Episode 2 Great War Diaries

-RUSSIAN WOMAN:

-The great offensive was to be launched soon.

No more laughter or singing -

thousands upon thousands of us were there, just waiting to be killed.

My companions were living and eating and drinking without pleasure,

in a sort of dull fever.

I breathed in that feeling, just as I breathed in the air itself.

MAN CLEARS HIS THROAT

Not a few of the men begged me to write a final letter for them home.

These letters made a strange impression on me.

Here I was, writing to other men's wives about the children, the crops,

a cow's sore udder, a pregnant ewe. And almost invariably ending with...

"If God please to kill me...

"..pray for my soul."

Spasiba.

WHISTLE BLOWS

SHE COUGHS

Oh, what was five again?

I think there is only one thing I dislike more than learning

a new language...

SHE COUGHS

..and that is nursing a cold in my head.

What do you think? Am I a complete idiot?

Oh, don't worry, I can't memorise any of these Russian words either.

I didn't mean the Russian. This journey - all of this?

Is it not all idiotic?

Well, it's a little late to worry about that now.

Yes, it is too late. Far too late.

I am Sarah Macnaughtan.

Before the war, as a spinster, I lived a lonely but carefree life.

But then, as the whole of Europe became embroiled

in a conflagration

the likes of which no living soul has witnessed before,

I volunteered as a nurse and reported for duty on the front line.

Here, I did my utmost to help the men, not just as a nurse,

but with all the financial resources at my disposal.

Now, after a year of bloody fighting, the entire conflict has

descended into stalemate - nowhere is there a decisive victory.

On the Eastern Front - in the Caucasus -

the situation is even more dire.

On both sides of the border,

the majority of the population is Christian-Armenian.

Now, the Muslim generals of the Ottoman Empire have ordered

the deportation of the entire Armenian population

in the most horrible and cruel way.

Thousands flee to Russia.

These desperate people urgently need our help and it is to them

we travel now.

Why are the Armenians so hated?

And why are we all so oblivious to their fate?

After all, they're Christians, just like us. Human beings like us!

So much about this war is simply incomprehensible.

You can't really ask me that, Sarah.

The only thing I learned before the war was,

whenever possible, never to ask awkward questions, and, ideally,

never to show any sensibility towards all that is horrible.

And yet now there is nothing but horror in the world.

We're already doing what we can. We're going to help.

Yes, help. I just wonder whom we're helping exactly.

MAN SPEAKS GERMAN

Home. That's all I could think of now.

Going home.

DOOR OPENS

MEN SHOUT

SHOUTING IN RUSSIAN

My name is Karl Kasser.

Actually, I'm not really a soldier at all, just a humble farmer

who comes from the beautiful village of Kilb in Lower Austria.

A year ago, I was wounded at the front in Russia and taken prisoner.

We farmers make up the majority of the Habsburg Army.

Back home, our fields lie neglected whilst we must go to war.

Millions of us have already fallen,

been crippled or have surrendered to the enemy.

There are two million prisoners in Russia alone.

Two million - it's a wonder there's anyone left to fight.

Austrians, Czechs, Poles and Hungarians -

all thrown together in this prison camp.

Together, we suffer from hunger and disease, but for us the war is over.

Perhaps at last we can now go home.

SHOUTING IN RUSSIAN

Transportation was organised.

We thought this must surely mean that peace would come soon.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Thus, we were taken away.

And all those we were leaving behind

wished us luck on our journey back home.

For we all believed that we were going to be

exchanged for our enemies' prisoners.

Everywhere was chaos.

No country could possibly take care of so many prisoners.

There was neither enough food nor clothes.

There wasn't any evil intent - but many died miserably,

and were only to be pitied, the poor fellows.

But how much we who are still alive are looking forward

to being home again.

THEY SING IN GERMAN

My wounds had pretty much healed.

Only the bones in my hand remained a little unstable.

I was glad I had healed so well.

I didn't know who he was.

We had beards, long hair,

as we had nothing to shave or cut our hair with.

We were almost unrecognisable.

BODY THUDS

We decided that we would no longer be separated.

We told each other about our loved ones back home, which brought

tears to our eyes since neither of us knew how things were back there.

When we were taken prisoner, a soldier next to me sobbed,

"What will my mother say?"

We have stopped thinking about the future.

Life is a pendulum that swings monotonously, stuck in the past.

At home, they are celebrating the Cherry Blossom Festival.

All I can see here are withered trees through the barbed wire.

Home! I tried not to think of it.

Things were bad enough as they were, but to think of home and all it meant

made one feel absolutely hopeless.

I am relieved to have news from home.

Packages have arrived from my friends, thank God.

They say that English hearts are beating somewhere behind these

snow-capped mountains.

The first postcard from home. Papa's glad that I'm out of danger.

If only he knew what new dangers I face here.

Hundreds of prisoners die daily in the dirt.

There are no doctors, no medicine, no beds, no food.

We must have come to the wrong place.

SHE COUGHS

'It was fearfully cold.

'As a result, the Macnaughtan cough has been heard in the land.'

SHE COUGHS

There are no refugees here.

And no war.

SHE COUGHS

You really must take better care of yourself, Sarah!

There is no need for us here. We're leaving!

Please be welcome! Mrs...?

Miss Macnaughtan. And my dear friend, Lady Dorothy.

It's a pleasure for me, my ladies!

Um...Duchess Ignatjewna,

the head nurse of the Saint Alexius Hospital here in Tiflis.

Duchess Ignatjewna, we are certainly very pleased to find

everything here in such a...spotless condition.

But where are the wounded, the refugees?

But we are very far from the front here.

And what use have our funds then been in this evidently

functionless hospital?

Mrs Macnaughtan, how is that you say?

We will cross that bridge when we reach it.

SHE LAUGHS

SHE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

Perhaps you would like tea?

SHE COUGHS

TRAIN BRAKES SCREECH

MEN SPEAK RUSSIAN OUTSIDE

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN

The first wave!

When the great offensive actually begins,

there won't be any trumpets or flags or glory,

just a crowd of useless peasants sent charging onto the enemy's guns.

My name is Marina Yurlova.

I am a Cossack, and at just 16 years old

I have already been awarded the Saint George's Cross.

For two years now, I have served in His Majesty

Tsar Nicholas II's army

on the Caucasian front.

This summer, we are planning a decisive offensive

against our arch-enemy - the Turks.

The Ottoman Empire would have collapsed long ago under our

powerful attacks, if the Germans had not always helped their allies.

They send their best generals

and their most advanced weapons to the front.

EXPLOSIONS

ARTILLERY FIRE

SOLDIERS ROAR

GUNFIRE

The German guns begin to fire,

the air was filled with the bursting of gas shells, while we tried to

cross this valley, that lay between us and the enemy like an open grave.

HE SHOUTS IN RUSSIAN

Dawn made a vile twilight among the heavy clouds of gas,

through which we moved like ghosts,

with round black windows for eyes, and white spots for faces.

My mask seemed to put a screen between me

and the world outside, a world through which I moved unhurt,

watching the carnage around me with an almost complete indifference.

Nobody looked human.

Even when men fell dead,

they fell like animals, with their masked faces turned upwards,

and their bodies twisted sideways.

I found nothing wrong with that.

ARTILLERY FIRE

Deafened and speechless, I moved on.

MEN SPEAK ITALIAN

The stretcher I was on was placed in a cold, dark room

filled with soldiers also lying on stretchers for beds.

The orderlies were so eager to leave that they did not take time

even to bid me good night or good luck.

We were alone. No-one was taking care of us.

The silence grew ominous in the dark. My fever was getting worse.

I am Vincenzo D'Aquila, 23 years old, and I volunteered for this war.

How much I regret this frivolity today.

I was born in Palermo, but I grew up in New York - in the New World,

where my parents had brought me as a child.

But I still yearn for the land of my birth.

When Italy entered the war in the spring of 1915,

on the side of France and Britain, I felt, like many Italian-Americans,

compelled to serve for my distant homeland.

We set out in our thousands -

heads full of romantic ideals and naive conceptions of war.

Then came the reality of trenches, all those senseless attacks -

and the endless death.

Hardly any of us is still alive.

HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

Immediately I knew that there was that something wrong.

I realised that this was the hospital morgue

and that the occupants on the stretchers were corpses.

That was why the room was so cold and so quiet.

The war should have been a walk in the park against the Austrians,

weakened after fighting for such a long time.

But it was no walk at all.

In this hell of ice and snow,

the cold and the mud caused as much death as the enemy's gunfire.

Typhus is especially feared,

and I'm infected, too.

Once you're infected, delirium, and often death, can follow rapidly.

HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

All of a sudden, a whole platoon of doctors and nurses

came on the run to investigate this strange resurrection from the dead.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

There was no medical help available.

Nobody cared for us.

Because of this, disease was rampant.

Half of the men died of typhoid fever.

And none of them has received a proper burial.

HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

'So far we have been waiting all this time -

'for wounded soldiers, for refugees,

'and for our cars.

'They had left long before we did,

'but they have not arrived yet.'

If you carry on at that pace, you'll scrub right through the floorboards.

You really ought to rest.

SHE COUGHS

But it's precisely this unending rest which I find maddening!

SHE COUGHS

'We are all depressed, I am afraid.

'Whatever the Russians may have in store for us

'in the way of useful work, nothing can exceed our current boredom.'

Why is this Duchess knitting anyway?

Those socks will never find their way to the front!

We're leaving by train for Erivan!

Yerevan? What by God's name do you expect to do there?

But you yourself informed us

that most of the Armenian refugees were there.

Yes, but I am sorry.

The trains are overflowing,

we will not find space for the medical equipment.

If we do, it will be stolen.

But one million Armenian refugees

have been slaughtered in cold blood by the Turks, around about here.

There are the most awful massacres, with cruelties past all telling!

Patience, my dear English friends need to have more patience.

'For months I have been trying to be of some sort of help.

'The best thing, I believe, would be to return to my old battalion.

'I have been wondering whether,

'if they go in and get cut up badly, there might be any chance

'of success if I apply for a transfer to join them.

'There might come a time during which they might not disdain

'an old sergeant of their own.'

I want the entire regiment to be mobilised by tomorrow evening.

Yes, sir!

Look at the old man they've sent us now.

What on earth use can he be out here?

'Simply because I'm 50, I have to live with the shirkers here

'and not with the friends I love and honour.'

Ah, my dear friend. Charles Edward Montague, is that right?

-The renowned journalist?

-Yes, sir, quite right,

who's desperately been hoping to serve at the front, for months now.

Ah, well, I have a really rather splendid assignment

for you, Montague. At ease, follow me.

I am Charles Edward Montague.

At the age of 50,

I am actually too old for active service at the front.

But going back home, abandoning my friends here

and leaving them to die at the front,

that is simply unthinkable for me.

Finally, after many months of twiddling my thumbs,

I have been transferred to the Propaganda and Press Censorship department.

It is part of military intelligence

and its purpose is to ensure the continued support of

people back home for the upcoming major offensives.

As the war has dragged on,

Parliament has to be persuaded again and again to send yet more

weapons and soldiers to the front lines in Belgium and France.

Here he is, a true war hero, our Montague,

wounded on several occasions, always in the midst of the action.

At your age, and still a sergeant, Mr Montague?

Oh, he may seem like an ordinary sergeant,

but I can assure you he's a man of real intelligence!

And with this new assignment he will be promoted accordingly.

Sir, if I may, what exactly is my new assignment?

Given the forthcoming offensive...

Now, now, Montague, it's a good thing we're amongst friends.

The offensive is a state secret, you know.

Everybody's talking about it.

The "final push" to decide the war, sir.

Precisely, and your assignment will be to lead Mr Collingridge

here straight to the front to see our men.

A tour, so to speak, of the reality of the war.

You see, back at home we so rarely get

a true picture of your experiences out here.

Well, not the truest of realities, Montague.

I believe we understand each other?

In the end, I shall hold you personally responsible

for the safety of our Honourable Member of Parliament.

I'm certain you'll find quite the thrilling spot for us.

'To my unspeakable horror, in his enthusiasm,

'he had suddenly grasped my hand.'

Cross here will discuss the rest of the details with you, Montague.

As you wish, sir.

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

It's so frustrating not to be a man.

What use is it being a child during times of war,

one needs to be a soldier. I would make a good soldier.

IMITATES GUNFIRE

This is my Albatros Doppeldecker.

I, Leutnant von Yellenick, am flying higher and higher,

circling, and under attack from enemy pilots.

I usually win.

But sometimes I jiggle so much that I fall down,

along with the piled up benches.

I am Elfriede Kuhr.

I've just reached 15 and I live in the very east of our German Empire.

At the beginning,

we all thought that the war would be over by Christmas,

but for nearly two years now I have been keeping a war diary.

Before the war, my hometown of Schneidemuhl used to be

such a dull place to live,

but now it has become an important centre for our arms industry.

Ever since 1915, young officers have trained to be pilots

in the Flyer Replacement Unit right next to our school.

The pilots are all young and very dashing.

They are our heroes.

We all harbour a secret passion for them.

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

'I was struck dumb,

'I couldn't reply, I just stared at him stupidly.

'I must have looked so unimaginably foolish.'

So many men everywhere,

it has never been easier to get boyfriends,

even when you are only a 15-year-old schoolgirl.

Many of my classmates have a soldier friend already.

So, after lessons, we secretly meet up for love fests,

although, of course, in reality, it is all about kissing.

One girl sometimes asks me to play the piano loudly,

so that no-one can hear the laughter.

But now I have a real date too.

How exciting!

THEY SPEAK GERMAN

'Who could die so readily!

'He should taste what life has to offer.

'And besides, he has blue eyes and soft blond hair,

'And he also talked about his mother.'

Listen, Montague, I have a feeling this is somehow staged.

I think you may be right, sir.

Show me what life is really like out here - the front,

after all, that's what I was promised!

I'm glad to hear you're so concerned with

the fate of the ordinary soldier, sir.

But it won't hurt to have a cup of tea first, wouldn't you say?

'I feel a kind of grudge against the mere sightseer

'who comes out to see the war as a sort of show,

'accompanied by all sorts of luxury and petting.'

None for me, thank you.

Tell me, does the barbed wire not get in the way during an attack?

I think someone should inform the War Office.

'I think we all feel in our hearts that the sightseer's only chance

'of saving his soul alive is that he should get a taste

'even for a few minutes

'of the kind of thing that our soldiers are bearing all day.'

When you're ready, sir.

'War hath no fury like a non-combatant.'

GRAMOPHONE PLAYS "Pack Up Your Troubles"

'The hospital here in Russia, I believe, cost England £100,000.

'The staff consists of nurses and doctors, dressers, etc.

'All fully paid.

'The expenses of those in charge of it are met out of the funds.

'They live in good hotels,

'and even have "entertaining allowances"

'for entertaining their friends.'

Ah, Miss Macnaughtan. Celebrate a little with us.

-Life must go on.

-I don't have anything to celebrate here.

Maybe you do. Concerning your ambulance car.

The cars have arrived? Dorothy, our cars!

I have good news and bad news.

The first vehicle has reached Petrograd.

That's wonderful news!

However, my dear friend, Grand Duchess Irina,

requires it at this time.

'Everything is promised, nothing is done.

'The only hope of getting a move on is by bribery,

'and one may bribe the wrong people till one finds one's way about.'

Perhaps her highness could co-ordinate with us,

if she prefers to sponsor another hospital?

After all, we have paid for it all!

Her highness does not currently possess any other means

of attending the opera. The season has just begun.

I despair of this country!

If the Russians were not our allies, I should feel inclined to say that

nothing would do them so much good as a year or two of German conquest.

I was on my way through the no-man's-land.

I had to stop, where was the English line?

Where was the German?

I was lost, and had no idea what to do.

Suddenly, I heard whispers.

Are they English, are they German?

If they are English, I could get another medal for a daring assault.

If they're Germans, I could be shot down by my own men

if I were to jump up.

My name is Ernst Junger and I am 21 years old.

I volunteered for military service. It wasn't so much that

I was inspired by the nationalist hysteria, but more that

I simply wanted to escape the school that I hated so much.

I like this war, in a strange kind of way.

I was sent to the front in France, as a simple soldier.

Today I'm a Leutnant,

a Prussian officer.

I'd call that career progress,

even if it's mainly the result of our high attrition rate.

Nobody dies faster than the young Leutnants

who lead their men into battle,

or defend the trenches against enemy attack.

MEN ROAR

THEY LAUGH

My men were sure that I was wounded, and decided to go look for me,

in spite of enemy fire.

EXPLOSIONS

Artillery incoming!

Come now, sir, we mustn't miss our men's great offensive.

I don't see a periscope anywhere here, Montague.

Oh, we don't need a periscope.

Follow me.

Is this in any way safe?

Let's find out!

Come along, sir!

'Miles and miles of our front begin to dance with smoke

'and twinkling and shimmering flashes.

'You cannot conceive the completeness of destruction.

'And yet, shellfire

'gives me a mental stimulus

'that nothing else does.'

Are you trying to get us killed?

'Sometimes I think it would be a fine thing to be killed in this war.'

You're mad, Montague! Come back down here now!

'Alas, I do believe I could make quite a decent subsistence

'after the war by taking millionaire Americans

'round the battlefield for the rest of my life.'

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

'Of course, I could quite gladly have let Leutnant Waldecker kiss me.

'Very gladly.

'I was such a silly goose.'

What exactly were you thinking during this mission, Montague?!

I could have you court-martialled.

Surely one goes to the theatre to see the play,

not to enjoy the intervals between the acts.

But not within reach of enemy guns!

Last week, I read in a respectable London newspaper...

I could have been killed!

..that the British people as a whole

would give their lives to secure a victory.

Pull yourself together, the man has connections at the War Office,

and he could cause us some serious trouble!

Mr Collingridge, sir, you are living proof of it!

I'm honoured to have met you.

Bravo.

HE CRIES OUT IN GERMAN

'We had been on this train for nearly two months now.

'Buying our food was difficult.

'My hand was still in a sling.'

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

I had eight kronen hidden in a small pouch hanging from around my neck.

It was soaked with blood.

The Russians must have thought it was something sacred

for they never tried to take it.

One night, I suddenly needed to do something.

It was as if the Holy Spirit had taken possession of me,

lit me on fire.

I was exalted. God was in me!

I went to the sick, laid my hands on them

and stared them straight in the eyes.

HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

The barrage has grown to a fever pitch.

The ground is shaking, the sky is like a witch's cauldron.

There are hundreds of heavy batteries -

countless shells crisscross above us.

My ears are about to burst.

MAN WAILS

I'm not afraid to die,

but if I have to die, then at least let it be in a fight,

man to man. Not like an insect accidentally stepped on by a boot.

MEN CRY OUT

When will the next shell come and bury me?

Bury me alive?

It was a stomach-churning wait.

Dear Lord, please save me.

If only I could daydream and not think about death,

but wretched thoughts keep running around inside my head.

I can no longer think, I am no longer alive,

I can no longer write, I can no longer read.

I no longer believe in anything!

I dread being asleep more than awake,

as my dreams are so frightful.

I lay and trembled.

All fear of shells and explosions had left me.

I watched them as calmly as one would watch

an apple fall off a tree, with tears pouring down my face.

SHE COUGHS

I felt no pain, except a dull ache in my right arm.

Turning my head, I could see the chevron on my left shoulder...

..the rest of me was buried in the earth.

SHE SOBS

How long had I lain there unconscious?

Two or three hours, perhaps?

It was very quiet,

only the distant roar of guns told me that the advance had swept on.

And I was completely alone.

HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

Written on the transfer paper was,

"Corporal Vincenzo D'Aquila,

"committed for observation and confinement

"in the Civil Provincial Mental Institution of Udine.

"His ranting about peace make him a danger to himself and to others."

WOLVES HOWL

A dismal answer came to me across the darkness.

It was the howling of wolves,

hunting along the edges of the night.

They seemed to be coming nearer,

and I could do nothing but scrabble at the earth

in the hope of covering up my face so that they would not find me.

Gradually the fear disappeared,

and gave way to a drowsiness that was the beginning of death.

My eyes told me without surprise

that some stars had clambered down from the sky

and were bobbing up and down at the edge of my hole.

HE SPEAKS RUSSIAN

The stars had voices.

'And so, my journey continued alone.

'In Yerevan, a city of 30,000 inhabitants,

'there are as many as 17,000 Armenian refugees.

'Since the war broke out I think I have seen

'the actual breaking of a wave of anguish

'which has swept over the world.

'I often wonder if I can feel much more,

'but these human beings I now see for myself,

'pitiful remnants of a massacre -

'only old women and children, mind you...

'..all the men are killed.'

That morning we saw a terrible sight.

By the side of the road lay the bodies of many girls.

They had been beheaded or their stomachs slashed open.

Some were still alive, and had been left, naked, to die.

Every girl was nailed alive to a cross.

Nails had been driven through their hands and feet.

Only their brown hair, blowing in the wind,

covered their bodies.

Other men had their hands tied behind their back

and were rolled down steep cliffs.

Women were waiting below with knives.

They stabbed those who had been rolled down

until they were dead.

The soldiers picked up the women like sacks,

set their skirts on fire and threw them down the cliff.

There were screams everywhere.

I jumped off quickly.

Bleeding and trembling I crept away

and lost consciousness.

The hillside was covered with half-naked

and still bleeding bodies.

Fathers, brothers, sons and grandsons

lay as they fell from the bullets.

Flocks of vultures were picking the eyes out of the dead and dying.

Why is nobody helping?

Why is nobody doing anything?

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

'I pictured his face,

'his bright eyes, his cheeky laugh,

'blond strands of hair under his slanted cap.

'It's all been shattered, burst apart,

'blood-smeared,

'his skull in pieces?'

This area used to have meadows and forests and fields of wheat.

Now nothing remains.

Nothing at all.

Not a blade of grass anywhere,

not one single blade.

Every square millimetre of ground had been churned up again

and again, the trees uprooted,

destroyed and ground to mulch.

The houses blown away,

rocks ground to dust,

mountains flattened.

In short, everything was now desert.

The lists of our losses have come in.

It won't be easy to explain this defeat to the readers back at home.

Well, you are a journalist, Montague.

There cannot and simply will not be a defeat.

Understood?

A journalist informs the public, sir.

He does not lie to his readers.

Well then, it's time you became a war correspondent.

The truth?

Should we all just give up and go home?

Try to be reasonable, Montague.

Moreover, General Headquarters is still firmly convinced

that victory is imminent.

'On the very first day, the offensive has already cost the lives

'of 20,000 of our men.

'Nevertheless, there has not been any breakthrough

'of the German lines at any point.

'The number of dead and injured is so high

'that we no longer allow the lists of our losses to be published.

'And the death continues.

'Day after day.

'Of my old battalion only two officers

'and some 80 men are left.

'Not to be with them feels somewhat like a betrayal on my part -

'to be alive while they perish.

'If we, outside the trenches,

'bore what men in the trenches do,

'the war would be over at once.'

'I bought a rose.

'Roses are very expensive now.

'I used the last of my money.

'But it's all I can do for Werner Waldecker now.

'I ask you, God, do you really resurrect every dead soldier,

'so that they are not lost,

'every dead Englishman, Frenchman, Russian, Slav, Turk

'and, of course, German?'

'My own losses are almost stupefying

'and something dead within myself looks with sightless eyes on death.

'With groping hands I touch it sometimes...

'..and then I know I am dead also.

'I should like to have "left the party" -

'quitted the feast of life when all was gay and amusing.

'I would have been sorry to come away...

'..but it would have been far better than

'being left till all the lights are out.'

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS