Staying Alive Bullets, Boots and Bandages: How to Really Win at War


Staying Alive

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'Our history has been shaped by centuries of war.

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'From the armies of the Romans...

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'..to the modern, global conflicts of today.

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'I'm Saul David and I'm a military historian.

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'What history tells us again and again is that'

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beyond the derring-do of military commanders,

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it's the nuts and bolts of how you house and feed your army,

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how you move it and how you kit it ready for battle,

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that's the real key to winning wars.

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'Today, military logistics dominates modern warfare

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'with entire branches of specialists dedicated to feeding, moving,

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'and kitting out frontline soldiers ready for battle.'

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This is the story of how this elaborate, high-tech world came to be,

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because throughout history, the greatest challenges

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faced by any military commander have remained the same.

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'If you don't keep your soldiers fed,

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'they'll never even make it to the battlefield.'

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Think about it this way,

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you're slaughtering for 80,000 men a minimum of 300 animals per day.

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'If you can't move your men, and fast,

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'you'll never steal a march on the enemy.'

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US General George C Marshall once described

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the Jeep as America's greatest contribution to modern warfare.

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And don't forget, America invented the atomic bomb.

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'Any army that isn't equipped with the latest technology

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'has literally been cut to shreds.'

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Some of the greatest failures and victories in history

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have come down to the detail of military logistics -

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the real story of how wars are won and lost.

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Throughout history, armies have faced certain constant and highly-destructive enemies

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but I'm not talking about physical opponents,

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rather hunger, thirst and disease.

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Even today, a general's main task is to house his men,

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feed them and keep them fit for combat,

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because if he gets that wrong, he's sunk even before a shot is fired.

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'This film is about health, housing and food,

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'and the kit armies have used to stay alive throughout history.

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'We'll see how Wellington had to take an entire herd of cows with him on campaign...

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'..how a supply disaster in the Crimea

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'led to a turning point in military history...

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'..and how the humble tin can

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'made possible the entrenched warfare of World War One...

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'..because any general's primary challenge is that of basic survival.

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'Quite simply of keeping your men alive and well enough to fight.'

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'Camp Bastion,

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'the logistics hub for operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

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'This is Britain's largest overseas military camp since World War Two,

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'home to over 30,000 soldiers and contractors.

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'Fresh food is flown in.

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'Four tonnes of fruit and salad are eaten every single day.

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'Water comes from the ground, a million litres a week of it.

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'In this heart of a bleak desert,

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'a base has been created from nothing.

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'But setting up giant camps on this massive scale is far from new.'

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'2,000 years ago, the Roman Empire was built and sustained by a vast army.

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'At its peak, 450,000 men patrolled Pax Romana

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'from Egypt all the way to Britain.'

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In AD 122, during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian,

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the construction of this wall began,

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to separate the Romans from the barbarians.

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'This marked the very limit of the vast Roman Empire.

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'And the 10,000 soldiers stationed on this bleak, northern frontier

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'had to be kept housed, fed and healthy

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'just like today's troops in Afghanistan.

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'Vindolanda is one of the best preserved of all the forts the Romans created,

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'home to over 2,000 soldiers and families.'

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So here we are at the barrack blocks where the soldiers actually lived.

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If you come inside, you'll get a sense of space.

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This was state-of-the-art. You would have had insulated walls.

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At the front of each block, was a fireplace to keep them warm in winter

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and crucially and most extraordinary, I think,

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there would have been glass in the windows.

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Civilian houses here didn't have glass for another 1,000 years

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and then only people who could afford it.

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It's astonishing to think of the level of detail the Romans were prepared to go to.

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'Excavations here are still revealing the life and kit of Roman soldiers.

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'The site's director is Andrew Birley.'

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When on the move, they put a modern camping expedition to total shame.

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The sheer volume of kit these guys take with them.

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The sort of things they may carry over their shoulders

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are their dolabras, their trenching tools, extra weapons,

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a few wooden stakes to put in the ground for their camp at night time,

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a water can, or something like that.

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The other things that they carry are intensely personal.

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You've got your wooden combs to keep yourself looking neat and tidy,

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your spatula, palettes and things to make medicine.

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The thing that every Roman soldier would carry bar none

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are these lovely little knives.

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They can double up as weapons but essentially they're for eating.

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No knives and forks, they use knives for everything.

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Every Roman soldier would have one of these slung on his belt.

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Beautiful things. Wickedly sharp after all those years.

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This would be standard issue, would it?

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Every soldier has one of those and is expected to keep it in good order

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and replace it if it breaks.

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What they don't carry are things like this, huge millstones.

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They don't carry them on their backs but they take them with them.

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The worst case scenario is you get out into the field,

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you run out of grain that's processed and you have to get some more.

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There are always farmers around who you can pinch things from or buy them from if they're friendly

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but you've got to process foodstuffs into things you can eat.

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That's why this big millstone is the sort of thing you carry on your mule

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at the back of the wagon train.

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Perhaps an ox wagon would carry these travelling with the army.

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'As a permanent camp,

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'Vindolanda had to provide for the welfare of soldiers all year round.

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'At the very heart of its supply operation was the granary.'

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The floor level would have been here

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and I'm walking along a duct which enabled air to circulate,

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which of course prevents the grain from going off.

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The whole building would have held a year's supply of grain

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and this was crucial because it meant harvest to harvest

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the fort could have held out even if it was besieged.

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'While the grain came from local British farms,

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'other rations had to be brought from much further afield.'

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This fragment of pottery was actually from a Roman amphora.

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It doesn't look like much in its current state,

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but if you can imagine, it would have been a huge bulbous container

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filled with olive oil.

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The most revealing thing about the amphora is this inscription here.

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It's the names of the proprietors of the farm

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that actually produced this amphora and the olive oil.

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It says Aemiliae and casae.

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That doesn't mean much in itself until you realise that this farm

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was in Seville in Spain.

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The quartermaster in the camp would have ordered this olive oil

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and had it transported 1,000 miles across the Empire

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for the consumption of the troops at Vindolanda.

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'Staying well-housed and fed is one thing,

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'but it's also vital to stay healthy.

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'No army can survive long without being able to wash.'

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Now, why would they have used a hot room like this?

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It's partly recreational, of course, to chill out.

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But more importantly than that it was for hygiene.

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As all great generals know, to get a soldier able to fight,

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you have to keep him healthy and the caldarium did that.

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'Hot air would have come through ducts,

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'heating a floor of stone flags topped with concrete.

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'Ladles of cold water would have been poured onto it

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'to fill the room with steam like a modern sauna.'

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What's great about coming to Vindolanda for a military historian like me

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is that previously I'd only really looked at the Roman army at war

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but when you come here you begin to understand how the Roman soldier actually lived

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and what's astonishing about this site

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is its attention to detail in all aspects of daily life.

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You get a sense of the lengths the Roman army was prepared to go

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to keep its troops not only healthy but also happy.

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'Soldiers arriving in a new theatre of war such as Afghanistan

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'have to have their basic needs met before they can do anything else.

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'It's the most fundamental duty of any commander.'

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Without keeping soldiers fed and watered,

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without keeping them housed and dry,

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and without keeping them clean and healthy, you're in trouble.

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All of these things are hard enough to manage in fixed bases,

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but when an army is on campaign, often in foreign and distant lands,

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the challenge becomes even tougher.

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'And when it goes wrong the price is high,

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'for kingdoms as well as men.

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'In 1415, the English King, Henry V, set off to invade France

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'with over 10,000 men in a bid to take the French throne.

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'Tim Sutherland is an expert in medieval warfare

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'and has studied the type of kit Henry V's men would have taken on the campaign.'

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People at the lower scale

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would have walked onto the battlefield

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with minimal amounts of equipment.

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Mostly they would have been wearing very thick protective clothing,

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anything that was based on linen and wool.

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The more layers a jacket like this has,

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the more protected it is against weapon blows.

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Also it's warmer. The problem with this is when it gets wet

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it becomes like a sponge and it becomes incredibly heavy.

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It weighs you down enough to drown you, even in shallow water.

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You had to be able to feed yourself,

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because nobody else would have fed you.

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You picked berries, found rabbits,

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you'd be hunting things with a bow and arrow or trapping them.

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What they also need to do is cook.

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So maybe they would have had between five, 10, 15 people, a cooking pot.

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This is an iron one, which is probably a later design,

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but the bronze cauldrons of the time would have been very similar

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and round about this size.

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Everybody needs to drink, so you need something to drink from,

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whether it's a bowl, such as a wooden bowl like this to scoop water up,

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or whether it's something like a pottery mug.

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What happens is you get small numbers of people who can look after themselves

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and this is the sort of kit they would have used as a small, cohesive group.

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'Henry's lightly-equipped force sailed to Normandy

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'and his first objective was the strategic port of Harfleur,

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'but he was stopped in his tracks by the town's huge defensive walls.

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'Henry settled in for a lengthy siege,

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'the worst-case scenario for any army reliant on foraging and fresh water to survive.

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'The French were well aware of the English vulnerability

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'and had a plan - to wreak havoc on the British camp

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'and leave it wide open to the spread of disease.'

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The French opened the locks to the river so this whole area was filled with stagnant water.

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You can only imagine what this meant for Henry

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and his army of 10,000 soldiers and 20,000 horses.

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With nowhere to bury human or animal waste, with the weather unseasonably hot,

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this area became a perfect breeding ground for disease.

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'Sharing kit, living in what was to become an open sewer,

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'led to a contagious wave of vomiting and diarrhoea.

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'The National Archives in London contains evidence

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'of how serious the problem became.'

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I feel very privileged because it's not often as an historian

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you get to look at, hold and read

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an original hand-written 600-year-old document like this one.

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It's a list of the people who came back from Harfleur in 1415

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and the outset of Henry V's campaign to retake Normandy.

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It's written in French but it actually explains to us

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the reason why most of these people had left the army.

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The explanation is here at the top and it reads:

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"The sick people of the retinue of the Duke of Clarence,"

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who was the King's brother,

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"and also the people of the retinues of the captains and lords

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"who were serving with the King at the siege of Harfleur."

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In other words, it's the sick list, the casualties who had returned home from the campaign.

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This roll and the other five rolls in the bag

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contain 1,300 names and each name is individually recorded.

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Most of these men suffered from something known as the bloody flux.

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In other words, they were afflicted with dysentery.

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'Harfleur was eventually taken,

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'but by failing to provide for his troops' welfare,

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'Henry's army was by now exhausted and malnourished.

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'He was forced to head not further south,

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'but north to Calais, an English-controlled port.

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'The French, though, intercepted his army on the way - at Agincourt.'

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BATTLE CRIES, SCREAMS AND HORSES NEIGHING

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Henry's subsequent success at Agincourt

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was as much to do with the failures of the French knights getting bogged down in the mud

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as it was due to the excellence of his archers,

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but thanks to Shakespeare that campaign has gone down in national folklore as a great victory.

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'And of course, Henry's was only one of a long history of campaigns

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'when English and British forces made forays onto mainland Europe.'

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Over time, as armies grew in size,

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these overseas expeditions created ever-greater challenges.

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If Henry had faced difficulties managing the needs of 10,000 men,

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imagine if that army grew to 50,000 or even 100,000,

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entire cities on the move.

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'From sword-wielding leaders like Henry V,

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'by the 18th and 19th centuries, generals had to become masters

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'not only of men but supply.

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'How do you go about feeding tens of thousands of men on campaign

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'overseas, always on the move, and thousands of miles from home?'

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'In 1808, a British general, Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington

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'sailed for Portugal to help oppose Napoleon's expanding French empire.

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'After stops to make arrangements for the supply of oxen and mules,

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'he finally landed his army at Mondego Bay, north of Lisbon.

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'But as he marched inland to Leiria, heading for Lisbon itself,

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'the challenge of feeding his vast army was formidable.

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'Andy Robertshaw is an expert in military rations,

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'including the supply of an army's daily bread.'

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-Shall we?

-Do you think it's ready?

-Let's have a look.

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So I shall use my trusty peel here and see what happens.

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-Well, they look convincing, don't they?

-Ah, excellent.

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I'm happy with that.

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If you feel that, it's baked through.

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-I wouldn't mind eating that.

-That's good!

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That's a ration recipe for ration bread

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and it's got the fat content replaced by treacle.

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So it's flour, yeast, salt and treacle.

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That's one man's ration for one day.

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So you bake your bread, your soldiers are fed and happy,

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you're moving on to the next location,

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-you've got to take your oven with you.

-Absolutely.

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Either as it's cooled or as it's cooling,

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you've got to knock it all to bits, try not to break the bricks,

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lay them all out, because obviously you don't want to put it on a wagon, you'll set fire to it otherwise,

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pile them all on the wagon, move to your next location and build it all over again.

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Perhaps twice a week you're building these things.

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'During Wellington's early campaign, it's thought the British travelled

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'with 80,000 bricks for 400 portable ovens.

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'And bread was only a part of what was needed.'

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What I've got here is a little pamphlet from the Napoleonic Wars.

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It tells you that the daily ration to each officer,

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non-commissioned officer or private, is one pound of bread or biscuit,

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one pound of meat, either fresh or salt,

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one pint of wine or one third of a pint of spirits. That's it.

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At one stage Wellington has

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80,000 men under his command in the peninsular. How does he feed them?

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Well, he's going to give them meat and that means a pound of meat per man per day.

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You're slaughtering, for 80,000 men, a minimum of 300 animals a day.

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The funny thing is that soldiers often refer to the battlefield looking like a shambles.

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A shambles is a medieval word which describes a butcher's yard.

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Every time they go to get their meat rations they would see

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all these slaughtered animals. They were awfully familiar with it.

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I mean, it's a huge logistical effort, isn't it?

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We think of soldiers in an army but they've got this massive tail,

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bakers and butchers and just about everyone else who has to look after this.

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There's a massive army with a massive train of animals and butchers and wagons and forage

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just to keep it going even without fighting a single battle.

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Every single day. You can't stop it.

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The scale of the effort needed to sustain Wellington's army

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was simply staggering - 300 cows a day, an entire herd to feed his men.

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When you think about it, that doesn't just involve the cowherds and the regimental butchers,

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you've got the livestock experts who have to go out into the local markets to replenish that herd,

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then the accountants and the quartermasters paying out the cash and keeping up the books.

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Whichever way you look at it, and particularly when you delve deep into it,

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this conceptually simple problem about feeding your army

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becomes a huge logistical, indeed a huge management exercise.

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'Once they had received their rations,

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'it was up to the soldiers to cook it themselves.'

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So you can just imagine the scene,

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80,000 men spread over a hillside like this one,

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all cooking their individual pots on fires like this

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with their rations of meat and maybe the odd pilfered onion.

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'But while the soldiers were tucking in to their hard-earned meals,

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'they would have been unaware that what was going on behind the scenes

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'was heading towards a watershed in how armies were fed and kept healthy.'

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What's actually happening at this stage is a major shift in military history

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because before this point, supply and transport

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had always been provided on an ad hoc basis during wartime by civilians.

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As armies became increasingly huge in size,

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the business of supply became increasingly specialist.

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'In these new mega-armies, men were needed to take care of the camps and of food,

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'and without them an army would be doomed as a fighting force.

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'From the early 19th century, success in waging war

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'shifts from the front line to the back room,

0:22:150:22:19

'to the masters of the supply chain.

0:22:190:22:21

'But the question was who were the real back-room masters going to be?'

0:22:220:22:28

'A modern army today, supplies and transports its own food and equipment.

0:22:380:22:43

'But in Wellington's time, while the army transported provisions,

0:22:450:22:48

'it didn't have complete control of all aspects of supply.

0:22:480:22:53

'The responsibility for purchasing goods fell to a civilian body called the commissariat.'

0:22:560:23:02

The reason the commissariat remains in civilian hands

0:23:040:23:07

is that the Government, fearful of the power of the generals and their ever-larger armies,

0:23:070:23:12

doesn't want them to operate independently.

0:23:120:23:15

'On top of all this, to save money the Government also took over complete control

0:23:160:23:20

'of transport as well as purchasing.

0:23:200:23:24

'It was a decision that was to lead to the biggest supply disaster

0:23:240:23:28

'in British military history.

0:23:280:23:30

'The consequences were to transform how the entire army was run.

0:23:310:23:36

'That logistical catastrophe happened here, 1,600 miles from London,

0:23:400:23:46

'in the Russian port of Balaklava, in 1854 during the Crimean War.

0:23:460:23:52

'The Crimea is a peninsula in the south of modern-day Ukraine,

0:23:540:23:59

'Fearful of Russia's growing influence in the region,

0:24:000:24:03

'Britain went to war,

0:24:030:24:05

'relying on the port of Balaklava as a vital supply line.

0:24:050:24:08

'The British Army stationed 25,000 soldiers on a bleak plateau,

0:24:130:24:17

'high above the port.

0:24:170:24:19

'But the Government, having taken charge of supplies,

0:24:210:24:24

'failed to equip the men properly.

0:24:240:24:27

'With winter closing in, poor clothing and flimsy tents

0:24:280:24:33

'offered little protection against the deteriorating conditions.

0:24:330:24:36

'And what was being delivered into port

0:24:390:24:41

'wasn't exactly what the men needed most.'

0:24:410:24:44

This is an example of the sort of supply

0:24:460:24:48

that was being sent out to the Crimea during the war.

0:24:480:24:51

It's an extraordinary artefact. It's a marmalade pot

0:24:510:24:54

Beautifully made. You can see the detail in it,

0:24:540:24:57

not just in its construction but in this hand-painted picture

0:24:570:25:00

of the allied commanders on the front

0:25:000:25:03

with Lord Raglan in the centre position.

0:25:030:25:05

You can tell it's him because of his empty arm,

0:25:050:25:08

the arm he lost at Waterloo.

0:25:080:25:10

'Although the Government did deliver more than decorative jars of marmalade,

0:25:120:25:17

'they had forgotten one crucial thing.

0:25:170:25:19

'No carts had been provided to transport the provisions

0:25:190:25:23

'from the port up to the inland bases.

0:25:230:25:26

'Many of the supplies were left on the quayside, the food rotting,

0:25:260:25:31

'while the soldiers, unable to leave the battlefield, starved.

0:25:310:25:36

'The person who brought this logistical catastrophe to light

0:25:370:25:41

'wasn't a soldier or a politician, but a journalist.'

0:25:410:25:46

This is a picture of WH Russell of the Times

0:25:470:25:50

sitting on his rather natty campaign chair.

0:25:500:25:53

Russell became famous during the Crimean War

0:25:530:25:55

because he covered it from start to finish,

0:25:550:25:57

living for much of his time with the men here on the plateau.

0:25:570:26:00

'Russell was one of the world's very first embedded war correspondents.'

0:26:020:26:07

What particularly struck me when I first read Russell's reports

0:26:090:26:12

was the vividness of the language he uses,

0:26:120:26:15

the beauty of the metaphor and the similes.

0:26:150:26:17

In one particular report he describes the pouring rain,

0:26:170:26:22

the night as black as ink,

0:26:220:26:23

the tents bowing, staggering under the howling wind,

0:26:230:26:28

and the trenches, which surrounded Sevastopol in front of me,

0:26:280:26:32

filling with water like dykes.

0:26:320:26:34

'Living with the men, Russell was directly exposed to their suffering.

0:26:360:26:41

'Back home in London, his reports caused a national scandal.'

0:26:410:26:46

The Government was forced to resign

0:26:470:26:50

and the new administration had to act fast.

0:26:500:26:53

It realised that supply was a specialist area of logistics

0:26:530:26:57

and that it couldn't do it efficiently itself.

0:26:570:26:59

So it transferred control of the commissariat away from the Treasury

0:26:590:27:03

and formed a new transport corps within the Army.

0:27:030:27:06

'Giving control to the military was a huge leap of faith,

0:27:080:27:12

'a trust that the Army wouldn't use that extra power to turn on the Government.'

0:27:120:27:17

But it paid off. Supplies to the Crimea improved,

0:27:170:27:20

and that improvement was aided by a new technology.

0:27:200:27:23

'Previously communications between the commanders in the field and London had been chiefly by letter.

0:27:290:27:34

'Hardly the fastest way to exchange information about supply problems or anything else.'

0:27:340:27:39

But now the Government decided that the generals needed

0:27:390:27:42

a state-of-the-art piece of communications equipment - the electric telegraph.

0:27:420:27:46

An underwater cable was laid across 300 miles of the Black Sea,

0:27:550:27:59

from Varna in modern-day Bulgaria over there

0:27:590:28:02

to a point close to here, a few miles west of Balaklava.

0:28:020:28:05

'For the first time, London was connected directly to the front line of a war zone.'

0:28:060:28:12

This is St George's Monastery. I've seen it many times on a map

0:28:210:28:24

but it's great finally to see it in person

0:28:240:28:26

because this was the location of the original British Telegraph Office.

0:28:260:28:30

'From this slightly unorthodox communications hub,

0:28:320:28:35

'generals were linked by wire all the way to London.'

0:28:350:28:39

The first thing that strikes me is how thin it is.

0:28:420:28:45

Right there in the centre you can see a tiny copper cable

0:28:450:28:49

that would have carried the signal.

0:28:490:28:51

Around it there's this protective wrapping of hemp.

0:28:510:28:54

It would only have been like this close to the shoreline when it came out of the water

0:28:540:28:58

to protect it from being snagged against ships' anchors.

0:28:580:29:01

For most of the 300 miles here,

0:29:010:29:04

the protection would have just been a thin layer of rubber.

0:29:040:29:07

'The telegraph was transforming communication

0:29:080:29:12

'and the ability to keep men fed and healthy.

0:29:120:29:15

'But at the same time,

0:29:150:29:18

'smaller innovations were just as important to men at the front.'

0:29:180:29:22

This is the Soyer stove, designed by a French chef, Alexis Soyer,

0:29:240:29:29

who happened to be working in London during the Crimean War

0:29:290:29:32

when he was approached by the authorities to advise on mass catering in the Army.

0:29:320:29:36

And this was his solution.

0:29:360:29:38

Very clever design with lots of interesting features.

0:29:380:29:42

Here at the bottom is a little aperture to take away the burnt ash.

0:29:420:29:46

But more importantly this little air hole here,

0:29:460:29:50

which enabled you to control temperature.

0:29:500:29:52

On an open fire, which the Army would have cooked on before, you couldn't do that.

0:29:520:29:56

In the centre, that's where you put the fuel,

0:29:560:29:59

wood being the most obvious thing,

0:29:590:30:01

but any fuel that burned could have gone in there

0:30:010:30:03

and at the top you had the bowl.

0:30:030:30:07

You either use it to boil water or use it to cook.

0:30:070:30:10

Now the great advantage of the Soyer Stove in a military sense

0:30:100:30:14

is that it didn't produce a naked flame or much smoke

0:30:140:30:17

so the enemy couldn't see you at a distance

0:30:170:30:20

and you couldn't count the number of camp fires.

0:30:200:30:22

But it also made huge savings in terms of both fuel and manpower.

0:30:220:30:28

For a battalion cooking over an open fire, which is what they would have done before this stove,

0:30:280:30:33

it would have required about 1,700lbs of firewood a day

0:30:330:30:36

and up to 80 cooks.

0:30:360:30:38

The Soyer Stove required just a tenth of the fuel and just 16 chefs.

0:30:380:30:44

And in the Crimea, where firewood was hard to come by,

0:30:440:30:47

that was a vital saving.

0:30:470:30:49

So clever was this design,

0:30:490:30:50

that it was still being used by the British Army

0:30:500:30:53

as recently as the Gulf War of 1991.

0:30:530:30:56

'The Crimean War was a huge turning point in British military history.

0:30:580:31:03

'The telegraph changed the way armies could be supplied and controlled.

0:31:030:31:07

'The Soyer Stove transformed the way it ate on the ground.

0:31:070:31:11

'And Russell's reports heightened public interest in armies overseas.'

0:31:110:31:16

But the most far-reaching change

0:31:170:31:19

was a move towards a specialist department of the Army,

0:31:190:31:22

concerned solely with procurement, transport and supply.

0:31:220:31:26

It was the birth of what was to become the Royal Logistics Corps,

0:31:260:31:30

a unit that still lies at the centre of military operations today.

0:31:300:31:33

'The sophistication of modern operations in Afghanistan

0:31:380:31:41

'has its roots in the Crimea triggered by a catastrophe -

0:31:410:31:45

'the failure to meet soldiers' most basic needs.

0:31:450:31:50

'Communications,

0:31:500:31:52

'health and medicine,

0:31:520:31:53

'and catering are now all separate, specialist branches of the Army.

0:31:530:31:58

'Today, 16,000 soldiers are engaged directly in logistics,

0:32:000:32:05

'about a sixth of the entire British Army.'

0:32:050:32:09

'During the 19th century,

0:32:180:32:20

'the logistics of supplying military kit had undergone a watershed.

0:32:200:32:25

'But one thing had remained largely unchanged.

0:32:260:32:29

'Food.

0:32:290:32:31

'Ever since the days of the Romans,

0:32:320:32:35

'right through the time of medieval knights,

0:32:350:32:38

'and the campaigns of Wellington,

0:32:380:32:40

'waging war was very much a seasonal activity.'

0:32:400:32:43

The problems of supply were so great for early armies

0:32:480:32:51

that most campaigns took place in the summer months

0:32:510:32:54

when the fields were ripe with corn and food was in abundance.

0:32:540:32:57

It's no coincidence that the festival of Mars,

0:32:590:33:01

the Roman god of war,

0:33:010:33:02

was in March and October, because these dates mark

0:33:020:33:06

the beginning and the end of the campaigning season.

0:33:060:33:09

'War had been a summer activity

0:33:100:33:13

'because until the 19th century,

0:33:130:33:15

'there was no effective way of preserving food.

0:33:150:33:18

'But that was all about to change.'

0:33:190:33:22

'The Science Museum in London contains the very earliest examples

0:33:300:33:34

'of an invention so groundbreaking

0:33:340:33:36

'that it completely changed how armies could be fed.

0:33:360:33:40

'And how wars would be waged.'

0:33:410:33:43

This is an extraordinary artefact.

0:33:450:33:47

It's actually one of the earliest tin cans, dating from 1812,

0:33:470:33:51

made by a British firm, Donkin, Hall and Gamble

0:33:510:33:54

and look at the beautiful design.

0:33:540:33:56

You can see that it's been handmade,

0:33:560:33:58

sealed shut here,

0:33:580:34:00

soldered shut, in fact,

0:34:000:34:02

which meant 40 years before the tin opener was invented,

0:34:020:34:04

you would have had to use a bayonet to get into this. It's incredibly light.

0:34:040:34:08

It doesn't contain the original foodstuffs that would have been in it,

0:34:080:34:12

but you can see the quality of workmanship here.

0:34:120:34:14

And they were still using tin cans by the end of the 19th century.

0:34:140:34:19

And you can see this one here would have been an emergency ration pack.

0:34:190:34:23

It's actually quite heavy but a much simpler design,

0:34:230:34:26

and also a much easier way of getting into it.

0:34:260:34:28

You see this little tag.

0:34:280:34:30

It would have been rolled back and the soldier

0:34:300:34:32

could have quite easily got into the food it would have contained there.

0:34:320:34:36

'Cans like this were used by soldiers in the American Civil War

0:34:360:34:41

'and the Franco-Prussian War.

0:34:410:34:42

'But it was the mass production of canned food during World War One

0:34:420:34:47

'that changed war forever.

0:34:470:34:50

'In 1918, nearly 180 million cans were transported to the Western front by ship and train,

0:34:520:34:58

'feeding over two million men through summer AND winter.

0:34:580:35:05

'For the first time, war was no longer limited by the seasons.

0:35:050:35:09

'Many of the cans were filled with what became known as bully beef

0:35:120:35:16

'after the French word "bouilli" meaning boiled.

0:35:160:35:20

'And much of the beef came all the way from South America.

0:35:200:35:24

'One brand, Fray Bentos, was named after a town in Uruguay.

0:35:240:35:29

'It was all a far cry from Wellington's herd of cattle

0:35:300:35:33

'just a century before.

0:35:330:35:35

'The Imperial War Museum in London contains records

0:35:390:35:42

'of how soldiers reacted to the new food.

0:35:420:35:45

'Social historian, Rachel Duffett, has studied them in detail.'

0:35:450:35:50

The two tins here are meat and vegetables

0:35:500:35:53

made by Maconochies, on of the most famous

0:35:530:35:55

suppliers for the Army in the First World War,

0:35:550:35:58

and here, at least,

0:35:580:35:59

the processed meat, the beef, is mixed with some vegetables

0:35:590:36:02

so, for many soldiers, a good tin,

0:36:020:36:04

if you got one that wasn't too fatty, too gristly,

0:36:040:36:07

a good "M and V", as they called it, meat and vegetables,

0:36:070:36:10

was quite pleasant, particularly if you could heat it up.

0:36:100:36:13

Often they had to eat it cold, straight from the tin.

0:36:130:36:16

You're painting a picture of a British Army determined

0:36:160:36:20

to give them enough calories but was this food good for them? Was it nutritious?

0:36:200:36:24

I think if the British Army now looked at it, it would say no

0:36:240:36:28

because all that the nutritional science could offer any army at that point in time,

0:36:280:36:33

at the beginning of the 20th century,

0:36:330:36:36

was calories, the importance of calories.

0:36:360:36:38

They did not understand the role of vitamins.

0:36:380:36:41

Vitamin C, in particular.

0:36:410:36:42

We see that from the minor medical problems,

0:36:420:36:45

the bleeding gums, the boils,

0:36:450:36:47

the wounds that didn't go gangrenous,

0:36:470:36:50

but took a long while to heal

0:36:500:36:52

because their immune systems were perhaps not what they should be.

0:36:520:36:56

'And while the food might have kept men alive,

0:36:560:36:59

'its industrial uniformity was never going to win any awards.'

0:36:590:37:03

It's often in the memoirs and also the diaries

0:37:050:37:08

that you find the real angry comments about food.

0:37:080:37:11

And I have here a transcript of a diary for the 16th August 1916.

0:37:110:37:16

He actually says he's heard "a good deal about German atrocities

0:37:160:37:21

"but certainly in some respect the British are quite as bad.

0:37:210:37:24

"And for weeks together we have not had a second vegetable, often none at all."

0:37:240:37:28

A feeling that these men had given their lives,

0:37:280:37:31

or might potentially give their lives for their country,

0:37:310:37:34

and the very least the country could do would be to feed them adequately

0:37:340:37:38

and that's something that comes through

0:37:380:37:41

because it didn't always happen.

0:37:410:37:43

'World War One reinforced some sharp social divides

0:37:460:37:50

'between the cannon fodder of the trenches,

0:37:500:37:52

'and the generals, who had to manage ever-more complex logistics

0:37:520:37:56

'of keeping their men alive.

0:37:560:37:58

'And while enlisted soldiers were eating bully beef,

0:38:000:38:03

'many senior officers enjoyed a rather more comfortable life.'

0:38:030:38:08

Pretty impressive. Four storeys high,

0:38:130:38:16

loads of room to relax in, not bad for temporary accommodation.

0:38:160:38:20

'But the choice of chateaux like this one as accommodation

0:38:210:38:26

'for British generals was down to more than their wine cellars.'

0:38:260:38:29

Here we are just two kilometres from the front line so the generals could keep in close touch with their men.

0:38:310:38:36

The land around is flat as a pancake so you can see for miles,

0:38:360:38:40

and, vitally, there's also a moat

0:38:400:38:42

in case of emergencies for last ditch defence.

0:38:420:38:45

'World War One generals were no longer swash-bucking leaders

0:38:480:38:52

'on the charge, but managers calling the shots from a boardroom of war.'

0:38:520:38:59

And it was a room like this that would have given them the space

0:38:590:39:02

for all the staff to gather together to dine,

0:39:020:39:04

a time for bonding, I suppose you could say,

0:39:040:39:07

but also the more serious business of planning operations.

0:39:070:39:11

They would all have fitted in this room and would have discussed things that mattered.

0:39:110:39:15

'And the Chateaux owner, Baroness de la Grange,

0:39:170:39:20

'was able to pass on precious local knowledge of the area.'

0:39:200:39:24

Clearly, the ability to know the exact location of the enemy is vital

0:39:280:39:31

and it's no coincidence that maps were originally invented by the military.

0:39:310:39:36

The term "ordnance survey" derives from the Board of Ordnance,

0:39:360:39:40

which had the task of mapping Britain

0:39:400:39:42

when there was a danger of French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars.

0:39:420:39:45

The generals would have used maps like this one to plot the course of their battles

0:39:450:39:50

and this particular one was used

0:39:500:39:52

by a British officer in the battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916.

0:39:520:39:56

Up in this corner you can see where he's marked out the British trench system

0:39:560:40:00

and named those trenches Tipperary, Wellington, Gabion Avenue.

0:40:000:40:05

'To plan at night,

0:40:070:40:09

'paraffin lamps provided better lighting than candles.

0:40:090:40:12

'And to time attacks precisely, a style of watch

0:40:120:40:16

'previously considered feminine became a military necessity.,

0:40:160:40:20

Now before the war, most men would have carried pocket watches

0:40:220:40:25

but these weren't a lot of use in battle when you needed

0:40:250:40:28

to get them out, open them up to tell the time.

0:40:280:40:31

How much more useful to have something on your wrist that you could immediately refer to the time.

0:40:310:40:36

This one in particular has been protected by a grille

0:40:360:40:39

to stop it being broken in the trenches.

0:40:390:40:42

So at a time when war is becoming increasingly technical,

0:40:420:40:46

it's becoming more and more important to be able to accurately time

0:40:460:40:49

a barrage to the movement of men over the trenches.

0:40:490:40:52

And what would have happened before an offensive, is a central staff officer

0:40:520:40:56

would have gathered up all the officers' watches,

0:40:560:40:58

synchronised them

0:40:580:40:59

and then distributed them back to the officers

0:40:590:41:02

just before the battle.

0:41:020:41:03

'World War One was the first industrial war

0:41:080:41:12

'in the scale of its capacity for destruction

0:41:120:41:14

'and the complexity of its modern management and logistics.

0:41:140:41:19

'But it's striking how civilian innovations in kit and supply

0:41:190:41:23

'transformed war just as much as the guns.

0:41:230:41:27

'How wristwatches could time co-ordinated attacks like never before.

0:41:270:41:30

'How canning technology enabled the continuous entrenchment of the front line

0:41:320:41:36

'through winter as well as summer for four long, grim years.'

0:41:360:41:41

'For all its new industrial technology,

0:41:510:41:54

'World War One, as ever, consumed men.

0:41:540:41:58

'Between 1914 and 1918,

0:41:580:42:02

'the British Army was supporting over five million soldiers on the front

0:42:020:42:07

'in living conditions that were almost medieval.

0:42:070:42:11

'Keeping men alive and fit was critical in this static,

0:42:110:42:16

'attritional confrontation.

0:42:160:42:19

'Health and welfare were as vital as ever,

0:42:190:42:21

'but now with industrial bombardment came a new threat -

0:42:210:42:26

'death on a scale that had never been seen before.

0:42:260:42:29

'Over the course of World War One,

0:42:320:42:35

'three million British soldiers were killed or injured.

0:42:350:42:38

'But new medical technology was able to combat death

0:42:380:42:41

'more effectively than in any previous war.

0:42:410:42:45

'And some of the most important advances were surprisingly simple.'

0:42:450:42:50

The problem for most of the combatants in the First World War

0:42:520:42:55

was that the shells that made shell holes like these

0:42:550:42:58

also caused terrible compound fractures to the arms and legs.

0:42:580:43:02

The danger of those fractures is that they tended to haemorrhage

0:43:020:43:05

as the soldiers were moved back for treatment.

0:43:050:43:08

The trick is somehow to immobilise the limb

0:43:080:43:11

and that is exactly what this did.

0:43:110:43:13

You can see clearly how the leg would have gone through the top,

0:43:130:43:17

rested on these pads all the way down

0:43:170:43:19

and then be secured, so it was completely immobilised

0:43:190:43:23

during the transport back to hospital.

0:43:230:43:26

It's incredible to think that such a basic design had such far-reaching consequences

0:43:260:43:30

and that after its introduction in 1916,

0:43:300:43:33

the mortality rate for compound fractures fell from 87% to just 8%.

0:43:330:43:39

'The system of getting food and kit to the front line

0:43:410:43:44

'now had to work in reverse so that injured men could be kept alive

0:43:440:43:49

'by getting them back to safety away from the front line.'

0:43:490:43:53

This is a diagram of the organisation of medical services from the First World War

0:43:540:43:58

and it explains in detail exactly how you would have moved back

0:43:580:44:02

depending on the seriousness of your wound.

0:44:020:44:04

First, from the regimental aid post, by field ambulance and stretcher bearers

0:44:040:44:08

to the field ambulance transport.

0:44:080:44:10

From there, to the casualty clearing station.

0:44:100:44:13

There, some pretty hard-nosed decisions would be taken by the surgeons.

0:44:130:44:17

Do we operate, do we try and save this man or do we leave him

0:44:170:44:20

so we can work on others because he's already too far gone?

0:44:200:44:22

If the wounds are very bad, you're going to go back further down the chain,

0:44:220:44:26

taken in trains to the base hospital,

0:44:260:44:28

usually on the coast, and if your wound was bad enough

0:44:280:44:31

and long-term enough, you'd have gone back on hospital ships to Britain.

0:44:310:44:36

'In 1914, there were fewer than 10,000 medical staff on the Western Front.

0:44:390:44:45

'By summer of 1916,

0:44:450:44:47

'there were more than 100,000.

0:44:470:44:50

'Ten times as many.

0:44:500:44:52

'And of the half million men hospitalised, only 36,000 died.

0:44:520:44:57

'But for all the new innovations in treating the injured,

0:44:590:45:02

'living conditions in the trenches of 1915 were arguably worse

0:45:020:45:07

'than those of 1415 in Harfleur,

0:45:070:45:10

'and the days of the bloody flux,

0:45:100:45:13

'500 years before.'

0:45:130:45:15

So, how do we do this?

0:45:170:45:19

Simplest thing.

0:45:190:45:20

Reach across and you'll see there's two bars half way down.

0:45:200:45:24

'David Kenyon is a battlefield archaeologist

0:45:240:45:27

'who has spent seven years excavating

0:45:270:45:29

'the trenches of Thiepval on the Somme.'

0:45:290:45:32

Get a bit of a feel for what it's like in the trench itself.

0:45:340:45:37

It's pretty narrow. Is that deliberate?

0:45:370:45:39

It IS deliberate.

0:45:390:45:40

It protects you from overhead explosions.

0:45:400:45:43

Shrapnel, that kind of thing.

0:45:430:45:45

If it was wider, you'd be more vulnerable.

0:45:450:45:47

And a little bit of duckboard here to keep the feet dry.

0:45:470:45:50

How significant was that?

0:45:500:45:52

That actually covers a sump in the floor,

0:45:520:45:54

there's a square hole, about that deep.

0:45:540:45:57

Goes down with a duckboard over the top.

0:45:570:46:00

That would act as a drain.

0:46:000:46:01

Water flowing down the trench would collect in there.

0:46:010:46:04

'Just as in Henry V's day,

0:46:050:46:07

'dysentery was once more a major problem.

0:46:070:46:11

'But there was another ubiquitous condition,

0:46:110:46:14

'trench foot, that could lead to gangrene and amputation.'

0:46:140:46:19

Ideally, every 24 hours, men are getting fresh socks.

0:46:190:46:23

And you don't get a choice.

0:46:230:46:24

It's compulsory to get your boots off, look at your feet,

0:46:240:46:27

dry them thoroughly and you get some clean socks on.

0:46:270:46:30

And if you and I were in a trench together, they had a pairing system

0:46:300:46:34

where we'd be matched into pairs and I'd be responsible for your feet

0:46:340:46:38

and you'd be responsible for mine, because if you're cold and wet

0:46:380:46:43

and tired, taking your puttees and boots off is a bit of a palaver

0:46:430:46:47

and you might not feel like it

0:46:470:46:49

so you'll go, "I'll do it tomorrow." But if I'm responsible for your feet

0:46:490:46:53

I'm going to make you do it, and vice versa.

0:46:530:46:55

'The risk of losing men to disease, possibly even the entire war,

0:46:580:47:02

'prompted the Army to take hygiene more seriously than ever before.'

0:47:020:47:08

This here is the 1912 Manual of Elementary Military Hygiene

0:47:080:47:12

and this is a pre-war publication.

0:47:120:47:14

This is them getting ready for the next war

0:47:140:47:17

and you can see it's really detailed. We've got causes of disease, lots of diseases listed,

0:47:170:47:23

cholera, dysentery, malaria, and how to deal with it, essentially.

0:47:230:47:26

-Yeah, prevention.

-Sorting out your water supply,

0:47:260:47:29

how to handle the food, physical training.

0:47:290:47:32

It's gone from being

0:47:320:47:34

not quite optional but something that's done ad hoc

0:47:340:47:37

to something that's absolutely embedded within the system

0:47:370:47:40

and it's enforced by military law and military discipline.

0:47:400:47:43

'Living in stagnant, rat-infested trenches,

0:47:450:47:49

'each man's personal wash kit was as essential to his survival as his rifle.'

0:47:490:47:55

We found a groundsheet and wrapped up inside that groundsheet was a soldier's wash kit.

0:47:560:48:01

Everything he needed in the trench. Some of these you'll recognise.

0:48:010:48:05

That's his toothbrush.

0:48:050:48:08

-Minus its bristles. But it's pretty clear isn't it?

-Then...

0:48:080:48:11

another everyday activity.

0:48:110:48:14

-That's a...

-Shaving brush. A few bristles still intact.

0:48:140:48:18

I think the way it works is you take that bit off there, plug it on the bottom,

0:48:180:48:22

and it becomes the handle.

0:48:220:48:24

-Oh, I see.

-And to go with it we have shaving soap.

0:48:240:48:30

Complete with the name.

0:48:300:48:32

-You can still read it.

-Maker's name, yes.

0:48:320:48:34

'Finlay's shaving soap, established Belfast, Ireland.'

0:48:340:48:38

It's quite possible that this survived in the trench here

0:48:380:48:41

because its owner... Some misfortune befell him and he never came back for it.

0:48:410:48:45

And then the other daily necessity.

0:48:450:48:47

Reading matter?

0:48:490:48:51

Um...not necessarily.

0:48:510:48:53

It's actually a religious tract with hymns and things like that on it.

0:48:530:48:57

-I don't think he was planning to read it.

-Toilet paper?

0:48:570:49:00

Toilet paper, yes.

0:49:000:49:02

-So he's going to take it from where he can get it, is he?

-Oh, yes, absolutely.

0:49:020:49:06

Anything suitable was carefully rounded up and stored.

0:49:060:49:11

Thin enough and absorbent enough!

0:49:110:49:13

If some religious type was in the rear issuing pamphlets out

0:49:130:49:17

he would have had a ready audience for them

0:49:170:49:19

but probably not for what he intended them for.

0:49:190:49:23

So does this find change the way we think about hygiene in the trenches in the First World War?

0:49:230:49:28

What it does is it confirms what was going on.

0:49:280:49:30

Because we know he have official pamphlets

0:49:300:49:32

that say this is what the Army wanted to do

0:49:320:49:34

and instructions saying what should be done.

0:49:340:49:37

But finding something like this bang in the front line

0:49:370:49:39

shows it really was being done.

0:49:390:49:41

It's proof that the soldiers really were carrying out

0:49:410:49:44

their instructions, which you wouldn't get from other sources,

0:49:440:49:47

so it is pretty important, yeah.

0:49:470:49:49

'For all the squalor of the trenches,

0:49:510:49:53

'some of the biggest medical dangers lay very much off-duty.'

0:49:530:49:58

Over a quarter of the diseases for which British soldiers were hospitalised

0:50:010:50:05

were venereal, particularly syphilis and gonorrhoea,

0:50:050:50:09

caught when off-duty in towns.

0:50:090:50:11

To try and combat this, the British Army experimented

0:50:110:50:14

with brothels inspected by doctors with some success.

0:50:140:50:18

One in Rouen had 171,000 clients in the first year

0:50:180:50:22

and just 248 reported cases of VD.

0:50:220:50:26

But many soldiers didn't admit to these ailments,

0:50:260:50:28

partly because the treatment was painful

0:50:280:50:31

and partly hospitalisation for VD meant a stoppage of pay

0:50:310:50:35

and your wife or girlfriend would be sure to know the reason why.

0:50:350:50:40

'The hugely expanded Royal Army Medical Corps

0:50:400:50:43

'might have transformed health and welfare in the trenches of World War One,

0:50:430:50:48

'but they never got to grips with sexually transmitted disease.

0:50:480:50:52

'In fact, even throughout most of World War Two,

0:50:520:50:56

'the Army relied heavily on simple scare tactics.'

0:50:560:51:00

These posters are a classic illustration of that.

0:51:000:51:03

The first one is a skull's head in a hat, obviously, the prostitute,

0:51:030:51:08

and it lays the blame on the woman. It says:

0:51:080:51:10

Clearly, soldiers catching VD was a huge logistical problem for the Army

0:51:210:51:26

and it wasn't until the mass introduction of penicillin in 1944,

0:51:260:51:29

an antibiotic that was highly effective against both syphilis and gonorrhoea,

0:51:290:51:34

that they found a solution.

0:51:340:51:35

It managed to reduce the treatment time from 40 to 50 days

0:51:350:51:39

to under ten days

0:51:390:51:41

so that soldiers could be quickly returned to the front line.

0:51:410:51:44

'In the 80 years between the Crimea and World War Two,

0:51:510:51:55

'the logistics of keeping men housed,

0:51:550:51:57

'fed, and healthy had been transformed.

0:51:570:52:02

'But after World War Two, in just a couple of decades,

0:52:020:52:06

'science and technology created another seismic shift

0:52:060:52:11

'in the way armies were kept alive.

0:52:110:52:13

'The space race,

0:52:140:52:17

'nuclear weapons, and the first computers

0:52:170:52:19

'characterised the second half of the 20th century.

0:52:190:52:23

'At the same time, a consumer boom discovered

0:52:250:52:28

'an age of automation, and convenience foods.

0:52:280:52:31

'All this changed how soldiers lived, how they were supplied,

0:52:310:52:36

'and even what they ate.'

0:52:360:52:37

Just looking through these modern racks of uniforms,

0:52:420:52:45

all ready to go onto the bodies of today's soldiers,

0:52:450:52:48

you can't help thinking about the past.

0:52:480:52:50

This type of supply depot would have looked very similar 100 years ago.

0:52:500:52:55

But beyond the trousers and uniforms, the continuity and tradition of soldiering,

0:52:550:52:59

EVERYTHING has changed in the last 50 years.

0:52:590:53:02

And at the heart of it

0:53:020:53:04

has been the technological revolution

0:53:040:53:06

of the second half of the 20th century.

0:53:060:53:08

'Just one example

0:53:130:53:14

'is the rapid escalation of America's war in Vietnam in the mid-1960s.

0:53:140:53:20

'The Huey was developed

0:53:200:53:21

'to meet the army's need for a powerful utility helicopter.

0:53:210:53:26

''This kind of speed and flexibility in the supply line

0:53:260:53:30

'was unprecedented.

0:53:300:53:32

'Today, it's almost impossible to imagine ground wars

0:53:320:53:35

'without helicopter support.

0:53:350:53:37

'Then there's medicine.

0:53:390:53:40

'MASH units operating at the very cutting edge of surgery,

0:53:400:53:44

'maintaining a tradition that continues today

0:53:440:53:47

'as battlefield surgery feeds into civilian medicine.

0:53:470:53:51

'And, finally, food.

0:53:540:53:56

'If the tin can had changed soldiering 100 years ago,

0:53:560:53:59

'the revolution in the 1960s was dehydrated food,

0:53:590:54:03

'replacing the cans

0:54:030:54:05

'that were too heavy and noisy for operational use in the jungle,

0:54:050:54:09

'and laying the foundation for today's modern ration packs.'

0:54:090:54:13

This is the 12-hour ration pack

0:54:150:54:16

that's being sent out to troops in Afghanistan

0:54:160:54:19

and it's really state-of-the-art kit

0:54:190:54:21

and shows just how far preserved foods have come, in military terms.

0:54:210:54:25

It's designed specifically for soldiers on the move

0:54:250:54:28

and would be taken by soldiers when they're out on patrol

0:54:280:54:31

and also when they're in their forward operating bases.

0:54:310:54:33

So, what exactly does it contain? Well, let's have a look.

0:54:330:54:36

There's the main meal, "chicken yellow curry rice",

0:54:390:54:43

300 grams of it. Just a little taste of home for the soldiers

0:54:430:54:46

and, apparently, very popular that particular dish.

0:54:460:54:49

And here's the really clever thing. A heater.

0:54:490:54:52

Just this little plastic pouch.

0:54:520:54:54

Tear off the top,

0:54:540:54:55

you put the main meal inside the pouch,

0:54:550:54:57

also with water,

0:54:570:54:58

and these magnesium strips would heat the food in just 12 minutes.

0:54:580:55:03

So you'd have a hot meal wherever you were, on the go.

0:55:030:55:06

But when you're out in Afghanistan, in the desert,

0:55:070:55:09

you need an awful lot of water,

0:55:090:55:11

and to make that water palatable, there's things like this.

0:55:110:55:15

Electrolyte drink powder. This one's cherry flavoured.

0:55:150:55:18

You've also got energy drink, there, also to mix with water.

0:55:180:55:22

And lots and lots of snacks,

0:55:220:55:24

and biscuits and nuts and preserved fruits

0:55:240:55:27

and sweets to keep the soldiers going when they're on the move.

0:55:270:55:30

And also this. That's quite a nice touch. Beef jerky.

0:55:300:55:34

Also very popular and the sort of thing British soldiers

0:55:340:55:37

would have been eating in South Africa 100 years earlier.

0:55:370:55:40

But the piece de resistance, I suppose, is this -

0:55:400:55:43

the long-life sandwich -

0:55:430:55:45

designed to last for up to two years, apparently.

0:55:450:55:48

This is honey barbecued beef, not my favourite flavour,

0:55:480:55:51

I must admit, but I'm going to give it a go anyway.

0:55:510:55:53

Looks more like a wrap than a sandwich.

0:56:000:56:02

Not bad.

0:56:060:56:08

Quite tasty but you wouldn't want to be eating this every day of your life.

0:56:080:56:12

'But even the preservation of food is not new.

0:56:150:56:18

'Back on the Roman wall, it's extraordinary to think that,

0:56:180:56:21

'2,000 years ago, as well as housing, feeding,

0:56:210:56:25

'and keeping their men clean,

0:56:250:56:27

'the Romans had their own version of long-life rations.'

0:56:270:56:30

Remember this, the amphora?

0:56:310:56:34

It was full of olive oil and came from Spain.

0:56:340:56:37

It's just one tiny example of what the Romans were doing in terms of preserved food.

0:56:370:56:41

They pickled, dried,

0:56:410:56:42

salted and smoked their meat and also their fish.

0:56:420:56:46

And they even had an example of the long-life sandwich - fish in brine.

0:56:460:56:50

Now, remember that these foods came from all the far-flung corners of Empire

0:56:500:56:54

to give their soldiers a little taste from home.

0:56:540:56:57

'The basic needs of a modern soldier in Camp Bastion

0:57:030:57:07

'are no different from the Romans' at Hadrian's Wall.

0:57:070:57:11

'To be fed and housed,

0:57:110:57:12

'and, most importantly of all, to stay healthy.

0:57:120:57:16

'But as we've seen, it's achieving all this, for thousands of men,

0:57:170:57:22

'when it really matters, THAT'S the real challenge.'

0:57:220:57:27

Getting a soldier's kit right is hardly the most glamorous side of war.

0:57:270:57:31

And the logistics men are not going to win any prizes,

0:57:310:57:33

but if they do their job well,

0:57:330:57:35

their men are kept fit, healthy and ready for battle.

0:57:350:57:39

'Next time, how to move an army.

0:57:400:57:44

'As generals through history have tried to literally steal a march.'

0:57:440:57:48

This little model here represents a revolution in warfare.

0:57:480:57:52

'How trains transformed the way armies could be mobilised.'

0:57:530:57:57

While France was still preparing her army,

0:57:570:58:01

Prussia had 85,000 men concentrated and ready for action.

0:58:010:58:05

'And how, in the end, success so often comes back to men...'

0:58:060:58:11

Already, Saul, you're bent over.

0:58:110:58:13

It's unbelievable.

0:58:130:58:15

'..and boots.'

0:58:160:58:17

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:310:58:34

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0:58:340:58:38

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