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00:00You
00:22Think of the first world war and you think of trenches
00:25There was mobility elsewhere in the East and Africa
00:32But the war on the Western Front was bogged down
00:37The challenge on both sides was to find new ideas new weapons new spirit among the men
00:44Only then could they break out and win
00:55You
01:02You
01:04You
01:06You
01:13You
01:16You
01:18In September 1914, the Allies had stopped the German drive into France at the Marne.
01:36The Germans pulled back to high ground and dug in.
01:40The Allies followed suit.
01:42The result, 500 miles of trench and fortification stretching from the channel to Switzerland, allowing ground to be held with fewer men, freeing troops for other fronts.
02:00Breaking the deadlock meant taking the offensive, but it was much easier to defend trenches than attack them.
02:12For all their blood and mud and horror, trenches saved lives.
02:18They were places of fear and bad smells, where walls might be shored up with limbs and corpses, but they were the safest places to be in a battlefield swept by machine gun fire, devastated by shelling.
02:32The greater danger came when you left them.
02:34The popular image of First World War soldiers is lions led by donkeys.
02:48But the generals knew that battles couldn't be won from behind a trench wall.
02:53Sooner or later, the men would have to go over the top, and that meant heavy casualties.
02:59The generals weren't so much callous as realistic.
03:01And there were more good generals than bad.
03:10Rather than sitting out the war in chateaus miles behind the lines, 71 German generals were killed in action, 55 French, 78 British.
03:23The general's response to the deadlock was to challenge it.
03:27To find dynamic ways to beat it.
03:39In 1916, both sides looked for a place to break through, where an attack could be concentrated and supplied.
03:47The Germans thought they'd found it at Verdun.
03:49A town and mighty fortress on a salient, a tongue of France sticking out into the German lines.
04:08Verdun looked secure, with its huge walls, its giant circle of 19 forts, with their outer ring of defences.
04:15But the French had now downgraded Verdun's status, removing many of its guns to needier sights.
04:29For the French garrison, it was becoming known as a cushy sector.
04:32We have almost nothing to worry about.
04:41We often play cards, and sometimes we have to drop them and pick up our rifles.
04:46But it's usually a false alarm.
04:47So we go back to our suits and our cards.
04:50Our mind's completely on the game again.
04:52But parliamentary deputy, Emile Drian, now a front-line colonel, realised how vulnerable Verdun really was.
05:08He warned the French government.
05:11We are doing everything, day and night, to make our front-line inviolable.
05:15But there is one thing about which we can do nothing.
05:19The shortage of hands.
05:22If our front-line is broken by a massive attack, our second-line won't hold.
05:27Lack of workers.
05:28And also, barbed wire.
05:33But Drian was ignored.
05:34On Monday, the 21st of February, 1916, a clear, still winter's day.
05:44Over 100,000 German soldiers drew breath and prepared to go over the top.
05:56They had surprise on their side.
05:58Above them, they had air superiority.
06:06No Allied planes had spotted their preparations.
06:14Behind them, their own German artillery opened fire.
06:18And in front of them, in the French lines,
06:20Corporal Marc Stéphane could hardly believe what was happening.
06:22We were swept by a storm, a hurricane, a tempest growing ever stronger,
06:30with hail-like cobblestones, with the destructive force of an express train.
06:36And we're underneath it, do you follow?
06:39Underneath it.
06:45The Germans fired a million shells that day.
06:47When a shell bursts a few metres away, there's a terrible jolt,
06:55and then an indescribable chaos of smoke, of earth, of stones, of branches,
07:01and too often, alas, of limbs, flesh, a rain of blood.
07:09By three o'clock in the afternoon,
07:12the section of the wood which we occupied,
07:14and which, in the morning, was completely covered with bushes,
07:16looked like the timber yard of a sawmill.
07:20A little later, I'd lost most of my men.
07:26The Germans were evolving new solutions to the problems of attack.
07:31They delegated command forward to the men at the sharp end,
07:35training them to advance in small groups, zigzagging and crouching,
07:39equipped with fearsome new weapons,
07:41light mortars, grenades, and flamethrowers.
07:46They called these units stormtroopers.
07:56We moved forward from our position.
07:59That's where I saw the most refined weapon of modern technology,
08:03or human bestiality.
08:05There was a spurt of flame,
08:06which flooded the attacking enemy with burning oil.
08:10Verdun was one of the defining battles of the 20th century.
08:22Among the attacking Germans was a young lieutenant, Paulus,
08:25who, as a general in the Second World War,
08:27would command the siege of Stalin.
08:2925-year-old Charles de Gaulle was also there,
08:38France's future leader,
08:39wounded and captured, defending Verdun.
08:41On the second day of the attack, at his headquarters,
08:55Colonel Drillon received absolution from his chaplain
08:57and wrote a note to his wife.
09:00The hour is near.
09:02I feel very calm.
09:03In our wood, the front trenches will be taken in a few minutes.
09:08My poor battalion spurred until now.
09:13He sent a message to his divisional commander.
09:17We shall hold out against the Bosch,
09:20although their bombardment is infernal.
09:21Drillon ordered a retreat out of the woods.
09:36Then one of his men was hit.
09:38As Drillon started to dress the wound,
09:41he, too, was shot.
09:43I clearly saw the colonel throw up his arms and shout,
09:46Oh, my God!
09:47Then he half-turned and collapsed.
09:49When I could get over to him, there was no sign of life.
09:53Blood was flowing from a head wound and from his mouth.
09:57He had the colour of a dead man.
10:06Three days later, the Germans captured Douaumont,
10:10Verdun's key fort.
10:12Germany was jubilant.
10:14Church bells rang out.
10:16A national holiday was declared.
10:19In France, Drillon's heroic sacrifice helped spark the flame of national defiance.
10:30Verdun was to be held at any cost.
10:35The survival of France herself was at stake.
10:38They shall not pass, declared General Philippe Pétain,
10:50Verdun's new commander.
10:53He rotated his troops.
10:55Three-quarters of the French army at one time or another defended Verdun,
10:59a national effort that ensured whole units were not totally destroyed in the battle.
11:03Pétain was genuinely concerned for the lives of his men.
11:14A quarter of a century later,
11:16he led his country into surrender and collaboration with Hitler,
11:19rather than repeat the bloodbath of Verdun.
11:21An ordinary French road, but it saved its country's life.
11:42Night and day, supplies for Verdun rolled along the Voix Sacrée,
11:46the sacred way, as well as by rail.
12:05Events on another front also helped the French at Verdun.
12:08At the end of 1915, the Allies, Britain, France, Italy and Russia,
12:15had agreed a plan for 1916 to pull Germany in different directions.
12:22Now the deal paid off.
12:24A successful Russian offensive forced Germany to switch troops from France to the Eastern Front.
12:30From June, the initiative at Verdun passed to the French.
12:33And Germany's technical advantages were short-lived.
12:51Throughout the war, new ideas were quickly picked up by the other side.
12:54All our inventions seem to turn like evil spirits against us,
13:10like a monster destroying itself.
13:14Amid these terrible scenes of destruction,
13:17the idea of ever returning home seems indescribably glorious.
13:20France, please look after yourself and our home,
13:25your soul and your body and all that is mine.
13:33France Marc was killed later that day.
13:39Finally, on the 24th of October, 1916,
13:42the French recaptured Fort Dourmand.
13:46Verdun was saved.
13:48At last, the time has come
13:52and we set off to conquer the enemy positions.
13:56They don't offer any resistance
13:57and the few men who are still alive
13:59come out of their holes crying,
14:01Camerad!
14:02The battlefield of Verdun has a different atmosphere
14:18from any other I was ever on.
14:21Its horrors are also greater.
14:22But there's a feeling of intense satisfaction.
14:31It was at Verdun that the French people found themselves again
14:34and emerged from the clouds which have hung over them
14:37since their defeat by the Germans in 1870.
14:41France had learned a string of lessons at Verdun
14:44about artillery, new weapons, logistics and manpower.
14:47But at a cost of over a third of a million casualties.
14:58German casualties were nearly as high.
15:00But Germany, fighting alone in the West
15:02and with weak allies on other fronts,
15:04could not endure losses on this scale.
15:08She would not launch another major offensive
15:10on the Western Front until 1918.
15:12One can look for miles and see no human beings.
15:42But in those miles of country lurk,
15:44it seems, thousands of men
15:46planning against each other perpetually
15:48some new device of death.
15:51Never showing themselves,
15:53they launch at each other bullet, bomb,
15:56aerial torpedo and shell.
16:00Unlike previous wars,
16:01the fighting on the Western Front was unceasing.
16:05Somewhere down the line,
16:06there was always a gun firing,
16:08a man falling.
16:12But for the troops of both sides,
16:17life was not always unrelenting warfare.
16:25During 1916,
16:26the average British soldier
16:27spent 100 days at the front.
16:30For the remainder,
16:31he was in reserve,
16:32on work detail,
16:33resting or on leave.
16:35And over the 500-mile front,
16:40some sectors were easier than others.
16:42Even busy ones had their lulls.
16:45One day,
16:46British General Lord Edward Gleichen
16:48visited the front line.
16:50When going round the trenches,
16:52I asked a man
16:53whether he had had any shots at the Germans.
16:56He responded
16:57that there was
16:58an elderly gentleman
16:58with a bald head and long beard
17:00who often shoved himself
17:02over the parapet.
17:03Well, why didn't you shoot him?
17:05Shoot him,
17:06said the man.
17:07Why, Lord bless you, sir.
17:09He's never done me no harm.
17:11A shocking example
17:12of live and let live.
17:16Live and let live
17:17was a pervasive phenomenon
17:19on both sides
17:20of accommodation with the enemy.
17:22It arose
17:24because in quiet times
17:26and in quiet lines,
17:28men were learning
17:28to adapt to war
17:29and to adapt war to them.
17:33We sometimes got out of the trench
17:35into the tall grass behind,
17:38which the sun had dried,
17:40and enjoyed a warm indolence
17:42with a book.
17:44Not infantry training, I think.
17:47The war seemed to have forgotten us
17:49in that placid sector.
17:52The war is the only way
17:54to get in love.
17:56The war is the only way
17:57that if the war is going
17:59during the summer of Paris,
18:04those who have managed to land
18:05the world,
18:06I see that there,
18:08in pajamas,
18:09a ton of people
18:10sit on the pliands
18:11that one's in charge
18:13in an obscure angle.
18:15I have now a couple
18:16of the sands
18:17of beaux-fieux-beaux-fois,
18:19Madame Otambois,
18:20grillae,
18:20I'm with officers and sergeants who are great fun.
18:36There's lots of schnapps and wine, and every day we get so drunk we forget whether we're at war or in Civvy Street.
18:50In my unit, there was a piano actually in the trench in the front line, and we had many a good sing-song.
19:20I feel great. I have never lived so well, and probably never will again.
19:35I have just joined our sports club. This evening someone got a football.
19:40Now we can play football, racing, long jump. Chocolate is the prize, donated by our platoon commander.
19:50Life in this sector is gloriously lazy. Weather is perfect, the enemy most peaceful.
20:05And there's little to do but lie on one's back and smoke, or write imaginative letters back home.
20:16It would be child's play to shell the road behind the enemy's trenches,
20:19crowded as it was with ration wagons and water carts, into a blood-stained wilderness.
20:25But on the whole, there is silence. After all, if you prevent your enemy from getting his rations,
20:31his remedy is simple. He will prevent you from drawing yours.
20:35We often see the smoke of the Germans' mealtime fires ascending in blue-grey spirals.
20:59It is only common courtesy not to interrupt each other's meals with intermittent missiles of hate.
21:04One day while our infantry was cooking, there was a shout from the enemy trench.
21:25Could he come and eat too?
21:26He was invited over. The Frenchman came and ate and made himself comfortable.
21:32And from then on, whenever the Frenchman noticed that food was ready in the German trenches,
21:37he came and joined in.
21:38Sometimes an officer tried to stir his men into a little action.
21:47How about posting a sniper? Or lobbing over a grenade?
21:52We received the following message tied to a stone from the German trenches opposite.
21:57We're going to send a 40-pounder.
22:00We've been ordered to do this, but we don't want to.
22:03It'll come this evening, and we'll blow a whistle first to warn you so that you have time to take cover.
22:08All happened as they said it would.
22:25The sniper is a very necessary person.
22:29He serves to remind us that we are at war.
22:33Wherever a head or anything resembling a head shows itself, he fires.
22:38Were it not for his enthusiasm, both sides would be sitting upon their respective parapets,
22:44regarding each other with frank curiosity.
22:47And that would never do.
22:49British directive, March 1916.
22:55With trench warfare, there is an insidious tendency to lapse into a passive and lethargic attitude,
23:02against which officers of all ranks have to be on their guard.
23:05And the fostering of the offensive spirit calls for incessant attention.
23:15Live and let live was dependent on the sector and the troops manning it.
23:19The Germans didn't like facing the highland regiments.
23:23The British couldn't get along with the Prussians.
23:26But some of the other Germans were fine.
23:28The soldier, Mike, gave us some useful hints.
23:34It's the Saxons that's across the road, he said,
23:36pointing to the enemy lines, which were very silent.
23:40They're quiet fellows, the Saxons.
23:41They don't want to fight any more than we do.
23:44So there's a kind of understanding between us.
23:47Don't fire at us, and we'll not fire at you.
23:50Live and let live did not occur where elite regiments were operating.
24:02They had their own ideas about getting at the enemy.
24:07Rare footage of a daylight raid by South African troops.
24:13The idea was to dominate no man's land.
24:17To say to the enemy, it's not no man's land.
24:20It's ours.
24:32Raids broke up trench routines,
24:34brought intelligence from prisoners,
24:37encouraged aggression.
24:39This, British High Command thought,
24:40was the cure for live and let live.
24:50Training sessions were organised using elaborate models of the target area.
25:01Raiding became compulsory for all regiments,
25:03and laggards were routed out.
25:08Higher ranks appeared in our midst.
25:11Chief of all, the Brigadier General,
25:13followed by an almost equally menacing staff captain.
25:16What was my name?
25:17I had not been round the company's wire.
25:20Why not?
25:21I was to go.
25:26Reports of daring raids were duly submitted.
25:29But some at HQ, like Brigadier General Crozier,
25:33smelt a rant.
25:33It became increasingly difficult as time went on
25:37to obtain correct reports from officers' patrols.
25:41It was my habit to order samples of German wire to be cut and brought back.
25:46Thus one would know that the German line had been visited.
25:51At least one squad of reluctant raiders had an answer to that.
25:54They found a large coil of German barbed wire in no man's land
25:57and just snipped bits off, sending them in with bogus reports.
26:03That went on every night.
26:05And the old man never knew we had a coil of gerry wire on our side.
26:16Many, though, entered the spirit, proudly displaying their trophies.
26:21Raiding and shelling helped put the war back into the gaps between battles.
26:25One night in May 1916,
26:29Siegfried Sassoon joined a raiding party into no man's land.
26:36The raiders vanished into the darkness on all fours.
26:39I crawled out after them.
26:41Shells started to fire.
26:44News came back.
26:45O'Brien says it's a washout.
26:46They can't get through the wire.
26:51A bomb burst.
26:52Then a concentration of angry flashes.
26:55Wounded men were crawling back.
26:57Among them, a grey-haired lance corporal
26:59who'd had one of his feet almost blown off.
27:02Thank God for this.
27:03I've been waiting 18 months for it.
27:05Now I can go home.
27:12Sassoon's raid was launched from these trenches.
27:17The objective?
27:18This ridge.
27:19But it all went badly wrong.
27:25I went to look for O'Brien, groping my way along the edge of a crater.
27:29Bullets hit the water near me.
27:32There I discovered him.
27:34He moaned.
27:35He'd been hit several times.
27:38The stretcher bearer bent over him and straightened.
27:41In a surprising gesture, he took off his helmet.
27:47O'Brien had been one of the best men in our company.
27:49Shelling was the biggest killer of the war.
28:09Live and Let Live continued on and off.
28:19But the loss of comrades made it increasingly difficult to sustain.
28:22Speaking for my companions and myself,
28:51I can categorically state that we were in no mood for any joviality with Jerry.
28:58We hated his guts.
29:00We were bent on his destruction at each and every opportunity.
29:04Our greatest wish was to be granted an enemy target worthy of our Vickers machine gun.
29:09We were under shell fire for eight hours.
29:34It was like a dream.
29:38Some of the men looked quite insane after the charge.
29:47As we entered the German trenches,
29:49a great number came out asking for mercy.
29:52Needless to say, they were shot right off.
29:54The Royal Scots took about 300 prisoners and immediately shot the whole lot.
30:07There were many cases on both sides of prisoners being killed after surrender.
30:12Such atrocities fuelled hatred further.
30:14But many prisoners were captured.
30:23They provided excellent opportunities for propaganda.
30:29British newsreel film of German POWs
30:32was used to convince audiences back home
30:35that Britain was gaining the upper hand.
30:37By the end of the war,
30:42there were nearly 9 million prisoners in total
30:44and captivity was not their only hardship.
30:48It's already been two years since you were here last
30:51and Mother Nature needs to fulfil her urges again.
30:55As you can't come and see me,
30:57I'm forced to go looking elsewhere.
31:00Don't think I'm joking, I'm serious.
31:02I don't care what you think of me,
31:04but you can't expect me to waste my youth like this.
31:08After all, I'm not made of wood.
31:10And what a person needs,
31:12a person must get.
31:15Please don't be cross with me, will you?
31:18Your ever-loving Thelma.
31:20Your sweet children send you lots of love.
31:25Another German wife was careful to reassure her absent husband.
31:31We've got a real slut in our house
31:33who's always got someone new with her.
31:35That bitch isn't good enough for such a decent man.
31:39The poor thing fights at the front
31:41while she swans off to the cinema and the pub
31:44with the other fellas back home.
31:46Dearest man,
31:48please don't think evil thoughts
31:49because there are also good women
31:51who are faithful to their men.
31:56Letters from home with the soldiers' lifeline.
31:58German troops were offered these beguiling colour postcards
32:10to reassure loved ones that they were comfortable,
32:13happy and safe.
32:14But news from the front was rarely so cosy.
32:24A German factory worker,
32:25learning that her husband had been killed,
32:28wrote to her boss to resign.
32:29My beloved husband worked here for years
32:35and I did the same work with his tools
32:37and I was proud that while he was fighting at the front,
32:40I could represent him here.
32:43It was not always pleasant in the factory,
32:45but my husband's letters gave me courage.
32:49And so, until his death,
32:50the job was sacrosanct to me.
32:52That's why I can't do it anymore.
33:01More and more women in Germany, France and Britain
33:04were making munitions.
33:08Many men were contemptuous of women's abilities
33:10to do their jobs
33:11and fearful that if they managed it,
33:14the women might not clear off after the war.
33:19Jeannie Riley wrote to her husband at the front
33:22about her new job.
33:25We were told that the amount of work we do in three weeks
33:28would have taken the men three years.
33:30And, Jamie,
33:31the men are getting quite mad at us.
33:34One woman I work with,
33:35well, she lost her finger in a machine in the works,
33:38but she's a tough one.
33:40When she came back from the Weston infirmary,
33:42she carried on like nothing had happened.
33:45I have to get up at half-past four every morning.
33:49So I'll have you up at the same time
33:51when you come home,
33:52if God spares you.
33:55Jeannie's husband, Jamie,
33:57did come safely home.
34:01The most important battle Jeannie Riley and her colleagues
34:04were working towards in 1916
34:06was the Somme.
34:10It's now a byword for wholesale suffering and slaughter,
34:13but its architect,
34:15General Sir Henry Rawlinson,
34:16conceived it as an offensive with limited objectives,
34:19more dependent on guns than manpower.
34:21With plenty of guns and ammunition,
34:30we ought to be able to avoid the heavy losses
34:32which the infantry have always suffered on previous occasions.
34:38The French were due to play the lead role,
34:40but with Verdun dragging on,
34:42the British bore the brunt.
34:44And there was intense political pressure
34:46to deliver a victory.
34:51General Sir Douglas Haig was the British Army's Commander-in-Chief.
34:55He turned Rawlinson's plan into a major offensive.
35:02When the British guns opened up on the Somme
35:04on the 24th of June, 1916,
35:07the windows rattled in London,
35:09160 miles away.
35:10But after seven days of bombardment,
35:24the British artillery had neither silenced the German guns
35:26nor destroyed their defences.
35:32A sergeant of the Tyneside Irish
35:34went over the top on the 1st of July
35:35with lines of men on either side of him.
35:38I heard the patter-patter of machine guns in the distance.
35:44By the time I'd gone another 10 yards,
35:46there seemed to be only a few men left around me.
35:49By the time I'd gone another 20 yards,
35:51I seemed to be on my own.
35:53Then I was hit myself.
36:02Farmers around the Somme
36:03still gather a harvest of iron
36:05for the French army to collect and defuse.
36:11In this war,
36:12what happened in the factory
36:13directly affected the outcome on the battlefield.
36:1730% of British shells fired on the Somme were duds,
36:20a drastic failure of quality control.
36:23But the key factor was that there weren't enough heavy guns
36:26and British artillery wasn't much good.
36:29on that terrible first day,
36:40it became clear that the French knew what they were doing
36:43and the British did not.
36:45The French artillery in their attacks
37:02did not shoot the ground to bits
37:04before they moved over it.
37:06A short, intense bombardment,
37:08followed by a rush of men,
37:09gave them the position clean and intact.
37:12We would shoot our ground into a quagmire
37:15and then send troops slowly forward over it
37:18and expect them to provide their own cover
37:21from the enemy's retaliation.
37:22On the 1st of July,
37:33the French gained all their objectives
37:35at a cost of a few thousand men.
37:38Britain achieved virtually nothing
37:40with casualties of 57,470.
37:44It was the heaviest loss suffered in a single day
37:49by the British army in its entire history.
37:56There had been a host of lessons for both sides since 1914
38:00and the British became avid learners.
38:08How to lay down shellfire over the heads of advancing men.
38:12How to locate enemy guns
38:14using flash spotting, sound ranging and trigonometry.
38:19And how to knock them out.
38:20Better shells, better fuses, better guns and better gunners.
38:31While the Germans came to rely more on skilled infantrymen,
38:34often acting on their own initiative,
38:36the British concentrated on fighting a technical war.
38:39It was all too late for the Somme.
38:54Haig must bear the responsibility
38:55for not stopping the slaughter
38:57when the breakthrough failed.
39:02The battle petered out in November 1916
39:05with around half a million casualties on each side.
39:09There was an awe.
39:26Cambrai in Northern France,
39:28on 20th November 1917 on the site
39:31of the first major use of tanks in the world.
39:39Here, the British army would put what they had learnt into practice.
39:48Britain's invention of the tank cracked a key First World War problem,
39:52how to combine firepower and movement.
40:01Tanks needed dry, hard ground.
40:04They got it at Cambrai.
40:06The attack was led by a general, from the front.
40:13A lithe figure strode up, pipe aglow, ash dick under his arm.
40:18Unexpected, it was General Ellis.
40:21I'm going over in this tank, he announced, tapping Hilda.
40:26I swung the door open, and he squeezed through inside.
40:36The artillery now knew not to chew up the ground ahead.
40:41A short, sharp bombardment, and then over 300 tanks rolled into the first light.
40:50Just before 6.30 a.m., the barrage commenced, and we started off.
40:57Our first bump came fairly soon.
41:02We climbed a bank, crashed through a hedge, and came down heavily on the other side.
41:06We were thrown about like so many peanuts, and we had to clutch on to whatever we could.
41:11The tanks, looking like giant toads, became visible against the skyline.
41:27Some of the leading tanks carried huge bundles of tightly bound brushwood,
41:32which they dropped into the wide German trenches, then crossed over them.
41:40It was broad daylight as we crossed no man's land and the German front line.
41:44I saw very few wounded coming back, and a few German prisoners.
41:52The enemy wire had been dragged about like old curtains.
41:55The tanks appeared to have busted through.
41:57The tanks, still experimental, were part of one of the most sophisticated, innovative plans of the war.
42:08The aim was to break through the German lines with minimal loss of life.
42:17The artillery would use their new skills and technology
42:20to locate and target the German batteries before the battle.
42:27The tanks would punch a hole in the German lines,
42:30with the infantry tucked up close for mutual protection,
42:34while the cavalry pushed through.
42:46Secrecy was crucial.
42:49Screens were erected to hide movements.
42:53Telltale tracks were covered with mud.
42:58The question ever uppermost in all our minds was,
43:02does the Hun suspect anything?
43:04It was most exciting.
43:14About 9am, retreating infantrymen gave us an account of swarms of tanks,
43:18so many that it was absolutely impossible to stop them.
43:22A little later, the tank monsters came creeping to the ridge south of the village.
43:31Not one of us had seen such a beast before.
43:41Then, a dramatic indication that real progress had been made.
43:44For the first time, we saw the magnificent spectacle of our field artillery,
43:54limbering up and going forward.
44:01First at a trot, then at a gallop, battery after battery,
44:05to take up new positions on the captured German front line.
44:19The Germans were caught on the hop, then pushed back five miles.
44:23A greater Allied advance than anything achieved on the Somme or in Flanders.
44:33It was a long, hard day.
44:35But the sight of all the ground that had been taken with so little bloodshed
44:39was a real tonic.
44:41Troops seemed very pleased with our tanks.
44:44So pleased we had many drinks with them.
44:45It's astonishing how much whisky the British army carries into battle.
44:56On the 21st of November, church bells rang out across Britain,
45:00just as they had done in Germany for Verdun.
45:04And again, the celebrations were a little hasty.
45:07The British had not achieved all their objectives.
45:13Some villages near Cambrai remained in German hands,
45:17including Fleskiere.
45:19The Highlanders in this sector had been ordered to keep well away
45:22from the newfangled tanks,
45:24so they couldn't help them by knocking out machine gun nests and artillery.
45:27And lurking near Fleskiere was one of the few German batteries trained against tanks.
45:40A tank emerged from the village.
45:43Distance, 275 metres.
45:46Fire.
45:48Damn, too far.
45:50Fire.
45:52Very close.
45:53Aim a little to the right.
45:55Fire.
45:56A hit.
45:59Oh, Lord.
46:01A column of fire was bursting out of the monster.
46:04Two of our men ran to the tank,
46:06and when they returned, they described the half-burned bodies of the crew.
46:13Inside the tanks, the crews wrestled with the world's latest technology,
46:17under fire.
46:20Just at this critical moment,
46:22the autovacs supplying petrol to the engine failed.
46:24The engine spluttered and stopped.
46:27We were now a stationary target.
46:30In the sudden silence, we could hear the thud, thud of falling shells,
46:36and metal and earth striking the sides of the tank.
46:39The atmosphere in the tank was fouled.
46:43With tense faces, the crew watched the imperturbable second driver,
46:49as he coolly and methodically put the autovac right,
46:52ignoring all the proffered advice to give it a good hard knock.
46:55The Germans knocked out 32 tanks at Flesquière.
47:08More were crippled by stormtroopers in the narrow streets of Fontaine, Notre Dame.
47:22There was horrible slaughter in Fontaine,
47:25and I, who had spent three weeks before the battle in thinking out its possibilities,
47:29had never tackled the subject of village fighting.
47:32I could have kicked myself again and again for this lack of foresight,
47:36but it never occurred to me that our infantry commanders would thrust tanks into such places.
47:50The Germans also had the bright idea of mounting anti-aircraft guns on lorries
47:55and attacking the tanks with armour-piercing shells.
47:57Nine tanks rolled towards us.
48:01The captain orders, steady men, wait for it.
48:05When the enemy is less than a hundred metres away,
48:08the command rings out, rapid fire.
48:11The first tank rears upwards.
48:14Those following halt.
48:16One direct hit after another.
48:27Within a week, the Germans launched a massive counter-attack,
48:32with stormtroopers supported by aircraft.
48:35Within ten days, they'd recovered all their lost ground.
48:44Yet Cambrai was crucial for the British.
48:47They'd gained valuable experience with the tanks and cracked their artillery problems.
48:52Vital lessons were learnt about teamwork on the battlefield.
48:56The big challenge for both sides now
48:59was how to consolidate the successful breakthrough.
49:02The master of that would win the war.
49:25In the next episode of the First World War,
49:35British and German navies clash at Jutland.
49:38The dark world are spies and saboteurs.
49:41And America is pushed into the war.
49:43of English.
49:48Yeagers are the Muchassearch at Jutland,
49:50Metod-rush at the first time.
49:53And the maintenance and worship is the best 것.
49:55Amen.
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