08:12They turned their guns on Scarborough, Whitby, and Hartlepool.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16ARTILLERY FIRE, EXPLOSIONS
0:08:19 > 0:08:23127 men, women and children were killed.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31These attacks came as a terrible shock -
0:08:31 > 0:08:38the first time civilians had been killed by enemy fire on British soil
0:08:38 > 0:08:41since the 17th century,
0:08:41 > 0:08:44utter humiliation for the Royal Navy
0:08:44 > 0:08:51and, above all, further evidence of the beastliness of the enemy.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55Atrocity stories were spreading around the country like wildfire -
0:08:55 > 0:08:58women and children murdered in Belgium,
0:08:58 > 0:09:02wounded soldiers bayoneted
0:09:02 > 0:09:05and, of course, by April 1915,
0:09:05 > 0:09:11the world's first use of poison gas on the Western Front.
0:09:20 > 0:09:22Well, war is war,
0:09:22 > 0:09:28but some of the German tactics did make it easy to hate the Hun.
0:09:31 > 0:09:38Then, on the 7th of May 1915, the German navy torpedoed the Lusitania
0:09:38 > 0:09:39off the coast of Ireland.
0:09:42 > 0:09:47She was carrying British and American civilians from New York to Liverpool.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55Over 1,200 people were killed, 94 of them children...
0:09:55 > 0:09:59including 31 babies.
0:10:02 > 0:10:06When news of the sinking of the Lusitania arrived in Liverpool,
0:10:06 > 0:10:10a mob formed here at the docks and marched through the town,
0:10:10 > 0:10:13gathering people as it went.
0:10:13 > 0:10:18In Edwardian Britain, German migrants had been quite common -
0:10:18 > 0:10:21running pastry shops and restaurants and butchers,
0:10:21 > 0:10:24working as musicians or engineers.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28Now Germans began to be attacked,
0:10:28 > 0:10:33their homes and businesses smashed, looted and burned out.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36The right-wing journalist Horatio Bottomley
0:10:36 > 0:10:40called for a vendetta against every German in Britain,
0:10:40 > 0:10:44whether naturalised or not, because, he said,
0:10:44 > 0:10:48"You cannot naturalise an unnatural beast...
0:10:48 > 0:10:52"a human abortion...a hellish freak.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55"But you can exterminate it."
0:10:57 > 0:11:03If there was hysteria in the country, there was crack-up at the top, too.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10On the 15th May 1915,
0:11:10 > 0:11:14Lord Jackie Fisher, Britain's First Sea Lord,
0:11:14 > 0:11:17and one of the brilliant and charismatic men of the age,
0:11:17 > 0:11:22walked out of the Admiralty buildings and vanished.
0:11:22 > 0:11:28The man in charge of Britain's awesome battle fleets had disappeared.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34Lord Fisher had been appointed First Sea Lord
0:11:34 > 0:11:37by Winston Churchill in October 1914.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40They had a passionate, often rocky relationship.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43But they agreed on one thing...
0:11:43 > 0:11:47they were convinced of the need to end the deadlock on the Western Front.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55Churchill asked Asquith, "Are there not other alternatives
0:11:55 > 0:11:59"to sending our armies to chew barbed wire in Flanders?"
0:11:59 > 0:12:03He favoured an attack on Europe's southeastern coast
0:12:03 > 0:12:08to knock the Ottoman Turks, who were allies of the Germans, out of the war.
0:12:08 > 0:12:11Fisher thought that was insane.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15He dreamed instead of a grand Royal Naval coup,
0:12:15 > 0:12:20an invasion of Germany's northern coast, and then straight to Berlin.
0:12:20 > 0:12:22Brilliant or bonkers?
0:12:22 > 0:12:27Well, we'll never know because Fisher lost the argument.
0:12:29 > 0:12:36What we do know is that Churchill's Turkish adventure was a disaster.
0:12:38 > 0:12:43Hesitation and delay led to the troops landing at Gallipoli
0:12:43 > 0:12:46two months after the first naval bombardment.
0:12:48 > 0:12:51The Turks were waiting for them.
0:12:52 > 0:12:5850,000 British, Australian and New Zealand troops died in the bloodbath.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07In the Admiralty, Fisher and Churchill were at each other's throats.
0:13:07 > 0:13:08At a war council meeting,
0:13:08 > 0:13:13Kitchener had to physically prevent Fisher from walking out.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16Fisher's memos became wilder and wilder,
0:13:16 > 0:13:18some people thought deranged.
0:13:18 > 0:13:22He threatened to resign no fewer than eight times.
0:13:22 > 0:13:27And then, on that May morning, just as it was becoming clear
0:13:27 > 0:13:31how bloody the disaster of Gallipoli was,
0:13:31 > 0:13:34Fisher walked out,
0:13:34 > 0:13:37apparently into thin air.
0:13:42 > 0:13:45Government officials were sent all over London to hunt him down.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50It turned out that Fisher was, in fact,
0:13:50 > 0:13:54hiding just a few hundred yards from the Admiralty
0:13:54 > 0:13:57in a room here at the Charing Cross Hotel.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03When Fisher was finally tracked down,
0:14:03 > 0:14:09Asquith ordered him, in the name of the King, to return to his command.
0:14:09 > 0:14:11By now there were rumours
0:14:11 > 0:14:15that the German fleet was at last on the attack.
0:14:15 > 0:14:20The Queen wrote to Fisher, begging him to stay at his post "like Nelson".
0:14:20 > 0:14:26The King said his admiral should be "hanged at the yardarm for desertion".
0:14:30 > 0:14:35Fisher sent an ultimatum to Asquith. He would return,
0:14:35 > 0:14:38but only if Churchill was kicked out of the Cabinet.
0:14:38 > 0:14:43He also demanded absolute control of all naval appointments
0:14:43 > 0:14:46and sole command of the Royal Navy.
0:14:48 > 0:14:53This was the kind of fantasy of a constitutional coup
0:14:53 > 0:14:56that many generals and admirals might have dreamt about,
0:14:56 > 0:14:58but nobody before or since
0:14:58 > 0:15:03has actually dared to propose it to a British prime minister.
0:15:03 > 0:15:06The letter was deranged and it finished Fisher.
0:15:06 > 0:15:11But if Asquith thought the Navy were causing him problems,
0:15:11 > 0:15:15the Army was about to show what a real crisis looked like.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23Just six days after Fisher's breakdown,
0:15:23 > 0:15:27there was uproar on the floor of the London Stock Exchange.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33Hundreds of men were shouting, jeering,
0:15:33 > 0:15:36and setting fire to bundles of newspapers.
0:15:40 > 0:15:44The burning papers were copies of that day's Daily Mail,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47whose owner, Lord Northcliffe, had used it to announce
0:15:47 > 0:15:49a scandal on the Western Front.
0:15:49 > 0:15:55Lord Kitchener was starving the British Army of high explosive shells,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58the kind you need to blow up trenches.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00The public was outraged...
0:16:00 > 0:16:03not by that, but by the newspaper's attack
0:16:03 > 0:16:06on the country's greatest soldier.
0:16:06 > 0:16:08You can't kick Kitchener!
0:16:17 > 0:16:21But Northcliffe could. And he did.
0:16:21 > 0:16:23And he was essentially right.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25Kitchener had provided shells
0:16:25 > 0:16:29that would have been useful in the Boer War in 1900,
0:16:29 > 0:16:34but against dug-in Germans in 1915 were almost useless.
0:16:34 > 0:16:39And in some places they'd run out of shells altogether.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42Kitchener was increasingly seen as a liability.
0:16:45 > 0:16:49Margot Asquith wasn't alone in rudely describing Kitchener
0:16:49 > 0:16:53as "a great poster, not a great man".
0:16:53 > 0:16:57In public, at least, Asquith himself continued to defend Kitchener
0:16:57 > 0:17:02but Northcliffe's attack persuaded the Tory leadership and many Liberals,
0:17:02 > 0:17:05including Lloyd George, that things couldn't carry on this way.
0:17:07 > 0:17:12The mood began to turn against both the warlord Kitchener
0:17:12 > 0:17:13and his prime minister.
0:17:15 > 0:17:17Asquith survived for now
0:17:17 > 0:17:20by inviting the Tory leader, Andrew Bonar Law,
0:17:20 > 0:17:25to join him in a new coalition government of national unity.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31Kitchener also managed to hang on, unhappily...
0:17:31 > 0:17:36until his ship hit a mine on a mission to Russia.
0:17:49 > 0:17:56On the night of the 31st of May 1915, a new terror appeared over London.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04German Zeppelin airships.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10Then they began to unload their cargo.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22The first bomb ever dropped on London
0:18:22 > 0:18:26landed here, at 16 Alkham Road in Stoke Newington.
0:18:26 > 0:18:30It bounced off a neighbour's chimney, lodged in the rafters,
0:18:30 > 0:18:33and set fire to the upstairs bedroom.
0:18:33 > 0:18:35The family escaped.
0:18:35 > 0:18:36Many others didn't.
0:18:36 > 0:18:41Henry and Caroline Good of 187 Balls Pond Road in Dalston
0:18:41 > 0:18:44were discovered by a policeman still kneeling at their bedside,
0:18:44 > 0:18:49their bodies charred, their clothes burned away.
0:18:49 > 0:18:52Mr Good's arm was still around his wife.
0:18:52 > 0:18:55They had died while praying.
0:18:59 > 0:19:03Visits from Zeppelins would now be a regular occurrence.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10They became known as "the baby-killers".
0:19:12 > 0:19:15Far fewer people were killed in the First World War by air raids
0:19:15 > 0:19:17than would be in the Second World War,
0:19:17 > 0:19:21but in some ways it was even more terrifying.
0:19:24 > 0:19:29People who'd only just got used to the idea of human flight
0:19:29 > 0:19:34were confronted by 500ft balloons, lobbing death.
0:19:34 > 0:19:40And air raid precautions were laughably inadequate.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43You didn't have much time to scarper.
0:19:46 > 0:19:51But the invention of the incendiary bullet gave a way to fight back.
0:19:51 > 0:19:57In September 1916, millions watched as Lieutenant Leefe Robinson
0:19:57 > 0:20:01attacked a German airship over north London with the new weapon.
0:20:03 > 0:20:08The inferno could be seen for more than 35 miles in all directions.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15The airship crashed to the ground
0:20:15 > 0:20:19behind this pub, the Plough Inn, in the village of Cuffley.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22And the next day, more than 10,000 sightseers
0:20:22 > 0:20:24swarmed over the wreckage.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27The Plough had soon sold out anything that could be eaten or drunk
0:20:27 > 0:20:30and they had to bolt their doors against the crowds.
0:20:30 > 0:20:32One rather ghoulish highlight
0:20:32 > 0:20:35was the charred remains of the German airmen.
0:20:35 > 0:20:40A girl watched a pair of policemen playing ball with their helmets
0:20:40 > 0:20:42over the charred corpses.
0:20:49 > 0:20:54But out-producing the enemy was just as important as out-fighting them.
0:20:55 > 0:21:00Winning an industrial war meant winning industrially.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04And so the human dynamo, Lloyd George,
0:21:04 > 0:21:07now asked for the toughest job in politics,
0:21:07 > 0:21:12sorting out old-fashioned British industry to make more weapons.
0:21:14 > 0:21:18He built 50 new munitions factories.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21The largest was here at Gretna in Scotland.
0:21:23 > 0:21:28These ruined power stations are all that remain now.
0:21:28 > 0:21:33But in its day, this was the largest factory in the world.
0:21:33 > 0:21:39It employed 30,000 people and stretched out over an area of nine miles.
0:21:42 > 0:21:47And into his new factories, Lloyd George poured a new workforce.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51With so many men away fighting, he turned to women.
0:21:56 > 0:21:59And they flocked into the new jobs -
0:21:59 > 0:22:02bus conductors, farm workers, shipyard workers.
0:22:02 > 0:22:07And 700,000 of them became munitionettes,
0:22:07 > 0:22:12working in the new munitions factories, which were very dangerous.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16Explosions, TNT poisoning killed more than 100 women.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20Many more found their teeth fell out or they turned yellow.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23They were called "canaries".
0:22:23 > 0:22:26But there were less toxic changes for the new workers, too.
0:22:26 > 0:22:31Women started to cut their hair shorter, they wore simpler clothing,
0:22:31 > 0:22:35they learned to smoke cigarettes, they learned about condoms.
0:22:37 > 0:22:43Among the many casualties of the Great War was the Edwardian woman.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50As Munitions Minister, Lloyd George was a phenomenal success.
0:22:50 > 0:22:55Within a year, the manufacture of heavy guns was up by over 1,000%.
0:23:00 > 0:23:04Lloyd George was also sketching out a blueprint
0:23:04 > 0:23:07for a more modern, fairer Britain.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11He extended welfare help for munitions workers and their families,
0:23:11 > 0:23:16providing new houses and flats, and feeding them in canteens.
0:23:17 > 0:23:21Lloyd George chewed over the strange thought
0:23:21 > 0:23:27that the manufacturing of weapons of destruction was humanising industry.
0:23:27 > 0:23:31And if you're looking for the real origins of the welfare state,
0:23:31 > 0:23:33they can be seen most clearly
0:23:33 > 0:23:40in what Lloyd George was up to in places like Gretna in 1916.
0:23:40 > 0:23:44A whole new town was created here to service the factory...
0:23:47 > 0:23:52With shops, a cinema, and a social hall.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01To encourage production, Lloyd George introduced
0:24:01 > 0:24:05British Summer Time in May 1916.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08We've had it ever since.
0:24:08 > 0:24:13Lloyd George was very worried about the amount munition workers were drinking,
0:24:13 > 0:24:18and so the state started to take over some pubs, including this one.
0:24:18 > 0:24:20He banned all-day drinking...
0:24:20 > 0:24:22that's where pub opening hours come from.
0:24:22 > 0:24:25He banned the buying of rounds,
0:24:25 > 0:24:30and, yes, he watered the workers' beer. And it wasn't just the workers.
0:24:30 > 0:24:34Lloyd George wanted leading figures in the country to give up alcohol
0:24:34 > 0:24:37for the duration of the war to set an example.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40And when he heard that the Cabinet had agreed to do so,
0:24:40 > 0:24:45the King reluctantly gave up drink himself.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48As for the Cabinet, they weaselled out.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51Politicians, eh?
0:24:58 > 0:25:02And what these politicians needed were victories...
0:25:02 > 0:25:04which weren't coming.
0:25:04 > 0:25:10By February 1916, Asquith was forced to introduce conscription.
0:25:10 > 0:25:12So what was it like?
0:25:12 > 0:25:16What happened here was beyond anybody's imagination
0:25:16 > 0:25:18and yet, despite the massive scale,
0:25:18 > 0:25:23it was, in one way, strangely familiar, even local.
0:25:23 > 0:25:27Each thousand-strong battalion of officers and men,
0:25:27 > 0:25:31defending their own tiny part of the front line,
0:25:31 > 0:25:34became a kind of community.
0:25:34 > 0:25:39With its class divisions, it was a small piece of Britain transplanted.
0:25:39 > 0:25:41It wasn't a real Britain.
0:25:41 > 0:25:45There were no women, no trade unions, no strikes
0:25:45 > 0:25:47and very few political arguments
0:25:47 > 0:25:52because all politicians were pretty much universally despised,
0:25:52 > 0:25:54along with the staff officers,
0:25:54 > 0:26:00who were allegedly living it up in chateaux, away from danger.
0:26:00 > 0:26:09# Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile... #
0:26:09 > 0:26:14There were some comforts. British troops had rum and cigarettes.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18They ate better than the Germans and had shorter spells at the front line.
0:26:24 > 0:26:28Soldiers could send letters and even their dirty linen home.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33And back came home-baked cakes, family photos and newly knitted socks.
0:26:38 > 0:26:43But none of that took away from the utter horror of what happened here.
0:26:43 > 0:26:46At times the rain seemed to go on for ever,
0:26:46 > 0:26:51turning the trenches into filthy little rivers, infested with rats and lice.
0:26:51 > 0:26:53The noise was monstrous.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56ARTILLERY FIRE, EXPLOSIONS
0:27:03 > 0:27:07Sometimes you could hear the artillery barrage in London.
0:27:07 > 0:27:09And when the order finally came to go over the top,
0:27:09 > 0:27:13you had to march steadily into scythe-like machine-gun fire.
0:27:13 > 0:27:15WHISTLE BLOWS
0:27:18 > 0:27:22One war correspondent described the horrors of the Front.
0:27:28 > 0:27:32"Human flesh, rotting and stinking, mere pulp,
0:27:32 > 0:27:34"was pasted into the mud-banks...
0:27:36 > 0:27:41"If they dug to get deeper cover, their shovels went into the softness
0:27:41 > 0:27:45"of dead bodies who had been their comrades.
0:27:47 > 0:27:53"Scraps of flesh, booted legs, blackened hands, eyeless heads
0:27:53 > 0:27:58"came falling over them when the enemy trench-mortared their position."
0:28:03 > 0:28:07So how did these men possibly cope?
0:28:07 > 0:28:11Religion, yes. But humour was also absolutely essential.
0:28:11 > 0:28:15Some of it was pretty dark, like the habit of shaking hands
0:28:15 > 0:28:19with the hands of corpses protruding from the mud.
0:28:19 > 0:28:21At other times, it was lighter.
0:28:21 > 0:28:23When Captain Fred Roberts discovered
0:28:23 > 0:28:26a smashed old printing press in the town of Ypres,
0:28:26 > 0:28:29he decided to mend it, and produce his own newspaper for the troops.
0:28:29 > 0:28:31It was called The Wipers Times -
0:28:31 > 0:28:35Wipers being how British troops mispronounced Ypres.
0:28:35 > 0:28:39This was a newspaper from the Front for the Front.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42# Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war! #
0:28:47 > 0:28:53So how did the men see themselves in the pages of their own local paper?
0:28:54 > 0:28:58Well, it's all terribly British and understated.
0:29:01 > 0:29:04One ad asks, "Are You Going Over the Top?
0:29:04 > 0:29:07"If so, be sure to first inspect
0:29:07 > 0:29:11"our new line of velveteen corduroy plush breeches."
0:29:14 > 0:29:18The Wipers Times is a really important document
0:29:18 > 0:29:20because it reminds us that in the middle of horror,
0:29:20 > 0:29:23people were enjoying the same stupid jokes and gossip
0:29:23 > 0:29:25they always had done.
0:29:25 > 0:29:28Here's the authentic voice of 1916.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31"Three Tommies sat in the trench one day,
0:29:31 > 0:29:33"Discussing the war in the normal way,
0:29:33 > 0:29:36"They talked of the mud, and they talked of the Hun
0:29:36 > 0:29:39"Of what was to do, and what had been done,
0:29:39 > 0:29:40"They talked about rum...
0:29:40 > 0:29:44"But the point which they argued from post back to pillar
0:29:44 > 0:29:48"Was whether Notts County could beat Aston Villa."
0:29:48 > 0:29:52# Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war. #
0:30:02 > 0:30:06But not all the United Kingdom was so united.
0:30:09 > 0:30:12In the early hours of Good Friday 1916,
0:30:12 > 0:30:17a man scrambled off a German U-boat into a small rubber dinghy
0:30:17 > 0:30:20and landed here at Banna Strand
0:30:20 > 0:30:21on the west coast of Ireland.
0:30:24 > 0:30:29He sucked in the fresh Irish air and gloried in the birdsong.
0:30:29 > 0:30:30But not for long.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34Two officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary arrived.
0:30:34 > 0:30:37They'd had a tip-off about a German-sponsored revolt
0:30:37 > 0:30:40against British rule in Ireland.
0:30:40 > 0:30:41Quite right.
0:30:41 > 0:30:44In one of the man's pockets they found the ticket stub
0:30:44 > 0:30:48for a railway journey from Berlin to one of the U-boat bases.
0:30:48 > 0:30:52The weary traveller was promptly arrested,
0:30:52 > 0:30:57charged with sabotage and treason, and taken to the Tower of London.
0:30:58 > 0:31:01The man was Sir Roger Casement,
0:31:01 > 0:31:05once a loyal servant of the British Empire.
0:31:05 > 0:31:09An Irishman, he'd become a determined critic of imperialism
0:31:09 > 0:31:12and joined forces with the Irish Republican movement.
0:31:17 > 0:31:19When war broke out, Casement decided
0:31:19 > 0:31:22that his enemy's enemy would be his friend.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26So he made his way to Berlin and spoke to the Kaiser's High Command
0:31:26 > 0:31:32about using the German army and navy to help a full-scale Irish rebellion
0:31:32 > 0:31:34against the British Empire.
0:31:35 > 0:31:39In Dublin, the Republicans were also secretly asking for help
0:31:39 > 0:31:41from the Germans.
0:31:42 > 0:31:46And they resolved to proclaim a republic at Easter 1916.
0:31:50 > 0:31:53When Casement eventually heard about the plan,
0:31:53 > 0:31:57he went to the Germans to find out how they were going to help.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00From his point of view, the answer was bad news.
0:32:00 > 0:32:0120,000 old rifles,
0:32:01 > 0:32:06just enough ammunition for two or three days of heavy fighting
0:32:06 > 0:32:10and, above all, no German soldiers at all.
0:32:10 > 0:32:12This gave Casement a terrible dilemma.
0:32:12 > 0:32:16Either he'd come back and join a rebellion he knew was going to be a disaster,
0:32:16 > 0:32:18or he'd seem a coward.
0:32:18 > 0:32:20He decided to return to Ireland,
0:32:20 > 0:32:24but to plead with the rebel leaders to delay their uprising,
0:32:24 > 0:32:28and that was what he was doing here when he was arrested.
0:32:30 > 0:32:34In Dublin, the rebels decided to go ahead with the revolt,
0:32:34 > 0:32:36and on Easter Monday, they rose in rebellion.
0:32:41 > 0:32:43They occupied key buildings,
0:32:43 > 0:32:45including the General Post Office,
0:32:45 > 0:32:49and proclaimed Irish independence.
0:32:50 > 0:32:54But, after the arrival of 20,000 British reinforcements,
0:32:54 > 0:32:57the rebellion collapsed in five days.
0:33:02 > 0:33:04It had been a small-scale revolt.
0:33:07 > 0:33:12Just 1,600 rebels compared to the 150,000 Irishmen
0:33:12 > 0:33:16who'd volunteered to fight for Britain in the war.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19The Irish, even in the Catholic south,
0:33:19 > 0:33:22still generally backed the British Empire.
0:33:24 > 0:33:28This general goodwill was about to be squandered
0:33:28 > 0:33:31by an act of brutal British stupidity.
0:33:31 > 0:33:36The police and the army rounded up 3,500 of the Irish nationalists,
0:33:36 > 0:33:39whether or not they'd been involved in the uprising.
0:33:39 > 0:33:4297 of them were sentenced to death.
0:33:42 > 0:33:4516 actually killed.
0:33:45 > 0:33:4813 men died here
0:33:48 > 0:33:51in one of the courtyards of Dublin's Kilmainham Gaol.
0:33:51 > 0:33:56A 14th, James Connolly, one of the leaders, was so badly injured
0:33:56 > 0:34:02that he had to be tied to a chair so that he could be killed there.
0:34:02 > 0:34:04These killings changed everything.
0:34:04 > 0:34:06In the words of one bishop,
0:34:06 > 0:34:10the blood seemed to be seeping out from under the prison door.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13They made martyrs of the rebels
0:34:13 > 0:34:18and Irish opinion began to swing away from the Empire
0:34:18 > 0:34:21and towards the Republican cause.
0:34:30 > 0:34:32In London,
0:34:32 > 0:34:36there was an influential campaign for clemency for Roger Casement.
0:34:36 > 0:34:38It was even supported by the King.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41But then in a search of his rooms,
0:34:41 > 0:34:43the police discovered Casement's private diaries.
0:34:43 > 0:34:47They became known as the Black Diaries.
0:34:52 > 0:34:54Casement was a homosexual
0:34:54 > 0:34:57and his Black Diaries listed and described his exploits
0:34:57 > 0:35:00with scores of young men.
0:35:00 > 0:35:03As soon as the diaries were in the hands of the British secret service,
0:35:03 > 0:35:08there was no chance of a reprieve and Casement was duly hanged.
0:35:08 > 0:35:10His Irish cause, however,
0:35:10 > 0:35:15would smoulder and fizz all the way to civil war.
0:35:25 > 0:35:30On the Western Front, the war was descending into a nightmarish paralysis.
0:35:30 > 0:35:36It reached its bloodiest with the Somme offensive of July 1916.
0:35:39 > 0:35:42The idea was to destroy the German trenches
0:35:42 > 0:35:45with an intensive seven-day bombardment.
0:35:45 > 0:35:47British troops were told
0:35:47 > 0:35:50they'd be able to stroll through the shattered German lines
0:35:50 > 0:35:52and bring the war to an end.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04Many of the British troops were absolutely convinced of victory.
0:36:04 > 0:36:08Captain Billie Neville of the 8th East Surreys painted a football
0:36:08 > 0:36:12with the words "Great European Cup-Tie Final.
0:36:12 > 0:36:16"East Surreys versus Bavarians. Kick off at zero."
0:36:16 > 0:36:20Another football was painted with the words "no referee".
0:36:20 > 0:36:24And when the attack started, both were kicked over the top.
0:36:24 > 0:36:27Captain Neville offered a prize for the first British soldier
0:36:27 > 0:36:31to dribble one of the footballs to the German front line.
0:36:31 > 0:36:34WHISTLE BLOWS
0:36:35 > 0:36:41When he led his men over the top, Captain Neville was killed instantly.
0:36:41 > 0:36:45So too were 21,000 other British soldiers,
0:36:45 > 0:36:48most of them within the first hour.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55German troops had survived the bombardment
0:36:55 > 0:37:00in concrete bunkers ten metres underground.
0:37:00 > 0:37:03British infantry had walked into an inferno of machine-gun fire.
0:37:05 > 0:37:07The generals have been blamed...
0:37:07 > 0:37:12callous, stupid, skulking behind the lines.
0:37:12 > 0:37:14Not quite fair.
0:37:15 > 0:37:2078 British generals were killed in the war.
0:37:20 > 0:37:26And this was a totally new type of dug-in, industrialised slaughter.
0:37:26 > 0:37:29In 1916, nobody knew how to win this kind of war.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37But we're still left with the frightened young officers
0:37:37 > 0:37:40blowing their whistles and leading their men to death.
0:37:40 > 0:37:43Take Captain DL Martin of the 9th Devons.
0:37:43 > 0:37:46He'd been a maths teacher before the war,
0:37:46 > 0:37:49and he used trigonometry and scale models
0:37:49 > 0:37:53to prove conclusively that an agreed line of attack
0:37:53 > 0:37:57must end with him and his men being cut down
0:37:57 > 0:38:00by a particular German machine-gun post.
0:38:00 > 0:38:06He showed his superior officers, and was told, "Sorry, you must attack."
0:38:06 > 0:38:12Captain Martin and 160 of the Devons were killed instantly.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15They're buried together in a mass grave,
0:38:15 > 0:38:19above which is written, "The Devonshires held this trench.
0:38:19 > 0:38:21"They hold it still."
0:39:01 > 0:39:06These disasters had a direct political effect.
0:39:06 > 0:39:10Asquith had lost his own son in the fiasco of the Somme.
0:39:10 > 0:39:13Now it would cost him his political career.
0:39:15 > 0:39:18Lloyd George scented blood.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24Was Lloyd George plotting?
0:39:24 > 0:39:27Lloyd George was always plotting.
0:39:27 > 0:39:30But the first person to stick in the knife was the press baron.
0:39:30 > 0:39:32Northcliffe asked the editor of the Daily Mail
0:39:32 > 0:39:39to find the worst possible picture of Asquith and label it "wait and see",
0:39:39 > 0:39:44and then the best possible picture of Lloyd George and call it "do it now!"
0:39:44 > 0:39:47And in case anyone failed to get the message,
0:39:47 > 0:39:53he then wrote a headline which read simply "Asquith... A Limpet".
0:39:53 > 0:39:57Politicians these days who complain about being roughed up by the press
0:39:57 > 0:40:01should stay in a little more and read some history.
0:40:04 > 0:40:08Lloyd George now joined hands with Andrew Bonar Law
0:40:08 > 0:40:11and forced Asquith to resign.
0:40:11 > 0:40:17The King invited Lloyd George to form a new coalition government.
0:40:17 > 0:40:20The Liberal Party was split down the middle
0:40:20 > 0:40:22and would never really recover.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27The Tories were now the majority in Lloyd George's coalition.
0:40:28 > 0:40:34With no election, this was a wartime parliamentary coup.
0:40:34 > 0:40:37The socialist Beatrice Webb wrote in her diary
0:40:37 > 0:40:39that it was "brilliant improvisation,
0:40:39 > 0:40:45"reactionary in composition and undemocratic in form."
0:40:45 > 0:40:48Lloyd George remade British government.
0:40:48 > 0:40:52A war cabinet of just five men oversaw the fighting,
0:40:52 > 0:40:54while outside this place
0:40:54 > 0:41:00British government power spread to undreamt of degrees.
0:41:00 > 0:41:03The Edwardian Age didn't really end in 1914.
0:41:03 > 0:41:06It ended with what was, in effect,
0:41:06 > 0:41:12the first parliamentary dictatorship since the days of Oliver Cromwell,
0:41:12 > 0:41:15the dictatorship of David Lloyd George.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25The first year of Lloyd George's parliamentary dictatorship
0:41:25 > 0:41:27would be a black one.
0:41:27 > 0:41:30The Battle of Passchendaele on the Western Front
0:41:30 > 0:41:33was another bloodbath that achieved little.
0:41:33 > 0:41:38France was crippled, its army mutinous.
0:41:38 > 0:41:41Russia, one of the key Allies, fell to the Germans
0:41:41 > 0:41:43and then to revolution.
0:41:47 > 0:41:51The United States was doggedly refusing to join the war.
0:41:54 > 0:41:59And most alarming of all, Britain was running out of food.
0:42:00 > 0:42:07The food crisis of 1917 was caused by a step change in German strategy.
0:42:07 > 0:42:12We tend to think of the U-boat menace as a Second World War affair
0:42:12 > 0:42:17but actually the submarines were more dangerous first time round.
0:42:17 > 0:42:22The Germans knew that Britain imported two thirds of her food
0:42:22 > 0:42:26and thought that a slaughter of merchant shipping
0:42:26 > 0:42:29might bring this country to surrender.
0:42:31 > 0:42:32But there was a problem.
0:42:32 > 0:42:35To make that effective, they would have to try to sink
0:42:35 > 0:42:40ALL ships coming into British ports, including American ships,
0:42:40 > 0:42:46which meant risking America coming into the war.
0:42:46 > 0:42:48Starving and desperate herself,
0:42:48 > 0:42:51Germany took the risk...
0:42:59 > 0:43:01..and lost her gamble within weeks,
0:43:01 > 0:43:06for America at last declared war.
0:43:08 > 0:43:10Now it was a race to the finish.
0:43:12 > 0:43:14Could the U-boats defeat Britain
0:43:14 > 0:43:18before American intervention changed everything?
0:43:20 > 0:43:23It was a close-run thing.
0:43:24 > 0:43:29Before long, Britain was running out of fuel and food.
0:43:31 > 0:43:35Prices shot up and long queues formed outside shops.
0:43:52 > 0:43:57This nation of gardeners pulled together.
0:43:57 > 0:44:00They turned parks and squares into allotments.
0:44:03 > 0:44:07And the Government set up national canteens serving cheap meals.
0:44:24 > 0:44:27And none of it was enough.
0:44:27 > 0:44:33The U-boats continued to slaughter the merchant ships.
0:44:33 > 0:44:36What could be done?
0:44:36 > 0:44:40The answer was staring the Admiralty in the face.
0:44:40 > 0:44:43Organise the merchant ships in convoys.
0:44:43 > 0:44:47The Admiralty was sure this wouldn't work.
0:44:47 > 0:44:50A convoy is a lot bigger than a single ship.
0:44:50 > 0:44:54Once the U-boats found them there'd be a turkey shoot.
0:44:54 > 0:44:55Obvious.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58But sometimes the obvious is wrong.
0:44:58 > 0:45:02Set against the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean,
0:45:02 > 0:45:06a convoy is not much bigger, proportionally, than a single ship,
0:45:06 > 0:45:08almost as hard for the U-boats to find
0:45:08 > 0:45:12and you can protect a convoy with warships.
0:45:12 > 0:45:17The Admiralty was pressed into trying this by, among others,
0:45:17 > 0:45:19Lloyd George himself,
0:45:19 > 0:45:22and very reluctantly they agreed to give it a go.
0:45:22 > 0:45:25As soon as they tried the convoy system,
0:45:25 > 0:45:28the rate of sinkings dramatically decreased,
0:45:28 > 0:45:31the food started to come through.
0:45:31 > 0:45:35This single lateral jump of logic
0:45:35 > 0:45:38may have saved Britain from losing the war.
0:45:53 > 0:45:58The beach at Formby, where the Mersey meets the Irish Sea,
0:45:58 > 0:46:01was a quiet place even in wartime.
0:46:02 > 0:46:05In July 1917,
0:46:05 > 0:46:08a tall, striking-looking officer was walking here alone.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17He stopped by the water,
0:46:17 > 0:46:20shook his fist at the sky.
0:46:20 > 0:46:25And then he began to tug at a small ribbon on his tunic,
0:46:25 > 0:46:29which showed that he'd won the Military Cross.
0:46:29 > 0:46:35And he tore it off, and let it drop weakly into the water,
0:46:35 > 0:46:39and watched it float away and sink.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42The man was Siegfried Sassoon,
0:46:42 > 0:46:47one of the greatest war poets ever, and a hero of the trenches.
0:46:47 > 0:46:52And he was in the middle of the worst crisis of his young life.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58Sassoon was in turmoil about the war.
0:46:58 > 0:47:00He'd been quick to enlist,
0:47:00 > 0:47:03and was a brave and charismatic front-line leader.
0:47:03 > 0:47:08But he'd come to believe the war was being fought for the wrong reasons.
0:47:08 > 0:47:11At home on leave, he wrote a public statement
0:47:11 > 0:47:14explaining why he felt he could no longer serve.
0:47:17 > 0:47:21A war "of defence and liberation", he said,
0:47:21 > 0:47:26had become one "of aggression and conquest".
0:47:26 > 0:47:32"I am protesting against the political errors and insincerities
0:47:32 > 0:47:36"for which the fighting men are being sacrificed," he said,
0:47:36 > 0:47:40"and against the callous complacency
0:47:40 > 0:47:43"with which the majority of those at home
0:47:43 > 0:47:49"regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share,
0:47:49 > 0:47:54"and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise."
0:47:56 > 0:48:00Sassoon's statement was all the more explosive
0:48:00 > 0:48:02because he was a genuine war hero.
0:48:04 > 0:48:07Now he was determined to be a martyr.
0:48:07 > 0:48:11He knew he was risking court martial, imprisonment
0:48:11 > 0:48:13and even execution.
0:48:13 > 0:48:16Instead, the Army tried to discredit Sassoon
0:48:16 > 0:48:19by packing him off to Craiglockhart in Edinburgh,
0:48:19 > 0:48:21a hospital for officers
0:48:21 > 0:48:25suffering from the newly diagnosed condition of shell shock.
0:48:38 > 0:48:42Sassoon called this place "Dottyville".
0:48:42 > 0:48:44He was surrounded by
0:48:44 > 0:48:48the psychically shattered and shaking victims of the war.
0:48:48 > 0:48:50But he himself didn't really fit in.
0:48:50 > 0:48:53He was mentally and physically sound
0:48:53 > 0:48:57and he spent his time playing golf, talking to other writers,
0:48:57 > 0:49:01and producing some of the great war poetry
0:49:01 > 0:49:03which has made his name live ever since.
0:49:03 > 0:49:09"I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
0:49:09 > 0:49:13"And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
0:49:13 > 0:49:18"Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
0:49:18 > 0:49:22"And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
0:49:22 > 0:49:28"Bank holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
0:49:28 > 0:49:32"And going to the office in the train."
0:49:38 > 0:49:42Sassoon was speaking out for a small minority.
0:49:42 > 0:49:47There were 16,000 conscientious objectors who refused to fight.
0:49:47 > 0:49:50Some people sympathised. Most did not.
0:49:54 > 0:49:57Pacifist meetings were broken up by angry mobs.
0:49:57 > 0:50:02"Conchies", as they were known, were attacked and imprisoned.
0:50:04 > 0:50:07For Sassoon, things weren't quite as clear-cut
0:50:07 > 0:50:10as they were for the conscientious objectors.
0:50:10 > 0:50:15He was torn between his intellectual contempt
0:50:15 > 0:50:17for the war and its leaders,
0:50:17 > 0:50:22and his own feelings of comradeship and exhilaration in the trenches.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25However vile and murderous the fighting was,
0:50:25 > 0:50:29it gave him more of a sense of being alive
0:50:29 > 0:50:34than anything here at home among the sheep-like civilians.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38And in the end, he decided his place was with the fighting men.
0:50:38 > 0:50:42He returned to the Army, and eventually to the Western Front,
0:50:42 > 0:50:43where he survived.
0:50:43 > 0:50:45But for the rest of his life
0:50:45 > 0:50:51he never lost that seething anger with the politicians.
0:50:55 > 0:50:58In the spring of 1918, a new German offensive,
0:50:58 > 0:51:00using troops returning from the Russian Front,
0:51:00 > 0:51:05almost broke the British and the French armies.
0:51:06 > 0:51:10The new stormtroopers very nearly won the war.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14The British Commander Sir Douglas Haig ordered,
0:51:14 > 0:51:18"With our backs to the wall, each one of us must fight to the end."
0:51:24 > 0:51:28Back at home, Britain was descending into panic
0:51:28 > 0:51:30about German spies and saboteurs.
0:51:34 > 0:51:40In June 1918, a scandalous trial at the Old Bailey
0:51:40 > 0:51:43threatened to ignite this combustible atmosphere.
0:51:46 > 0:51:48The man behind the scandal
0:51:48 > 0:51:52was an eccentric right-wing MP and self-publicist
0:51:52 > 0:51:55called Noel Pemberton Billing.
0:51:58 > 0:52:03Pemberton Billing was obsessed by what he called "the Hidden Hand".
0:52:03 > 0:52:07He thought the Germans had infiltrated the British Establishment.
0:52:07 > 0:52:09There was a German Black Book
0:52:09 > 0:52:15containing the names of 47,000 sexually depraved British men and women
0:52:15 > 0:52:19who'd been blackmailed into helping Germany win the war.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23It was, he said, "a most Catholic list."
0:52:23 > 0:52:26It contained the names of privy councillors,
0:52:26 > 0:52:28cabinet ministers and their wives,
0:52:28 > 0:52:30diplomats, newspaper proprietors,
0:52:30 > 0:52:34and even members of His Majesty's household.
0:52:34 > 0:52:40In short, the Germans had the British Establishment over a barrel.
0:52:43 > 0:52:46Billing's theory might have been ignored
0:52:46 > 0:52:51were it not for a private performance of Salome, a banned play by Oscar Wilde.
0:52:53 > 0:52:58Its star was a risque Canadian dancer called Maud Allan.
0:52:58 > 0:53:03Billing saw an opportunity to promote his obsession and pounced.
0:53:03 > 0:53:05He implied that Maud Allan was a lesbian,
0:53:05 > 0:53:09and that her audience were among the 47,000 traitors
0:53:09 > 0:53:11named in the Black Book.
0:53:11 > 0:53:17Maud Allan took the bait and sued for libel at the Old Bailey.
0:53:20 > 0:53:22The British people were transfixed.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25There were huge daily queues for the public gallery,
0:53:25 > 0:53:29the atmosphere in court was described as "pantomime, circus, farce".
0:53:29 > 0:53:34The gallery cheered like "spectators at a football match".
0:53:34 > 0:53:38Billing's witnesses claimed that Asquith was in the Black Book,
0:53:38 > 0:53:40alongside his wife, Margot.
0:53:40 > 0:53:43And in an extraordinary twist,
0:53:43 > 0:53:46Billing even claimed that the man presiding over the trial,
0:53:46 > 0:53:51Britain's most famous judge, Justice Darling,
0:53:51 > 0:53:53known as Little Darling,
0:53:53 > 0:53:55was involved as well.
0:53:55 > 0:54:00This was the conspiracy theory to end them all.
0:54:02 > 0:54:04And the British public seemed to be falling for
0:54:04 > 0:54:09Billing's extraordinary claims about pro-German homosexuals in high places.
0:54:11 > 0:54:16Anxiety rippled through the corridors of power.
0:54:16 > 0:54:20There were even fears of a revolution, a peoples' revolt.
0:54:24 > 0:54:30After a five-day slither of titter fodder and garbage
0:54:30 > 0:54:32had gurgled out of the Old Bailey,
0:54:32 > 0:54:34the jury took just two hours
0:54:34 > 0:54:38to acquit Billing of libelling Maud Allan.
0:54:38 > 0:54:42The public gallery erupted in joy.
0:54:45 > 0:54:48As their hero emerged from the Old Bailey,
0:54:48 > 0:54:52he was mobbed by more than a thousand supporters.
0:54:52 > 0:54:57But what of the German Black Book itself that had started it all?
0:54:57 > 0:54:59Well, there's no evidence that it ever existed.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03It was almost certainly the fevered figment of one man's imagination,
0:55:03 > 0:55:06seized upon by a people driven half-mad
0:55:06 > 0:55:12by four years of loss and fear and hating.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24But by the end of the trial, the fortunes of war
0:55:24 > 0:55:26were dramatically reversing.
0:55:26 > 0:55:29In July, the German advance was stopped.
0:55:29 > 0:55:32And by September, a ferocious counter attack
0:55:32 > 0:55:35by British, Canadian and Australian troops
0:55:35 > 0:55:37was smashing through German lines.
0:55:40 > 0:55:42These mostly forgotten battles
0:55:42 > 0:55:47formed one of the greatest military victories ever won by British forces.
0:55:50 > 0:55:54Finally, at 11 o'clock on the 11th November 1918,
0:55:54 > 0:55:58the Germans formally surrendered and signed the Armistice.
0:56:01 > 0:56:03The guns fell silent.
0:56:16 > 0:56:22To start with, the reaction was celebratory, wild, even drunken.
0:56:26 > 0:56:30Lloyd George was hailed by the jubilant crowds
0:56:30 > 0:56:32as "the man who won the war".
0:56:34 > 0:56:37But the crowds quickly sobered up
0:56:37 > 0:56:40and the mood darkened.
0:57:27 > 0:57:29The war had changed Britain
0:57:29 > 0:57:34in ways that would have been unimaginable four years earlier.
0:57:34 > 0:57:40More than 720,000 people never returned from the battlefields.
0:57:40 > 0:57:45And those at home lived surrounded by the gaps and the ghosts -
0:57:45 > 0:57:48those people who should have been in the street
0:57:48 > 0:57:53or in the factory or down the pub, but just weren't there.
0:57:57 > 0:57:59The civilians had pulled together
0:57:59 > 0:58:03and worked for the war effort as never before.
0:58:03 > 0:58:07They'd seen the birth of "big government".
0:58:07 > 0:58:13Perhaps no shock has ever hit these islands with quite the force
0:58:13 > 0:58:19of what they called - with, let's hope, an edge of bitter humour -
0:58:19 > 0:58:22the Great War.
0:58:35 > 0:58:37In the next programme,
0:58:37 > 0:58:41cocktails and communists,
0:58:41 > 0:58:44nightclubs, gold...
0:58:44 > 0:58:46and sleaze.
0:59:07 > 0:59:10Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:59:10 > 0:59:13E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk