Amsterdam to Northern France Part 2 Great Continental Railway Journeys


Amsterdam to Northern France Part 2

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'I'm embarking on a new railway adventure,

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'that will take me across the heart of Europe.'

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I'll be using this,

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my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide, dated 1913,

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which opened up an exotic world of foreign travel

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for the British tourist.

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'It told travellers where to go, what to see

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'and how to navigate the thousands of miles of tracks

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'criss-crossing the Continent.

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'Now, a century later,

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'I'm using my copy to reveal an era of great optimism and energy,

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'where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.'

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I want to rediscover that lost Europe that, in 1913, couldn't know

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that its way of life would shortly be swept aside

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by the advent of war.

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'Steered by my 1913 railway guide,

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'I've completed four illuminating journeys

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'through prosperous pre-war Europe.

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'Today's final leg will take me

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'to where that peaceful world was to be swept away.

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'I'll approach the French sector of the Western Front...'

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WHISTLE BLOWS

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'..where from 1914,

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the trains carried a new cargo - of artillery shells...'

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That's amazing. In two minutes, we laid five metres.

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'..and Edwardian tourists were replaced by soldiers,

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'facing the horrors of the trenches.'

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He was one of the 72,000 people who never had a grave.

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'This journey began in Amsterdam,

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'then took me south, via The Hague, into Belgium.

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Today I'll explore the battlefields of the First World War,

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before completing my odyssey in Compiegne,

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where four years of warfare came to an end.

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During the 19th century, with the spread of its railways,

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Belgium enjoyed enormous industrial growth.

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My Bradshaw's notes that

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Mons is the centre of the Belgian coalfields,

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but just the year after my guidebook was written,

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the town was to acquire a fame and notoriety in world history

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that has not left it since.

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-Bonjour, Monsieur.

-Merci.

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'On the fourth of August 1914, Germany invaded neutral Belgium

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'and, the very same day, Britain declared war.'

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Within weeks, British troops were sent to Mons

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to try and help to hold back the Germans.

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The battle that ensued saw the first British casualties,

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and also the first acts of heroism.

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Major Maurice French is the nephew of the officer

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who won the war's first Victoria Cross.

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-Maurice.

-Morning, Michael.

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Your uncle Lieutenant Dease won his Victoria Cross

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at this very spot on this bridge?

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That is absolutely true, yes.

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Lieutenant Maurice Dease was just 24 when he was sent to fight.

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His regiment, the Royal Fusiliers,

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formed part of the British Expeditionary Force -

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100,000 regular soldiers

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who travelled on chartered trains and ships.

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Tell me about his journey out to Belgium.

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They mobilised in the Isle of Wight, and they came by sea, of course,

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and then, they got in a train,

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and then, they arrived here on the evening of the 22nd of August,

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having detrained and then marched 20 miles.

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The German strategy was to sweep through Belgium at lightning speed,

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then move through France to capture Paris.

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In a bid to stop them, Lieutenant Dease and his comrades

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were ordered to defend the Mons-Conde Canal,

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placing their two machine guns on a railway bridge that crosses it.

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So what did your uncle do?

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My uncle Maurice was in a trench,

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50 yards, maybe, behind the two machine guns,

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and then he saw that one of the guns had stopped

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and so, he got out of his trench and he went forward,

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and he was hit, then. I think that was in the side or the shoulder.

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Soon after, Lieutenant Dease was called to the gun

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and wounded a second time.

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But, impressively, his bravery sustained him.

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As the battle continued and casualties mounted,

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Dease moved to control one of the guns himself.

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And I think he was about to do that when he was hit a third time

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and he, then, actually, died soon afterwards, after the third wound,

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but he had gone on for, maybe, two or three hours, although wounded,

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controlling his machine guns and doing everything he could.

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They believe that he died at about eleven o'clock that morning.

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Despite the courage of Lieutenant Dease and his men,

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the British were forced to withdraw.

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But not before the war's second Victoria Cross

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had been won by Dease's comrade, Private Godley,

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who, at the end, single-handedly defended the bridge.

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Godley survived to tell the tale, but Dease's family was left with

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only the medal to commemorate his sacrifice.

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Those first British soldiers had no clue

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how long the conflict would last and how much it was to change.

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My journey continues south to visit the battlefields of the Somme.

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-Bonjour, monsieur.

-Bonjour, merci.

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When do we reach France?

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-Quand est-ce qu'on arrive en France?

-Tout de suite.

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-Midi six.

-Midi six. C'est formidable, merci.

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-Merci.

-Merci, bon voyage.

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We'll be in Lille in...12 minutes.

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I've now crossed the border into France,

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and I'm changing trains in Lille.

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My 1913 Bradshaw's describes the city as,

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"an important manufacturing centre,

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"with a vast trade in linen, woollens, cotton, machinery, etc."

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Back then, this station was busy with freight trains bound for Paris,

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but they shared the line with British travellers

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exploring northern France.

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I'm joining historian Heather Jones

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on board a local service to find out more.

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-Hello, Heather.

-Hi, Michael.

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Good to see you. I've been looking at my Bradshaw's guide and it says,

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"A special interest attaches to those parts of France nearest to England."

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"There's no wonderful scenery, but a country very like Kent or Surrey,

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"with constant suggestions of a common history."

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Were British travellers through northern France

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quite common already by 1913?

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Yes, they were. There'd been a massive increase in travel,

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so there were around 700,000 passengers,

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travelling either from Paris to London

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or from London to Paris by 1913.

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So, a huge volume of trade and tourism.

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What sort of comfort were they travelling in?

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It depended what class you were travelling in.

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For example, they had heated carriages, so it was quite warm,

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there was good suspension.

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However, the Baedeker guides warned passengers

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from the upper and middle classes

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not to travel third class on local French trains,

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as there were no cushions in the third-class carriages.

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Edwardian tourists came for Picardy's beaches,

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peaceful countryside and historic towns,

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but soon the world they fell in love with

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would be rendered unrecognisable.

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Edith Wharton travelled through this region before the war and wrote very movingly

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of the beautiful medieval villages that had been there for centuries,

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the old farmhouses that had been there for centuries. All of that's destroyed

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and, in fact, many of the First World War maps describe locations

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as "such and such a farm" because that's what was there,

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and had been there for centuries, and it's obliterated by shellfire.

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By the end of 1914,

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the railway line itself had become a casualty of conflict.

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When the war came, it obviously destroyed this particular line that

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we're travelling on, which was the main line from Paris

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up through Arras and going on either to the French coast or to Lille,

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and, in fact, the old Western Front went right across this line and many

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of the areas of this line were shelled and badly damaged in the war.

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After the Battle of Mons,

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British and French troops were forced to retreat 200 miles south,

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but they fought back,

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and the battle lines gradually moved north towards the Channel.

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Soon, the two sides faced each other across no-man's-land

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in a line of trenches that stretched 400 miles,

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from the Flanders coast to the Swiss border.

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-Bye-bye, Heather.

-It's great to meet you.

-Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

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I'm leaving the train at Albert,

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a small town which found itself on the Allied side of the front line.

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When we think of the Western Front,

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of this landscape transformed by war,

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we think of barbed wire and trenches and mud and annihilation.

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But another novelty in the landscape was railways, the tracks of war.

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The First World War saw railways

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play a bigger role in battle than ever before.

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Millions of troops were moved by train

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and temporary lines were built, to supply the trenches.

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The fields around Albert were criss-crossed with

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miles of narrow gauge tracks and, remarkably, one line has survived.

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TRAIN WHISTLES

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This is the P'tit train de la Haute Somme,

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which is now run as a heritage service,

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complete with an authentic 1916 steam locomotive.

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I'm taking a ride with curator David Blondin.

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David, who was it who built this railway?

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So this railway was built by the French and British army,

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just before the Battle of the Somme.

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Were there a lot of these railways built?

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Yes. In this area, just between February and June 1916,

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they built about 300km of line.

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That's a lot of railway. They were obviously building very quickly.

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Along the Western Front,

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light railways like this were used extensively, by both sides.

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With bad roads and a shortage of motor vehicles,

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they were an essential connection

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between the permanent railway network and the front line.

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Was the purpose of the railway to carry munitions or men?

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It was to carry munitions.

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On this line, they carried up to 1,500 tonnes of ammunition in a day,

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so they need all the trains to carry ammunition and not to carry troops.

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They go by foot.

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Once the war was over, most of the tracks were removed,

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but one line was kept in use by a local sugar factory.

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In the 1970s, the factory switched to road transport,

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but a short stretch was saved by local enthusiasts.

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Do you feel sad that of all the hundreds of kilometres that there

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used to be, only a couple of kilometres are preserved?

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No. I can say I'm happy.

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Of course, it's not a lot, if you compare it to several hundred

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that were built during the war.

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We wish to preserve two kilometres and we need to keep it.

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Well, congratulations, because it is a very historic railway.

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The advantage of the lightweight 60cm gauge

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used for the trench trains was the phenomenal speed at which new lines

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could be built, thanks to the simple system of pre-fabricated tracks.

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So, David, these are the sorts of instant railway

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that they used in the First World War, are they?

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Yes. They used this piece of track to build railways during the war.

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And how quickly could they build railways with these instant kits?

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So, before the Battle of the Somme,

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they can built about one kilometre per day with a team.

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That's pretty good progress, isn't it? Shall we have a go?

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-Yes.

-OK.

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Well, that's amazing.

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In, what, about two minutes, we laid five metres.

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Shall we see if we can be quicker next time?

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Yes, we can try.

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Allez!

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So doing this for five minutes, with four strong friends,

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on a pleasant summer's afternoon has been tough enough,

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but just imagine doing this hour after hour in all weathers,

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as the soldiers did in 1916,

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and then preparing for going over the top, for battle.

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The soldiers who built these tracks

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were preparing for one of the war's most famous battles.

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Launched in 1916, the Somme offensive was a bid

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to break the stalemate of trench warfare.

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And in these fields, hundreds of thousands of troops

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confronted death on an industrial scale.

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Just up the road from Albert stands a towering testament

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to the magnitude of that loss.

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Nothing prepares you for the size of the Thiepval monument.

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And yet, its enormity is not in any way triumphalist.

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It is, in a strange way, humble.

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Its scale is entirely to do with

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the massive sacrifice that was made here.

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Thiepval is the biggest of all the First World War memorials

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on the Western Front.

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Designed by British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens,

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it commemorates the names of over 72,000 men,

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whose bodies were never recovered.

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Ever since it opened in 1932,

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families have come here to remember their dead.

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I'm meeting David Locker,

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whose uncle's name is engraved on its walls.

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-David, hello.

-Michael, good morning to you.

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So, it's your uncle who was killed at the Battle of the Somme.

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What was his name?

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It is, indeed. It's my uncle, Bernard Locker.

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There's no-one in the family knew much about Uncle Bernard, at all.

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I knew very little until, perhaps, 12 years ago.

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David's grandmother shared little of the pain of losing her son.

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It wasn't until David was clearing out his aunt's home

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that he discovered the story.

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At the back of the garage was an old Victorian sideboard.

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Knowing that the Victorians used to put things in, like, secret drawers,

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we managed to get the whole front of the sideboard open,

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which turned out to be a huge drawer.

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Inside it was a large, brown paper parcel and a box.

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We didn't know at first whether we'd come across the crown jewels

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or what we'd come across!

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But it turned out to be a whole pile of information on Uncle Bernard.

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Uncle Bernard's entire life had been kept in a secret drawer?

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It was Grandma's own little memory box.

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What do you know about Bernard now?

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Well, Bernard was 19. He actually joined the army when he was 18.

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He was a bandsman and he was put into the battalion band.

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And, eventually, of course, they were brought to the front line.

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He was actually in France for a period of three weeks.

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Eleven days of that, he actually spent at the front.

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Bernard had arrived just as the Battle of the Somme

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was drawing to a close.

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His personal letters document the experience shared by

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many novice soldiers, of reaching the front and preparing to fight.

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Letters from his training camp.

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That's the letter that he wrote on the train

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travelling from Blythe down to Folkestone.

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This is a letter once he got into France

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and was then travelling down by train from the French coast,

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down to his base camp here.

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This is his last letter prior to going down to the line.

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Just a week before the battle ended,

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Bernard was sent out to occupy a German trench.

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Battalion records reveal that,

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whilst the mission was initially successful,

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the Germans soon returned.

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Bernard was never seen again.

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Do you know how your grandmother took the death?

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She, quite honestly, didn't believe it.

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He'd, literally, just been reported as missing.

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No-one knew whether he'd been taken prisoner or whether he was dead.

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She eventually received notification from the British Red Cross.

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Bernard was one of over 400,000 British casualties of the Somme -

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some 60,000 having been killed, injured or taken prisoner

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on the first day alone.

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Bernard's mother never saw his name on this extraordinary memorial,

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but for his family, it remains an important connection with the past.

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Bernard Locker, under the East Yorkshire Regiment.

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-Yep.

-Halfway down.

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Killed in the High Wood area,

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which was round about five miles due east of here.

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He was one of the...

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..72,000 people who never had a grave.

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"I now conclude with sending my love to all.

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"Don't worry, I'm all right, and now I'll tell you all good night.

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"Your loving son, Bernard."

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And he signs off with 22 kisses.

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-The last letter.

-The last letter.

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It's now time for me to explore further this region's past.

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My next stop is Amiens,

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whose cathedral, my Bradshaw's tells me,

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"is one of the magnificent gothic monuments of France,

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"the facade being especially admired,"

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and it attracted British soldiers on recreational breaks,

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perhaps wanting to feast their eyes on beauty

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and to renew their spirits,

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before returning to the mud and gore of the trenches.

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My 1913 guidebook describes Amiens as the chief town of the

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departmente de la Somme, the ancient capital of Picardy,

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and for Edwardian tourists, its rich history was a huge draw.

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Item one on their itinerary was the 800-year-old cathedral,

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whose lofty spire still dominates the skyline.

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I'm taking a tour with Xavier Bailly from the local heritage service.

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-Xavier, lovely to see you.

-Glad to meet you.

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Xavier, this is the most spectacular cathedral.

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My guidebook tells me that it's one of the great

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Gothic monuments of France. Is that so?

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That's true. We are in the largest Gothic cathedral

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built during the medieval ages, built during the 13th century.

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And the guidebook also talks about the loftiness, that is to say

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the height of the nave, that's very remarkable here.

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Yes. Yes, we have the vault at 42 metres high.

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The nave is the highest in the world.

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But with the advent of war, Amiens became a target.

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It was a key railway junction,

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of vital strategic importance to the Allied forces,

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and its citizens went to extreme lengths to defend their cathedral.

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We protected, outside and inside, the treasures with sandbags,

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something like 22,000 sandbags -

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16,000 outside, and the rest inside.

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Who was putting out these sandbags?

0:21:000:21:03

Local companies worked to protect the cathedral,

0:21:030:21:07

but it was a general enterprise for everybody,

0:21:070:21:10

probably the local inhabitants,

0:21:100:21:13

and probably British soldiers included in that works.

0:21:130:21:19

Amiens faced its greatest test in the summer of 1918.

0:21:190:21:23

German forces had launched a big offensive,

0:21:230:21:26

bringing the front line right to the city's edge

0:21:260:21:29

and, in August of that year,

0:21:290:21:31

Britain joined France in a major counterattack.

0:21:310:21:34

At the end of World War One, there's a big battle for Amiens

0:21:340:21:38

as the Allies begin their advance towards Germany.

0:21:380:21:42

The cathedral survives that, as well?

0:21:420:21:43

Yes, because everything was made to protect Amiens, especially with

0:21:430:21:50

the help of the British troops and the British commonwealth armies.

0:21:500:21:56

The tide had finally turned in the Allies' favour.

0:21:560:21:59

After four years of conflict,

0:21:590:22:01

the end was in sight for the thousands of soldiers

0:22:010:22:05

who'd sought solace in this magnificent cathedral.

0:22:050:22:08

I have to show you the weeping angel.

0:22:110:22:14

It's a symbol of the pain of the war for British soldiers.

0:22:140:22:19

They used to come here and see this?

0:22:190:22:22

Yes. Postcards were produced during the war

0:22:220:22:26

and, especially, this one with the weeping angel,

0:22:260:22:31

and soldiers sent home all over the world

0:22:310:22:36

these postcards showing a crying baby.

0:22:360:22:41

Symbolising the suffering of the war?

0:22:410:22:44

Yes. So much pain.

0:22:440:22:47

The role that British Empire troops played in protecting Amiens

0:22:540:22:58

is commemorated in the cathedral.

0:22:580:23:00

With my 1913 Bradshaw's in hand,

0:23:050:23:07

I'm embarking on the last leg of my extensive European journey.

0:23:070:23:12

Bonjour. Compiegne, deuxieme classe, aller simple, s'il vous plait.

0:23:120:23:17

-Pour le prochain depart, monsieur?

-Le prochain depart, oui.

0:23:170:23:19

-Je vous remercie.

-Merci.

0:23:190:23:21

-Voila, monsieur.

-Au revoir.

-Bonne journee, au revoir.

0:23:210:23:24

The battle of Amiens,

0:23:260:23:27

from which the cathedral was so mercifully spared,

0:23:270:23:31

came shortly before the end of the First World War.

0:23:310:23:34

I'm now bound for the place

0:23:340:23:36

where the conflict was officially terminated.

0:23:360:23:39

I'm attracted by the fact that the armistice had

0:23:400:23:43

a bizarre railway connection,

0:23:430:23:45

one that my Bradshaw's could not have foreseen,

0:23:450:23:47

when it pointed travellers towards the forest of Compiegne.

0:23:470:23:51

In 1913, Compiegne was known as a spa town,

0:23:540:23:57

surrounded by peaceful woodland.

0:23:570:23:59

But five years later, it was to make history.

0:23:590:24:02

By November 1918, the Allied offensive

0:24:040:24:07

had delivered a series of blows to the German forces.

0:24:070:24:10

The Allies had held secret talks to decide the terms of an armistice.

0:24:100:24:14

All that remained was to get the Germans to sign.

0:24:140:24:18

The venue chosen for that fateful meeting was a train carriage,

0:24:180:24:23

in a remote glade in the Compiegne forest.

0:24:230:24:25

Battlefield tour guide Robert Gallagher knows the story.

0:24:250:24:30

-Robert, hello.

-Good afternoon, Michael.

0:24:300:24:32

Robert, how did it come to be

0:24:320:24:35

that the armistice at the end of World War One

0:24:350:24:37

was signed in a railway carriage at this very spot?

0:24:370:24:39

Well, the railway carriage was mobile headquarters that belonged to the

0:24:390:24:44

Allied Commander in Chief, the French general, Marshal Foch.

0:24:440:24:48

And was this wagon part of a train?

0:24:480:24:51

Yes. The carriage was actually a dining car-come-office,

0:24:510:24:55

but there were sleeping arrangements - sleeping cars -

0:24:550:24:58

and other offices for the vast staff that a general would be entitled to,

0:24:580:25:03

so I believe there were about seven cars, in total.

0:25:030:25:07

Far from prying eyes

0:25:100:25:12

and with easy railway access, thanks to lines built to supply the front,

0:25:120:25:17

the Compiegne forest was the perfect place for the rendezvous.

0:25:170:25:20

On the 8th of November 1918, the German delegation

0:25:200:25:24

was invited into the carriage to discuss the terms.

0:25:240:25:27

So eventually, the Germans had to sign?

0:25:270:25:29

Yes. At ten past five on the morning of the 11th of November,

0:25:290:25:33

they signed the armistice, which was to last for 36 days.

0:25:330:25:40

-And it came into effect?

-It came into effect six hours later,

0:25:400:25:44

at eleven o'clock on the 11th day of the 11th month.

0:25:440:25:48

Although few expected it at the time, that temporary ceasefire held

0:25:480:25:53

and the armistice wagon was, in 1927,

0:25:530:25:56

returned to the forest as a permanent memorial.

0:25:560:25:58

But that wasn't the end of its role in world history.

0:25:580:26:03

On the 22nd of June 1940,

0:26:030:26:07

Adolf Hitler personally arrived in this very place,

0:26:070:26:11

and he had his troops drag the carriage out of the hole

0:26:110:26:16

to the same spot where the armistice had taken place in 1918,

0:26:160:26:22

and there he took the surrender of the French army.

0:26:220:26:26

He then had his army cut down all the trees, rip up all the landscaping,

0:26:260:26:33

and he left the statue of Foch still standing,

0:26:330:26:37

to oversee a scene of desolation.

0:26:370:26:39

And the railway carriage, then?

0:26:390:26:40

The railway carriage was taken back to Berlin

0:26:400:26:43

where it was put on exhibition

0:26:430:26:46

and, then, in 1945, it was destroyed,

0:26:460:26:49

either during a bombing raid or deliberately, by the SS.

0:26:490:26:53

The stories differ.

0:26:530:26:54

Today, this clearing is a place of pilgrimage,

0:26:540:26:57

where people come to commemorate the seismic events that culminated here.

0:26:570:27:02

What had happened by the armistice of 1918

0:27:020:27:06

to the Europe of my Bradshaw's guide of 1913?

0:27:060:27:10

Well, all the kingdoms, all the Tsardoms,

0:27:100:27:14

all the empires, had disappeared.

0:27:140:27:17

The Austrian-Hungarian had signed an armistice the month before.

0:27:170:27:21

Now, we have the Kaiser, the German emperor, Wilhelm,

0:27:210:27:26

who had abdicated the day before the signing of the armistice

0:27:260:27:30

and had fled to the Netherlands.

0:27:300:27:33

-All gone?

-All gone.

0:27:330:27:35

My 1913 Bradshaw's has shown me the Continent

0:27:410:27:46

through the eyes of the Edwardian traveller,

0:27:460:27:49

gliding through the glamorous cities of Paris, Berlin or Vienna,

0:27:490:27:52

or drinking up the natural beauties

0:27:520:27:55

of the Swiss mountains or the French Riviera.

0:27:550:27:58

The readers of my guidebook inhabited a charmed universe,

0:27:580:28:02

whose progress and comforts seemed unassailable.

0:28:020:28:06

Yet, just a year later, Bradshaw's Europe was derailed by war.

0:28:060:28:11

That conflict was brought to an end in a railway carriage,

0:28:110:28:15

for whether, in peace or war,

0:28:150:28:17

railways shaped the destiny of the world.

0:28:170:28:20

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0:28:460:28:48

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