0:01:18 > 0:01:211917 was an awful year.
0:01:21 > 0:01:26All the divisions of the world and all its conflicts
0:01:26 > 0:01:30seemed to be resolved into one conflict and one division.
0:01:30 > 0:01:37The conflict was the war. The division was between those who were truly in it and those who were not.
0:01:37 > 0:01:44It was a world war. No continent was spared. Few countries of any stature were able to stand aside.
0:01:44 > 0:01:48Japan was in. America was in. Bulgaria was in. Romania was in.
0:01:48 > 0:01:52Greece was in. Portugal was in. Bolivia was in.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55Russia was going out.
0:01:57 > 0:02:04By now, whatever men might wish or plan, whether they believed in it or whether they did not,
0:02:04 > 0:02:11one front had inexorably become the centre, the very heart of the war - the Western Front.
0:02:11 > 0:02:18470 miles long. The great battles of four years had created on either side of the trench lines
0:02:18 > 0:02:21a deep zone of military endeavour,
0:02:21 > 0:02:24a hideous, ravaged wilderness.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26The zone of the armies.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29SHELLS EXPLODE
0:02:38 > 0:02:40This zone was a place apart,
0:02:40 > 0:02:44a separate region, a landscape of madness.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10The scenes which four years of modern war had created within it
0:04:10 > 0:04:15could never be imagined by those outside.
0:04:23 > 0:04:30Only the artist's eye could fathom what man had inflicted upon himself in this zone.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36SHELLS FLY OVERHEAD
0:05:00 > 0:05:03MACHINE-GUN FIRE
0:05:59 > 0:06:06The separateness was absolute. You could almost draw a line where it began.
0:06:06 > 0:06:13For one war artist, Sir William Orpen, just beyond the valley between Amiens and Albert:
0:06:13 > 0:06:17Suddenly one felt oneself in another world.
0:06:21 > 0:06:26For Wyndham Lewis, it began just past the line of guns:
0:06:28 > 0:06:31At this point, civilisation ended.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41"From here onwards," said Lewis,
0:06:41 > 0:06:46"there was only shell-pitted nothingness,
0:06:46 > 0:06:48"an arid and blistering vacuum."
0:06:48 > 0:06:52GUNFIRE
0:06:58 > 0:07:02The artist filled this vacuum each in his own way
0:07:02 > 0:07:06with a frieze of tragic and heroic figures.
0:07:18 > 0:07:24The lost and tiny soldiers and their weapons amid the desolate expanse.
0:07:30 > 0:07:35Each one differently depicted the terrible footprint of man.
0:07:52 > 0:07:59Paul Nash turned his brush and pencil into weapons to assail the cruelty of war.
0:07:59 > 0:08:01Other war artists
0:08:01 > 0:08:08only SAW an explosion. But the explosion took place inside Nash.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24Paul Nash revealed the Earth herself exploded.
0:08:29 > 0:08:34And with wonder, at particular times in particular places,
0:08:34 > 0:08:40each artist observed the extraordinary beauty of this man-made desert.
0:08:40 > 0:08:46- Nash wrote to his wife in March 1917:- Here in the back garden of the trenches,
0:08:46 > 0:08:49it is amazingly beautiful.
0:08:49 > 0:08:52The mud is dried to a pinky colour,
0:08:52 > 0:08:55and upon the parapet
0:08:55 > 0:08:58and through the sandbags, even,
0:08:58 > 0:09:02the green grass pushes up and waves in the breeze
0:09:02 > 0:09:08while dots of bright dandelion, clover, thistles and 20 other plants
0:09:08 > 0:09:10flourish luxuriously -
0:09:10 > 0:09:15brilliant growth of bright green against the pink earth.
0:09:16 > 0:09:21Orpen revisited the year-old battlefields of the Somme.
0:09:21 > 0:09:27Now, in the summer of 1917, no words could express the beauty of it.
0:09:27 > 0:09:32The dreary, dismal mount was baked white and pure - dazzling white.
0:09:32 > 0:09:40White daisies, red poppies and a blue flower, great masses of them, stretched for miles and miles.
0:09:40 > 0:09:47The sky a pure, dark blue, and the whole air, up to a height of about 40 feet, thick with butterflies.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50Everything shimmered in the heat.
0:09:50 > 0:09:57Clothes, guns, all that had been left in confusion when the war passed on had been baked by the sun
0:09:57 > 0:10:03into one wonderful combination of colour - white, pale grey and pale gold.
0:10:25 > 0:10:30Amid this macabre beauty and unspeakable ugliness,
0:10:30 > 0:10:36the ant-like armies in their millions came to terms with the war's afflictions.
0:10:40 > 0:10:47On the Western Front, a continuous accompaniment of sound diseased their nerves.
0:10:48 > 0:10:52RELENTLESS EXPLOSIONS
0:11:26 > 0:11:31MACHINE-GUN FIRE
0:11:31 > 0:11:36CONTINUOUS GUNFIRE
0:11:36 > 0:11:43After the Germans had stopped shelling a little while, we heard one of their big ones coming over.
0:11:43 > 0:11:48Normally you could tell if one was going to land anywhere near, or not.
0:11:48 > 0:11:55If it was, the normal procedure was to throw yourself down and avoid the shell fragments.
0:11:55 > 0:12:02This one, we knew, was going to drop near. My pal shouted and threw himself down.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06I was too damn tired even to fall down.
0:12:06 > 0:12:11I stood there. Next I had a terrific pain in the back and the chest,
0:12:11 > 0:12:15and I found myself face downwards in the mud.
0:12:15 > 0:12:22In this permanent zone of destruction where war seemed to be a fixture from time immemorial
0:12:22 > 0:12:28stretching forward to invisible duration, sound was always there,
0:12:28 > 0:12:31the smell was always there.
0:12:31 > 0:12:37The familiar trench smell of 1915 to '17 haunts my nostrils,
0:12:37 > 0:12:41compounded of stagnant mud, latrine buckets,
0:12:41 > 0:12:46chloride of lime, unburied or half-buried corpses,
0:12:46 > 0:12:48rotting sandbags,
0:12:48 > 0:12:55stale human sweat, fumes of cordite or lyddite. Sometimes it was sweetened
0:12:55 > 0:13:03by cigarette smoke and the scent of bacon frying over wood fires - broken ammunition boxes.
0:13:03 > 0:13:06Sometimes it was made sinister
0:13:06 > 0:13:10by the lingering odour of poisoned gas.
0:13:15 > 0:13:18Within this unquiet zone,
0:13:18 > 0:13:23sharing such compensations as it had, dwelt a population apart -
0:13:23 > 0:13:26the armies of Germany, France,
0:13:26 > 0:13:29the British Empire and Belgium.
0:13:39 > 0:13:44When the infantry looked upwards, admiringly, hopefully or fearfully,
0:13:44 > 0:13:47they saw dotted against the clouds
0:13:47 > 0:13:55the airmen - counted in thousands now, yet still able to preserve in this vast, anonymous war
0:13:55 > 0:14:00individual identities which the muddied infantry might envy.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02They fought a war of champions.
0:14:02 > 0:14:07The names of the aces rang through every country - Guynemer,
0:14:07 > 0:14:10Fonck, Nungesser, Ball,
0:14:10 > 0:14:13McCudden, Mannock, Boelcke,
0:14:13 > 0:14:16Immelmann, Richthofen.
0:14:29 > 0:14:33Looking down from their swaying cockpits,
0:14:33 > 0:14:35the fliers saw below them,
0:14:35 > 0:14:40as no-one else could see, unfolding mile beyond mile,
0:14:40 > 0:14:44the incredible pock-marked devastation of the Western Front,
0:14:44 > 0:14:47the world within a world.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06Down there on the ground,
0:15:06 > 0:15:09men had few intimates.
0:15:09 > 0:15:17Beyond the narrow horizon through a periscope or bordered by a trench or the lip of a crater,
0:15:17 > 0:15:23there was someone else whom one had learnt to know better, perhaps, than one knew one's own people.
0:15:23 > 0:15:28Sometimes as little as 20 yards away, sometimes half a mile,
0:15:28 > 0:15:35he was always there, living exactly as one lived oneself - the front line enemy.
0:15:38 > 0:15:43I never had any feelings towards any personal enemy.
0:15:43 > 0:15:49For me, and also for most of the boys, it was THE enemy.
0:15:49 > 0:15:57Whether is was British or French, we didn't mind, and I think that the British thought in the same way.
0:15:57 > 0:16:02As soon as we made prisoners, the feeling of enemy was gone.
0:16:02 > 0:16:06Then we took care of them. We looked after them.
0:16:06 > 0:16:11We asked them if they were thirsty. Most of them were very thirsty,
0:16:11 > 0:16:14because warfare makes thirsty.
0:16:14 > 0:16:18You are very much excited. You perspire.
0:16:18 > 0:16:22You are afraid. Everybody is shivering.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25The nerve strain is a terrible one.
0:16:25 > 0:16:28But never one forgets
0:16:28 > 0:16:32what each man on both sides has to undergo.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38The enemy was Jerry
0:16:38 > 0:16:43or Old Fritz. Front line soldiers spoke openly of "German comrades".
0:16:43 > 0:16:50Even the French had learnt to use the word "Boche" in a half-friendly way.
0:16:50 > 0:16:56For Frenchmen, fighting on their own soil and always on the same worn-out, blood-soaked
0:16:56 > 0:17:00stretches of their soil, the sense of separateness
0:17:00 > 0:17:07- came with a peculiar shock. - They realised they were becoming strangers in their own land.
0:17:07 > 0:17:12The army came to be looked on as an exile from the life of the nation.
0:17:12 > 0:17:14The military world had no connection
0:17:14 > 0:17:21with the life of the country. Two universes were juxtaposed - the one civilian, the other uniformed -
0:17:21 > 0:17:25and they knew nothing of each other.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29If you were to ask me who it is we despise and hate the most,
0:17:29 > 0:17:36my answer would be, first of all, the war profiteers, businessmen of all kinds.
0:17:36 > 0:17:40With them, the professional patriots,
0:17:40 > 0:17:47the literary gents who dine each day in pyjamas and red leather slippers off a dish of Boche.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50Every army hated "literary gents".
0:17:50 > 0:17:55- A German soldier wrote: - According to the newspapers,
0:17:55 > 0:18:02the French were degenerates, the English, cowardly shopkeepers, the Russians, swine. The disparaging
0:18:02 > 0:18:09and calumniating of the enemy was so disgusting that I sent a paragraph to an editor. He returned it
0:18:09 > 0:18:13with a letter that made me despair. "One had to bear in mind
0:18:13 > 0:18:16"public opinions."
0:18:16 > 0:18:23And thus was that public opinion bred which the men at the front came, in time, to spit upon.
0:18:23 > 0:18:30The jargon of war on the home front was very different from the language of the fighting men.
0:18:30 > 0:18:35A gunner received a book of verse. The writer served in his battery.
0:18:35 > 0:18:42About your book - I've read it carefully, and candidly I don't think much of it.
0:18:42 > 0:18:48The piece about horses isn't bad but the rest, excuse the word, is tripe.
0:18:48 > 0:18:55The same old tripe we've read a thousand times. My grief, but we're fed up with war books,
0:18:55 > 0:18:57war verse, all the eyewash stuff
0:18:57 > 0:19:00that pleases the idiots at home.
0:19:00 > 0:19:05What's the good of war books if they fail to give civilians an idea
0:19:05 > 0:19:10of what life is like in the firing line? You might have done that much.
0:19:10 > 0:19:15From you, at least, I thought we'd get an inkling of the truth. But no.
0:19:15 > 0:19:17You rant, rattle, beat your drum
0:19:17 > 0:19:22and blow your tuppenny trumpet like the rest. "Battle's glory."
0:19:22 > 0:19:27"Honour's utmost task." "Gay, jesting faces among daunted boys."
0:19:27 > 0:19:31The same old boy's own paper balderdash.
0:19:31 > 0:19:39Hang it, you can't have clean forgotten things you went to bed with, woke with, smelt and felt.
0:19:39 > 0:19:44All those long months of boredom streaked with fear. Mud. Cold.
0:19:44 > 0:19:46Fatigue. Sweat.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49Nerve strain. Sleeplessness.
0:19:49 > 0:19:51And men's excreta
0:19:51 > 0:19:53viscid in the rain.
0:19:53 > 0:20:01And stiff-legged horses lying by the road, their bloated bellies shimmering, green with flies.
0:20:10 > 0:20:16Images of war could never fade from the minds of those who knew them
0:20:16 > 0:20:21and could scarcely be conceived in the minds of those who didn't.
0:20:21 > 0:20:26Arriving home on leave, I went to my aunt's house.
0:20:26 > 0:20:28And, er...
0:20:28 > 0:20:33I found that people wanted to take me out to dinners
0:20:33 > 0:20:35and theatres
0:20:35 > 0:20:40and didn't want to know much about what we were doing out in the front.
0:20:40 > 0:20:45But I did explain to them that the conditions were really terrible
0:20:45 > 0:20:49and that the food also was bad.
0:20:49 > 0:20:52But they didn't want to know at all.
0:20:52 > 0:21:00When you stepped off the train at Victoria, the first effect was just that you were home for the holidays.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04But very soon, that began to wear off.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07And at any rate, from 1917 onwards,
0:21:07 > 0:21:12one felt that there was something unreal about leave.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16I'm bound to say that I got myself into a state of mind
0:21:16 > 0:21:21where it was the trenches that was the real world,
0:21:21 > 0:21:25and it was London and my family that was unreal.
0:21:25 > 0:21:30It was a Frenchman who summed up for all the fighting men
0:21:30 > 0:21:32exiled in the zone of the armies.
0:21:32 > 0:21:35When we get back and tell our story,
0:21:35 > 0:21:39it's we who will be wrong.
0:21:40 > 0:21:48Soldiers couldn't communicate the truth about the war because nothing like it had ever happened before.
0:21:48 > 0:21:50Never has such vast armies
0:21:50 > 0:21:55wielding such an immense apparatus of killing and destruction
0:21:55 > 0:21:59battled each other for so long in one place.
0:22:16 > 0:22:21Flesh and blood and nerves could only stand so much.
0:22:21 > 0:22:24Well, there's a limit to everything.
0:22:24 > 0:22:29But what with the mud of the Somme and the mud of Passchendaele,
0:22:29 > 0:22:36to see men keep on sinking into the slime, dying in the slime, I think it absolutely finished me off.
0:22:36 > 0:22:43Because I knew for three months before I was wounded that I was going to get it.
0:22:43 > 0:22:47There was one time when ammunition wagons were coming up.
0:22:47 > 0:22:55I'd been in this mud right up to my waist and I thought, "This is it. I'll put my leg under the wagon."
0:22:55 > 0:23:01And I got as close to that wagon as possible. I just couldn't do it.
0:23:01 > 0:23:05I think I was broken in spirit and mind.
0:23:05 > 0:23:11By the end of 1917, every army had shown the effects of this unremitted strain
0:23:11 > 0:23:14eating away morale.
0:23:14 > 0:23:20Newcomers might still be eager, still imbued with the enthusiasm of earlier years.
0:23:20 > 0:23:24They were startled at what they found.
0:23:24 > 0:23:31You see, when I joined up, I was dead scared I wouldn't get out to France before it was over.
0:23:31 > 0:23:36I thought it would be over before I'd get there. And when I got there,
0:23:36 > 0:23:38when I got into the line,
0:23:38 > 0:23:46I remember writing back home saying, "But the heart's been blown out of these people."
0:23:46 > 0:23:49GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS
0:23:49 > 0:23:56This was now almost entirely a citizen army, a vast force approaching five millions,
0:23:56 > 0:24:00nearly two millions of them on the Western Front.
0:24:00 > 0:24:08In all the time that this army remained in the field, there were 304,000 trials by court martial.
0:24:08 > 0:24:113,080 death sentences were passed.
0:24:11 > 0:24:15346 were carried out.
0:24:15 > 0:24:18He stood, tied to a post,
0:24:18 > 0:24:20against a wall.
0:24:22 > 0:24:25And he was in civilian clothes.
0:24:25 > 0:24:32And there was a little white piece of paper pinned over his heart. We had to fire at that.
0:24:32 > 0:24:39We did not know what our rifles were loaded with. Some were loaded with ball, others with blank.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41We then had the order
0:24:41 > 0:24:43to...
0:24:43 > 0:24:46fire.
0:24:46 > 0:24:48And pull the trigger.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51One knew by the recoil if...
0:24:51 > 0:24:54it was loaded with ball or not.
0:24:56 > 0:24:58Then...
0:24:58 > 0:25:04that deserter's name was read out on three successive parades as a warning.
0:25:04 > 0:25:09The majority of these executions took place on the Western Front.
0:25:09 > 0:25:13More than three quarters were for desertion.
0:25:13 > 0:25:18- The next most frequent crime was murder.- Firing party...
0:25:18 > 0:25:22- fire! - SHOTS RING OUT
0:25:22 > 0:25:29Despite depressing circumstances, the discipline of the British soldiers did not break down,
0:25:29 > 0:25:34but every last shred of humour and optimism was needed to maintain it.
0:25:34 > 0:25:39Yet the Western Front had its compensations. "The war years,"
0:25:39 > 0:25:43said one British soldier, "will stand out
0:25:43 > 0:25:50"in the memories of many who fought as the happiest period of their lives." He went on:
0:25:50 > 0:25:52In spite of differences in rank,
0:25:52 > 0:25:57we were comrades, brothers dwelling together in amity.
0:25:57 > 0:26:04We were privileged to see in each other that ennobled self which in the commercial struggle of peacetime
0:26:04 > 0:26:07is atrophied for lack of expression.
0:26:07 > 0:26:14We could note the intense affection of soldiers for certain officers, their absolute trust in them.
0:26:14 > 0:26:20We saw the love, passing the love of women, of one pal for his section.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23We were privileged, in short, to see
0:26:23 > 0:26:30a reign of goodwill among men which the piping times of peace, with all their organised charity,
0:26:30 > 0:26:37their free meals and Sunday sermons, have never equalled. Otherwise we could not have stuck it.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44The code of front line behaviour became the only one worth having.
0:26:50 > 0:26:56Hateful, disgusting, terrifying - the zone of the armies was nevertheless
0:26:56 > 0:26:59the only place to be.
0:26:59 > 0:27:05For my part, I am more glad of that experience than of anything else I've known.
0:27:09 > 0:27:14The ultimate test of optimism, by now, was the front itself.
0:27:14 > 0:27:21Was it hopeless, was it insane to expect a decision on this static, immovable battlefield?
0:27:21 > 0:27:28The argument had lasted right through the war. It reached the extremes of bitterness in 1917.
0:27:28 > 0:27:35On the one hand were those who believed that the Western Front was a hopeless arena. Their spokesman
0:27:35 > 0:27:39was Britain's Prime Minister, David Lloyd George.
0:27:39 > 0:27:44The Allied strategy in France had been a sanguinary mistake
0:27:44 > 0:27:48which nearly brought us to irretrievable defeat.
0:27:48 > 0:27:55The Allied generals were completely baffled by the decision of the Germans to dig in.
0:27:55 > 0:28:01In their hopeless efforts to break through, they could think of nothing better
0:28:01 > 0:28:06- than the sacrifice of millions of men.- By 1917,
0:28:06 > 0:28:12Lloyd George's detestation of the Western Front was adamant, and he expressed it freely.
0:28:12 > 0:28:19He said that he was "not prepared to be a butcher's boy driving cattle to the slaughter"
0:28:19 > 0:28:22and that he would not do it.
0:28:22 > 0:28:27To the British generals, the front had a different significance.
0:28:27 > 0:28:31Chief of Imperial General Staff Sir William Robertson said:
0:28:31 > 0:28:38The decisive front was fixed for us by the deployment of the enemy in France and Belgium.
0:28:38 > 0:28:44Britain's allies endured mixed fortunes as 1917 drew to an end.
0:28:44 > 0:28:51The October Revolution threw Russia out of the war, robbing the alliance of her limitless manpower.
0:28:51 > 0:28:58And the United States of America, after eight months of war, could only place four divisions in France
0:28:58 > 0:29:00and only one in the line.
0:29:00 > 0:29:05Italy lost over 300,000 men in three weeks at Caporetto.
0:29:05 > 0:29:12British and French divisions had to be rushed to her aid. The one satisfactory feature
0:29:12 > 0:29:14was the revival of France.
0:29:14 > 0:29:17Nursed by its commander in chief,
0:29:17 > 0:29:23General Petain, the French army slowly recovered its courage and dash.
0:29:23 > 0:29:30The French nation, too, found new spirit - embodied, as so often, in one man.
0:29:30 > 0:29:35On November 15th, Monsieur Georges Clemenceau became France's premier.
0:29:35 > 0:29:41He was 76 years old, a radical of the sternest breed called the Tiger.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44Winston Churchill wrote:
0:29:44 > 0:29:50As much as any single human being can ever be a nation, he was France.
0:29:50 > 0:29:55When Clemenceau addressed the French Chamber of Deputies,
0:29:55 > 0:29:58he told them:
0:29:58 > 0:30:03We stand here with but one thought - to pursue the war relentlessly.
0:30:03 > 0:30:06No more pacifist campaigns.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09No treachery. No semi-treachery.
0:30:09 > 0:30:13Only war. Nothing but war.
0:30:13 > 0:30:20Clemenceau believed firmly in the Western Front, where the deadlock now seemed complete.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24In a sense, the deadlock WAS the war.
0:30:24 > 0:30:31The evil of the Western Front was its immobility. The immobility was created by the deadlock.
0:30:31 > 0:30:38The deadlock was the even balance of trenches, barbed wire and machine guns against the artillery
0:30:38 > 0:30:41which alone could destroy them,
0:30:41 > 0:30:48but in doing so turned the ground into a wilderness of craters and made impossible the movement
0:30:48 > 0:30:51it was intended to produce.
0:30:51 > 0:30:53Now it was November.
0:30:53 > 0:31:00Haig planned a final stroke on the front of the British Third Army under General Sir Julian Byng.
0:31:00 > 0:31:05Here, opposite Cambrai, the ground was firm.
0:31:05 > 0:31:10Grass grew across a no-man's-land which was reasonably level.
0:31:10 > 0:31:15No shattering bombardments had torn this up and turned it into a bog.
0:31:15 > 0:31:18This was tank country.
0:31:18 > 0:31:24November the 19th. General Ellis, commanding the Tank Corps, issued a special order.
0:31:24 > 0:31:30Tomorrow the Tank Corps will have the chance it has been waiting for,
0:31:30 > 0:31:34to operate on good going in the van of the battle.
0:31:34 > 0:31:41I leave the good name of the corps with confidence in your hands. I shall lead the centre division.
0:31:41 > 0:31:44They were attacking the Hindenburg line.
0:31:44 > 0:31:49There were three lines of trenches, each trench up to 15 feet wide.
0:31:49 > 0:31:54In front of the main line lay acre upon acre of dense wire.
0:31:54 > 0:32:02Nowhere was it less than 50 yards deep. Here and there it jutted out in salients flanked by machine guns.
0:32:02 > 0:32:08Never before had we been faced with such a wilderness of wire.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48At 6.20am on November the 20th, with their general
0:32:48 > 0:32:51flying his flag at their head
0:32:51 > 0:32:57in the tank Hilda, the machines of a new epoch rolled into battle.
0:32:57 > 0:33:00476 tanks. Over 50 supply tanks.
0:33:00 > 0:33:0432 specially for destroying wire.
0:33:04 > 0:33:09Two for bridging. Nine wireless tanks. One for laying cable.
0:33:09 > 0:33:12378 fighting tanks.
0:33:14 > 0:33:18We got in, shut down our tanks, and away we went.
0:33:18 > 0:33:26We had rough compasses in the tanks and we got our course and we set course for the enemy line.
0:33:26 > 0:33:28The first thing that happened...
0:33:28 > 0:33:35It was dead silent until we got to the enemy wire, which was zero hour for the guns.
0:33:35 > 0:33:40That, again, was a first-class show. Crystal Palace had nothing in it.
0:33:40 > 0:33:42No answer from the Germans at all.
0:33:42 > 0:33:48It was the first time we saw the Hun being blown up all over the place.
0:33:48 > 0:33:53The troops were frightfully pleased. No gunfire, so we opened our tanks.
0:33:53 > 0:33:57And then we got into this belt of wire. It was quite terrifying.
0:33:57 > 0:34:04It was about seven feet high. Very, very thick wire. It was over 120 yards deep in places.
0:34:04 > 0:34:09If we'd stopped or got our tracks ripped off, we'd have been for it.
0:34:09 > 0:34:16Instead, the tanks made great swathes in the wire. The Jocks, who were with us,
0:34:16 > 0:34:19they came through the gaps we'd made.
0:34:19 > 0:34:26We all emerged the other side into a deep valley known as the Grand Ravine.
0:34:26 > 0:34:29I crossed the first line.
0:34:29 > 0:34:36The wire didn't prove to be any obstacle at all. The artillery had done their job very well.
0:34:36 > 0:34:42The element of surprise - the heavy shelling, no preliminary bombardment -
0:34:42 > 0:34:46had made it almost a cakewalk.
0:34:46 > 0:34:51Almost a cakewalk. In four hours, the British Third Army
0:34:51 > 0:34:58advanced between three and four miles right through the Hindenburg defences, took over 4,000 prisoners
0:34:58 > 0:35:01and over 100 guns.
0:35:04 > 0:35:11Their own losses were astonishingly light. It was one of the most remarkable victories of the war.
0:35:11 > 0:35:15In November 1917, victory of any kind was badly needed.
0:35:15 > 0:35:22The government decided that the time had come to ring the church bells of Britain.
0:35:22 > 0:35:25PEALING OF BELLS
0:35:27 > 0:35:32It's the first time the peals have been rung since the outbreak of war.
0:35:35 > 0:35:37I went up Ludgate Hill
0:35:37 > 0:35:42to hear St Paul's carillon. It hasn't been heard
0:35:42 > 0:35:49since it celebrated the declaration of peace after the South African War. There was a crowd on the steps.
0:35:49 > 0:35:55After the clock struck 12, the big bell known as Great Paul boomed out,
0:35:55 > 0:35:57followed by the whole peal of bells.
0:35:57 > 0:36:02The people cheered. The bells of the other churches
0:36:02 > 0:36:06helped to swell the rings of sound carrying the joyful news.
0:36:06 > 0:36:11One of Haig's staff officers wrote on November the 23rd:
0:36:11 > 0:36:13All at home seem to have gone crazy
0:36:13 > 0:36:17about the last success. It was a very fine effort,
0:36:17 > 0:36:22but no greater than other shows. It does not deserve hysterics.
0:36:22 > 0:36:26When the really big, decisive victory comes,
0:36:26 > 0:36:33it will be time enough to ring church bells and sing the national anthem.
0:36:33 > 0:36:35The doubters were right.
0:36:39 > 0:36:43On November the 30th the Germans counter-attacked,
0:36:43 > 0:36:47taking most of the British troops by surprise.
0:36:51 > 0:36:55In the fight which followed, they won back
0:36:55 > 0:36:58almost all the ground that they had lost.
0:36:58 > 0:37:03When the battle died down, losses on both sides were roughly equal.
0:37:03 > 0:37:11It was a sad end for the British army, which had put forth such tremendous efforts during the year.
0:37:18 > 0:37:22The iron of disappointment entered deep into men's souls.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25A British diplomat wrote to Haig:
0:37:25 > 0:37:28Even now, this war could have
0:37:28 > 0:37:32a glorious ending for us, but it won't.
0:37:42 > 0:37:47Christmas came, and an officer at Haig's headquarters wrote
0:37:47 > 0:37:53- in his diary:- The fourth Christmas at war. Though the outlook is black,
0:37:53 > 0:37:57yet still I think it will be the last war Christmas.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01How different each Christmas has been.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04We cannot fail to win.
0:38:04 > 0:38:08Each year inevitably shows success more certain.
0:38:08 > 0:38:13But for the next few months, the prospect is the most gloomy
0:38:13 > 0:38:16since 1914.
0:38:21 > 0:38:281917 expired, having brought nothing but frustration to the Allied cause.
0:38:28 > 0:38:30The Western Front remained,
0:38:30 > 0:38:33baffling, bloody,
0:38:33 > 0:38:37ruinous, and still the very heart of the war.
0:38:37 > 0:38:42All that men could look forward to was Clemenceau's promise.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44Only war.
0:38:44 > 0:38:46Nothing but war.
0:39:00 > 0:39:05Subtitles by Subtext Limited for BBC Broadcast - 2003
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