Trenches & Barbed Wire WW1 Uncut

PANTING

"MACHINE-GUN FIRE"

So, when you think about the First World War,

you just think about trenches.

You think about trench warfare, trench foot, digging trenches.

Why were the trenches such a big part of World War I?

'Michael Douglas, my old mate from The One Show.

'Celebrity hairdresser and obsessed by World War I.'

So, the Western Front, which stretches from the English Channel,

right the way to the Alps, over 400 miles, trenches the whole way.

Germans on one side, Allies on the other.

And they had to dig those trenches

because it was so dangerous to be above ground.

Yeah, but surely it's dangerous

to dig a trench in the middle of a battlefield.

It's dangerous to dig a trench, but the most dangerous thing of all

is to be standing in a field above the ground.

And that's why they had to spend

more than three years in those trenches.

Very little movement. It was stalemate.

But I still don't understand.

When they stormed the beaches on D-day,

they did that in a couple of days or something.

Here, what, three years they're in trenches?

A lot of people think, oh, God, they must have been so stupid,

all those generals must have been idiots.

In fact, it is extremely difficult,

some of the cleverest people in the world working on this problem,

and it took them years to sort out.

They were stuck in the trenches, they were keeping their heads down

and they just couldn't get across the field.

And today, I've brought you here to explain why that is.

Great. I can't wait.

So, basically, this is a classic Western Front-style landscape.

Look at this - rolling fields, not much cover, few little hedgerows.

This is exactly the kind of place that, in 1914,

the British and the Germans

would have ended up facing each other across.

So, here we are, we're the British.

We wanted the soldiers to go across that field

and kill or capture Germans, get rid of them,

force them back to Germany, right?

Sounds pretty easy.

It took them more than three years to do that.

Warfare is about going where you want,

when you want, to do what you want,

and I want you to go across that field and get to the other side.

OK, and how do I go across?

- Can I go across like that? - Yes, you can. You can try that.

- Do a bit of that. - Yep.

- Do a bit of that. - You can try that, if you want.

- Have a gun, don't I? - Yeah.

Have a gun. It's not going to be that hard.

DOINK!

'And just like 1914, there'll be someone out to stop him.'

Just get across the other side of the field.

- Should be easy. - No worries.

Ah!

Ow!

DAN LAUGHS That was brilliant!

Horrible, that.

Well, but that accurately shows, I'm afraid,

what would have happened to you in 1914.

Every single German soldier's got a rifle.

He can kill a man at 400 or 500 metres, no problem.

He can shoot ten times a minute.

And, above all, there are lots and lots of Germans.

Millions of them in the German army.

So, these hedgerows would have been crawling with German soldiers.

So, it's not as easy crossing that field as you might think.

- Yeah. - So, basically, go back out there,

run around, crawl around, try shooting, do whatever you can.

Let's see how close you can get.

Ah!

Ow! God, I don't know why he wants me to do this. Crikey.

Ah! Oh!

They're in the hands. The hands are the worst bit.

- Ooh! - Ah!

Ooh!

Fair play to Michael, he is taking a lot of punishment.

'Of course, if this was World War I, he'd have been cut to pieces by now.'

This area in front of me, as Michael is experiencing,

would have been a killing zone.

I mean, this is utterly pointless, doing this.

I don't even know what I'm shooting at.

And, I mean, I'm just making myself look more visible.

He's standing out there in the open, trying to fire his rifle.

- The fact is, he's a sitting duck. - Ah! Ah!

As well as the rifle bullets,

there would have been an absolute hail of machine-gun bullets.

And then, on top of all that,

- there would have been artillery. - Ah! Ah!

He's coming back now, looking a bit dejected.

It's pointless, this.

Well, you were right. That was hard.

Right, give me that. I told you that rifle wouldn't be much use.

What's this?

That is more useful than a rifle on the Western Front.

That is an entrenching tool. It's basically a small spade.

Because, as you've seen, you're not much use in the open.

So, you've got to get underground, wait for nightfall,

and that is why trench warfare begins.

- So, go for it. Go on, get digging. - So cheeky, I tell you.

You've got to get underground. You've got to dig yourself a hole.

And, you know, the good thing is, Michael, earlier,

when you were getting killed, I got a JCB and dug a trench,

so don't worry about that. Come on, this way.

I guess the most obvious thing to do is just wait till it's dark,

because obviously they could see you out there in the light.

So, do you want another go now?

Yeah, well, it's going to be easier in the dark.

Take the battle to the enemy, my friend.

No, it's the nuns in the church. That's what I want to save. Yeah?

OK.

Ah! "MACHINE-GUN FIRE"

MICHAEL GROANS

I think he's coming back.

DAN LAUGHS

- Blimey O'Reilly. - Yeah.

- It's wild out there, man. - I should have told you.

Basically, both sides realised

you could illuminate the battlefield quite well using those flares,

so they could make it almost bright as day.

So, attacking at night is also a big challenge.

MICHAEL: I mean, I am one man.

What if you take 10,000 men and send them across there? Surely.

I mean, it's a bit harsh, but surely they'd break through, would they not?

DAN: Yeah, you know, they tried that.

Unfortunately, the methods of killing by World War I

were so effective that you could almost have people bumper to bumper

and you'd pretty much kill them all.

MICHAEL: So, how else, then?

I mean, presumably you could dig tunnels, could you? You could...

Good point. There were thousands of guys digging tunnels from both sides.

Unfortunately, the Germans realised that.

You'd have these tunnels meeting each other, battles going on underground,

people trying to blow up each other's tunnels. It's a complete nightmare.

But, yeah, they tried, they absolutely did try that.

Presumably they had planes and they could drop bombs.

So, why don't you just fly in a load of planes,

bomb all the German trenches, boom?

DAN: Planes have only been flying for a few years. Just over a decade.

They didn't have the capability of dropping bombs accurately on people.

Now, I appreciate these trenches were quite wide,

but why don't you just go round them and in on the back?

DAN: Big problem with the Western Front

is it's it a continuous belt of trenches like this

for over 400 miles.

The English Channel's at one end,

so you can't send everyone swimming round the edge.

And at the other end, neutral Switzerland.

Very mountainous country and it's neutral,

so you can't invade Switzerland.

So, you've got no choice, you're penned in on the Western Front,

you've got to go through the Germans.

So, if we're 1914 now, the best place for us

is just to sit tight for at least two years.

- Yeah. - Shall we have a cup of tea, then?

- Perfect. - Have you got Earl Grey in this?

- Did they have Earl Grey in 1914? - I think so.

- Oh! - Is that tea or is that...?

It's a cup of hot mud!

We've only got one cup. You'll have to give me some of that.

We've only got two years to wait.

It's all quiet on the Western Front.

SHELL WHISTLES

EXPLOSION

Bombs, shells, bullets, gas, tanks.

It's the variety of weaponry

that made the battlefields of the First World War

such a murderous place.

But there was one other weapon system of sorts

that had an absolutely massive impact on the fighting,

and that was wire.

'Barbed wire was first used in the Wild West

'as a cheap way to control livestock.

'There were over 400 patents registered

'and it wasn't long before military bigwigs

'saw how cattle were hemmed in by the razor-sharp fencing

'and introduced it to the battlefield.'

If it could be used to corral cows in the Wild West

then it could be used to corral men on the Western Front as well.

The great thing about wire was, it's an amazing system,

because it completely stops the enemy going where you don't want them,

because it's virtually impassable for humans.

Rip their flesh to bits.

Also, even more destructively,

you can use it to channel the enemy into attacking into little corridors,

where you can set up a machine gun

and turn it into an absolute corridor of death.

'No soldier wants to be on a night-time wiring party.

'Creeping out into no man's land

'to set up barbed-wire traps was dangerous enough,

'but if you bumped into your enemy doing the same trick,

'the noise could wake up machine gunners back in the trenches.

'Bad news all round.'

They used huge numbers of different kinds of wire traps,

and manuals were produced.

In fact, Taff Gillingham's got a manual there.

- How are we doing? - Well, it's not impenetrable yet.

'Happy days if you happen to be making barbed wire in 1914.

'Millions of miles of the stuff would be needed to line the Western Front.

'In World War I, mass warfare went hand in hand with mass production.'

So, this style of barbed wire entanglement

is pretty much the style that was used at the beginning of the war.

It's a bit like an agricultural fence back home.

It would have slowed people down, tricky to get through.

Ow!

A nasty obstacle. Oh, I just punctured my welly. Dammit!

The British pretty quickly realised

that the trouble with these big fences of barbed wire

is that it might stop the Germans getting at them,

but it stopped them getting at the Germans.

So, they invented this idea.

They built it just near their own trenches,

so if the Germans did attack,

they'd still be slowed down trying to get through.

But it meant that if the British attacked,

they could release some smoke

and they could advance through their own barbed wire

and out into no man's land.

By 1917, the Germans had decided

pretty much to go on the defensive on the Western Front.

That meant they didn't have to worry about their troops going forward,

which is why they would use barbed wire like this.

Huge mounds of it piled up in no man's land,

designed to stop the Allies getting through and attacking their line.

This was brutally effective.

Every time I'm confronted with barbed wire,

I'm always amazed that something that looks so scrawny

and insubstantial can have such a huge impact.

I mean, I look at this and I think I should be able to get through this.

I can see through it. And yet it's practically impenetrable.

It's like being confronted with a huge granite wall.

It's amazing that this thing that was mass-produced,

it was low-fi, it was cheap,

had a huge impact on the way the First World War was fought.