0:00:02 > 0:00:07This programme contains language which some viewers may find offensive
0:00:09 > 0:00:13In early November 1914, in Istanbul,
0:00:13 > 0:00:18the capital of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, a new weapon was unveiled.
0:00:20 > 0:00:24It would spread the First World War far beyond the borders of Europe.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32Inside the Fatih Mosque, Sultan Mehmed V,
0:00:32 > 0:00:35recognised by many Muslims as the leader of the Islamic world,
0:00:35 > 0:00:39was presented with the Sword of the Prophet,
0:00:39 > 0:00:44symbolising his authority to call the Muslim world to arms.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50This was how the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War,
0:00:50 > 0:00:55not just with a declaration of war but with a declaration of jihad,
0:00:55 > 0:01:00holy war, against the powers it now described as the enemies of Islam -
0:01:00 > 0:01:03Britain, France and Russia.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07The declaration of jihad was a vivid signal
0:01:07 > 0:01:09that the war between the nations of Europe
0:01:09 > 0:01:13would become a global war between empires.
0:01:14 > 0:01:17A war that would spread to lands
0:01:17 > 0:01:21far beyond the mud and the trenches of the Western Front,
0:01:21 > 0:01:25and its savagery would draw in millions from across the world.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31In Africa, a rogue German general would lead his army of Africans
0:01:31 > 0:01:37on a bloody odyssey, leaving a trail of death, starvation and disease.
0:01:41 > 0:01:43In Libya and in Darfur,
0:01:43 > 0:01:46tribal rebellions would be sparked in the name of religion.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51While on the borders of mighty empires,
0:01:51 > 0:01:54plots would be laid for insurrection and invasion.
0:01:56 > 0:01:59And all the while on the Western Front itself,
0:01:59 > 0:02:04the pace and scale of industrialised warfare would intensify.
0:02:04 > 0:02:07More and more men from all over the world
0:02:07 > 0:02:11would be pulled in to service the machinery of mass slaughter.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16This was a place where Senegalese and Vietnamese soldiers
0:02:16 > 0:02:18fought in the same trenches.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24Chinese labourers supplied Indian cavalrymen.
0:02:25 > 0:02:29And black American troops served under white French officers.
0:02:31 > 0:02:34As the war spread, it drew in millions of diverse people
0:02:34 > 0:02:37of every race, every colour and every religion,
0:02:37 > 0:02:39and from all over the world.
0:02:39 > 0:02:42They fought alongside their European comrades
0:02:42 > 0:02:44and they died in terrible numbers.
0:02:44 > 0:02:48And now all of them have a claim to be remembered
0:02:48 > 0:02:52as the heroes and the victims of the World's War.
0:03:22 > 0:03:26In the autumn of 1914, the attention of the world
0:03:26 > 0:03:28was focused on northern France and Belgium.
0:03:29 > 0:03:33The First Battle of Ypres was grinding to a halt
0:03:33 > 0:03:38and the Western Front was forming, a quagmire of blood and mud.
0:03:39 > 0:03:43For the next four years, success would be measured in yards
0:03:43 > 0:03:46and disaster in millions.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53But thousands of miles away, in Istanbul,
0:03:53 > 0:03:57it was possible to see the war as fluid, expansive.
0:03:57 > 0:04:00Germany and her new ally, Ottoman Turkey,
0:04:00 > 0:04:04were exploring the intriguing possibility of taking the fight
0:04:04 > 0:04:08to the enemy by turning their imperial assets against them.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18After the declaration of jihad in the Fatih Mosque
0:04:18 > 0:04:21a holy war procession began to march
0:04:21 > 0:04:24towards the European quarter of the city.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27MOB CHANTS
0:04:30 > 0:04:33As the demonstrators surged through these streets,
0:04:33 > 0:04:36they began to attack, to loot and even to set fire
0:04:36 > 0:04:39to British- and French-owned businesses
0:04:39 > 0:04:42and European residents of the city began to flee in fear.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47Behind the scenes of riot and disorder,
0:04:47 > 0:04:52some observers sensed a controlling hand choreographing the action.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58One of those pulling the strings was Max von Oppenheim,
0:04:58 > 0:05:02maverick archaeologist and self-styled Orientalist.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06Before the war, Oppenheim had spent years
0:05:06 > 0:05:10studying and travelling in the Islamic world.
0:05:10 > 0:05:14He'd been shunned by the inner circles of the German establishment,
0:05:14 > 0:05:17but with the outbreak of hostilities,
0:05:17 > 0:05:19his unusual private passions
0:05:19 > 0:05:22suddenly took on global significance.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28In August 1914, the German Foreign Office
0:05:28 > 0:05:31asked Oppenheim to draw up plans for a holy war.
0:05:31 > 0:05:33The memorandum he produced was entitled
0:05:33 > 0:05:37On Revolutionising The Islamic Territories Of Our Enemies.
0:05:37 > 0:05:40And it was basically a blueprint
0:05:40 > 0:05:43for what he assured everybody would be a global revolution.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45His central recommendation was that
0:05:45 > 0:05:48an intelligence bureau for the east be established,
0:05:48 > 0:05:50a sort of German jihad bureau.
0:05:50 > 0:05:52It was to be headed by Oppenheim himself
0:05:52 > 0:05:56and its task was to spread propaganda across the world
0:05:56 > 0:05:59and dispatch secret missions to enemy territories.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05'Historian Sean McMeekin has studied the evolution
0:06:05 > 0:06:09'of Oppenheim's cloak-and-dagger plans.'
0:06:09 > 0:06:13He was really quite an enthusiast for all things Islam,
0:06:13 > 0:06:15up to and including the idea
0:06:15 > 0:06:19which appealed to him when he lived in Cairo of having his own harem.
0:06:19 > 0:06:25In his vision, though, the potential of Islam was lethal.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28That is, he really thought it could destroy the British Empire.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32It really would be a global jihad,
0:06:32 > 0:06:34a global holy war against the British Empire,
0:06:34 > 0:06:37where the Ottoman Sultan would play possibly the most important role,
0:06:37 > 0:06:39but obviously not the only one.
0:06:39 > 0:06:41So, in 1914, there's this scheme
0:06:41 > 0:06:44that could destroy the British and French empires?
0:06:44 > 0:06:46Well, that's right. Britain, in particular,
0:06:46 > 0:06:47had a great Achilles heel.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51In the Indian subcontinent, in the Gulf States, in Egypt,
0:06:51 > 0:06:54Britain ruled over, depending on which estimate you trust,
0:06:54 > 0:06:57upwards of a hundred million Muslim subjects.
0:06:57 > 0:06:58By some reckoning, Britain was actually
0:06:58 > 0:07:00the greatest Muslim power in the world
0:07:00 > 0:07:02if you simply judge by numbers.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06The French also ruled over a Muslim empire in North Africa,
0:07:06 > 0:07:10so all of Germany's potential enemies in a great power war
0:07:10 > 0:07:14had this potential Achilles heel of Muslim subjects.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21With the Ottomans as their junior partners and with a jihad unleashed against their enemies,
0:07:21 > 0:07:25the Kaiser and his followers dreamed of spreading German power,
0:07:25 > 0:07:29of driving the British out of India and of redrafting the map of Africa
0:07:29 > 0:07:33to create a vast German colony in the centre of that continent.
0:07:33 > 0:07:35For those who wanted to believe it,
0:07:35 > 0:07:40this whole intoxicating vision suddenly seemed possible.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45Oppenheim had worked hard behind the scenes
0:07:45 > 0:07:50to secure the declaration of jihad at the Fatih Mosque,
0:07:50 > 0:07:55but his most significant contribution was a piece of political theatre
0:07:55 > 0:07:58that took place on the other side of town.
0:07:58 > 0:08:01Here at the German embassy, in front of a crowd of demonstrators,
0:08:01 > 0:08:0614 Muslim soldiers, men from the French colonies in North Africa,
0:08:06 > 0:08:10were theatrically paraded out onto that balcony
0:08:10 > 0:08:12by the German ambassador himself.
0:08:12 > 0:08:14These men were prisoners of war
0:08:14 > 0:08:16who'd been captured on the Western Front
0:08:16 > 0:08:19in the first battles of the First World War.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23The Germans had then recruited them and transported them secretly
0:08:23 > 0:08:25right across Europe on the Orient Express.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30The German cover story was that these men were acrobats in a travelling circus.
0:08:30 > 0:08:34And now, here at the embassy, with the crowd looking up at them,
0:08:34 > 0:08:38they were made to shout slogans in Arabic and Turkish
0:08:38 > 0:08:40in praise of the Ottoman Sultan
0:08:40 > 0:08:44and they declared oaths promising that they would personally
0:08:44 > 0:08:48take part in the jihad against their former colonial masters.
0:08:50 > 0:08:54And Istanbul was just the start.
0:08:54 > 0:08:59Oppenheim had plans for something on a global scale,
0:08:59 > 0:09:04a special camp designed to turn prisoners of war into jihadists.
0:09:06 > 0:09:09It was located 1,000 miles away in Germany.
0:09:22 > 0:09:28Zossen, a small town just outside Berlin, had a busy 20th century.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34Until the mid-1990s, it was home
0:09:34 > 0:09:38to the largest Soviet Army base in East Germany.
0:09:38 > 0:09:42Before that, secret Nazi bunkers had been built
0:09:42 > 0:09:45disguised as village houses.
0:09:45 > 0:09:50And Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, was planned from here.
0:09:53 > 0:09:58But buried beneath theses layers of history lies an even stranger story.
0:10:00 > 0:10:04During the First World War, Zossen was home to a prisoner of war camp
0:10:04 > 0:10:10called the Halpmondlager, the Half Moon or Crescent Camp.
0:10:13 > 0:10:19Historian Heike Liebau has studied the history of this unusual place.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23The camp was meant for, basically, prisoners
0:10:23 > 0:10:26from North African countries and from India,
0:10:26 > 0:10:32so prisoners from the French and the British Colonial Army.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35And the number of prisoners who were kept there
0:10:35 > 0:10:38is about 4,000 to 5,000 at one time.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41And it's called the Half Moon Camp
0:10:41 > 0:10:44- because the half moon is the symbol of Islam?- Mm-hm.
0:10:44 > 0:10:46It's called the Half Moon Camp
0:10:46 > 0:10:49because this prisoner of war camp was meant for Muslim prisoners
0:10:49 > 0:10:52and it was part of the German jihad strategy.
0:10:54 > 0:11:00German propaganda railed against its enemy's deployment of colonial soldiers,
0:11:00 > 0:11:03what it called "savages".
0:11:03 > 0:11:07But at the Half Moon Camp, these same soldiers were being recruited
0:11:07 > 0:11:10for a war against their imperial masters.
0:11:14 > 0:11:16When they were captured,
0:11:16 > 0:11:19they may have thought that their war was over.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23Instead, they were entering a new theatre of conflict
0:11:23 > 0:11:26where they were bombarded with jihadist propaganda.
0:11:29 > 0:11:33So, these officers, these propaganda intelligence officers,
0:11:33 > 0:11:35what are they doing, how are they getting
0:11:35 > 0:11:37their message across to the prisoners?
0:11:37 > 0:11:40One idea was to have a camp newspaper.
0:11:40 > 0:11:42It was called El Jihad
0:11:42 > 0:11:46and the idea was to convince as many prisoners as possible
0:11:46 > 0:11:49to become so-called jihadists.
0:11:50 > 0:11:52Oppenheim took a personal interest
0:11:52 > 0:11:55in the day-to-day running of the Half Moon Camp,
0:11:55 > 0:12:01ensuring that the dietary and religious sensitivities of the camp inmates were catered for.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07But Oppenheim wanted to do something that would prove beyond doubt
0:12:07 > 0:12:10that Germany was the true friend of Islam.
0:12:11 > 0:12:15In the beginning of 1915, they started to discuss the idea
0:12:15 > 0:12:19to build a mosque for the prisoners of war in the Half Moon Camp.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24It was not built just out of religious ideas,
0:12:24 > 0:12:28it was built out of political ideas,
0:12:28 > 0:12:31and it was built out of the expectation
0:12:31 > 0:12:36that it would serve the propaganda purposes which Germany had.
0:12:42 > 0:12:45This Half Moon Camp was a show camp
0:12:45 > 0:12:49and we have lots of postcards showing the mosque in the camp,
0:12:49 > 0:12:54showing the prisoners... doing sport games,
0:12:54 > 0:12:59doing religious festivities, which were sent around the world.
0:12:59 > 0:13:00But despite the mosque,
0:13:00 > 0:13:05despite the special treatment and the daily indoctrination,
0:13:05 > 0:13:08volunteers for jihad from the Half Moon Camp
0:13:08 > 0:13:12would be counted in tens, not thousands.
0:13:15 > 0:13:18After the horrors of trench warfare,
0:13:18 > 0:13:22most prisoners of war were more interested in surviving
0:13:22 > 0:13:24than fighting new wars.
0:13:24 > 0:13:26And even those who did volunteer
0:13:26 > 0:13:29sometimes had their own private motivations.
0:13:33 > 0:13:37That seems to be the case with one of the most intriguing characters
0:13:37 > 0:13:41to emerge from the shadows of the World's War.
0:13:44 > 0:13:46Mir Mast was a Muslim
0:13:46 > 0:13:50from a small mountain village on the border of Afghanistan and India.
0:13:51 > 0:13:56He was a Jemadar, a platoon commander, in the 58th Vaughan's Rifles,
0:13:56 > 0:13:57part of the India Corp
0:13:57 > 0:14:01who had been sent to fight in France at the start of the war.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06By the spring of 1915,
0:14:06 > 0:14:10Mir Mast had already endured a bitter winter in the trenches.
0:14:10 > 0:14:14He'd seen fierce fighting and been awarded
0:14:14 > 0:14:20the Indian Distinguished Service Medal for gallantry and devotion to duty.
0:14:20 > 0:14:22One rainy night in early March,
0:14:22 > 0:14:26a week before the start of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle,
0:14:26 > 0:14:28he crept out of his trench
0:14:28 > 0:14:32and led 20 of his men silently across no-man's-land...
0:14:33 > 0:14:36..not to attack the enemy, but to desert.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43This was the first leg of an incredible journey.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46One canny soldier with a strong instinct for survival
0:14:46 > 0:14:51was about to be pitched into a world of intrigue and conspiracy.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57What I've got here arranged in front of me
0:14:57 > 0:15:01is the paper trail, the documents left behind by Mir Mast
0:15:01 > 0:15:04in archives in London and Delhi and Berlin.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08In The London Gazette is the formal announcement
0:15:08 > 0:15:12of Mir Mast's Indian Distinguished Service Medal.
0:15:13 > 0:15:15But by the time his award was announced
0:15:15 > 0:15:20this gallant officer was already being debriefed by German officials.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26These are the notes from the interrogation of Mir Mast
0:15:26 > 0:15:31by a German official on the 7th of March 1915, in Lille, in France.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34So, this is just a few days after he's defected
0:15:34 > 0:15:36and brought other soldiers with him
0:15:36 > 0:15:39over to the German lines at Neuve Chapelle.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42The most important page is this one.
0:15:42 > 0:15:44This is a map of the Khyber Pass,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47perhaps drawn by Mir Mast himself,
0:15:47 > 0:15:49it certainly comes out of his interrogation,
0:15:49 > 0:15:52and it lists the numbers and the locations,
0:15:52 > 0:15:56the dispositions of the British and Indian troops on the Khyber Pass,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00the critical route between Afghanistan and British India.
0:16:00 > 0:16:02So, clearly, having deserted to the Germans,
0:16:02 > 0:16:07Mir Mast was determined to prove to them just how useful he could be.
0:16:08 > 0:16:12From Lille, Mir Mast was taken to the Half Moon Camp
0:16:12 > 0:16:17where his cooperation would have brought him to the attention of agents of the jihad bureau.
0:16:19 > 0:16:21They were on the lookout for volunteers
0:16:21 > 0:16:26for one of the most audacious and dangerous missions of the war.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31An exhibition to Kabul to persuade the Emir of Afghanistan
0:16:31 > 0:16:36to switch sides and join a holy war against British India.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41The mission was made up of German and Turkish diplomats,
0:16:41 > 0:16:45Indian nationalists and volunteers from the Half Moon camp
0:16:45 > 0:16:48whose local knowledge would be invaluable.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56The expedition would set off from Istanbul...
0:16:56 > 0:16:59heading first towards Baghdad.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06From there, they'd cross the salt deserts and mountains of Persia
0:17:06 > 0:17:11before dropping onto the dusty plains of Afghanistan
0:17:11 > 0:17:15and their final destination...Kabul.
0:17:20 > 0:17:25The most intriguing piece of evidence in this whole story is this photograph.
0:17:25 > 0:17:30We know it was taken by the Germans and it shows six Indian soldiers
0:17:30 > 0:17:32wearing what look like Turkish uniforms.
0:17:32 > 0:17:34On the back of the original photograph
0:17:34 > 0:17:38was the title Six Pattans, along with four names,
0:17:38 > 0:17:40one of which is Mir Mast.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43He's the guy on the far left,
0:17:43 > 0:17:46a guy who set himself slightly away from the others.
0:17:46 > 0:17:48But it's his face,
0:17:48 > 0:17:53this guy has the face of a man who's lived the life of Mir Mast,
0:17:53 > 0:17:56who's lived between empires, who's lived a life of intrigue.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58It's the face of a born survivor.
0:18:06 > 0:18:10The mission set off in May 1915.
0:18:10 > 0:18:14Dodging Russian and British patrols, running short of water and supplies,
0:18:14 > 0:18:16more than half of the expedition
0:18:16 > 0:18:19were lost to exhaustion, disease and defection.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26But a core group did reach Kabul.
0:18:26 > 0:18:31They were eventually granted official audiences with the Emir.
0:18:31 > 0:18:33He weighed up his options,
0:18:33 > 0:18:37calculating which imperial power was likely to come out on top.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42But the British were past masters of the great game
0:18:42 > 0:18:47and were able to undermine all the inspiring talk of holy war.
0:18:47 > 0:18:49Well, the British are quite aware, of course,
0:18:49 > 0:18:51of what the Germans are up to.
0:18:51 > 0:18:53They know that the Germans are there
0:18:53 > 0:18:56and they know what the Germans are trying to do.
0:18:56 > 0:18:58And so all the British really have to do
0:18:58 > 0:19:00is make it clear to the Emir
0:19:00 > 0:19:04that it's worth his while not to switch sides,
0:19:04 > 0:19:06to increase his subsidy somewhat.
0:19:06 > 0:19:08In the end, a lot of gold
0:19:08 > 0:19:11was kind of flying around in all directions in the war.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17In the end, the Emir decided to stick with the devils he knew
0:19:17 > 0:19:20and the jihad bureau's schemes unravelled
0:19:20 > 0:19:23in the cold Afghan winter.
0:19:23 > 0:19:29There were limited uprisings in Libya, where Zanusi tribesmen marched on the Suez Canal,
0:19:29 > 0:19:31and in Darfur,
0:19:31 > 0:19:36but Kabul was to be the swansong for Oppenheim's much vaunted strategy
0:19:36 > 0:19:40of revolutionising the Muslim subjects of the enemy.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47Failure for the elaborate strategies of nations
0:19:47 > 0:19:53doesn't necessarily mean failure for the more modest strategies of individuals.
0:19:58 > 0:20:02This document is the final piece in the jigsaw
0:20:02 > 0:20:04in the remarkable life of Mir Mast.
0:20:04 > 0:20:06This is a secret British report
0:20:06 > 0:20:08into the nominal role of Indian prisoners of war
0:20:08 > 0:20:11suspected of having deserted to the enemy.
0:20:11 > 0:20:16It's from October 1918, near the end of the war.
0:20:16 > 0:20:20As well as giving the regiments and the names of these soldiers,
0:20:20 > 0:20:23this document critically also gives us the latest information
0:20:23 > 0:20:26that the British have received on what happened to them.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29And for Mir Mast and two of his colleagues, what it says
0:20:29 > 0:20:33is these three accompanied the Turco-German mission to Afghanistan
0:20:33 > 0:20:39and are reported to have returned to their homes in June 1915.
0:20:39 > 0:20:41So, there you have it, evidence that the British, at least,
0:20:41 > 0:20:45are convinced that Mir Mast made it all the way from the Western Front
0:20:45 > 0:20:47back to his home.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58The North West Frontier
0:20:58 > 0:21:01wasn't the only potential flash point on the imperial map.
0:21:04 > 0:21:07Africa, with its patchwork of imperial holdings,
0:21:07 > 0:21:11stitched together during the so-called "Scramble for Africa"
0:21:11 > 0:21:15at the end of the 19th century, was also ripe for conflict.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20Here in German East Africa, present-day Tanzania,
0:21:20 > 0:21:24the sparks from Europe's war would start a conflagration
0:21:24 > 0:21:28that would ultimately consume the lives of millions of Africans.
0:21:31 > 0:21:36In the decades before the war, German East Africa was booming.
0:21:36 > 0:21:38Gold had recently been discovered
0:21:38 > 0:21:43and vast coffee and rubber plantations fuelled the engine of imperial commerce.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47The capital, Dar es Salaam,
0:21:47 > 0:21:52bustled with shipping and was held up as a model of what a colonial city should be.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56German East Africa had only got to this point
0:21:56 > 0:22:01because the Germans had brutally enforced their will over the local African people.
0:22:01 > 0:22:04And they'd achieved that through the creation
0:22:04 > 0:22:06of an army of local African recruits.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10The Askari, the key Swahili word for soldier,
0:22:10 > 0:22:15had been recruited from those tribes who had fought most affectively against the Germans
0:22:15 > 0:22:17in the early years of the colony.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20So it was, if you like, a sort of backhanded compliment.
0:22:20 > 0:22:22They were well paid, they were highly disciplined
0:22:22 > 0:22:25and they were extremely well trained.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32When the war came, German East Africa was cut off,
0:22:32 > 0:22:35surrounded by the colonies of Belgium,
0:22:35 > 0:22:38Portugal and Britain.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44Military resistance appeared futile.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47This was the view held by the colony's civilian governor,
0:22:47 > 0:22:49Dr Heinrich Schnee.
0:22:51 > 0:22:55As a colonial administrator, Schnee wanted to protect German East Africa
0:22:55 > 0:22:59from the destruction of war, so that once the fighting was over,
0:22:59 > 0:23:01it could quickly get back to making money.
0:23:03 > 0:23:08But the colony's military commander had other priorities.
0:23:08 > 0:23:13Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was one of Germany's colonial hard men.
0:23:13 > 0:23:15With the Fatherland at war in Europe,
0:23:15 > 0:23:19he believed the colonies had a duty to fight,
0:23:19 > 0:23:22if only to divert resources away from the Western Front.
0:23:25 > 0:23:26According to all accounts,
0:23:26 > 0:23:30Lettow-Vorbeck was cultured and personally charming,
0:23:30 > 0:23:33but by the time he arrived here in East Africa,
0:23:33 > 0:23:37it was clear that he was also a man with a streak of ruthlessness,
0:23:37 > 0:23:39a character trait that was to prove disastrous
0:23:39 > 0:23:42for literally millions of people on this continent.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49The first major action in this disastrous war
0:23:49 > 0:23:51came in November 1914,
0:23:51 > 0:23:55when a British flotilla approached the coast of German East Africa.
0:23:58 > 0:24:02On board was an 8,000-strong expeditionary force
0:24:02 > 0:24:05drawn from the British Army in India.
0:24:06 > 0:24:09Their destination was the busy German port of Tanga.
0:24:11 > 0:24:14They expected little, if any, resistance.
0:24:14 > 0:24:19Word had reached them that Governor Schnee was willing to discuss a neutrality pact.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21HORN HONKS
0:24:21 > 0:24:24But that news was out of date.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27When Lettow-Vorbeck heard about the invasion force,
0:24:27 > 0:24:31he immediately despatched Askari units to Tanga
0:24:31 > 0:24:34with orders to dig in and resist.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38The stage was set for the first major offensive
0:24:38 > 0:24:40of the war in East Africa.
0:24:42 > 0:24:45It's difficult to think of a battle that better illustrates
0:24:45 > 0:24:47just how strange things can get
0:24:47 > 0:24:51when global empires go to war in other people's countries.
0:24:51 > 0:24:54On paper, the battle here at Tanga
0:24:54 > 0:24:57was a fight between the British and the Germans,
0:24:57 > 0:24:59but the army that Britain landed on these beaches
0:24:59 > 0:25:04was mainly made up of Indians, men from Kashmir, men from Bangalore
0:25:04 > 0:25:06and the princely states of the Raj,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09while the defenders of German East Africa,
0:25:09 > 0:25:12the army dug in around the town of Tanga over there,
0:25:12 > 0:25:15they were mainly Africans, Askaris from across East Africa.
0:25:17 > 0:25:18The situation on the ground
0:25:18 > 0:25:21was complicated by a set of racial theories
0:25:21 > 0:25:25in the heads of those in charge of the battle.
0:25:25 > 0:25:28The British commander, Major General Aiken,
0:25:28 > 0:25:30was a man who knew little about this continent
0:25:30 > 0:25:32and little about its people,
0:25:32 > 0:25:35but what he did know about was the idea of racial hierarchies,
0:25:35 > 0:25:39one of those theories that underpinned imperialism,
0:25:39 > 0:25:42and he was convinced that British-trained Indians
0:25:42 > 0:25:45were far superior to German-trained Africans.
0:25:45 > 0:25:49And he became supremely overconfident that his Indians
0:25:49 > 0:25:54would, in his words, "Make short work of a lot of niggers."
0:25:59 > 0:26:02The Indian troops landed without opposition,
0:26:02 > 0:26:07but waiting for them on the outskirts of town were the Askari,
0:26:07 > 0:26:11outnumbered, but well-armed.
0:26:12 > 0:26:14As the Indian and British soldiers
0:26:14 > 0:26:17got within 600 yards of the town of Tanga
0:26:17 > 0:26:19the German machine guns opened up.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22GUNFIRE
0:26:22 > 0:26:24Whole units were mowed down.
0:26:26 > 0:26:27In two days of fighting,
0:26:27 > 0:26:31more than 800 Indian and British troops were killed or wounded.
0:26:33 > 0:26:36German casualties numbered 150 men.
0:26:38 > 0:26:42The British were forced to accept that the invasion had failed.
0:26:47 > 0:26:50They sent a party of officers to negotiate with the Germans
0:26:50 > 0:26:53here at Tanga's hospital.
0:26:53 > 0:26:55According to one eye-witness,
0:26:55 > 0:26:59they discussed the battle "as if it had been a football match".
0:27:01 > 0:27:05The unexpected victory of Lettow-Vorbeck and his Askari
0:27:05 > 0:27:10marked the birth of a myth that was to live on in Germany for decades.
0:27:14 > 0:27:16After Tanga, the German public
0:27:16 > 0:27:19became fascinated by every detail of the war in Africa.
0:27:19 > 0:27:23The Kaiser sent personal commendations to the East African Army
0:27:23 > 0:27:27and the German press and the German propaganda machine
0:27:27 > 0:27:30set about transforming a little-known colonial hard man
0:27:30 > 0:27:34into a living legend and a Teutonic hero.
0:27:34 > 0:27:36MEN SING IN GERMAN
0:27:50 > 0:27:53But set-piece battles like Tanga would be the exception.
0:27:57 > 0:28:01Cut off from regular supply lines, Lettow-Vorbeck's tactics
0:28:01 > 0:28:04were, for the most part, to avoid major engagements.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09Instead, he launched hit-and-run raids over as wide an area as possible.
0:28:12 > 0:28:18Lettow-Vorbeck and his Askari troops set off on a 1,000-mile journey.
0:28:18 > 0:28:19Armies from South Africa
0:28:19 > 0:28:22and the British, Belgian and Portuguese colonies
0:28:22 > 0:28:24all set off in pursuit.
0:28:24 > 0:28:29And he drew them deeper and deeper into East and Central Africa.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36This was a war of endless marches, where the deadliest enemies
0:28:36 > 0:28:39were climate, exhaustion and disease.
0:28:42 > 0:28:46Of the 20,000 South African troops sent after Lettow-Vorbeck,
0:28:46 > 0:28:50half were invalided home due to illness.
0:28:53 > 0:28:57For all its well-documented horrors, the Western Front
0:28:57 > 0:29:01was at least a narrowly-defined killing zone.
0:29:03 > 0:29:04But the war in Africa
0:29:04 > 0:29:09passed directly through countless villages like a plague of locusts.
0:29:09 > 0:29:12And for the civilians caught in its chaotic path,
0:29:12 > 0:29:17there was nothing romantic about this blood-stained "safari".
0:29:19 > 0:29:21Many were press-ganged as porters,
0:29:21 > 0:29:24forced to carry the war forward on their backs.
0:29:27 > 0:29:29The British alone recruited
0:29:29 > 0:29:32about a million Africans into the Carrier Corps.
0:29:32 > 0:29:34These were men who were made to march alongside the armies
0:29:34 > 0:29:38carrying great 60lb loads of food and ammunition.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42They were overworked and underfed, and about 20% of them died.
0:29:42 > 0:29:44Now that's a casualty rate
0:29:44 > 0:29:47that compares to anything on the Western Front.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50One British official had no doubt that their treatment
0:29:50 > 0:29:54would have been considered a scandal had they not been merely Africans.
0:29:54 > 0:29:58"After all," he said, "who cares about native carriers?"
0:29:58 > 0:30:02The Germans behaved, if anything, even worse.
0:30:02 > 0:30:04When they swept into villages like this,
0:30:04 > 0:30:07they simply kidnapped the men.
0:30:07 > 0:30:10Lettow-Vorbeck sometimes had men tied together with ropes
0:30:10 > 0:30:13and those who tried to escape were simply shot dead.
0:30:20 > 0:30:24Before the war, the fertile hinterlands of German East Africa
0:30:24 > 0:30:26had provided a surplus of food.
0:30:28 > 0:30:31Robbed of men to work the fields and tend the cattle,
0:30:31 > 0:30:35food stocks now waned and harvests failed.
0:30:39 > 0:30:41GOSPEL SINGING
0:30:42 > 0:30:47Lettow-Vorbeck's war of choice brought nothing but disaster.
0:30:47 > 0:30:49Up to a third of a million African civilians
0:30:49 > 0:30:51are believed to have perished in the famines
0:30:51 > 0:30:54caused directly by his campaign.
0:30:55 > 0:31:00Ludwig Depper was a German doctor who served alongside Lettow-Vorbeck.
0:31:03 > 0:31:08"Behind us we leave destroyed fields, ransacked food stores
0:31:08 > 0:31:11"and for the immediate future, starvation."
0:31:14 > 0:31:17"We are no longer the agents of culture.
0:31:17 > 0:31:22"Our path is marked by death, plundering and abandoned villages."
0:31:26 > 0:31:30But that's not the way the story was told in Germany.
0:31:30 > 0:31:33The legend of Lettow-Vorbeck and his loyal Askaris
0:31:33 > 0:31:36carried on decades after the war.
0:31:39 > 0:31:43The myth was reinforced by the German general's own memoirs.
0:31:43 > 0:31:48The title, Heia Safari, was the name of the Askari marching song.
0:31:48 > 0:31:51And the memoirs gave the impression that Lettow-Vorbeck
0:31:51 > 0:31:57was a swashbuckling hero leading a life of derring-do in East Africa.
0:32:04 > 0:32:07But I was born on this continent and it's been my home,
0:32:07 > 0:32:10and I just can't see it that way.
0:32:10 > 0:32:14To me, Lettow-Vorbeck was an obsessive, a fanatic.
0:32:14 > 0:32:17He became famous as the man who was determined to fight on
0:32:17 > 0:32:19no matter what the cost,
0:32:19 > 0:32:21but it wasn't him who paid that cost.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24That was paid by hundreds of thousands of Africans
0:32:24 > 0:32:29who died in his war, a war that in the end achieved nothing.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32Because Lettow-Vorbeck didn't draw British soldiers
0:32:32 > 0:32:33away from the Western Front,
0:32:33 > 0:32:36and he didn't manage to keep hold of German East Africa.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39What he and his mercenary army did succeed in doing
0:32:39 > 0:32:44was leaving behind them a trail of famine, disease and death.
0:32:51 > 0:32:53The military cemetery in Dar es Salaam
0:32:53 > 0:32:57is for me a more fitting monument to the war in East Africa
0:32:57 > 0:33:00than the dubious legend of a rogue German general.
0:33:04 > 0:33:06This is the West African Frontier Force,
0:33:06 > 0:33:09the Gold Coast Regiment, and their list of casualties.
0:33:09 > 0:33:11These are men from what's today Ghana,
0:33:11 > 0:33:14and there's lots of Ashanti and Fanti names here, Kofi and Kobli.
0:33:14 > 0:33:16There's a Musa Grunshi.
0:33:16 > 0:33:20The Grunshi people also come from Ghana, but also from Burkina Faso.
0:33:20 > 0:33:25Here's a group of names that you can tell are Uraba: Adegun, Adeola.
0:33:25 > 0:33:28These are men from Nigeria. The Uraba is my own ethnic group,
0:33:28 > 0:33:32and these are men who might have come from Lagos, where I was born.
0:33:32 > 0:33:34But over here is a list of casualties,
0:33:34 > 0:33:37a long list of casualties from the King's African Rifles.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41This is by far the biggest force the British cobbled together
0:33:41 > 0:33:42to fight the Germans in East Africa
0:33:42 > 0:33:45and they came from across British colonial Africa,
0:33:45 > 0:33:48from Malawi, from Kenya, from Zimbabwe.
0:33:48 > 0:33:52But it's not just Africans fighting for the British remembered here.
0:33:52 > 0:33:54Here are three Askari who were from the Congo,
0:33:54 > 0:33:56and they're fighting for the Belgium Army.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59And there's even one Askari Palawi,
0:33:59 > 0:34:02who's fighting for the Portuguese. He's from Mozambique.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10These are men of the British West Indies Regiment.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13These are men from Jamaica, Barbados and the other islands
0:34:13 > 0:34:15who volunteered to fight
0:34:15 > 0:34:18but were never allowed to serve on the Western Front.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23So in one of those bizarre twists of imperial history,
0:34:23 > 0:34:26they find themselves in Africa fighting for the empire
0:34:26 > 0:34:30that took their ancestors from this continent and into slavery.
0:34:45 > 0:34:47And all the while, far away in Europe,
0:34:47 > 0:34:51the armies on the Western Front had been perfecting the techniques
0:34:51 > 0:34:53of industrial-scale slaughter.
0:34:54 > 0:35:00By 1917, they'd developed a sophisticated killing machine.
0:35:00 > 0:35:04All it required was an infinite number of men to keep it turning,
0:35:04 > 0:35:09some supplying the blood, others the sweat and the tears.
0:35:10 > 0:35:14There had never been anything like it on the face of the planet.
0:35:18 > 0:35:21A few years ago, I asked one of the last veterans of the First World War
0:35:21 > 0:35:24what he'd felt, what his emotions had been
0:35:24 > 0:35:26when he'd arrived here on the Western Front.
0:35:26 > 0:35:28And what he said was this:
0:35:28 > 0:35:30he said it was clear that he was entering into
0:35:30 > 0:35:33the biggest man-made structure on earth.
0:35:33 > 0:35:35And I've never forgotten that description,
0:35:35 > 0:35:37cos that's what the Western Front was -
0:35:37 > 0:35:41a vast 20th-century military city of encampments and trenches
0:35:41 > 0:35:43and dugouts and barbed wire.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48With its complex infrastructure of roads, railways,
0:35:48 > 0:35:53ammunition dumps, factories, hospitals, brothels and morgues,
0:35:53 > 0:35:58the Western Front was a linear city extending 450 miles
0:35:58 > 0:36:02from the Swiss frontier to the English Channel.
0:36:02 > 0:36:05And with a population to match.
0:36:05 > 0:36:09By 1917, this was the most culturally
0:36:09 > 0:36:11and ethnically diverse place on earth.
0:36:15 > 0:36:16Near the city of Nancy,
0:36:16 > 0:36:20American soldiers trained for their debut in the war.
0:36:22 > 0:36:27At Verdun, Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians manned machine guns
0:36:27 > 0:36:31as the French struggled to control this strategic citadel.
0:36:34 > 0:36:36At Chemin des Dames,
0:36:36 > 0:36:40men from Senegal and Vietnam fought side by side.
0:36:46 > 0:36:50At Cambrai, Inuit snipers and scouts fought a war of stealth,
0:36:50 > 0:36:53while Indian cavalrymen charged into battle.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01At Arras, Maori and Pacific Island sappers
0:37:01 > 0:37:05dug tunnels under enemy trenches and planted mines.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12While Canadian Indians prayed to the sun near Vimy Ridge
0:37:12 > 0:37:14before going over the top.
0:37:18 > 0:37:21And West Indian, African and Egyptian labourers
0:37:21 > 0:37:24resupplied Australians, New Zealanders,
0:37:24 > 0:37:25South Africans and Canadians
0:37:25 > 0:37:29as they entered the carnage of the Third Battle for Ypres.
0:37:32 > 0:37:34This was the moment
0:37:34 > 0:37:38when we can truly call the conflict the World's War.
0:38:17 > 0:38:21This is an ornate doorway carved in an Arab style
0:38:21 > 0:38:25in a concrete shelter in the middle of a cow field in Belgium.
0:38:27 > 0:38:31There's an inscription here in Arabic that reads, I'm told,
0:38:31 > 0:38:33"There is no god but Allah.
0:38:33 > 0:38:36"If you believe in Allah, you will be victorious."
0:38:36 > 0:38:39We don't know anything really about the men
0:38:39 > 0:38:42who carved their prayer into this doorway.
0:38:42 > 0:38:44We know they were Muslim soldiers
0:38:44 > 0:38:47and that they were here in the First World War, and that's it.
0:38:48 > 0:38:51There's something poignant, there's something almost tragic.
0:38:51 > 0:38:54You can imagine men huddling under bombardments in here
0:38:54 > 0:38:57turning to their faith and writing in Arabic a prayer
0:38:57 > 0:39:01in the middle of a war, not knowing whether they'll ever survive.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07To me, this is as much a memorial to unknown soldiers
0:39:07 > 0:39:09as any of the others on the Western Front.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23Before the war, in the rural backwaters of Belgium and France,
0:39:23 > 0:39:25non-white faces would have been seen
0:39:25 > 0:39:28only on the pages of books and magazines.
0:39:33 > 0:39:37Suddenly, towns and villages filled with strange faces,
0:39:37 > 0:39:41speaking unknown languages and eating exotic foods.
0:39:41 > 0:39:43CHURCH BELLS CHIME
0:39:43 > 0:39:47Watching over this transformation in the Belgian town of Dikkebus
0:39:47 > 0:39:51was a young parish priest, Father Achiel van Walleghem.
0:39:53 > 0:39:56So this is the church.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00Historian and curator Dominiek Dendooven has studied
0:40:00 > 0:40:05Father van Walleghem's remarkable diary of those strange times.
0:40:08 > 0:40:09What you seem to get from him is
0:40:09 > 0:40:13a view of the First World War from behind net curtains.
0:40:13 > 0:40:17We actually have through him first-hand accounts,
0:40:17 > 0:40:21but first-hand accounts not from one of the parties involved,
0:40:21 > 0:40:25but from a bystander, which is... It's very nice,
0:40:25 > 0:40:29because that's information that first of all you would never think about,
0:40:29 > 0:40:35and secondly, you would never, ever encounter in official reports.
0:40:37 > 0:40:41We've got the entry for the 6th of June, a Sunday.
0:40:41 > 0:40:47"Several Indian troops have arrived on the parish, black of skin,
0:40:47 > 0:40:50"dressed as English soldiers
0:40:50 > 0:40:56"with the exception of the hat, which is draped artfully in a towel."
0:40:56 > 0:40:57- Artfully?- Artfully.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00- So that's a turban.- A turban, yeah.
0:41:00 > 0:41:04"They speak English and some a bit of French.
0:41:04 > 0:41:08"In general, they are very friendly and polite,
0:41:08 > 0:41:12"though their curiosity has the upper hand
0:41:12 > 0:41:17"and they especially like to see through the windows of our houses.
0:41:17 > 0:41:19"They bake a kind of pancake
0:41:19 > 0:41:23"and they eat a kind of seed which has a very strong taste.
0:41:23 > 0:41:25"They stay here for several weeks."
0:41:25 > 0:41:29- So this is going to be chapatis. - Oh, yeah, they're eating chapatis.
0:41:29 > 0:41:31- And flavoured with a very strong tasting spice.- Oh, yeah.
0:41:31 > 0:41:34He says they're eating a kind of seed which is very strong,
0:41:34 > 0:41:35so he must have tasted it,
0:41:35 > 0:41:38because otherwise he wouldn't have known that it has a strong taste.
0:41:38 > 0:41:42So he's one of the first people in rural Belgium to try Indian food.
0:41:42 > 0:41:47That's very much so, because local people normally tend to be
0:41:47 > 0:41:51chauvinistic regarding food, but he is as least someone
0:41:51 > 0:41:54who's open to taste other things.
0:41:56 > 0:42:00One group in particular caught the attention of the inquisitive priest.
0:42:00 > 0:42:03They'd travelled from the other side of the world
0:42:03 > 0:42:05to play their part in the war.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12"In the area now, many Chinese have arrived
0:42:12 > 0:42:18"and they are employed by the English...the British Army to work.
0:42:18 > 0:42:23"Yellow of colour with a flat nose and slanted eyes,
0:42:23 > 0:42:28"they always have a foolish grin on their face.
0:42:30 > 0:42:35"So it happens that I pass them shortly before noon
0:42:35 > 0:42:39"and constantly they were saying, 'Watch! Watch,'
0:42:39 > 0:42:42"because they wanted to know how late it was.
0:42:42 > 0:42:44"And I believe they were getting hungry,
0:42:44 > 0:42:48"because when I show them it was only five minutes to 12,
0:42:48 > 0:42:51"they were nodding contently."
0:42:51 > 0:42:53Cos they know they're going to get their dinner?
0:42:53 > 0:42:55And then he writes, indeed, then he wrote,
0:42:55 > 0:43:00"It was nearly time to fill their bellies with their beloved rice."
0:43:00 > 0:43:03- Their beloved rice.- Their beloved rice, they lived on rice.
0:43:07 > 0:43:11Recruitment of the Chinese Labour Corps began in 1916,
0:43:11 > 0:43:16a desperate attempt to fill the gaping void in British manpower
0:43:16 > 0:43:18left by the Battle of the Somme.
0:43:18 > 0:43:23Impoverished Chinese peasants were recruited in their thousands
0:43:23 > 0:43:26from the country's north-eastern provinces.
0:43:26 > 0:43:28They spent months on a journey
0:43:28 > 0:43:30that took them across oceans and continents,
0:43:30 > 0:43:34and arrived in Europe exhausted and disorientated.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39And they were assigned the war's dirty jobs,
0:43:39 > 0:43:42digging trenches, lugging ammo, burying bodies.
0:43:45 > 0:43:48But as the war continued, many found themselves propelled
0:43:48 > 0:43:52into new, unexpected roles as skilled mechanics
0:43:52 > 0:43:56on a military technology that was making its debut in the war.
0:44:06 > 0:44:10This is Deborah, a British D51 tank.
0:44:12 > 0:44:14In the winter of 1917,
0:44:14 > 0:44:18she was one of more than 300 of these strange new beasts
0:44:18 > 0:44:21that lumbered towards the German lines.
0:44:25 > 0:44:28Deborah was dug up and recovered 80 years later
0:44:28 > 0:44:31by her proud owner, Philippe Gorcynski.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35For him, the story of the tank
0:44:35 > 0:44:39and the story of the Chinese Labour Corps are inseparable.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42So in the First World War, this is the most hi tech,
0:44:42 > 0:44:45most complicated piece of machinery on the battlefield?
0:44:45 > 0:44:49Yes, it was like Formula 1, it was a new design,
0:44:49 > 0:44:52modern equipment with an engine.
0:44:52 > 0:44:58It was the new technology of the beginning of the century.
0:45:01 > 0:45:06The tanks were submitted to very hard condition of driving,
0:45:06 > 0:45:10but also of fighting. So when the tanks went into action,
0:45:10 > 0:45:12you have to imagine that those that were inside
0:45:12 > 0:45:17sometimes asked the maximum of their engine of their tank.
0:45:17 > 0:45:20So as soon as the action was finished,
0:45:20 > 0:45:22the tank has to be completely repaired,
0:45:22 > 0:45:24re-put into fighting condition.
0:45:24 > 0:45:26So for most of its time,
0:45:26 > 0:45:29a tank wasn't in the hands of soldiers and tank crews,
0:45:29 > 0:45:33it was with engineers behind the line being repaired and rebuilt?
0:45:33 > 0:45:39Yes, because I think that every tank went into Chinese hands.
0:45:39 > 0:45:43In fact, they were crucial in the involvement of the tank
0:45:43 > 0:45:45in the First World War.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49This was hard work and it was dangerous work,
0:45:49 > 0:45:51but it was also skilled mechanical work.
0:45:51 > 0:45:54Yes, because it need very careful attention just for the engine,
0:45:54 > 0:46:00just for the gear box of the tanks, just for all this kind of adjustment.
0:46:00 > 0:46:04So it needs people who are very careful and very meticulous.
0:46:04 > 0:46:09And also surprisingly, they have to work on both sides,
0:46:09 > 0:46:13very heavy and difficult task and also very meticulous work.
0:46:15 > 0:46:21They have to work a seven-day week and sometimes more than ten hours.
0:46:21 > 0:46:26And many of them suffered from wounds, some were killed.
0:46:27 > 0:46:33So it was really hard treatment and always in the middle of the mud,
0:46:33 > 0:46:36always in the middle of the grease.
0:46:36 > 0:46:40It was...it was also a kind of hell.
0:46:48 > 0:46:51The story of the Chinese Labour Corps
0:46:51 > 0:46:53did not end with the end of the war.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57Many stayed on afterwards to clear up the mess.
0:46:57 > 0:47:00They filled in the trenches, recovered bodies,
0:47:00 > 0:47:03dug cemeteries,
0:47:03 > 0:47:04carved headstones.
0:47:06 > 0:47:09And many succumbed to the Spanish flu epidemic
0:47:09 > 0:47:11that raged after the war.
0:47:13 > 0:47:18There is, I think, something specially tragic about this place,
0:47:18 > 0:47:21a Chinese cemetery in the middle of a French farm.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24And most of these men were themselves just farmers
0:47:24 > 0:47:27from tiny villages, and all they wanted to do
0:47:27 > 0:47:29was to earn some money and see a little bit of the world.
0:47:29 > 0:47:32But 2,000 of them never made it home.
0:47:35 > 0:47:38It was their muscle and their ingenuity
0:47:38 > 0:47:41that kept the wheels of industrial warfare turning.
0:47:43 > 0:47:45But all of that, everything they'd done,
0:47:45 > 0:47:49everything they'd been through, quickly slipped from memory.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52Of all the many peoples who came to the Western Front
0:47:52 > 0:47:54in the First World War,
0:47:54 > 0:47:58the Chinese labourers are probably the most forgotten of the forgotten.
0:48:03 > 0:48:05BIRDSONG
0:48:13 > 0:48:18In April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany.
0:48:19 > 0:48:23By the end of the year, tens of thousands of fresh troops
0:48:23 > 0:48:27were arriving in France to reinforce the weary Allied ranks.
0:48:32 > 0:48:34This is the grave of Freddie Stowers,
0:48:34 > 0:48:38an American corporal who was killed in action in September 1918
0:48:38 > 0:48:40taking part in the Meuse-Argonne offensive,
0:48:40 > 0:48:43one of the key turning points in the whole of the First World War.
0:48:43 > 0:48:46What's different about Corporal Stowers
0:48:46 > 0:48:49from most of the men buried in this American cemetery
0:48:49 > 0:48:52was that he fought his war in a French helmet,
0:48:52 > 0:48:54he carried a French rifle,
0:48:54 > 0:48:56he took orders from officers who were Frenchmen.
0:48:56 > 0:48:58And the reason for that -
0:48:58 > 0:49:00Freddie Stowers was an African-American.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03BIRDSONG
0:49:03 > 0:49:05The commander of the American Expeditionary Force,
0:49:05 > 0:49:07General John Pershing,
0:49:07 > 0:49:10had refused to lead black soldiers into battle.
0:49:10 > 0:49:13Most of the third of a million African-Americans
0:49:13 > 0:49:16drafted into the US Army had been sent to work
0:49:16 > 0:49:19behind the lines in segregated labour battalions.
0:49:24 > 0:49:26There were a handful of black combat units
0:49:26 > 0:49:29and General Pershing's refusal to lead them
0:49:29 > 0:49:31turned them into an orphaned army.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34The French called them Les Enfants Perdus, The Lost Children.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36First, the British were asked to train them
0:49:36 > 0:49:39in the arts of trench warfare, but they said no.
0:49:39 > 0:49:41But the French Army welcomed them into their ranks,
0:49:41 > 0:49:44ranks that, after all, were full already
0:49:44 > 0:49:46of black soldiers from the French Empire.
0:49:49 > 0:49:51Most of the black American soldiers who came to France
0:49:51 > 0:49:54were from the south. And what they encountered here
0:49:54 > 0:49:57was a society that had its own prejudices,
0:49:57 > 0:50:00but that was still radically more tolerant and integrated
0:50:00 > 0:50:03than segregation-era America.
0:50:06 > 0:50:10In 1914, 54 black men had been lynched in the States
0:50:10 > 0:50:13and in the south, black people lived under a set of racial laws
0:50:13 > 0:50:15that were really not that dissimilar
0:50:15 > 0:50:18from the laws of apartheid-era South Africa.
0:50:18 > 0:50:20What astonished the black troops when they got here
0:50:20 > 0:50:23were the simple things, that they could go out to the cafes,
0:50:23 > 0:50:27that they could travel in the same railway carriages as whites,
0:50:27 > 0:50:29that they could talk to white women on the street,
0:50:29 > 0:50:32and that's something that could get you killed in the American south.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34One soldier wrote home to his mother
0:50:34 > 0:50:38saying the only time he was ever reminded in France that he was black
0:50:38 > 0:50:41was when he looked at his own face in the mirror.
0:50:43 > 0:50:48Something of a love affair developed between France and black America.
0:50:48 > 0:50:52Unlike France's own black troops, recruited from West Africa
0:50:52 > 0:50:54and regarded by many French civilians
0:50:54 > 0:50:56as uncultured and primitive,
0:50:56 > 0:50:59America's black troops were seen as sophisticated,
0:50:59 > 0:51:04urbane, and as irresistible as their new style of music.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07Behind-the-lines parties would sow the seeds
0:51:07 > 0:51:10for the post-war passion for le jazz.
0:51:12 > 0:51:15But the American military viewed this love affair
0:51:15 > 0:51:17with mounting horror.
0:51:17 > 0:51:20French acceptance of black Americans as equals
0:51:20 > 0:51:24threatened to undermine the foundations of segregated America.
0:51:27 > 0:51:29The music had to stop.
0:51:31 > 0:51:34This is a copy of The Crisis, which was the magazine
0:51:34 > 0:51:38of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People,
0:51:38 > 0:51:41the NAACP, which is an American civil rights movement
0:51:41 > 0:51:43that still exists today.
0:51:43 > 0:51:49And this edition from May 1919 is a celebration of what it calls
0:51:49 > 0:51:53"the American Negroes' record in the Great World War,
0:51:53 > 0:51:56"a record of loyalty, valour and achievement."
0:51:56 > 0:52:02But on page 16, there is a section called Documents of the War.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05And the most important document is this one,
0:52:05 > 0:52:09Secret Information Concerning Black American Troops.
0:52:09 > 0:52:11This was written by the French military mission
0:52:11 > 0:52:14on the orders of the Americans.
0:52:14 > 0:52:16And what this is is a list of instructions,
0:52:16 > 0:52:19of demands placed on the French by the Americans
0:52:19 > 0:52:24on how they were expected to treat black American soldiers.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28It begins, "Although a citizen of the United States,
0:52:28 > 0:52:32"the black man is regarded by white Americans as an inferior being,
0:52:32 > 0:52:37"with whom relations of business or service only are possible.
0:52:37 > 0:52:42"The black is constantly being censored for his want of intelligence and discretion.
0:52:42 > 0:52:45"For his lack of civic and professional conscience
0:52:45 > 0:52:48"and for his tendency towards undue familiarity."
0:52:52 > 0:52:56"We must prevent," it says, "the rise of any pronounced degree
0:52:56 > 0:53:00"of intimacy between French officers and black officers.
0:53:00 > 0:53:01"We must not eat with them,
0:53:01 > 0:53:05"must not shake hands or seek to meet or talk with them
0:53:05 > 0:53:08"outside of the requirements of military service.
0:53:10 > 0:53:14"We must not commend too highly the black American troops,
0:53:14 > 0:53:18"particularly in the presence of white Americans.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21"We must make a point of keeping the native population" -
0:53:21 > 0:53:23they mean the white French population -
0:53:23 > 0:53:25"from spoiling the negroes.
0:53:25 > 0:53:28"White Americans become greatly incensed
0:53:28 > 0:53:33"by any expression of intimacy between white women and black men."
0:53:36 > 0:53:39But French officers had more pressing concerns
0:53:39 > 0:53:42than shoring up America's race barrier,
0:53:42 > 0:53:45and the so-called French directive was suppressed.
0:53:47 > 0:53:51By September 1918, they and their black American troops
0:53:51 > 0:53:55were involved in what became known as the 100 Days Offensive,
0:53:55 > 0:54:00the final bloody push to drive the Germans back to the Rhine.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04Early on the morning of the 26th September,
0:54:04 > 0:54:07Freddie Stowers and his company received orders
0:54:07 > 0:54:09to take a heavily-defended hill
0:54:09 > 0:54:12infested with German machine-gun nests.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17When the German troops appeared to surrender,
0:54:17 > 0:54:20Stowers led his men forward, but it was a trap.
0:54:20 > 0:54:23The machine guns opened up and he was hit twice.
0:54:23 > 0:54:27But somehow, he managed to lead his men and take the German positions.
0:54:28 > 0:54:33He died on the battlefield, an American soldier in a French helmet.
0:54:35 > 0:54:39Stowers was recommended for the highest US military accolade,
0:54:39 > 0:54:41the Medal of Honor.
0:54:41 > 0:54:43But it would be more than 70 years
0:54:43 > 0:54:46before the recommendation was processed.
0:54:47 > 0:54:51His sisters finally received the medal on his behalf...
0:54:51 > 0:54:53in 1991.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03The 100 Days Offensive ended with a crippled Germany
0:55:03 > 0:55:06signing an armistice on the 11th of November.
0:55:12 > 0:55:14With the fighting over,
0:55:14 > 0:55:16the black regiments returned to the United States,
0:55:16 > 0:55:20many with French medals pinned to their chests.
0:55:22 > 0:55:26Some marched down New York's 5th Avenue as proud heroes.
0:55:28 > 0:55:33But the American south marked their homecoming in other ways.
0:55:34 > 0:55:36Within a year, eight black veterans
0:55:36 > 0:55:39who had survived the horrors of the Western Front
0:55:39 > 0:55:42were hanged by white lynch mobs.
0:55:42 > 0:55:45Two others were burnt alive.
0:55:45 > 0:55:48In one case, the victim's only offence
0:55:48 > 0:55:51was to refuse to take off his army uniform.
0:55:53 > 0:55:55During four years of fighting,
0:55:55 > 0:56:00Europe's imperial powers had broken all the rules of the game of Empire.
0:56:01 > 0:56:04They'd armed their colonial subjects,
0:56:04 > 0:56:08brought them to the heart of Europe and ordered them to kill whites.
0:56:12 > 0:56:15The carefully constructed myth of white superiority
0:56:15 > 0:56:18had been dismembered in the carnage of the fighting.
0:56:20 > 0:56:24But the war didn't lead to the disintegration of empire.
0:56:27 > 0:56:31In the years after 1918, the genies were put back in their bottles.
0:56:34 > 0:56:37The victorious empires of Europe continued to grow.
0:56:40 > 0:56:44Colonial soldiers were told, "Thanks very much,
0:56:44 > 0:56:47"now back to your villages, back to inequality,
0:56:47 > 0:56:51"back to how things were. Let's forget it ever happened."
0:56:53 > 0:56:58A history was constructed which quietly eclipsed their contributions
0:56:58 > 0:57:02and left a collective memory of an almost exclusively white conflict.
0:57:08 > 0:57:12If you want to see a fitting memorial to the World's War,
0:57:12 > 0:57:15you have to travel to present-day Zambia,
0:57:15 > 0:57:18deep in the bush near the Chambeshi River.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24It was here that General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
0:57:24 > 0:57:27and the ragged remnants of his Askari army
0:57:27 > 0:57:32were persuaded to lay down their arms by a British bureaucrat.
0:57:32 > 0:57:35He told them that the guns of the Western Front
0:57:35 > 0:57:40had finally fallen silent three days earlier.
0:57:44 > 0:57:46The World's War was fought by African Askaris,
0:57:46 > 0:57:49the men who took part in the very last engagements
0:57:49 > 0:57:53of the conflict in these fields. It was fought by the Indians
0:57:53 > 0:57:56who'd held back the German advance of 1914.
0:57:56 > 0:57:59By French tirailleurs who took part in the recapture
0:57:59 > 0:58:01of Fort du Mont at Ver Dunne.
0:58:01 > 0:58:05By the Chinese Labourers who dug the trenches and repaired the tanks.
0:58:05 > 0:58:07And by the men at the Crescent Camp,
0:58:07 > 0:58:11who found themselves recruited into the Kaiser's strange jihad.
0:58:11 > 0:58:14And now, a century later,
0:58:14 > 0:58:16we are just beginning, perhaps,
0:58:16 > 0:58:20to write them back into the history of the First World War.