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00:00The First World War
00:18Governments in the First World War feared one thing almost as much as military defeat.
00:23Revolution.
00:27By 1917, with victory on the battlefield still elusive and morale weakening,
00:32both sides hoped to bring the enemy down from within.
00:41Strikes and unrest were sparks to be fanned into revolution, transforming the war.
00:57The First World War
01:24A film from 1917 of one of Germany's wildest dreams coming true.
01:35Russian troops stop fighting on the Eastern Front.
01:41It was funny to see our Ivans greeting the Germans.
01:44The Germans gave our lads wine and cigars and they gave the Germans bread.
01:54It turned out that one of the Germans had a camera.
02:02He told us to stand in a line and took a picture.
02:12Later, the photographer asked our lads to come and collect the photos.
02:24Governments worried how to contain war-weariness, prevent discontent growing mutinous, stop
02:32mutiny becoming revolution.
02:39And governments realised that turning this problem on its head offered a startling opportunity.
02:45What if unrest could be harnessed, reined in hard in your own country, but spurred on in
02:51the enemies?
02:57In Cairo and Dublin, Petrograd and Zurich, the Allies and Germans set agents working to exploit
03:03unrest and foment revolution.
03:09The glittering prize was to turn a whole people against its masters, taking it out of the war
03:14completely.
03:16In Russia, the Germans pulled it off, backing the Bolsheviks to hijack a spontaneous revolution.
03:31Russia in 1917 was war-weary.
03:34Huge losses, poor leadership and corruption, plus the nightmare logistics of a 900-mile front
03:41left our army running on empty.
03:43I don't know whether Russia's dream of destroying Germany will ever come true.
03:56Probably not.
03:58We have nothing to fight with.
03:59No rifles, no mortars, no explosives, no boots, no overcoats.
04:06Nothing.
04:06But, incredibly, Russia's army held the line.
04:15It was the home front that cracked first.
04:22Petrograd, now St Petersburg, Russia's capital and industrial powerhouse, seethed with discontent.
04:28It's factories were swollen with workers, with little to eat and cramped housing.
04:52A demonstration on the 8th of March, 1917, began peacefully.
04:58It was a glorious, sunny, frosty day, and all the people were in an excellent mood.
05:03They were singing the Marseillaise and asking for bread.
05:18But the Tsar ordered the protests crushed.
05:20On Znamonskaya Square, in the heart of Petrograd, the killing began.
05:33Sergeant Sergei Kapitshnikov was there.
05:35The ensign ordered the bugler to play three signals.
05:41Then he commanded.
05:42Rifles, ready, aim, fire.
05:47Everybody scattered.
05:49One man was down.
05:50A woman fell.
05:51Over 50 civilians were shot dead.
06:01The massacre forced Petrograd soldiers to choose.
06:05Whom to defend, the people or the Tsar.
06:10Back in barracks, Sergei Kapitshnikov spoke to his comrades.
06:14It would be better to die with honour than obey any further orders to shoot into the crowds.
06:23Our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and brides are begging for bread.
06:28Are we going to kill them?
06:36They shot their duty officer dead and poured onto the streets,
06:40joining other mutineers and workers.
06:41British journalist Arthur Ransom cabled his office in London.
06:59About 200 persons killed. Stop.
07:03Local police chief lying dead. Stop.
07:07Revolution definitely begun.
07:11The troops gathered support at barracks and factories.
07:21They seized the city centre, set up barricades,
07:25occupied railway stations and the telephone exchange.
07:31Britain's military attache, Sir Alfred Knox,
07:33was in the artillery administration when the building came under attack.
07:37Outside came a great disorderly mass of soldiery.
07:44All were armed, and many had red flags fastened to their bayonets.
07:49Soon we heard the windows and door on the ground floor being broken in,
07:52and the sound of shots.
07:54Most of the officers were leaving the department by a back door.
07:56In a matter of days, the Tsar's regime was spinning into freefall.
08:08The revolution has begun.
08:11What happiness.
08:13The cursed autocracy is finally destroyed.
08:17The soldiers have gone onto the streets.
08:19The officers are hiding.
08:20It's all so unexpected, and everything's going at a gallop.
08:24We've all gone mad with joy.
08:31Soldiers ordered into the city to restore control.
08:34Simply join the mutiny.
08:35The Tsar was forced to abdicate,
08:47and a provisional government formed at the Torida Palace.
08:56Russia's new rulers had their hands full running a war
08:59while riding a revolution.
09:00Germany looked to exploit the turmoil in Russia.
09:12And Russia's allies, Britain and France, crossed their fingers.
09:16They too had experienced worker discontent.
09:20March 1916.
09:22Londoners gather at Tower Hill to protest against conscription.
09:30There was also opposition in Scotland,
09:33inspired by the fiery speeches of trade union leader,
09:36Willie Gallagher.
09:39Thousands of our fellows have sacrificed their lives,
09:42fighting against the very Prussianism
09:43they now propose to foist upon us here.
09:47Workers of the Clyde, you must prepare for action.
09:50When this loathsome enemy of freedom raises its head,
09:53you must strike and strike to kill.
10:00Workers marched down Whitehall for better wages and lower prices.
10:07Around 17 million working days were lost to strikes in Britain
10:10between 1915 and 1918.
10:16There were strikes by miners in South Wales,
10:20engineers in Coventry, Sheffield and Manchester,
10:23and shipbuilders on Teesside, Tyneside and the Clyde.
10:27The army kept 200,000 troops in Britain
10:34to guard against invasion and civilian uprising.
10:45But David Lloyd George, as Minister of Munitions
10:48and then Prime Minister,
10:50preferred to give in to strikers rather than crush them.
10:53The father of the state pension and national insurance schemes,
10:59Lloyd George commanded working-class support.
11:09He used concession, not confrontation,
11:11to maintain industrial output.
11:19Negotiators with the unions were given strict instructions.
11:23If a strike appears to be inevitable,
11:27all the concessions asked for should be granted.
11:32But while Britain kept a lid on unrest,
11:35France could not.
11:36Throughout the First World War,
11:55Paris lived under the shadow of German invasion.
11:57But after three winters of fighting,
12:07France's stability was being undermined
12:09by a wave of stoppages and protests.
12:16Many of the dissenters were women
12:18who couldn't be intimidated by the threat of military service.
12:21People are on strike over the price rises and the lack of fuel.
12:33Can't you just hear the rising strains of revolution?
12:40These troubles are justified
12:42because while the people work themselves to death to scrape a living,
12:46the bosses and big industrialists are growing fat in record time.
12:51And all we can do is grin and bear it.
12:54These ideas did reach the front,
13:00but what pushed the French army towards mutiny in 1917
13:03was a history of poorly planned and ill-conducted battles.
13:08The final straw was a doomed attack
13:11devised by its own commander-in-chief,
13:14General Robert-Georges Nivelle.
13:15The offensive alone can give victory.
13:21The defensive gives only defeat and shame.
13:27On the 16th of April 1917,
13:30Nivelle ordered over a million Frenchmen
13:32to attack a heavily defended German-held ridge
13:35known as the Chemin des Dames.
13:42After storming this ridge,
13:43Nivelle expected his armies
13:45to smash through seven miles of German defences.
14:02We were faced by a forest of wire.
14:05Machine guns appeared everywhere.
14:07There were tracks of every description.
14:09The ground was impassable.
14:13There were tracks of the Frenchmen.
14:14The Frenchmen were killed in the first days,
14:25but Nivelle ordered the assault to continue.
14:37Casualties reached 150,000 by the 5th of May.
14:40Then the men snapped.
14:44I am one of the most persistent in spreading propaganda.
14:48I know that I am risking my hide,
14:50but by this means I might save it.
14:53My darling, say with me,
14:55down with the war that separates us,
14:58and long live the revolution
14:59that in bringing peace will reunite us.
15:02I love you, and I don't want to die.
15:04The village of Coeuvres,
15:1420 miles south of the Chemin des Dames.
15:19The mayor watched what happened
15:20when the 370th Infantry Regiment
15:22was ordered to the front.
15:23The soldiers spilled out into the whole village,
15:33screaming with rage,
15:35firing rifles and singing the Internationale.
15:42Towards morning,
15:43they formed columns and made their way to the woods.
15:45By June 1917,
15:54half the French army was affected.
15:56Men refused to return to the trenches.
15:59We seemed absolutely powerless.
16:02From every section of the front,
16:04news arrived of regiments
16:05refusing to man the trenches.
16:08The slightest German attack
16:10would have been enough
16:11to tumble down our house of cards
16:13and bring the enemy to Paris.
16:21But the Germans had no inkling
16:23of the French mutiny.
16:26It was a massive intelligence failure.
16:34Four days after their mutiny,
16:37the troops from Coeuvres
16:38gave themselves up at a nearby village.
16:40They emerged from the wood
16:44in perfect order,
16:46in columns of four,
16:47all flawlessly groomed and polished.
16:52The French soldiers' actions
16:54were more like a strike than a mutiny.
16:57They won important concessions,
16:59better leave arrangements,
17:00more rest,
17:01improved medical conditions.
17:03All we wanted was to call
17:11the government's attention to us,
17:13make it see that we're men
17:15and not beasts for the slaughterhouse.
17:17Nivelle was sacked.
17:28His replacement,
17:29General Philippe Pétain,
17:30reversed French strategy,
17:32making defence the order of the day.
17:37The men were given patriotic instruction
17:39and reminded why they were fighting.
17:42But Pétain also knew
17:44that discipline had to be restored.
17:46The tactic was to execute a few
17:50but force thousands to watch.
17:57Photographs taken secretly
17:58at a French military execution.
18:01A man is tied to a post.
18:07The order is given to fire.
18:08Soldiers are paraded past the body.
18:21Louis Fleurac was one of the 49 death sentences carried out.
18:27He was shot here in Chacris by his comrades,
18:31some of whom hated what they were doing.
18:32I see the dead every single day in the trenches.
18:38But this is different.
18:41I'm a man who has shot his friends.
18:44Italy's soldiers were also growing war-weary.
18:58But unlike its French counterpart,
19:00the Italian high command saw punishment
19:02as the only way to maintain morale.
19:06Chief of Staff General Cadorna was merciless.
19:09Every soldier must be convinced of the fact
19:13that his superior has the sacred duty
19:16to shoot all cowards and recalcitrants immediately.
19:25Cadorna's iron grip led to massive discontent.
19:30For months, it simmered below the surface
19:32until the Battle of Caporetto in October 1917.
19:35The Italian army was hit here
19:40in the Isonzo River Valley
19:42by a massive Austro-Hungarian-German attack.
19:56Resistance in armies took many forms.
19:59The Italians didn't openly refuse to fight.
20:02They just began surrendering to the enemy en masse.
20:05By dawn, we were surrounded
20:08and the Germans finally took us all prisoner
20:11and we were happy because we had saved our lives.
20:15Farewell, Italy.
20:16Farewell, family.
20:18I am now in the hands of the Germans.
20:25A young lieutenant in the German Alpencorp,
20:28Erwin Rommel,
20:28took over a thousand Italians prisoner
20:31without firing a single shot.
20:33The soldiers threw away their weapons and hurried to me.
20:44In an instant, I was surrounded
20:45and hoisted onto Italian shoulders.
20:47A Viva Germania sounded from a thousand throats.
20:52An Italian officer who hesitated to surrender
20:55was shot down by his own troops.
20:58For the Italians on Mersley Peak, the war was over.
21:02They shouted with joy.
21:03I am writing this at 11 o'clock at night,
21:09most comfortably ensconced in the Italian officer's mess.
21:12There is a huge stock of delicious wines
21:14which we are getting through in record time,
21:16so I hope there is no question of a counterattack.
21:19We've captured machine guns,
21:21heavy artillery and personal weapons.
21:24These are of the highest order,
21:26but show little sign of actual use.
21:28Some 300,000 Italian soldiers
21:41surrendered in the winter of 1917.
21:44As many again retreated down these mountain tracks
21:48with fleeing civilians.
21:49They stroll past with their hands in their pockets.
21:56When questioned, they all say that they've pulled out
21:58because they were told to.
22:00Who told them?
22:01No-one knows.
22:03The next man along.
22:04What a terrible and heart-wrenching sight it was.
22:19The poor women with their little ones bundled up
22:22walking towards Italy to save their lives.
22:25Italy's high command sacked General Cadorna
22:36and regained control by easing discipline
22:39and making concessions to the soldiers,
22:41as the French had done.
22:45But the price of unrest was high.
22:47The fighting strength of the Italian army had been halved.
22:50And while governments wrestled with unrest at home,
22:57they were also stirring up trouble abroad.
22:59Britain had been plotting to destabilise the Ottoman Empire
23:23since the war began.
23:29Ottoman Turkey was Germany's ally in the Middle East.
23:41Her empire stretched across Arabia into the Hejaz,
23:44a vast desert area which included the holy cities
23:47of Medina and Mecca.
23:49Their loss would seriously undermine the Turks' standing
23:52in the Muslim world and boost Britain's.
23:55The British turned to the Arabs of the Hejaz,
24:01holding out the carrot of independence
24:02if they rose up against their Turkish masters.
24:08If the Arab nation assist England
24:11in this war that has been forced upon us by Turkey,
24:15England will guarantee that no internal intervention
24:18will take place in Arabia,
24:20and we will give Arabs every assistance
24:23against foreign aggression.
24:27The idea of Britain backing Arabian independence
24:30worried the India office.
24:35A strong Arab state might be more dangerous to Christendom
24:39than a strong Ottoman state.
24:41And Lord Kitchener's policy of destroying one Islamic state
24:44merely for the purpose of creating another
24:46has always seemed to me disastrous.
24:53The India office needn't have worried.
24:56Kitchener was playing a cynical game,
24:58never intending to hand real power
25:00to the Arabs of the Hejaz.
25:06But the British showered the Emir of Mecca,
25:09Sharif Hussain, with gold,
25:11and dropped hints that if all went well,
25:13he might realise his dream
25:14of becoming leader of the Arabs.
25:20On 5th June 1916,
25:22the Arab revolt began.
25:26Mecca quickly fell to the rebels,
25:28but the main Turkish garrison at Medina
25:30held its ground.
25:33The Turkish commander,
25:34Fahri Pasha, refused to surrender.
25:36Until my soldiers are buried under the rubble of Medina,
25:41in a crimson shroud of blood and fire,
25:44the red flag of the Ottomans
25:46shall never be removed from the castle turrets of Medina.
25:53The uprising commanded no popular support.
25:56But the British did have a man on the spot.
26:01T.E. Lawrence,
26:02a charismatic 28-year-old officer
26:04attached to Sharif Hussain's forces in the Hejaz.
26:09Lawrence spoke Arabic.
26:11He saw where the Arab's strengths lay.
26:14I think one company of Turks,
26:16properly entrenched in open country,
26:18would defeat the Sharif's armies.
26:21Their real sphere is guerrilla warfare.
26:22They would dynamite a railway,
26:25plunder a caravan,
26:26steal camels better than anyone.
26:40The Turks were most vulnerable
26:42along their stretched lines of communication.
26:45Lawrence and the Arabs
26:46became experts in railway sabotage.
26:52The last stunt was the hold-up of a train.
26:59The whole job took 10 minutes
27:00and they lost 70 kills.
27:04My loot was a super-fine red balooch prayer rug.
27:07I hope this sounds the fun it is.
27:10It's the most amateurish
27:11Buffalo Billy sort of performance.
27:13A German on the train
27:30saw the attack differently.
27:32The Bedouin mob came bursting into the carriage
27:35to kill and plunder.
27:37I could feel the blood pouring down my body,
27:39but I was left alone.
27:42The thieves' minds were drawn towards looting,
27:44having killed 40 men, women and children
27:46and taken the rest captive.
27:55T.E. Lawrence adopted the cause of Arab nationalism.
27:58I hope that the Turkish flag
28:05may disappear from Arabia.
28:07It is so good to have helped
28:09in making a new nation,
28:11and I hate the Turks so much
28:13that to see their own people
28:14turning on them is very gratifying.
28:26Lawrence now dressed as an Arab.
28:27He asked his mother
28:29for help with his costume.
28:32If that silk headcloth
28:34with the silver ducks on it,
28:36last used, I believe,
28:37as a tablecloth,
28:38still exists,
28:39will you send it out to me?
28:41Such things are hard to get here now.
28:47Capturing Turkish-held Jerusalem
28:49was a key British objective in 1917.
28:53Seizing the port of Aqaba
28:54would strengthen the Arabs' case
28:56for a role in the campaign.
28:59Lawrence realized
29:00that all Aqaba's guns pointed out to sea.
29:03The town was defenseless from the rear.
29:07That meant a 600-mile ride
29:09across the Hejaz
29:10at the height of summer.
29:11Mudflats are purgatory.
29:25Sun reflects from them like mirror,
29:28flame yellow,
29:29cutting into our eyes.
29:30seven weeks later,
29:48the Arab force reappeared outside Aqaba,
29:50catching the Turks
29:51totally off guard.
29:52The town fell just four days later.
30:03The Middle East was stunned.
30:09General Allenby, commanding British forces in the region,
30:12now wrote the Arab revolt into his Jerusalem campaign,
30:16reinforcing it with armoured cars, air support, artillery and colonial troops.
30:22On the 11th of December, 1917, Allenby entered Jerusalem on foot with his officers, including Lawrence.
30:40The Arabs would find they had won not self-rule, but new masters.
30:45Lawrence had known all along that the Arabs of the Hejaz were merely the tools of British subversion,
30:50as he admitted long after.
30:55The Arabs saw in me a free agent of the British government
30:58and demanded from me an endorsement of its written promises.
31:02So I had to join the conspiracy and assured the men of their reward.
31:08I was continually and bitterly ashamed.
31:11Had I been an honest advisor of the Arabs, I would have advised them to go home
31:14and not risk their lives fighting for such stuff.
31:26While Britain was sponsoring subversion against Germany's ally Turkey,
31:31she had her own weak spot right on her doorstep.
31:35Ireland.
31:35Britain had promised Ireland home rule, but the First World War shelved all that.
31:48200,000 Irishmen, Catholics and Protestants, would fight for Britain.
31:54About 30,000 of them would die.
31:56But the Irish Republican Brotherhood, forerunners of the IRA,
32:10believed England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity.
32:15Cordrick Pearce saw the war as a chance for Ireland to free herself from British rule.
32:19The European war has brought about a crisis which may contain, as yet hidden within it,
32:29the moment for which generations have been waiting.
32:33It remains to be seen whether, if that moment reveals itself,
32:37we shall have the sight to see and the courage to do.
32:43Germany, for many Republicans, had always been a good place to plot revolution.
32:49Erskine Childers was famous in Britain, the country he now sought to undermine.
32:57His best-selling novel, The Riddle of the Sands,
33:00had warned Britain of the dangers she faced from the German Navy.
33:05By July 1914, his sympathies had switched.
33:09He put to sea in his yacht, the Asgard, to run guns.
33:14He photographed the operation.
33:15Leaving Hamburg under tow.
33:24Sailing back to Ireland.
33:27His wife and a friend with two of the 900 rifles they had collected from Germany.
33:33And the scene after Childers docked outside Dublin.
33:36Crowds cheer as the guns are driven away by car.
33:39Two years later, the German guns were put to use
33:50when 1,600 Irish revolutionaries rose up in Dublin.
33:54East Amundi, 1916.
34:03Sinn Féiners occupy railway stations, the GBO, and other places.
34:08They have blocked the streets nearing Stephens Green,
34:11and they're shooting at anyone they see in Carkie.
34:14We used to think we were clear of the war here in Ireland,
34:18but we've certainly got it close enough now.
34:20The moment for which Pawdrick Pearce had been waiting had come.
34:32He read out the historic proclamation of the Irish Republic,
34:36a document which acknowledges the support of gallant allies in Europe.
34:41Who were these gallant allies, and what had they done?
34:45Germany had long seen subversion in Ireland
35:02as a way of destabilising Britain.
35:10In August 1914, Sir Roger Casement,
35:13an Irish Republican and one-time darling of the British establishment,
35:17gave the Germans the opportunity they were looking for.
35:20He wrote to the Kaiser with an offer.
35:24We draw Your Majesty's attention to the part that Ireland necessarily,
35:29if not openly, must play in this conflict.
35:34Ireland must be freed from British control.
35:37Thousands of Irishmen are prepared to do their part
35:40to aid the German cause,
35:41for they recognise that it is their own.
35:49Casement sailed for Berlin in disguise,
35:51and in the winter of 1914,
35:53he met Arthur Zimmermann,
35:54a future foreign minister,
35:56and the man in charge of Germany's subversive operations.
35:58Zimmermann was impressed by Casement,
36:05and began to wonder if a small German landing on Irish soil
36:09might cause the British massive problems.
36:14His diplomats in America
36:16raised funds from the Irish community in New York.
36:19It is proposed to undertake an invasion
36:24with 25,000 troops with 50,000 extra guns.
36:29Then, undoubtedly,
36:31the cooperation of all Irish in the British army will follow.
36:35There is strong friction between Irish and English in northern France.
36:43Zimmermann's uprising was to be four-pronged.
36:45The dispatch of German weapons to Irish rebels,
36:49the landing of a German expeditionary force on the west coast,
36:54German submarines to seize Dublin harbour,
36:57and diversionary zeppelin bombing raids on London.
37:09Germany's high command got cold feet
37:11and refused to commit an invasion force.
37:13But in April 1916,
37:17the zeppelin raids did take place.
37:19A submarine was sent to the west coast,
37:22and an arms boat,
37:25carrying 20,000 rifles,
37:2710 machine guns,
37:27and a million rounds of ammunition,
37:29was dispatched for Ireland
37:30under the command of Captain Carl Spindler.
37:36Gradually rising out of the water
37:37was in Iztushcat Island,
37:39our rendezvous.
37:41Within half an hour at the latest,
37:43the pilot boat must make her appearance.
37:50But the Irish expected him two days later,
37:53so the Germans sat in the bay
37:55till caught by a British patrol.
37:59Captain Spindler scuttled his boat
38:01rather than surrender the arms.
38:03The German naval ensign was run up,
38:08bidding defiance to the British.
38:10Then there was a muffled explosion.
38:13Beams and splinters flew up in the air.
38:17The oud sank with a loud hissing noise.
38:20The uprising's hope of success sank with the German arms.
38:29Many rebels now abandoned the project.
38:32But a hardcore minority,
38:34armed with the rifles Childers had brought in
38:36from Hamburg two years before,
38:38decided to make a symbolic gesture of defiance.
38:40On Easter Monday, 1916,
38:47they seized key points in Dublin.
38:51The British responded with machine guns and artillery fire
38:54and shipped in 10,000 men from the mainland.
38:58Few Dubliners mourned the crushing of the rebellion.
39:01Guinness Brewer Edward Phillips
39:05had his disused boilers converted
39:07into improvised armoured cars for the British.
39:12Rang up military and offered motor lorries.
39:15Gladly accepted.
39:17Sent out for drivers who lived close.
39:19They all consented.
39:25Over 1,000 civilians were caught in the crossfire.
39:28And as the British took the rebels into custody,
39:31the people of Dublin pelted them with vegetables
39:33and emptied chamber pots over their heads.
39:40Many had sons and fathers fighting on the Western Front
39:43and were outraged by the uprising's German connections.
39:48But now the British made a terrible blunder,
39:51throwing away their moral authority
39:53and transforming the Easter Rising
39:55into the seminal event of Irish statehood.
39:57They sentenced the leaders of the uprising to death,
40:11starting with Pearce.
40:13He admitted to the court,
40:14I asked for and accepted German aid
40:19in the shape of arms and an expeditionary force.
40:23My aim was to win Irish freedom.
40:30Over ten days,
40:32the men were brought into the execution yard
40:34at Kilmainham Jail
40:35and shot.
40:41James Connolly was so wounded in the uprising
40:44that he had to be shot sitting down.
40:51Dublin fell silent
40:52as Britain turned 16 men into martyrs.
40:58People who had thrown rotten fruit at them
41:00now saw them as heroes.
41:05Britain turned the failed uprising
41:07into a national cause.
41:12Zimmerman's next challenge
41:14was in a different league.
41:23Could Germany exploit Russia's revolution
41:26operation of March 1917
41:27to lever Russia out of the First World War.
41:33Almost all the ingredients were in place.
41:36A major civilian uprising,
41:39restless troops at the front
41:41and a toothless leadership in the rear.
41:45The Germans lacked just one piece of the jigsaw,
41:49a charismatic leader.
41:51But they had someone in mind.
41:52Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
41:58was leader of the Bolsheviks,
42:00a small group of extreme Russian radicals.
42:04They'd spent many hours
42:05over the past 14 years
42:07blotting revolution
42:08in coffee houses and prison cells.
42:11When at last it came,
42:13they were caught on the hot.
42:15Stalin was in Siberia,
42:16Bukharin was in New York
42:18and Lenin was in Zurich.
42:22What torture it is for us,
42:24Lenin wrote,
42:24to be sitting here at such a time.
42:27He knew the Allies
42:28would never allow him passage.
42:31The obvious route
42:31lay through Germany and Sweden.
42:34But would Germany let him through?
42:38German agents
42:39had long been watching Lenin.
42:41They knew he wanted
42:42their enemy Russia
42:43out of the war.
42:46Lenin's strong side
42:47is his organisational talent.
42:48He possesses the most brutal
42:51and relentless energy.
42:53Lenin's view is
42:54it doesn't matter
42:55who wins the war.
42:57The defeat of Russia
42:58is preferable,
43:00victory worse.
43:03Zimmerman counseled the Kaiser
43:05to approve Lenin's passage.
43:08Since it is in our interest
43:10that the influence
43:11of the radical wing
43:12of the Russian revolutionaries
43:13should prevail,
43:14it would seem to me advisable
43:16to allow transit.
43:17The Kaiser exploited Lenin
43:23as cynically as Lenin
43:24used the Kaiser,
43:25each thinking he had
43:26the better of the bargain.
43:34On 10th April 1917,
43:37Lenin,
43:38his wife,
43:38Nadjezda Krupskaya,
43:40and his former mistress,
43:41Inessa Armand,
43:43boarded the train for Germany
43:44with other Bolsheviks.
43:47The Kaiser's paying for the journey,
43:50jeered rival Russian socialists.
43:52He'll be hanged as German spies.
43:57Lenin stood listening
43:58and smiled.
44:00Hiss as much as you like,
44:02he said.
44:03We Bolsheviks
44:04will shuffle your cards
44:05and spoil your game.
44:06To counter charges
44:15of working with the enemy,
44:17Lenin devised the fiction
44:18of a sealed train,
44:20claiming total isolation
44:21from the outside world.
44:25In fact,
44:26the group travelled
44:27in a regular carriage
44:28on a train
44:28that stopped frequently,
44:30taking four days
44:31to cross Germany.
44:32Though the train
44:37halted in Berlin,
44:39there's no evidence
44:39that Lenin met
44:40any German representatives.
44:42He knew the Germans
44:44were giving money
44:44to his Bolshevik party,
44:46but avoided direct contact.
44:50Germany's greatest help
44:51to Lenin's cause
44:52was getting him back
44:53to Russia.
44:54The night he arrived
45:06in Petrograd,
45:07Lenin addressed the crowd.
45:09Some were hostile.
45:12Ought to stick our bayonets
45:13into a fellow like that.
45:15Must be a German.
45:20But Lenin was soon
45:22winning converts
45:23as Countess Irina Scariotina saw.
45:27Lenin is bald,
45:29terribly ugly,
45:30wears a crumpled
45:31old brown suit,
45:32speaks without
45:33any oratorical power,
45:35more like a college professor
45:36giving a lecture.
45:38Yet what he says
45:39drives the people crazy.
45:42And what he said was,
45:44end the war,
45:46and by doing so,
45:47give the people
45:47what they want
45:48and what the provisional government
45:50had failed to deliver.
45:51peace, land,
45:53and bread.
45:59Zimmerman had agents
46:00in Petrograd
46:01monitoring Lenin's progress.
46:06Lenin's entry
46:08into Russia successful.
46:09He is working
46:10exactly as we would wish.
46:15Just as the Germans hoped,
46:17Lenin's ideas
46:18spread to the front.
46:19The regiments
46:23have turned into
46:24hordes of bastards
46:25holding meetings
46:26led by the Bolsheviks.
46:28Military life
46:29has come to a standstill.
46:31The soldiers want peace
46:32no matter what
46:33the conditions are.
46:34They want to go home
46:35to work the land
46:36and enjoy the results
46:38of the revolution.
46:38On the 18th of June,
46:451917,
46:47news of secret German funding
46:48of the Bolsheviks leaked.
46:51Lenin fled the city,
46:53heavily disguised.
46:57But the Bolsheviks
46:58countered claims
46:59that Lenin was a spy,
47:01using printing presses
47:02bought with German money.
47:03and they set about
47:05building worker support,
47:07helping arm the most militant
47:09to create the Red Guard.
47:18Lenin reappeared
47:19on the night
47:19of 6th November, 1917,
47:22leaving this safe house
47:23for the Bolshevik HQ.
47:27He knew power
47:29had to be seized now.
47:30We must not wait.
47:36We may lose everything.
47:38The government is tottering.
47:39We must deal it
47:40the death blow.
47:41To delay action
47:42is the same as death.
47:46Journalist John Reed
47:47was at the HQ.
47:50In the hall,
47:51I ran into some
47:51of the Bolshevik leaders.
47:54One showed me a revolver.
47:55The game is on, he said.
47:57And his face was pale.
48:00Throughout that night,
48:03the Bolsheviks
48:04secured key points
48:05across Petrograd,
48:06with hardly a shot fired.
48:16The city awoke
48:17to a new world order.
48:19I've just heard
48:20some stunning news.
48:22The provisional government
48:23has been overthrown.
48:25The telegraph wires
48:26are buzzing
48:26with decrees
48:27of the new Bolshevik government.
48:28All land
48:30is to be transferred
48:31to the people.
48:37The first thing
48:39the Bolsheviks did
48:39was to take Russia
48:40out of the war,
48:42freeing the Germans
48:43from a crippling fight
48:44on two fronts.
48:48Germany's gamble
48:49on Lenin
48:49had paid off.
48:52The Bolsheviks
48:53have brought about
48:54the crucial event
48:55of the century.
48:55They've discharged
48:57millions of Russian soldiers
48:59and freed the Germans' hands.
49:01A hot steam bath
49:02awaits the Allies.
49:10Revolution and subversion
49:12had released 44 German divisions
49:14for the Western Front.
49:17Germany now had a chance
49:18to win the First World War.
49:28In the next episode
49:29of the First World War,
49:31Germany launches
49:32a huge offensive
49:33on the Western Front,
49:34but her alliances
49:35start to crumble.
49:37It will be a race
49:38between victory
49:39and collapse.
49:40the first time
49:41will be a race
49:41for the first time
49:42to win the first time
49:43to win the first time
49:43and the first time
49:43will be a race
49:44for the first time
49:44to win the first time
49:45and to win the first time
49:45and to win the first time
49:46and to win the first time
49:46and to win the first time
49:47and to win the first time
49:47and to win the first time
49:48and to win the first time
49:48and to win the first time
49:49and to win the first time
49:49and to win the first time
49:50and to win the first time
49:50and to win the first time
49:51and to win the first time
49:51and to win the first time
49:51and to win the first time
49:52and to win the first time
49:52and to win the first time
49:52and to win the first time
49:53and to win the first time
49:53and to win the first time
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