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'I'm embarking on a new railway adventure, | 0:00:04 | 0:00:07 | |
'that will take me across the heart of Europe.' | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
I'll be using this, | 0:00:11 | 0:00:12 | |
my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide, dated 1913, | 0:00:12 | 0:00:17 | |
which opened up an exotic world of foreign travel | 0:00:17 | 0:00:20 | |
for the British tourist. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:21 | |
'It told travellers where to go, what to see | 0:00:23 | 0:00:26 | |
'and how to navigate the thousands of miles of tracks | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
'criss-crossing the Continent. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:31 | |
'Now, a century later, | 0:00:31 | 0:00:33 | |
'I'm using my copy to reveal an era of great optimism and energy, | 0:00:33 | 0:00:37 | |
'where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.' | 0:00:37 | 0:00:42 | |
I want to rediscover that lost Europe that, in 1913, couldn't know | 0:00:42 | 0:00:47 | |
that its way of life would shortly be swept aside | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
by the advent of war. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:52 | |
'Steered by my 1913 railway guide, | 0:01:08 | 0:01:11 | |
'I've completed four illuminating journeys | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
'through prosperous pre-war Europe. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:16 | |
'Today's final leg will take me | 0:01:18 | 0:01:20 | |
'to where that peaceful world was to be swept away. | 0:01:20 | 0:01:23 | |
'I'll approach the French sector of the Western Front...' | 0:01:23 | 0:01:26 | |
WHISTLE BLOWS | 0:01:26 | 0:01:27 | |
'..where from 1914, | 0:01:27 | 0:01:29 | |
the trains carried a new cargo - of artillery shells...' | 0:01:29 | 0:01:33 | |
That's amazing. In two minutes, we laid five metres. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
'..and Edwardian tourists were replaced by soldiers, | 0:01:36 | 0:01:40 | |
'facing the horrors of the trenches.' | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
He was one of the 72,000 people who never had a grave. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:50 | |
'This journey began in Amsterdam, | 0:02:02 | 0:02:04 | |
'then took me south, via The Hague, into Belgium. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:07 | |
Today I'll explore the battlefields of the First World War, | 0:02:09 | 0:02:13 | |
before completing my odyssey in Compiegne, | 0:02:13 | 0:02:16 | |
where four years of warfare came to an end. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
During the 19th century, with the spread of its railways, | 0:02:22 | 0:02:26 | |
Belgium enjoyed enormous industrial growth. | 0:02:26 | 0:02:28 | |
My Bradshaw's notes that | 0:02:28 | 0:02:30 | |
Mons is the centre of the Belgian coalfields, | 0:02:30 | 0:02:33 | |
but just the year after my guidebook was written, | 0:02:33 | 0:02:35 | |
the town was to acquire a fame and notoriety in world history | 0:02:35 | 0:02:40 | |
that has not left it since. | 0:02:40 | 0:02:43 | |
-Bonjour, Monsieur. -Merci. | 0:02:43 | 0:02:44 | |
'On the fourth of August 1914, Germany invaded neutral Belgium | 0:02:44 | 0:02:48 | |
'and, the very same day, Britain declared war.' | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
Within weeks, British troops were sent to Mons | 0:02:53 | 0:02:55 | |
to try and help to hold back the Germans. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:59 | |
The battle that ensued saw the first British casualties, | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
and also the first acts of heroism. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
Major Maurice French is the nephew of the officer | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
who won the war's first Victoria Cross. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
-Maurice. -Morning, Michael. | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
Your uncle Lieutenant Dease won his Victoria Cross | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
at this very spot on this bridge? | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
That is absolutely true, yes. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:21 | |
Lieutenant Maurice Dease was just 24 when he was sent to fight. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
His regiment, the Royal Fusiliers, | 0:03:25 | 0:03:27 | |
formed part of the British Expeditionary Force - | 0:03:27 | 0:03:31 | |
100,000 regular soldiers | 0:03:31 | 0:03:33 | |
who travelled on chartered trains and ships. | 0:03:33 | 0:03:35 | |
Tell me about his journey out to Belgium. | 0:03:35 | 0:03:38 | |
They mobilised in the Isle of Wight, and they came by sea, of course, | 0:03:38 | 0:03:42 | |
and then, they got in a train, | 0:03:42 | 0:03:45 | |
and then, they arrived here on the evening of the 22nd of August, | 0:03:45 | 0:03:51 | |
having detrained and then marched 20 miles. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
The German strategy was to sweep through Belgium at lightning speed, | 0:03:54 | 0:03:58 | |
then move through France to capture Paris. | 0:03:58 | 0:04:01 | |
In a bid to stop them, Lieutenant Dease and his comrades | 0:04:01 | 0:04:04 | |
were ordered to defend the Mons-Conde Canal, | 0:04:04 | 0:04:07 | |
placing their two machine guns on a railway bridge that crosses it. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:11 | |
So what did your uncle do? | 0:04:11 | 0:04:13 | |
My uncle Maurice was in a trench, | 0:04:13 | 0:04:15 | |
50 yards, maybe, behind the two machine guns, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:18 | |
and then he saw that one of the guns had stopped | 0:04:18 | 0:04:21 | |
and so, he got out of his trench and he went forward, | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
and he was hit, then. I think that was in the side or the shoulder. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:30 | |
Soon after, Lieutenant Dease was called to the gun | 0:04:30 | 0:04:34 | |
and wounded a second time. | 0:04:34 | 0:04:36 | |
But, impressively, his bravery sustained him. | 0:04:36 | 0:04:39 | |
As the battle continued and casualties mounted, | 0:04:39 | 0:04:43 | |
Dease moved to control one of the guns himself. | 0:04:43 | 0:04:46 | |
And I think he was about to do that when he was hit a third time | 0:04:46 | 0:04:51 | |
and he, then, actually, died soon afterwards, after the third wound, | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
but he had gone on for, maybe, two or three hours, although wounded, | 0:04:55 | 0:04:59 | |
controlling his machine guns and doing everything he could. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:03 | |
They believe that he died at about eleven o'clock that morning. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:08 | |
Despite the courage of Lieutenant Dease and his men, | 0:05:10 | 0:05:14 | |
the British were forced to withdraw. | 0:05:14 | 0:05:16 | |
But not before the war's second Victoria Cross | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
had been won by Dease's comrade, Private Godley, | 0:05:20 | 0:05:23 | |
who, at the end, single-handedly defended the bridge. | 0:05:23 | 0:05:27 | |
Godley survived to tell the tale, but Dease's family was left with | 0:05:27 | 0:05:31 | |
only the medal to commemorate his sacrifice. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:35 | |
Those first British soldiers had no clue | 0:05:37 | 0:05:40 | |
how long the conflict would last and how much it was to change. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:44 | |
My journey continues south to visit the battlefields of the Somme. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:51 | |
-Bonjour, monsieur. -Bonjour, merci. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:53 | |
When do we reach France? | 0:05:53 | 0:05:55 | |
-Quand est-ce qu'on arrive en France? -Tout de suite. | 0:05:55 | 0:05:58 | |
-Midi six. -Midi six. C'est formidable, merci. | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
-Merci. -Merci, bon voyage. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
We'll be in Lille in...12 minutes. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:08 | |
I've now crossed the border into France, | 0:06:16 | 0:06:18 | |
and I'm changing trains in Lille. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:20 | |
My 1913 Bradshaw's describes the city as, | 0:06:27 | 0:06:31 | |
"an important manufacturing centre, | 0:06:31 | 0:06:33 | |
"with a vast trade in linen, woollens, cotton, machinery, etc." | 0:06:33 | 0:06:38 | |
Back then, this station was busy with freight trains bound for Paris, | 0:06:38 | 0:06:41 | |
but they shared the line with British travellers | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
exploring northern France. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:45 | |
I'm joining historian Heather Jones | 0:06:45 | 0:06:47 | |
on board a local service to find out more. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:50 | |
-Hello, Heather. -Hi, Michael. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
Good to see you. I've been looking at my Bradshaw's guide and it says, | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
"A special interest attaches to those parts of France nearest to England." | 0:06:56 | 0:07:01 | |
"There's no wonderful scenery, but a country very like Kent or Surrey, | 0:07:01 | 0:07:04 | |
"with constant suggestions of a common history." | 0:07:04 | 0:07:07 | |
Were British travellers through northern France | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
quite common already by 1913? | 0:07:10 | 0:07:11 | |
Yes, they were. There'd been a massive increase in travel, | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
so there were around 700,000 passengers, | 0:07:14 | 0:07:17 | |
travelling either from Paris to London | 0:07:17 | 0:07:19 | |
or from London to Paris by 1913. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:22 | |
So, a huge volume of trade and tourism. | 0:07:22 | 0:07:24 | |
What sort of comfort were they travelling in? | 0:07:24 | 0:07:26 | |
It depended what class you were travelling in. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
For example, they had heated carriages, so it was quite warm, | 0:07:28 | 0:07:31 | |
there was good suspension. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:33 | |
However, the Baedeker guides warned passengers | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
from the upper and middle classes | 0:07:35 | 0:07:37 | |
not to travel third class on local French trains, | 0:07:37 | 0:07:39 | |
as there were no cushions in the third-class carriages. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
Edwardian tourists came for Picardy's beaches, | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
peaceful countryside and historic towns, | 0:07:46 | 0:07:49 | |
but soon the world they fell in love with | 0:07:49 | 0:07:52 | |
would be rendered unrecognisable. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:54 | |
Edith Wharton travelled through this region before the war and wrote very movingly | 0:07:54 | 0:07:58 | |
of the beautiful medieval villages that had been there for centuries, | 0:07:58 | 0:08:02 | |
the old farmhouses that had been there for centuries. All of that's destroyed | 0:08:02 | 0:08:05 | |
and, in fact, many of the First World War maps describe locations | 0:08:05 | 0:08:09 | |
as "such and such a farm" because that's what was there, | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
and had been there for centuries, and it's obliterated by shellfire. | 0:08:12 | 0:08:15 | |
By the end of 1914, | 0:08:15 | 0:08:17 | |
the railway line itself had become a casualty of conflict. | 0:08:17 | 0:08:21 | |
When the war came, it obviously destroyed this particular line that | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
we're travelling on, which was the main line from Paris | 0:08:24 | 0:08:26 | |
up through Arras and going on either to the French coast or to Lille, | 0:08:26 | 0:08:30 | |
and, in fact, the old Western Front went right across this line and many | 0:08:30 | 0:08:34 | |
of the areas of this line were shelled and badly damaged in the war. | 0:08:34 | 0:08:38 | |
After the Battle of Mons, | 0:08:38 | 0:08:40 | |
British and French troops were forced to retreat 200 miles south, | 0:08:40 | 0:08:44 | |
but they fought back, | 0:08:44 | 0:08:46 | |
and the battle lines gradually moved north towards the Channel. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:49 | |
Soon, the two sides faced each other across no-man's-land | 0:08:49 | 0:08:53 | |
in a line of trenches that stretched 400 miles, | 0:08:53 | 0:08:56 | |
from the Flanders coast to the Swiss border. | 0:08:56 | 0:08:59 | |
-Bye-bye, Heather. -It's great to meet you. -Thank you so much. Bye-bye. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:03 | |
I'm leaving the train at Albert, | 0:09:04 | 0:09:06 | |
a small town which found itself on the Allied side of the front line. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:11 | |
When we think of the Western Front, | 0:09:15 | 0:09:17 | |
of this landscape transformed by war, | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
we think of barbed wire and trenches and mud and annihilation. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:25 | |
But another novelty in the landscape was railways, the tracks of war. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:30 | |
The First World War saw railways | 0:09:34 | 0:09:36 | |
play a bigger role in battle than ever before. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:39 | |
Millions of troops were moved by train | 0:09:39 | 0:09:42 | |
and temporary lines were built, to supply the trenches. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:46 | |
The fields around Albert were criss-crossed with | 0:09:46 | 0:09:49 | |
miles of narrow gauge tracks and, remarkably, one line has survived. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
TRAIN WHISTLES | 0:09:53 | 0:09:56 | |
This is the P'tit train de la Haute Somme, | 0:09:56 | 0:10:00 | |
which is now run as a heritage service, | 0:10:00 | 0:10:02 | |
complete with an authentic 1916 steam locomotive. | 0:10:02 | 0:10:06 | |
I'm taking a ride with curator David Blondin. | 0:10:09 | 0:10:12 | |
David, who was it who built this railway? | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
So this railway was built by the French and British army, | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
just before the Battle of the Somme. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
Were there a lot of these railways built? | 0:10:26 | 0:10:28 | |
Yes. In this area, just between February and June 1916, | 0:10:28 | 0:10:34 | |
they built about 300km of line. | 0:10:34 | 0:10:38 | |
That's a lot of railway. They were obviously building very quickly. | 0:10:38 | 0:10:43 | |
Along the Western Front, | 0:10:43 | 0:10:45 | |
light railways like this were used extensively, by both sides. | 0:10:45 | 0:10:48 | |
With bad roads and a shortage of motor vehicles, | 0:10:48 | 0:10:51 | |
they were an essential connection | 0:10:51 | 0:10:53 | |
between the permanent railway network and the front line. | 0:10:53 | 0:10:57 | |
Was the purpose of the railway to carry munitions or men? | 0:10:57 | 0:11:02 | |
It was to carry munitions. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:03 | |
On this line, they carried up to 1,500 tonnes of ammunition in a day, | 0:11:03 | 0:11:09 | |
so they need all the trains to carry ammunition and not to carry troops. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:15 | |
They go by foot. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:17 | |
Once the war was over, most of the tracks were removed, | 0:11:17 | 0:11:21 | |
but one line was kept in use by a local sugar factory. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
In the 1970s, the factory switched to road transport, | 0:11:24 | 0:11:27 | |
but a short stretch was saved by local enthusiasts. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:31 | |
Do you feel sad that of all the hundreds of kilometres that there | 0:11:31 | 0:11:35 | |
used to be, only a couple of kilometres are preserved? | 0:11:35 | 0:11:38 | |
No. I can say I'm happy. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:40 | |
Of course, it's not a lot, if you compare it to several hundred | 0:11:40 | 0:11:44 | |
that were built during the war. | 0:11:44 | 0:11:46 | |
We wish to preserve two kilometres and we need to keep it. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:49 | |
Well, congratulations, because it is a very historic railway. | 0:11:49 | 0:11:53 | |
The advantage of the lightweight 60cm gauge | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
used for the trench trains was the phenomenal speed at which new lines | 0:11:56 | 0:12:00 | |
could be built, thanks to the simple system of pre-fabricated tracks. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:05 | |
So, David, these are the sorts of instant railway | 0:12:05 | 0:12:09 | |
that they used in the First World War, are they? | 0:12:09 | 0:12:12 | |
Yes. They used this piece of track to build railways during the war. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:17 | |
And how quickly could they build railways with these instant kits? | 0:12:17 | 0:12:21 | |
So, before the Battle of the Somme, | 0:12:21 | 0:12:23 | |
they can built about one kilometre per day with a team. | 0:12:23 | 0:12:26 | |
That's pretty good progress, isn't it? Shall we have a go? | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
-Yes. -OK. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
Well, that's amazing. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:50 | |
In, what, about two minutes, we laid five metres. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:53 | |
Shall we see if we can be quicker next time? | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
Yes, we can try. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
Allez! | 0:12:58 | 0:12:59 | |
So doing this for five minutes, with four strong friends, | 0:13:01 | 0:13:04 | |
on a pleasant summer's afternoon has been tough enough, | 0:13:04 | 0:13:08 | |
but just imagine doing this hour after hour in all weathers, | 0:13:08 | 0:13:12 | |
as the soldiers did in 1916, | 0:13:12 | 0:13:15 | |
and then preparing for going over the top, for battle. | 0:13:15 | 0:13:19 | |
The soldiers who built these tracks | 0:13:23 | 0:13:25 | |
were preparing for one of the war's most famous battles. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:29 | |
Launched in 1916, the Somme offensive was a bid | 0:13:29 | 0:13:32 | |
to break the stalemate of trench warfare. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
And in these fields, hundreds of thousands of troops | 0:13:38 | 0:13:42 | |
confronted death on an industrial scale. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:45 | |
Just up the road from Albert stands a towering testament | 0:13:50 | 0:13:54 | |
to the magnitude of that loss. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:56 | |
Nothing prepares you for the size of the Thiepval monument. | 0:13:59 | 0:14:04 | |
And yet, its enormity is not in any way triumphalist. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:08 | |
It is, in a strange way, humble. | 0:14:08 | 0:14:11 | |
Its scale is entirely to do with | 0:14:11 | 0:14:13 | |
the massive sacrifice that was made here. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:17 | |
Thiepval is the biggest of all the First World War memorials | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
on the Western Front. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:24 | |
Designed by British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, | 0:14:24 | 0:14:27 | |
it commemorates the names of over 72,000 men, | 0:14:27 | 0:14:30 | |
whose bodies were never recovered. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:33 | |
Ever since it opened in 1932, | 0:14:35 | 0:14:37 | |
families have come here to remember their dead. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
I'm meeting David Locker, | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
whose uncle's name is engraved on its walls. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
-David, hello. -Michael, good morning to you. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:49 | |
So, it's your uncle who was killed at the Battle of the Somme. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:53 | |
What was his name? | 0:14:53 | 0:14:54 | |
It is, indeed. It's my uncle, Bernard Locker. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:56 | |
There's no-one in the family knew much about Uncle Bernard, at all. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
I knew very little until, perhaps, 12 years ago. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
David's grandmother shared little of the pain of losing her son. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:09 | |
It wasn't until David was clearing out his aunt's home | 0:15:09 | 0:15:12 | |
that he discovered the story. | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
At the back of the garage was an old Victorian sideboard. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:19 | |
Knowing that the Victorians used to put things in, like, secret drawers, | 0:15:19 | 0:15:24 | |
we managed to get the whole front of the sideboard open, | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
which turned out to be a huge drawer. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:30 | |
Inside it was a large, brown paper parcel and a box. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
We didn't know at first whether we'd come across the crown jewels | 0:15:34 | 0:15:38 | |
or what we'd come across! | 0:15:38 | 0:15:39 | |
But it turned out to be a whole pile of information on Uncle Bernard. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:44 | |
Uncle Bernard's entire life had been kept in a secret drawer? | 0:15:44 | 0:15:48 | |
It was Grandma's own little memory box. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
What do you know about Bernard now? | 0:15:56 | 0:15:59 | |
Well, Bernard was 19. He actually joined the army when he was 18. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:05 | |
He was a bandsman and he was put into the battalion band. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:08 | |
And, eventually, of course, they were brought to the front line. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:12 | |
He was actually in France for a period of three weeks. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:16 | |
Eleven days of that, he actually spent at the front. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:21 | |
Bernard had arrived just as the Battle of the Somme | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
was drawing to a close. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:26 | |
His personal letters document the experience shared by | 0:16:26 | 0:16:30 | |
many novice soldiers, of reaching the front and preparing to fight. | 0:16:30 | 0:16:34 | |
Letters from his training camp. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
That's the letter that he wrote on the train | 0:16:38 | 0:16:40 | |
travelling from Blythe down to Folkestone. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:44 | |
This is a letter once he got into France | 0:16:44 | 0:16:47 | |
and was then travelling down by train from the French coast, | 0:16:47 | 0:16:51 | |
down to his base camp here. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
This is his last letter prior to going down to the line. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:58 | |
Just a week before the battle ended, | 0:16:58 | 0:17:01 | |
Bernard was sent out to occupy a German trench. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:05 | |
Battalion records reveal that, | 0:17:05 | 0:17:07 | |
whilst the mission was initially successful, | 0:17:07 | 0:17:10 | |
the Germans soon returned. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:11 | |
Bernard was never seen again. | 0:17:11 | 0:17:13 | |
Do you know how your grandmother took the death? | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
She, quite honestly, didn't believe it. | 0:17:16 | 0:17:18 | |
He'd, literally, just been reported as missing. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
No-one knew whether he'd been taken prisoner or whether he was dead. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:25 | |
She eventually received notification from the British Red Cross. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:28 | |
Bernard was one of over 400,000 British casualties of the Somme - | 0:17:30 | 0:17:35 | |
some 60,000 having been killed, injured or taken prisoner | 0:17:35 | 0:17:40 | |
on the first day alone. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:42 | |
Bernard's mother never saw his name on this extraordinary memorial, | 0:17:42 | 0:17:46 | |
but for his family, it remains an important connection with the past. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:51 | |
Bernard Locker, under the East Yorkshire Regiment. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
-Yep. -Halfway down. | 0:17:55 | 0:17:57 | |
Killed in the High Wood area, | 0:17:57 | 0:17:59 | |
which was round about five miles due east of here. | 0:17:59 | 0:18:02 | |
He was one of the... | 0:18:03 | 0:18:05 | |
..72,000 people who never had a grave. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:12 | |
"I now conclude with sending my love to all. | 0:18:14 | 0:18:17 | |
"Don't worry, I'm all right, and now I'll tell you all good night. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:22 | |
"Your loving son, Bernard." | 0:18:23 | 0:18:25 | |
And he signs off with 22 kisses. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:28 | |
-The last letter. -The last letter. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:31 | |
It's now time for me to explore further this region's past. | 0:18:46 | 0:18:50 | |
My next stop is Amiens, | 0:18:58 | 0:19:00 | |
whose cathedral, my Bradshaw's tells me, | 0:19:00 | 0:19:01 | |
"is one of the magnificent gothic monuments of France, | 0:19:01 | 0:19:05 | |
"the facade being especially admired," | 0:19:05 | 0:19:08 | |
and it attracted British soldiers on recreational breaks, | 0:19:08 | 0:19:11 | |
perhaps wanting to feast their eyes on beauty | 0:19:11 | 0:19:14 | |
and to renew their spirits, | 0:19:14 | 0:19:15 | |
before returning to the mud and gore of the trenches. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:19 | |
My 1913 guidebook describes Amiens as the chief town of the | 0:19:20 | 0:19:25 | |
departmente de la Somme, the ancient capital of Picardy, | 0:19:25 | 0:19:28 | |
and for Edwardian tourists, its rich history was a huge draw. | 0:19:28 | 0:19:33 | |
Item one on their itinerary was the 800-year-old cathedral, | 0:19:33 | 0:19:36 | |
whose lofty spire still dominates the skyline. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:40 | |
I'm taking a tour with Xavier Bailly from the local heritage service. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:45 | |
-Xavier, lovely to see you. -Glad to meet you. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:48 | |
Xavier, this is the most spectacular cathedral. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:55 | |
My guidebook tells me that it's one of the great | 0:19:55 | 0:19:58 | |
Gothic monuments of France. Is that so? | 0:19:58 | 0:20:00 | |
That's true. We are in the largest Gothic cathedral | 0:20:00 | 0:20:04 | |
built during the medieval ages, built during the 13th century. | 0:20:04 | 0:20:09 | |
And the guidebook also talks about the loftiness, that is to say | 0:20:09 | 0:20:13 | |
the height of the nave, that's very remarkable here. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:16 | |
Yes. Yes, we have the vault at 42 metres high. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:23 | |
The nave is the highest in the world. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
But with the advent of war, Amiens became a target. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
It was a key railway junction, | 0:20:32 | 0:20:34 | |
of vital strategic importance to the Allied forces, | 0:20:34 | 0:20:38 | |
and its citizens went to extreme lengths to defend their cathedral. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:43 | |
We protected, outside and inside, the treasures with sandbags, | 0:20:43 | 0:20:50 | |
something like 22,000 sandbags - | 0:20:50 | 0:20:54 | |
16,000 outside, and the rest inside. | 0:20:54 | 0:21:00 | |
Who was putting out these sandbags? | 0:21:00 | 0:21:03 | |
Local companies worked to protect the cathedral, | 0:21:03 | 0:21:07 | |
but it was a general enterprise for everybody, | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
probably the local inhabitants, | 0:21:10 | 0:21:13 | |
and probably British soldiers included in that works. | 0:21:13 | 0:21:19 | |
Amiens faced its greatest test in the summer of 1918. | 0:21:19 | 0:21:23 | |
German forces had launched a big offensive, | 0:21:23 | 0:21:26 | |
bringing the front line right to the city's edge | 0:21:26 | 0:21:29 | |
and, in August of that year, | 0:21:29 | 0:21:31 | |
Britain joined France in a major counterattack. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:34 | |
At the end of World War One, there's a big battle for Amiens | 0:21:34 | 0:21:38 | |
as the Allies begin their advance towards Germany. | 0:21:38 | 0:21:42 | |
The cathedral survives that, as well? | 0:21:42 | 0:21:43 | |
Yes, because everything was made to protect Amiens, especially with | 0:21:43 | 0:21:50 | |
the help of the British troops and the British commonwealth armies. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:56 | |
The tide had finally turned in the Allies' favour. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
After four years of conflict, | 0:21:59 | 0:22:01 | |
the end was in sight for the thousands of soldiers | 0:22:01 | 0:22:05 | |
who'd sought solace in this magnificent cathedral. | 0:22:05 | 0:22:08 | |
I have to show you the weeping angel. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:14 | |
It's a symbol of the pain of the war for British soldiers. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:19 | |
They used to come here and see this? | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
Yes. Postcards were produced during the war | 0:22:22 | 0:22:26 | |
and, especially, this one with the weeping angel, | 0:22:26 | 0:22:31 | |
and soldiers sent home all over the world | 0:22:31 | 0:22:36 | |
these postcards showing a crying baby. | 0:22:36 | 0:22:41 | |
Symbolising the suffering of the war? | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
Yes. So much pain. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
The role that British Empire troops played in protecting Amiens | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
is commemorated in the cathedral. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:00 | |
With my 1913 Bradshaw's in hand, | 0:23:05 | 0:23:07 | |
I'm embarking on the last leg of my extensive European journey. | 0:23:07 | 0:23:12 | |
Bonjour. Compiegne, deuxieme classe, aller simple, s'il vous plait. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:17 | |
-Pour le prochain depart, monsieur? -Le prochain depart, oui. | 0:23:17 | 0:23:19 | |
-Je vous remercie. -Merci. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:21 | |
-Voila, monsieur. -Au revoir. -Bonne journee, au revoir. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:24 | |
The battle of Amiens, | 0:23:26 | 0:23:27 | |
from which the cathedral was so mercifully spared, | 0:23:27 | 0:23:31 | |
came shortly before the end of the First World War. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:34 | |
I'm now bound for the place | 0:23:34 | 0:23:36 | |
where the conflict was officially terminated. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
I'm attracted by the fact that the armistice had | 0:23:40 | 0:23:43 | |
a bizarre railway connection, | 0:23:43 | 0:23:45 | |
one that my Bradshaw's could not have foreseen, | 0:23:45 | 0:23:47 | |
when it pointed travellers towards the forest of Compiegne. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:51 | |
In 1913, Compiegne was known as a spa town, | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
surrounded by peaceful woodland. | 0:23:57 | 0:23:59 | |
But five years later, it was to make history. | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
By November 1918, the Allied offensive | 0:24:04 | 0:24:07 | |
had delivered a series of blows to the German forces. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:10 | |
The Allies had held secret talks to decide the terms of an armistice. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:14 | |
All that remained was to get the Germans to sign. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:18 | |
The venue chosen for that fateful meeting was a train carriage, | 0:24:18 | 0:24:23 | |
in a remote glade in the Compiegne forest. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:25 | |
Battlefield tour guide Robert Gallagher knows the story. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:30 | |
-Robert, hello. -Good afternoon, Michael. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:32 | |
Robert, how did it come to be | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
that the armistice at the end of World War One | 0:24:35 | 0:24:37 | |
was signed in a railway carriage at this very spot? | 0:24:37 | 0:24:39 | |
Well, the railway carriage was mobile headquarters that belonged to the | 0:24:39 | 0:24:44 | |
Allied Commander in Chief, the French general, Marshal Foch. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:48 | |
And was this wagon part of a train? | 0:24:48 | 0:24:51 | |
Yes. The carriage was actually a dining car-come-office, | 0:24:51 | 0:24:55 | |
but there were sleeping arrangements - sleeping cars - | 0:24:55 | 0:24:58 | |
and other offices for the vast staff that a general would be entitled to, | 0:24:58 | 0:25:03 | |
so I believe there were about seven cars, in total. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:07 | |
Far from prying eyes | 0:25:10 | 0:25:12 | |
and with easy railway access, thanks to lines built to supply the front, | 0:25:12 | 0:25:17 | |
the Compiegne forest was the perfect place for the rendezvous. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:20 | |
On the 8th of November 1918, the German delegation | 0:25:20 | 0:25:24 | |
was invited into the carriage to discuss the terms. | 0:25:24 | 0:25:27 | |
So eventually, the Germans had to sign? | 0:25:27 | 0:25:29 | |
Yes. At ten past five on the morning of the 11th of November, | 0:25:29 | 0:25:33 | |
they signed the armistice, which was to last for 36 days. | 0:25:33 | 0:25:40 | |
-And it came into effect? -It came into effect six hours later, | 0:25:40 | 0:25:44 | |
at eleven o'clock on the 11th day of the 11th month. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:48 | |
Although few expected it at the time, that temporary ceasefire held | 0:25:48 | 0:25:53 | |
and the armistice wagon was, in 1927, | 0:25:53 | 0:25:56 | |
returned to the forest as a permanent memorial. | 0:25:56 | 0:25:58 | |
But that wasn't the end of its role in world history. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:03 | |
On the 22nd of June 1940, | 0:26:03 | 0:26:07 | |
Adolf Hitler personally arrived in this very place, | 0:26:07 | 0:26:11 | |
and he had his troops drag the carriage out of the hole | 0:26:11 | 0:26:16 | |
to the same spot where the armistice had taken place in 1918, | 0:26:16 | 0:26:22 | |
and there he took the surrender of the French army. | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
He then had his army cut down all the trees, rip up all the landscaping, | 0:26:26 | 0:26:33 | |
and he left the statue of Foch still standing, | 0:26:33 | 0:26:37 | |
to oversee a scene of desolation. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:39 | |
And the railway carriage, then? | 0:26:39 | 0:26:40 | |
The railway carriage was taken back to Berlin | 0:26:40 | 0:26:43 | |
where it was put on exhibition | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
and, then, in 1945, it was destroyed, | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
either during a bombing raid or deliberately, by the SS. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:53 | |
The stories differ. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:54 | |
Today, this clearing is a place of pilgrimage, | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
where people come to commemorate the seismic events that culminated here. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:02 | |
What had happened by the armistice of 1918 | 0:27:02 | 0:27:06 | |
to the Europe of my Bradshaw's guide of 1913? | 0:27:06 | 0:27:10 | |
Well, all the kingdoms, all the Tsardoms, | 0:27:10 | 0:27:14 | |
all the empires, had disappeared. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
The Austrian-Hungarian had signed an armistice the month before. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
Now, we have the Kaiser, the German emperor, Wilhelm, | 0:27:21 | 0:27:26 | |
who had abdicated the day before the signing of the armistice | 0:27:26 | 0:27:30 | |
and had fled to the Netherlands. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
-All gone? -All gone. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:35 | |
My 1913 Bradshaw's has shown me the Continent | 0:27:41 | 0:27:46 | |
through the eyes of the Edwardian traveller, | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
gliding through the glamorous cities of Paris, Berlin or Vienna, | 0:27:49 | 0:27:52 | |
or drinking up the natural beauties | 0:27:52 | 0:27:55 | |
of the Swiss mountains or the French Riviera. | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
The readers of my guidebook inhabited a charmed universe, | 0:27:58 | 0:28:02 | |
whose progress and comforts seemed unassailable. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:06 | |
Yet, just a year later, Bradshaw's Europe was derailed by war. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:11 | |
That conflict was brought to an end in a railway carriage, | 0:28:11 | 0:28:15 | |
for whether, in peace or war, | 0:28:15 | 0:28:17 | |
railways shaped the destiny of the world. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:20 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:28:46 | 0:28:48 |