0:01:20 > 0:01:24The Western Front, January 1917.
0:01:24 > 0:01:28The hopes of men lay frozen in the grip of winter -
0:01:28 > 0:01:31one of the coldest in living memory.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38A British war correspondent wrote,
0:01:38 > 0:01:46"The snow gave a beauty, even to no-man's land. Lying softly over the tumbled ground of mine fields.
0:01:46 > 0:01:52"So that all the ugliness and destruction and death was hidden under this canopy.
0:01:52 > 0:01:59"The snowflakes fluttered upon stark bodies there and shrouded them tenderly.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03"It was as though all the doves of peace were flying down to fold
0:02:03 > 0:02:06"their wings above the obscene things of war."
0:02:19 > 0:02:23The cold imposed a defiant cheerfulness.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27Keeping warm became a major preoccupation.
0:02:30 > 0:02:36We slept in our clothes and our boots. We used to place our top boots under our bodies,
0:02:36 > 0:02:41because they used to be stiff in the morning - one couldn't get them on.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45The weather then was very, very bitter.
0:02:45 > 0:02:50The ground was frozen hard. The hooves of a horse
0:02:50 > 0:02:55or the tread of a man's boot would linger for a month.
0:02:55 > 0:02:58And when we received our rations,
0:02:58 > 0:03:01the bread had to be sawn through,
0:03:01 > 0:03:03because you could see the ice in it.
0:03:06 > 0:03:09The sinews of war were paralysed by the cold.
0:03:09 > 0:03:15Boilers of railway engines froze solid, ships were trapped in ice,
0:03:15 > 0:03:20vehicles slithered to a halt, aircraft were grounded.
0:03:25 > 0:03:32The guns still fired, although accurate artillery observation was often impossible.
0:03:36 > 0:03:42"There was," wrote an onlooker, "something suggestive of tragic drama in this silent countryside,
0:03:42 > 0:03:47"where millions of men were waiting to kill each other."
0:03:52 > 0:03:59At the beginning of 1917, some 1,300,000 French men had been killed or were dead of wounds,
0:03:59 > 0:04:02or in prison, or missing.
0:04:02 > 0:04:06A loss of nearly one life for every minute of the war.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10The French army had forgotten how to smile.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15An old soldier summed up the French state of mind.
0:04:15 > 0:04:19"They had lost the habit of the sun.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22"They even feared the moonlight.
0:04:22 > 0:04:27"They had abandoned the red trousers and kepi of 1914
0:04:27 > 0:04:31"along with their illusions, and had put on horizon blue.
0:04:31 > 0:04:37"The blue of a horizon always dirty, dull, and without hope."
0:04:38 > 0:04:43Now the French soldiers were being asked for yet one more effort.
0:04:43 > 0:04:48They responded once again to a promise which brought fresh hope.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51General Robert Nivelle assured his army...
0:04:51 > 0:04:56"The rupture of the front is possible in 24 to 48 hours,
0:04:56 > 0:05:01"on condition it is with a single stroke and by a sudden attack."
0:05:01 > 0:05:06Nivelle was aiming at nothing less than an outright victory.
0:05:06 > 0:05:13As an army commander at Verdun, his tactics had been brilliantly successful on a small scale.
0:05:13 > 0:05:18But this attack involved a million men. It envisaged, in his words...
0:05:18 > 0:05:25"The destruction of the principal mass of the enemy armies on the western theatre by a battle
0:05:25 > 0:05:29"delivered with a considerable numerical superiority.
0:05:29 > 0:05:36"Breaking through the enemy's front in such a way that the breakthrough can be immediately exploited."
0:05:36 > 0:05:42The plan was to return to the French offensive doctrines of 1914.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46It was a plan with the simplicity of genius...
0:05:46 > 0:05:48or lunacy.
0:05:48 > 0:05:53General Nivelle was cultivated, plausible, intensely ambitious.
0:05:53 > 0:05:56He expressed himself ably.
0:05:56 > 0:06:03But British military leaders, aware now of the hazards of the Western Front, were sceptical of his plan.
0:06:03 > 0:06:09General Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, voiced their fears.
0:06:09 > 0:06:14"To Haig and myself, the plan seemed to have many fallacies.
0:06:14 > 0:06:21"A breach in the enemy defences on the scale contemplated couldn't be affected within 48 hours."
0:06:21 > 0:06:28Major Speirs, a liaison officer who understood the French army, had other misgivings.
0:06:28 > 0:06:35"The French army had suffered and fought too long. It was tired to death.
0:06:35 > 0:06:42"The light that had guided them receded as they advanced down the long, hopeless road of the war."
0:06:42 > 0:06:47Verdun, Champagne, Ypres, Artois, the Somme, the scarp -
0:06:47 > 0:06:52they were all just synonymous for suffering and death.
0:06:58 > 0:07:03Behind the lines too, the war had left deep scars.
0:07:04 > 0:07:09The heart of France was beating slower now, from loss of blood.
0:07:09 > 0:07:15From the agony of cumulative grief endured by so many parents,
0:07:15 > 0:07:20so many wives, so many hundreds of thousands of orphans.
0:07:26 > 0:07:33The assembling French army's new weapons and new tactics now offered new hope.
0:07:33 > 0:07:35The men were exhorted...
0:07:35 > 0:07:42"Keep moving - the infantry must be through the rear German positions seven hours after zero hour."
0:07:54 > 0:07:57And Nivelle insisted that...
0:07:57 > 0:08:04"The stamp of violence, of brutality and of rapidity, must characterise your offensive."
0:08:13 > 0:08:18Gradually the familiar round of preparations gathered momentum.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22As over a million men moved into the assembly areas,
0:08:22 > 0:08:26the spark of the Mons was rekindled.
0:08:26 > 0:08:31The Marseillaise was heard again on the march, as it had been in 1914.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34MARSEILLAISE PLAYS
0:08:54 > 0:08:59From French West Africa had come 35 battalions of Senegalese.
0:08:59 > 0:09:04Men with fierce courage, but unused to the cold of a northern winter.
0:09:04 > 0:09:11From the distant Urals and from Moscow had come two brigades of Russian troops.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14They received an ecstatic welcome.
0:09:20 > 0:09:27Now in France, in March 1917, they read in their newspapers of a revolution in Russia.
0:09:27 > 0:09:32The Tsar had abdicated. There was talk of peace.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36The Russian troops in France were a source of disaffection.
0:09:36 > 0:09:43They were divided among themselves. When on leave in Paris, they saw Russian revolutionary propaganda.
0:09:43 > 0:09:50They took a vote as to whether they should join in the offensive at all. They decided to fight.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53It was not a good omen.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56The Germans too had had a hard winter.
0:09:56 > 0:10:03They occupied haphazard trench lines that they were cast in by the ebbing tide of the Somme battles.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07Hindenburg told the German chancellor...
0:10:07 > 0:10:11"The military position can scarcely be worse than it is."
0:10:11 > 0:10:17Hindenburg's lieutenant, Ludendorff, predicted that if one of the allies did not collapse,
0:10:17 > 0:10:20Germany's defeat was inevitable.
0:10:20 > 0:10:27The probability of the allies breaking though in the west had worried Ludendorff since the Somme.
0:10:27 > 0:10:32Through winter he had been building a strong system of fortifications,
0:10:32 > 0:10:36running from Arras in the north to Soisson in the south.
0:10:36 > 0:10:43The Hindenburg line overlapped the sector which Nivelle was proposing to attack.
0:10:43 > 0:10:50It was not yet finished in February 1917, but under pressure from local British attacks in the north,
0:10:50 > 0:10:57and with expectation of the French offensive, Ludendorff ordered a withdrawal to the new line.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01In some places, 30 miles behind the original front.
0:11:03 > 0:11:08"The decision to retreat was not reached without a painful struggle.
0:11:08 > 0:11:14"It implied a confession of weakness that was bound to raise the morale of the enemy and lower our own."
0:11:14 > 0:11:19One night we were not shelled, and we wondered what had happened.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23Then we heard the old Hun, as we called him, was pulling out.
0:11:23 > 0:11:25He'd gone.
0:11:25 > 0:11:28And then we saw the cavalry come up.
0:11:28 > 0:11:32The Bengal Lancers trotted past - a wonderful sight.
0:11:32 > 0:11:39Rumours all around were, "Is he going? Is he packing up to go home?"
0:11:39 > 0:11:46Bit by bit we followed, our patrols went out - they had good rear guard action that they'd laid in advance.
0:11:46 > 0:11:53At last we got onto green fields, and roads that weren't shelled.
0:11:53 > 0:11:58All was virgin country, and we could gallop on the downs,
0:11:58 > 0:12:02we could see the hares and see the larks.
0:12:02 > 0:12:10After the months and months of utter brownness and chaos and everything going back into ruin,
0:12:10 > 0:12:14to see that open country again was marvellous.
0:12:14 > 0:12:21The German withdrawal was accompanied by an orgy of calculated destruction.
0:12:21 > 0:12:25Bridges were blown, roads mined, tracts of countryside flooded.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29Fruit trees in full bloom senselessly felled,
0:12:29 > 0:12:33wells poisoned, household objects booby-trapped.
0:12:33 > 0:12:40"Whole villages had been torn down by hand, evidently at the cost of immense labour.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45"It was as if the whole countryside had fallen into the hands of demons
0:12:45 > 0:12:51"who had vented their lust for destruction on these dwellings.
0:12:53 > 0:12:58"As the people grasped the fact that the Germans had really gone,
0:12:58 > 0:13:04"they crowded round us, tears of joy and gratitude running down their cheeks.
0:13:04 > 0:13:10"Many just wanted to touch us, to make sure that we were real.
0:13:10 > 0:13:17"Hardest to bear were the inquiries - the piteous questions about relatives and friends.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21"Their questions evoked unbearably the vision of wooden crosses.
0:13:21 > 0:13:29"Hundreds of thousands of little wooden crosses scattered from Switzerland to the North Sea."
0:13:31 > 0:13:36The Allied advance towards the Hindenburg line was painfully slow.
0:13:36 > 0:13:43The weather was atrocious, and the troops, accustomed to static trench warfare, moved as one man put it...
0:13:43 > 0:13:50"Like an army of moles suddenly ordered to disport themselves in the light of day."
0:13:54 > 0:14:00In France, as indeed in Britain, the German retreat was hailed as a great victory,
0:14:00 > 0:14:03and Nivelle claimed the laurels.
0:14:03 > 0:14:07- "Had- I- been able to command the German armies,
0:14:07 > 0:14:11"I couldn't have given them orders more favourable to my plan."
0:14:11 > 0:14:19Haig, whose army was to attack at Arras in support of Nivelle's offensive, took a different view.
0:14:19 > 0:14:24"The advisability of launching Nivelle's battle grows daily less.
0:14:24 > 0:14:32"The enemy has organised the area in the rear of the threatened front to enable his troops to slip away.
0:14:32 > 0:14:40"His object seems to be to disorganise our offensive by causing our attacks to be made in the air."
0:14:44 > 0:14:51Nivelle himself obstinately refused to admit that the German withdrawal had altered anything.
0:14:51 > 0:14:57"I don't fear numbers. The greater the numbers, the greater the victory."
0:14:57 > 0:15:02"He was like a man under a spell," wrote a British liaison officer.
0:15:02 > 0:15:10The German defences were wiped out in his imagination and he could see himself galloping in open country.
0:15:10 > 0:15:14Grave doubts now beset Nivelle's own generals.
0:15:14 > 0:15:22Petain, Franchet d'Esperey, Micheler - their misgivings were shared by the politicians.
0:15:22 > 0:15:27Like Painleve, the new Minister of War, and Ribot, the Prime Minister.
0:15:27 > 0:15:32But the politicians did not dare dismiss the commander in chief on the very eve of a great offensive.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35Already the British bombardment at Arras had begun.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49Among the men of Haig's armies, hopes ran high.
0:15:49 > 0:15:54They had a premonition that this time all would go well.
0:16:28 > 0:16:33On the eve of the attack, a trench raiding party was sent over
0:16:33 > 0:16:36to discover how effective the bombardment had proved.
0:17:28 > 0:17:35It reported that the first and second German lines were not recognisable as trenches.
0:17:35 > 0:17:39German prisoners spoke of "a symphony of hell."
0:17:39 > 0:17:45A symphony which had shattered every pain of glass in Douay - 15 miles behind their lines.
0:17:45 > 0:17:50They knew the Canadians were about to try to retake Vimy Ridge.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54"You Canadians may reach the top of it," said one prisoner,
0:17:54 > 0:17:58"But you'll be taken back to Canada in a rowing boat."
0:17:58 > 0:18:04On the dawn of Easter Monday, April 9th, the gunfire suddenly stopped.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07- Then,- "Fire!"
0:18:07 > 0:18:10"The British guns broke out again,
0:18:10 > 0:18:15"into such a fire as had yet been seen on no battlefield on Earth.
0:18:15 > 0:18:21"It was the first hour of the Somme repeated but a hundred-fold worse.
0:18:24 > 0:18:31"As our men went over the parapet the heaven above them was a canopy of shrieking steel."
0:18:58 > 0:19:05As the barrage passed, the Germans on Vimy Ridge saw khaki figures in flat steel helmets
0:19:05 > 0:19:07swarming in every direction.
0:19:07 > 0:19:14These were the Canadians attacking one of the strongest positions on the Western Front.
0:19:19 > 0:19:25We had to thread our way amongst the shell holes because the ridge itself had been so pounded.
0:19:25 > 0:19:30The German trenches were almost obliterated. They were mere ditches.
0:19:30 > 0:19:35We carried on there - the first objective was the German main line,
0:19:35 > 0:19:38then we went on to the eastern crest of the ridge.
0:19:38 > 0:19:44When we reached the top of the ridge a remarkable sight was unfolded.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46We saw before our eyes
0:19:46 > 0:19:54all the German occupied villages around Mons - the mining villages with the slag heaps and mine shafts.
0:19:54 > 0:20:01And you could even see beyond Mons. They didn't seem to be affected at all. They still seemed intact.
0:20:01 > 0:20:08This was the promised land and the Canadian soldiers were the first to see it since the days of 1915,
0:20:08 > 0:20:12when the French had held part of the heights.
0:20:12 > 0:20:14It was to remain a promised land.
0:20:14 > 0:20:22For though the British advanced five miles in places on the first day, capturing 13,000 prisoners,
0:20:22 > 0:20:28they hadn't the means or experience to follow up this feat of arms.
0:20:29 > 0:20:34The British diversionary attack had fulfilled its purpose.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37It had pinned down German reserves.
0:20:43 > 0:20:51But the German positions facing the French on the hills of the Aisne were a great natural strength,
0:20:51 > 0:20:55and were organised in depths to a distance of five miles.
0:20:55 > 0:21:01And the Germans knew the date, even the hour, of the French attack.
0:21:02 > 0:21:09GERMAN ACCENT: Minutes before the French attack, the German batteries opened up.
0:21:09 > 0:21:17and the fire was so tremendous that hardly any French soldiers went over the top.
0:21:19 > 0:21:23After a while, the Germans sent patrols
0:21:23 > 0:21:27to find out what happened.
0:21:28 > 0:21:33And there they found the French trenches deserted,
0:21:33 > 0:21:38except for the wounded and the dead.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41Full of dead.
0:21:48 > 0:21:53To the assaulting French infantry, the attack was a nightmare.
0:21:57 > 0:22:04FRENCH ACCENT: And we could see that everything in the German line was in order -
0:22:04 > 0:22:09the machine guns, the men, and everything, and...
0:22:09 > 0:22:16But even in some places the barbed wire was there in place.
0:22:17 > 0:22:19Was hopeless.
0:23:31 > 0:23:36The deeper they penetrated, the more the guns took toll of them.
0:23:36 > 0:23:43The Senegalese, their faces grey with cold, were even unable to load their rifles.
0:23:43 > 0:23:50Caught between German machine guns and their own artillery fire, they fled the field.
0:23:50 > 0:23:54The Russian brigades also suffered cruelly.
0:23:54 > 0:23:59French tanks in action for the first time, bogged down in the mud.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03The French air force was grounded by the weather.
0:24:03 > 0:24:08The wounded returned from the front, swamping medical services.
0:24:08 > 0:24:13On these muddy heights under the drenching sleet and rain,
0:24:13 > 0:24:19the French attacks faltered, stopped, and wearily faced the inevitable counterattack.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22Losses mounted, hope faded.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26"It's all up," they said. "We shall never do it."
0:24:35 > 0:24:39At French army headquarters, as the reports came in,
0:24:39 > 0:24:44an American man observed their effect on some French politicians.
0:24:44 > 0:24:48"All day they were telephoning the government in Paris,
0:24:48 > 0:24:54"that the army was being massacred and demanding they stop the attack."
0:25:00 > 0:25:05It couldn't be stopped. The Germans counter-attacked immediately.
0:25:41 > 0:25:47At the end of the first day's fighting, French casualties totalled 90,000 men.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50At the end of a fortnight, 120,000.
0:25:50 > 0:25:53At the end of three weeks, over 180,000.
0:26:03 > 0:26:06The Germans lost 160,000 men,
0:26:06 > 0:26:12of whom 40,000 were taken prisoner, and a few miles of ground.
0:26:12 > 0:26:18But the real balance was not to be struck in gains and losses, but in hope unfulfilled.
0:26:18 > 0:26:24In the bitter sense of betrayal felt by a million French soldiers.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31"We've just taken part in one of the most glaring crimes of the war.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34"We are betrayed, sold, lost.
0:26:35 > 0:26:40"We've learnt nothing - it's a return to 1915.
0:26:40 > 0:26:46"They give us citations and crosses, but we'd rather chuck them back at the high command.
0:26:46 > 0:26:52"Let those war-to-the-end merchants come up here and see for themselves.
0:26:52 > 0:26:56"Our commanders are incapable of leading us to victory.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00"Peace ought to be made straight away."
0:27:00 > 0:27:07They had had enough. The army of the Marne, of Champagne, Artois, Verdun, the Somme.
0:27:07 > 0:27:12This army which had expended itself with valour for three years,
0:27:12 > 0:27:19which had lost about one and a half million men - killed or prisoners - at last its proud spirit broke.
0:27:19 > 0:27:22They had had enough.
0:27:25 > 0:27:30Back in Paris, beneath the surface bustle of a great city, all was speculation and doubt.
0:27:30 > 0:27:37But the hospital trains, steaming into the Gare du Nord, told their own truths.
0:27:37 > 0:27:41Rumours fed by parliamentary deputies and fanned by defeatists,
0:27:41 > 0:27:45spread their sly contagion through the summer days.
0:27:48 > 0:27:54In every cafe, in every bistro, in every concierge's lodge, at every street corner,
0:27:54 > 0:27:58the casualty figures were trebled, quadrupled.
0:28:03 > 0:28:07Rumours and evasions, disillusion and defeatism,
0:28:07 > 0:28:12everything that France stood for seemed to be threatened.
0:28:12 > 0:28:17Soon after I visited Paris I observed for myself
0:28:17 > 0:28:21that things weren't too well, even in the civilian population.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26I saw, for instance...
0:28:26 > 0:28:28a strike,
0:28:28 > 0:28:36of the girls in the big milliner shops - the dressmakers.
0:28:36 > 0:28:43They were called, rather pathetically I thought, "Les Petites Mains" - The Small Hands.
0:28:43 > 0:28:49And what they were striking for was one sou an hour more -
0:28:49 > 0:28:51a ha'penny.
0:28:51 > 0:28:57I saw these girls processing down some of the main thoroughfares,
0:28:57 > 0:29:01and a lot of men on leave joined them.
0:29:02 > 0:29:07That showed there was something. There was unrest, disquiet.
0:29:13 > 0:29:20Still more alarming stories now began to filter into Paris from the zone of the armies.
0:29:29 > 0:29:34Anxious about all these rumours concerning mutinies,
0:29:34 > 0:29:37I decided to go up and see for myself.
0:29:38 > 0:29:44I arrived in part of the country near Soisson, which I know well,
0:29:44 > 0:29:48and there I was met with the most amazing sight.
0:29:50 > 0:29:57Regiment after regiment was in open mutiny.
0:29:57 > 0:30:02By which I meant there were degrees of mutiny.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06In many units,
0:30:06 > 0:30:11the officers were confined to a section of the village -
0:30:11 > 0:30:14had no authority at all -
0:30:14 > 0:30:18and the men had established posts,
0:30:18 > 0:30:22and I wasn't in the least molested.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25I asked what was going on...
0:30:26 > 0:30:34..got rather evasive answers, but in the main found that the line taken by the men was...
0:30:36 > 0:30:42..that they were prepared to occupy the line, but they weren't prepared to fight.
0:30:42 > 0:30:46The French army had endured too much for too long.
0:30:46 > 0:30:54The agony of Verdun, lack of leave, miserable rest camps and canteens, harsh discipline, low pay,
0:30:54 > 0:30:59and now the awful disillusionment of Nivelle's attack.
0:30:59 > 0:31:06It was not that they had failed to win a victory, it was that the victory itself was not enough.
0:31:06 > 0:31:10It had not produced the expected ending of the war.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13The soldiers went on strike.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17All through May and into June, the mutinies multiplied.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22More and more regiments out of the line refused to obey orders,
0:31:22 > 0:31:27refused to take part in attacks or even return to the front.
0:31:56 > 0:32:0254 divisions were affected, yet there was little violence.
0:32:02 > 0:32:08For the most part, men drifted away into the woods, tried to commandeer trains to Paris,
0:32:08 > 0:32:12or just sat tight in their camps or billets,
0:32:12 > 0:32:17until, weary of inaction, they gave themselves up to loyal troops.
0:32:27 > 0:32:32Russian brigades set up councils and disarmed their officers.
0:32:32 > 0:32:39They had to be shelled into submission by French artillery. But at the front, the line held firm.
0:32:39 > 0:32:46The men's attitude was, "We'll never advance, but we won't let the Bosch advance either."
0:32:46 > 0:32:53"No-one believed any longer in a decision by force of arms," wrote an officer at French GHQ.
0:32:53 > 0:32:56"It is an army without faith."
0:33:00 > 0:33:05A choice had now to be made between ruin and reason. Reason prevailed.
0:33:05 > 0:33:12Nivelle was dismissed and France turned, as she had done in the worst days of Verdun, to Petain -
0:33:12 > 0:33:15a man who understood men.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20General Petain was put in charge of the French army,
0:33:20 > 0:33:25and he re-established morale in a matter of months.
0:33:26 > 0:33:31I saw him doing so, some of the time.
0:33:32 > 0:33:38He visited, in a very short time, every division in the French army,
0:33:38 > 0:33:45insisting that every single company should be represented by at least one trustworthy man.
0:33:45 > 0:33:52He spoke to them ALL and they realised he felt for them,
0:33:52 > 0:33:55appreciated what they'd endured,
0:33:55 > 0:34:02and was determined that they shouldn't be submitted to such unnecessary suffering again.
0:34:24 > 0:34:29Petain listened to the grievances of his troops and acted swiftly.
0:34:29 > 0:34:34Every man who could be spared was pulled out of the line.
0:34:40 > 0:34:44Decent rest camps were built with facilities for recreation.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03A leave system was introduced which allowed men home every four months,
0:35:03 > 0:35:08provided trains to get them there and even canteens for the journey.
0:35:08 > 0:35:13The troops began to feel at last that somebody cared for them,
0:35:13 > 0:35:16that they mattered as individuals.
0:35:59 > 0:36:04But military discipline demanded harsher measures as well.
0:36:04 > 0:36:08Petain reported to the Minister of War...
0:36:08 > 0:36:13"It is necessary to make examples in every regiment that has mutinied."
0:36:22 > 0:36:28Over 400 death sentences were imposed. Many were commuted,
0:36:28 > 0:36:32but 55 ringleaders were taken out to face a firing squad.
0:36:32 > 0:36:3555 executions...
0:36:35 > 0:36:39Those were the official figures.
0:36:41 > 0:36:46But it is likely that more were shot after summary courts martial.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49How many will never be known.
0:36:57 > 0:37:04The secret of the mutinies was kept with extraordinary success.
0:37:04 > 0:37:11When I reported to the war office there were mutinies in the French army,
0:37:11 > 0:37:19the Chief Imperial General Staff expressed the utmost astonishment at this...
0:37:20 > 0:37:24..because he said he'd heard nothing of it.
0:37:24 > 0:37:31It did seem astonishing that we had 60 highly qualified officers,
0:37:31 > 0:37:35attached to the French headquarters,
0:37:35 > 0:37:38and over a period of weeks,
0:37:38 > 0:37:44the French had managed to conceal any trouble from them.
0:37:44 > 0:37:50In a way, perhaps it was fortunate because the Germans hadn't heard either.
0:37:50 > 0:37:55If the Germans had, the war would have been over.
0:37:55 > 0:38:01When Major Speirs' report was received, he was ordered back to 10 Downing Street.
0:38:01 > 0:38:05Lloyd George said to me,
0:38:05 > 0:38:09"Is the French army going to get over this?"
0:38:10 > 0:38:14And I said, "I believe it is.
0:38:14 > 0:38:16"They've had a frightful time.
0:38:16 > 0:38:23"But now Petain's in charge, and he's a wonderful leader and the men have got faith in him,
0:38:23 > 0:38:26"I believe they will get over it."
0:38:27 > 0:38:32France did get over it, but her convalescence was painful and slow.
0:38:32 > 0:38:37In the meantime her armies were in no state to prosecute the war.
0:38:37 > 0:38:44It was a time of crisis for the allies - the Russians were talking of signing a separate peace.
0:38:44 > 0:38:46The Italians wanted reinforcements.
0:38:46 > 0:38:52On the Western Front, the British Army was left to bear the burden.
0:38:52 > 0:38:57In the words of Lloyd George, "It was the one allied army
0:38:57 > 0:39:03"which could be relied upon for any enterprise, however hazardous and arduous it might be."
0:39:03 > 0:39:09Yet one bright beacon illuminated these dark and desperate days.
0:39:09 > 0:39:16On April 6th 1917, the United States of America had declared war on Germany.
0:39:16 > 0:39:24Now despite all the disillusionment of two and a half years, there was hope again.