To Arms The First World War

Kosutnjak Park, outside the Serbian capital, Belgrade.

In May 1914, a Bosnian student, Gavrilo Princip,

came here with a Browning pistol for some target practice.

Princip was 19 years old.

According to his instructor, he was not a very good shot.

Other students were more confident.

When Princip missed the target, people would laugh at him.

That would drive him to tears.

In the forest he had a chance to get his eye in, shooting at trees.

His ultimate goal was far more ambitious.

I am an adherent of the radical anarchist idea,

which aims at destroying the present system through terrorism.

In 1914, Princip's wish was granted.

The First World War began almost by accident. It ended just as strangely.

In between, it was more destructive than any war had ever been.

More British, French and Italian soldiers died in the First World War

than died in the Second.

It was the first genuinely global conflict,

fought not just on the fields of France and Flanders,

but up mountains, across deserts, at sea and in the air.

The First World War shaped the 20th century,

it sparked the Russian Revolution,

it launched America as a world power.

The fault lines from its failed peace settlement

led the world to a second terrible war 20 years later,

then to the Cold War.

But the ideas the men of 1914 fought for still shape our world today -

nationalism and democracy, the rule of international law

and the rights of nations.

Now, after the collapse of communism,

the European map resembles the one redrawn by the First World War.

We live with its unresolved, bitter consequences,

in the Middle East and the Balkans.

And it was in the Balkans that it all began nearly 100 years ago.

At the start of the 20th century, as at its close,

the Balkans were the most unstable part of Europe.

Three great empires fought for power and influence -

the Austro-Hungarian, the Russian and the Ottoman.

For hundreds of years the Ottoman Turks had the upper hand.

Serbia, Bosnia, Albania were under their control.

They built over 80 mosques in Serbian Belgrade,

but by the 1900s only this one was left.

Serbia had thrown the Turks out

and set herself up as an independent Slav kingdom.

IMAM CHANTS

But on Serbia's border was an even greater challenge

to Slav nationalism - the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The Turks of the South have gone, but new enemies come from the North,

more fearsome and dangerous than the old.

They want to take our freedom and our language from us and crush us.

Gavrilo Princip was born in a poor, mountainous part of Bosnia.

His house was destroyed in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

His initials, carved in 1909, are one of the few signs he ever lived here.

The year before, control of Bosnia had been wrested from the Turks

by the Austro-Hungarians - the enemy Princip wanted to destroy.

His particular target was the heir to the throne, Franz Ferdinand,

member of the ruling family, the Hapsburgs.

That extraordinary empire known as the Austrian-Hungarian dual monarchy

is less an empire or a kingdom or a state

than the personal property of the Hapsburgs,

whose hereditary talent for the acquisition of land

is recorded on the map of Europe today.

The empire was ruled by Franz Ferdinand's uncle, Franz Josef.

He sat on two thrones - as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary.

By 1914, he'd been in charge for 66 years.

He'd spent them trying to resist change of any kind.

Hardly seen out of military uniform,

he hated the idea of political reform.

As he told US President Theodore Roosevelt,

"You see in me the last European monarch of the old school."

Austria-Hungary was a key part of European security,

a multinational empire keeping the peace on the borders of the West.

The capital, Vienna,

was one of the great cosmopolitan centres of Europe.

This was the empire that produced Freud and Mahler,

Schiele, Kafka and Strauss.

It contained at least ten different nationalities.

Not just Austrians and Hungarians, but Czechs, Slovaks,

Poles, Romanians, Italians, Croats and Bosnians.

A British Foreign Office guide was prepared to work out who was who.

Teutons - anti-Slav, vigorous...

Very wooden and hard-headed, shy and suspicious, close-fisted...

Very tall, big noses...

Slovaks - ignorant but artistic...

Ruthenes - savage and ignorant but musical...

Czechs - energetic, forceful...

But it was also an empire in a state of constant crisis.

Poles - all for Polish independence.

Bosnian Serbs - pro-Yugoslav.

Italians - anti-Austrian.

In the empire, only the Hungarians and Austrians had any power,

and the Hungarians refused to share it with the rest.

For countries like Serbia,

Austria-Hungary was the prison of nations,

a repressive, undemocratic state that ground small peoples under its heel.

In 1905, there were nationalist demonstrations in Vienna.

HUBBUB

GLASS SHATTERS

In 1912, there was rioting in Budapest.

By 1914, there'd been ethnic unrest

in nearly every part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Local parliaments were suspended, troops brought in to restore order.

Austria-Hungary's domestic problems gave opportunities to her enemies.

BIRDSONG

Serbia wanted the break-up of the empire.

She welcomed national unrest, particularly in Croatia and Bosnia.

Backed by Slav Russia, Serbia saw herself as the only independent hope

for Slavs living under foreign rule in the Balkans.

She wanted to unite them into a single south-Slav state - Yugoslavia.

Dragutin Dimitrijevic was an officer in the Serbian army.

He opposed any kind of friendship with Austria.

The blind surrender to Austria's embrace

was a most shameful betrayal of Serbian traditions.

I realise that Serbia must in full measure become the leader

not only of Serbs, but of Yugoslavia.

Dimitrijevic believed killing kings could bring political change -

it had worked for him in the past.

In 1903, he led a palace revolution, killing the old king of Serbia -

who was too close to Austria for the army's liking

and installing a new one.

The crowds expressed enormous joy.

They stuck flowers and leaves in their caps,

windows were decorated with banners, flowers, garlands.

Belgrade was celebrating.

CHEERING

The rest of the world was horrified at Serbia's bloody coup.

Serbia was treated like a rogue state.

"A nest of revolutionaries," one foreign minister complained.

Only two countries sent ambassadors to King Peter's coronation -

Russia, Serbia's greatest ally, and Austria, her greatest enemy.

Dimitrijevic was also one of the founding members of the Black Hand,

the secret military society that used terrorism and assassination

to try and establish Yugoslavia.

He is said to have sent men

to murder Austro-Hungarian military leaders and ministers.

He allegedly tried to kill Emperor Franz Josef.

One saw him nowhere. Yet one knew he was doing everything.

By the spring of 1914, Gavrilo Princip was also in Belgrade,

talking revolution with his friends.

VIOLIN PLAYS

Then the young Bosnians heard that Archduke Franz Ferdinand

would visit Sarajevo in June.

Here was their chance to match deeds to words.

Luckily for them,

their plans reached the ears of Dimitrijevic and the Black Hand.

Dimitrijevic worked in the Kalemegdan fortress in Belgrade

as chief of Serbian military intelligence.

In the spring of 1914, Major Voja Tankosic, also in the Black Hand,

walked into his office with a question.

I've got some Bosnian youths pestering me.

They want to pull off some great deed at any cost.

They've heard that Franz Ferdinand is coming to Bosnia

and begged me to let them go there. What do YOU say?

I've told them they cannot go but they give me no peace.

Franz Ferdinand was going to Bosnia

to observe the Austro-Hungarian army's manoeuvres

in the hills outside Sarajevo.

As intelligence chief, Dimitrijevic feared these manoeuvres

were a smoke screen,

that what Franz Ferdinand really planned was an invasion of Serbia.

HOOVES RUMBLE

As leader of the Black Hand,

he believed anything that destabilised Austria-Hungary

was good for his beloved Serbia.

Princip's plan to murder Franz Ferdinand suited him perfectly.

"Fine," he said. "Let him go."

Unlike Gavrilo Princip,

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was an excellent shot.

One of his castles, Konopischt, in what is now the Czech Republic,

is full of the evidence.

By the age of 50, he'd shot 5,000 stags,

as well as 200,000 other animals, all carefully numbered.

Anyone who disturbed the Archduke's peace by trespassing on his land,

as unsuspecting trippers sometimes did on Sundays,

had to reckon with being shouted at

by an irascible and almost apoplectic proprietor,

who threatened to shoot anyone

who dared set foot in his grounds a second time.

By 1914, Franz Ferdinand was emperor-in-waiting.

Everyone knew it couldn't be long before his uncle died.

Even the official portrait was ready -

Franz Ferdinand with the stars and sash only the emperor could wear.

He had no time for the etiquette and convention

that hemmed in the Vienna court.

He defied his uncle by marrying Sophie Chotek,

who was not of royal blood.

The most intelligent thing I've ever done in my life

has been the marriage to my Sophe.

She is everything to me -

my wife, my adviser, my doctor, my guardian angel.

In a word, my entire happiness.

Franz Ferdinand also had radical ideas for political reform.

He recognised that the less power national minorities had,

within the empire, the more they'd look to other countries for help.

The old system allowed ethnic Germans and Hungarians

to dominate the government.

It was a system that couldn't last.

I can't help being surprised

that there is any loyalty left among the nationalities

after their treatment for so many years.

I must have them with me. This is the only salvation for the future.

In 1914, the German emperor came to stay with Franz Ferdinand

at Konopischt.

The Kaiser had a solution for dealing with troublesome national minorities.

The Slavs are born not to rule but to obey.

This must be brought home to them.

If they imagine they can look to Belgrade for their salvation,

they must be cured of this belief.

But Franz Ferdinand had a better idea.

He thought political reform

was the best way to keep the multinational Austrian Empire

on its feet and protect his own future as emperor.

He had this map drawn up,

showing how the Hapsburg Empire could become

the United States of Great Austria.

Above all, Franz Ferdinand wanted to avoid war in the Balkans.

One night he made a toast after dinner.

To peace! What would we get out of war with Serbia?

We'd lose the lives of young men and spend money better used elsewhere.

What would we gain, for heaven's sake?

A few plum trees, some pastures full of goat droppings

and a bunch of rebellious killers.

Gavrilo Princip crossed from Serbia into Austria-Hungary,

here at the Drina River.

He paddled out to Isakovic Island, where there was a Serbian guard post.

The soldiers helped him wade ashore into Bosnia.

From here he made his way to Sarajevo,

where he met up with six others in on the plot.

The Serbian major, Tankosic, had supplied them with four pistols,

six bombs, and suicide pills in case of capture.

They were already in Sarajevo

when Franz Ferdinand arrived outside the capital on 25th June.

They planned to attack him three days later

as he drove from the railway station to the town hall.

One would be stationed at the first bridge on this road,

Princip and the others would cover the rest of the route.

Franz Ferdinand chose the date of his visit badly.

Sarajevo was decked in flags for the occasion,

for the 28th June was Serbian National Day -

a focus for hatred of the Hapsburgs,

as the Serbian ambassador to Vienna warned.

This will cause much discontent.

Some young Serb might put a live round

rather than a blank in his gun and fire it.

It might be good if Archduke Franz Ferdinand

were not to go to Sarajevo.

But the Austrians laughed off the ambassador's fears.

On the morning of 28th June,

Franz Ferdinand and Sophie arrived by train in Sarajevo.

Despite the warnings, security was light.

No soldiers lined the streets, just a handful of policemen.

The royal car was a Graf & Stift tourer.

At Franz Ferdinand's request,

it travelled with the top down, very slowly,

so the crowds could see him and he could see the sights.

As the procession passed the first bridge,

the conspirator there threw his bomb.

Sitting opposite the royal couple was Oskar Potiorek.

The explosion came immediately after the Archduchess' cry

to drive on quickly.

I was sure no damage had been done to our car

and the Archduke commented very calmly,

"I've always thought something like this might happen."

The bomb had bounced off the car,

exploding behind it and wounding two officers and some onlookers.

Franz Ferdinand stopped to ask after the casualties,

before hurrying on to the town hall.

There, the Mayor of Sarajevo began his welcome speech.

The Archduke interrupted.

"Lord Mayor, what is the good of speeches?

"I come to Sarajevo on a friendly visit

"and someone throws a bomb at me. This is outrageous!"

So far the young Bosnians' plans had gone badly wrong -

Franz Ferdinand was alive, official security was now on high alert.

Gavrilo Princip turned to go home,

stopping on the corner of Franz Josef Street to buy a sandwich.

Then his luck changed.

Franz Ferdinand had left the town hall.

He should've been driven along the river,

travelling too fast to give any other assassins a chance,

but his driver took a wrong turn, at the corner of Franz Josef Street.

As the royal car tried to reverse onto the main road,

Princip came face to face with his target.

I heard the crack of a pistol shot,

followed swiftly by another,

and saw in the same split second a man standing in front of me

being thrown to the ground by the people around him

and the shining sabre of a security guard descending on him.

A stream of blood spurted from

His Highness's mouth on to my right cheek.

The Duchess cried out, "In heaven's name, what has happened to you?"

Then she slid off the seat and lay on the floor of the car.

I thought she had simply fainted.

Then I heard His Imperial Highness say,

"Sopher, Sopher! Don't die! Stay alive for the children!"

I asked him if he was in great pain.

He answered me quite distinctly, "It's nothing."

Franz Ferdinand and Sophie died on the way to hospital.

WINGS FLAP

The people of Sarajevo didn't know

Serbian army officers had secretly sponsored the assassination,

but they made the same leap the world did -

that Serbia had as good as pulled the trigger herself.

The pro-Austrian element in the crowd went wild.

The excitement of the moment turned into fury against

everyone and everything Serbian.

Serbian shops, schools and churches were smashed and looted,

the streets choked with furniture, clothes, bicycles, books,

even icons and crosses, twisted and befouled,

lying in heaps in the gutters.

Over 200 Serbs were arrested in Sarajevo alone.

Local officials hanged some in the city prison.

Many more died in pogroms across Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The funeral of Franz Ferdinand and Sophie

was held in Vienna on 4th July.

Oskar Potiorek had written to the Foreign Ministry,

calling for Austria-Hungary to take revenge against Serbia.

We must take the first opportunity for a destructive blow

against Serbia,

to give the monarchy a few decades of calm internal development.

Serbia must learn to fear us again.

Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff Conrad von Hotzendorf agreed.

This is not the crime of a single fanatic,

assassination represents

Serbia's declaration of war on Austria-Hungary.

If we miss this occasion,

the monarchy will be exposed to new explosions of ethnic unrest.

Austria-Hungary must wage war, for political reasons.

In life, the crown prince had been a champion of

peaceful coexistence with Serbia.

In death, he was becoming a cause for war.

The murder of Franz Ferdinand did not immediately set Europe alight,

international tensions in early July remained low.

But, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary's leaders were planning

how to take revenge on Serbia

without getting stamped on by Serbia's powerful friends.

Even before the assassination, army Chief of Staff Conrad von Hotzendorf

had pressed for war against Serbia no fewer than 20 times.

Now he made his case again.

I expressed to His Majesty my opinion

that war with Serbia was unavoidable.

"That is entirely correct..." said His Majesty,

"..but how are you going to wage war

"if everyone, in particular Russia, is going to attack us?"

"We have backing from Germany," I replied.

His Majesty gave me a searching look and said,

"Can you be certain of that?"

This was the moment when what could have been just another

war in the Balkans

began to turn into the First World War.

Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef

now asked the German Kaiser for support.

On 6th July, he got the answer he wanted.

The German government is of the opinion that WE must decide

what is to be done.

We may always be certain that we will find Germany at our side,

a faithful ally and friend of our monarchy.

Germany's decision to back Austria

was made with no care for the consequences.

Neither the Kaiser nor his political and military leaders

took any steps to find out what Austria-Hungary had in mind.

It was an extraordinary oversight,

because nothing in the Balkans happened in isolation.

Europe was divided into two camps.

On one side were Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.

On the other were France and Russia.

War with one could mean war with the others.

No-one knew how Russia would respond

if one of the leading Balkan countries was attacked.

She might go to war with Austria to protect Serbia,

then Germany would have to fight to protect Austria.

DISPARATE VOICES

The Germans thought the Russians might stay out of it.

Germany's ambassador in St Petersburg

insisted Russia couldn't risk war for fear of internal revolution.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

The German foreign minister decided Austria would settle with Serbia.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

The German chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg, was almost as confident.

The crime of Sarajevo was reprehensible,

but politically it would have the positive results

of making Russia thoroughly disgusted with the Serbs.

THEY TALK IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

It was Germany's confident support that pushed Austria forward.

But far from plunging the world into war in 1914 out of aggression,

Germany was nudging it closer out of incompetence and wishful thinking.

The Kaiser was so sure no war was brewing that he went on holiday.

THEY TALK IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE

In Sarajevo, the trial of Gavrilo Princip was under way.

The court heard evidence to prove Serbian army officers had helped him,

and with Germany's unconditional support, that was enough for Austria.

She sentenced Princip to 20 years in jail, where he died in 1918.

She sent Serbia an ultimatum.

This document was Austria's excuse for war.

Its demands were so extreme and insulting,

Serbia could never accept them.

But just in case they did, the Austrian ambassador in Belgrade

was ordered to reject any reply as unacceptable.

He delivered the ultimatum at 6pm on 23rd July 1914.

Slavka Mihajlovic was a Belgrade doctor.

The news of the ultimatum spread quickly

and soon there was a real alert.

Streets and bars were crowded with anxious people.

Everybody wondered what answer our government would give,

whether a new war would be avoided.

Austria's ultimatum caught the world's diplomats napping.

The French government, the French press and public opinion

have been inconceivably surprised. Paris is almost dead.

All the ambassadors but one are out of town.

The Italian ambassador is in Ireland.

The Kaiser was on his yacht in Norway

when the text of the Austrian ultimatum arrived.

DOG BARKS

The Kaiser arrived on deck as usual after breakfast

and said to me - I was still holding the wireless message -

"That's a pretty strong note, for once in a while."

"It certainly is," I replied, "but it means war."

Whereupon the Kaiser observed that Serbia would never risk a war.

She might not have risked it on her own

but on 24th July the Serbian regent, Prince Alexander,

telegrammed Russia for help.

In St Petersburg, the Russian foreign minister

spoke frankly to the British ambassador.

Austria would not have acted so aggressively

without the consent of Germany.

I hope the British Government

will declare itself on the side of France and Russia without delay.

Russia was convinced that Germany was warmongering.

On 26th July, she called up her reserves.

This was the second key stage of the crisis,

as Britain's foreign secretary, Edward Grey, warned on the 28th.

From the moment the dispute ceases to be one

between Austria-Hungary and Serbia

and becomes one in which another great power is involved,

it cannot but end in the greatest catastrophe

that has ever befallen the continent of Europe.

Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia that same day.

The first shots of the war were fired from here,

the Austrian fortress of Zemun, just across the river from Belgrade.

In the dead of night, Major Voya Tankosic

had the Black Hand blow up the only railway bridge.

Windows shattered to smithereens

and broken glass covered the floor.

Patients started screaming.

Then there was another explosion and another one.

SHELLS EXPLODE

So it was true. The war had begun.

EXPLOSIONS

How well our city deserved the name the Turks gave her -

the House of Wars.

Shells fired from all sides were crisscrossing above her.

The Austrians had peculiar weapons, so-called monitors -

little boats armed with heavy guns circling Belgrade like rabid dogs

and firing from every direction.

It was still only a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia.

And on 29th July, as the shells fell on Belgrade,

there was a final attempt to keep it that way -

a series of last-minute telegrams flashed across Europe,

Tsar to Kaiser, cousin to cousin.

Dear Willie,

An ignoble war has been declared

on a weak country. The indignation in Russia is enormous...

Dear Nicky, I am exerting my utmost influence on the Austrians...

Dear Willie, My troops shall not take any provocative action.

But by now the crisis was beyond the control of monarchs or politicians.

It was in the hands of the military.

From the moment Russia mobilised her army,

German generals knew their own clock was ticking.

RHYTHMIC MARCHING

The French and Russian alliance meant Germany faced a war on two fronts.

Her only hope was to deal with France

before the main Russian armies could invade from the East.

That left no time to wait and see.

For Germany, Russian mobilisation meant war.

RHYTHMIC MARCHING

Germany hadn't looked for a fight.

Her generals knew a war would be long and devastating,

even for the victors.

But, if it was going to happen, they thought, "Better sooner than later."

RHYTHMIC MARCHING

According to more competent observation,

Russia will be prepared to fight in a few years.

Then she will crush us by the number of her soldiers,

then she will have built her Baltic sea fleet and strategic railways.

Our side, meanwhile, will have grown steadily weaker.

On 1st August, Germany declared war on Russia.

Two days later she declared war on Russia's ally, France.

Across Europe, ten million men headed off to fight.

For all the bands and flag-waving, many went unwillingly to war.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

Where are we off to? France? Belgium? Or the East?

At the station people waved goodbye, some with handkerchiefs.

I thought of my wife and child, left alone at home.

Not so much a thought as a fearful shadow flitting over my soul.

STEAM ENGINE HISSES

God! How long is this town?

My bayonet's digging in, my collar's strangling me.

When I look up I see a pretty girl.

She is so full of admiration, so moved by it,

I realise we have to look handsome and walk tall.

Off we march to the sound of shrill brass,

although where we're going you die, you're defaced, hacked, torn apart.

All down the line my comrades straighten up at the sight of her.

There's great excitement among my comrades.

Bachelors are calm, even joking about it.

Family men are depressed. Some say we'll get nothing from this war,

we'll get beaten by the Germans.

What's in it for us peasant soldiers?

Why have we got to fight for some offended Serbs?

The leaders had little better idea why they were fighting.

They had no lists of war aims.

Germany and Austria, Serbia, Russia and France

were convinced they were fighting a defensive war,

forced on them by someone else.

The only great power in Europe still on the sidelines was Britain.

On 2nd August 1914, Britain was still at peace, but only just.

We've been in a state of excitement as reservists are called up,

all the railways guarded.

Everything points to the Great War, so long expected, being upon us.

Britain was the only power not to claim she was a victim of aggression.

Nobody had attacked her, so why should she fight?

It wasn't to defend the rights of small nations.

At least, not Serbia, according to The Manchester Guardian.

If it were possible for Serbia to be towed out to sea

and sunk there,

the air of Europe would at once seem cleaner.

Nor was Britain bound by treaties,

as the Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, assured Parliament.

We are not parties to the Franco-Russian alliance.

We do not even know the terms of the alliance.

But in private, Grey and other leaders knew Britain had to fight.

If Britain stayed neutral,

the war would still threaten the country's vast empire,

its global trade and security.

Britain needed to stay on friendly terms with France and Russia.

Even in peacetime, she was not powerful enough

to defend her empire against everyone.

In Africa and India, the safety of Britain's colonies

depended on French and Russian goodwill.

In 1914, Britain feared her friends just as much as her enemies.

If we fail Russia, we cannot hope to maintain her cooperation in Asia

that is of such vital importance to us.

Britain could not afford Europe dominated by a triumphant Germany.

If Germany overran the Channel ports,

Britain's control of the seas would be under threat.

Prime Minister Herbert Asquith took a pragmatic view.

It is quite against British interests

that France should be wiped out.

At 11pm on 4th August, Britain declared war on Germany.

It was like the pulling of a lever,

hurling millions to their doom.

The deep notes of Big Ben rang out into the night -

the first strokes in Britain's most fateful hour

since she arose out of the deep.

Every face was suddenly contracted into a painful intensity.

BELL TOLLS

It's horrible to think of the suffering that follows mobilisation.

I suppose the less one thinks of it, the better.

We never talk of death and very seldom think about it.

It's when everyone is asleep and you are awake

that sometimes you look into the future and wonder.

The British Government's War Book

listed all that had to be done in an emergency.

The country's leaders knew war would be a long, painful struggle,

a slow, grinding process of blockade, of starving the enemy out.

But most civilians had no idea what they were getting into.

Across Europe, there was a run on the banks.

"The war couldn't last longer than a year..."

the French finance minister told a British general.

"..because the money to pay for it will run out."

HUBBUB

Most people expected Britain, with the largest navy in the world,

to fight a sea war.

The Foreign Secretary reassured the nation.

For us, with a fleet we believe able to protect our commerce,

to protect our shores and to protect our interests,

if we are engaged in war,

we shall suffer but little more than we shall suffer if we stand aside.

HUBBUB

Bert Fielder was a sergeant in the Royal Marines.

He reassured his wife.

My dear Nell,

I don't think this war is going to be half as bad

as people expect it to be.

You see, it's not a hard job for England

so there's no need to worry yourself.

As long as I can keep you informed as to where I am

it'll all be all right.

But the weapons with which the world went to war were so new

that few had ever been fired in anger.

Countries had battleships and submarines less then ten years old.

Nobody really knew how to use them.

All the European powers had stockpiled new artillery -

machine guns, explosive shells.

But none had fought a major war in Europe for over 40 years.

HORSE WHINNIES

The crisis had begun in the Balkans.

As the Austrians faced up to the Serbs,

the war started here as it would go on everywhere else -

a war in which old scores would be settled

and the rule book thrown away.

The war is taking us into a country inhabited by a population

inspired with fanatical hatred towards ourselves.

An attitude of extreme severity, extreme harshness and distrust

is to be observed towards everybody.

In some sectors, Serbian civilians did fight a guerrilla war,

not in uniform, not in the regular army.

It was hard for the Austrians to tell who was a real enemy, who was not.

But their reprisals against the Serbian people were vicious.

This was a war of nationalities and races.

Not just against an enemy army, but against whole peoples.

In the first month of the war,

4,000 civilians in western Serbia were killed or disappeared.

They burnt houses down, looted, raped, killed.

17 people, all women, girls, children tied with rope,

dead in a ditch by the road.

All of them slaughtered.

At 9am I went to Lezhnitsa to get some supplies for the battery.

In the town you could see the atrocities left by the enemy.

Ten people, some children among them,

had been hanged near the church.

About 100 people, their throats cut, at the railway station.

A terrible sight to cast your eyes on.

BIRDSONG

At the Serbian town of Prnjavor, this memorial commemorates

those who died.

The Serbian government commissioned a report into the massacres

by Swiss doctor, Rodolphe Reiss.

The massacres of the civil population

were systematically organised by the command of the invading army.

It's upon the command that all responsibility must rest,

and also the disgrace

with which this army has covered itself for all time.

Austria-Hungary was far less ruthless when fighting the Serbian army.

That, too, set a pattern for the war, a foretaste of the military weakness

which dogged Austria-Hungary's partnership with Germany.

This was a war in which events on one front

could have a critical effect on another.

RHYTHMIC MARCHING

Germany was relying on her ally, Austria-Hungary,

to hold the eastern front.

With Russia massing on her borders,

Germany was horrified to learn Austria had concentrated her reserves

down in the Balkans, to deal with Serbia.

Meanwhile, the main Serbian army had marched up from the south,

gathering numbers as it went.

On 12th August, it finally met the Austrians, at Cer mountain.

The Serbs had taken up defensive positions along the mountain range

and waited for the Austrians to walk into the trap.

The Serbs surrounded us.

The Serbian artillery had the range perfectly.

Unluckily, we were told by officers,

we had arrived at the Serbian artillery practice area.

Laughable!

SHELLS EXPLODE

The Serbs easily beat off the Austro-Hungarian attack.

We could see the enemy retreating along the river.

Their ammunition train left their carts in the valley

and ran away when they were hit by our artillery.

A beaten army? No.

An uncontrolled mob ran towards the border in senseless panic.

Drivers whipped their horses. Officers and soldiers

shoved and squeezed through between the columns of wagons.

Austro-Hungarian prisoners were captured in the first allied victory.

Austria had thought Serbia would be a pushover,

swift revenge for Franz Ferdinand's murder,

but Serbia had scattered the Austrian army.

The victories of 1914 cost Serbia 130,000 men.

"They did not die in vain" reads this inscription to Serbia's dead.

Every nation would learn that nothing in this war would be easy,

quick or clean.

On the western front, a French ambulance driver wrote to his son -

Do you ever think of your daddy,

walking day and night over ploughed fields

and getting very used to shells exploding all over the place?

I'd really like to hear from you.

How's school? Don't be too quick to learn the geography of Europe,

I think it's all about to change.

In the next episode of The First World War,

German armies roll into Belgium and France,

leaving a trail of atrocities.

And France, aided by Britain, fights for her life.