How Allies Broke The Deadlock | First World War EP6 | Timeline

[Music] think of the First World War and you think of trenches there was mobility elsewhere in the East and Africa but the war on the Western Front was bogged down the challenge on both sides was to find new ideas new weapons new spirit among the men only then could they break out and win [Music] [Applause] [Music] in September 1914 the Allies had stopped the German drive into France at the Mon [Music] the Germans pulled back to high ground and dug in the Allies followed suit the result 500 miles of Trenchard fortification stretching from the channel to Switzerland allowing ground to be held with fewer men freeing troops for other fronts breaking the deadlock meant taking the offensive but it was much easier to defend trenches than attack them for all their blood and modern horror trenches saved lives they 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 the greater danger came when you left them [Applause] the popular image of first world war soldiers is Lions led by donkeys but the generals knew that battles couldn't be won from behind a trench wall sooner or later the men would have to go over the top and that meant heavy casualties the generals weren't so much callous as realistic and there were more good generals than bad rather than sitting out the war in chateaus miles behind the lines seventy-one German journals were killed in action 55 French 78 British the generals response to the deadlock was to challenge it to find dynamic ways to beat it in 1916 both sides looked for a place to break through where an attack could be concentrated and supplied the Germans thought they'd found it at Verdun a town and mighty fortress on a salient a tongue of France sticking out into the German lines they're down looked secure with its huge walls its giant circle of 19 fours with their outer ring of Defense's but the French had now downgraded fair dance status removing many of its guns to media sites for the French garrison who was becoming known as a cushy sector we have almost nothing to worry about we often play cards and sometimes we have to drop them and pick up our rifles but it's usually a false alarm so we go back to our suits and our cards our minds completely on the game again but parliamentary deputy Emil dream now a frontline colonel realized how vulnerable they're down really was he warned the French government we are doing everything day and night to make our frontline inviolable but there is one thing about which we can do nothing the shortage of hands if our frontline is broken by a massive attack our second line won't hold lack of workers and also barbed wire the dream was ignored on Monday the 21st of February 1916 a clear still winters day over a hundred thousand German soldiers drew breath and prepared to go over the top [Music] they had surprise on their side above them they had air superiority no Allied planes had spotted their preparations behind them their own German artillery opened farm but in front of them in the French lines corporal mark Stefan could hardly believe what was happening we were swept by a storm a hurricane a tempest growing ever stronger with hail like cobblestones with the destructive force of an express train and we're underneath it do you follow underneath it the Germans fired a million shells that day when a shell bursts a few metres away there's a terrible jolt and then an indescribable chaos of smoke of earth of stones of branches and too often alas of limbs flesh the rain of blood by 3 o'clock in the afternoon the section of the wood which we occupied and which in the morning was completely covered with bushes looked like the timber yard of a sawmill a little later had lost most of my men the Germans were evolving new solutions to the problems of attack they delegated command forward to the men at the sharp end training them to advance in small groups zigzagging and crouching equipped with fearsome new weapons light mortars grenades and flamethrowers they called these units stormtroopers we moved forward from our position that's where I saw the most refined weapon of modern technology or human best eality there was a spurt of flame which flooded the attacking enemy with burning oil their Dam was one of the defining battles of the 20th century among the attacking Germans was a young left-handed Paulus who as a general in the second world war would command the siege of Stalingrad 25 year-old Charles de Gaulle was also there Frances future leader wounded and captured defending fell down [Music] on the second day of the attack at his headquarters curled Rio received absolution from his chaplain and wrote a note to his wife the hour is near I feel very calm in our wood the front trenches will be taken in a few minutes my poor battalion spurred until now he sent a message to his divisional commander we shall hold out against the Bosch although their bombardment is infantile gyah ordered a retreat out of the woods then one of his men was hit his tree all started to dress the wound he too was shot I clearly saw the colonel throw up his arms and shout oh my god then he half turned and collapsed and I could get over to him there was no sign of life blood was flowing from a head wound and from his mouth he had the color of a dead man three days later the Germans captured do a more fair danske for Germany was jubilant church bells rang out a national holiday was declared in France three L's heroic sacrifice helped spark the flame of national defiance there Dan was to be held at any cost the survival of France herself was at stake they shall not pass declared general Philippe pétain ver Dan's new commander he rotated his troops three quarters of the French army at one time or another defended vowed out a national effort that ensured whole units were not totally destroyed in the battle Pizza was genuinely concerned for the lives of his men a quarter of a century later he led his country into surrender in collaboration with Hitler rather than repeat the bloodbath of Verdun route nacional 93 an ordinary French Road but it saved its country's life [Music] night and day supplies for our down rolled along the Wasik ray the Sacred Way as well as by rail [Music] events on another front also helped the French at Verdun at the end of 1915 the Allies Britain France Italy and Russia had agreed a plan for 1916 to pull Germany in different directions now the deal paid off a successful Russian offensive forced Germany to switch troops from France to the Eastern Front from June the initiative at Verdun passed to the French and Germany's technical advantages were short-lived throughout the war new ideas were quickly picked up by the other side [Applause] [Music] [Applause] all our inventions seem to turn like evil spirits against us like a monster destroying itself amid these terrible scenes destruction the idea of ever returning home the scenes indescribable glorious please look after yourself and our home your soul and your body and all that is mine [Music] France Marc was killed later that day finally on the 24th of October 1916 the French recaptured for Doremon Verdun was saved at last the time has come and we set off to conquer the enemy positions they don't offer any resistance and a few men who are still alive come out of their holes crying come around [Music] the battlefield of Verdun has a different atmosphere from any other I was ever on its horrors are also greater [Music] but there's a feeling of intense satisfaction it was at Verdun that the French people found themselves again and emerged from the clouds which have hung over them since their defeat by the Germans in 1870 France had learned a string of lessons at Verdun about artillery new weapons logistics and manpower but at a cost of over a third of a million casualties [Music] German casualties were nearly as high but Germany fighting alone in the West with weak allies on other fronts could not endure losses on this scale she would not launch another major offensive on the Western Front until 1918 [Music] one can look for miles and see no human beings but in those miles of country lurk it seems thousands of men panning against each other perpetually some new device of death never showing themselves they launch at each other bullet bomb aerial torpedo and shell unlike previous wars the fighting on the Western Front was unceasing somewhere down the line there was always a gun firing a man falling [Music] but for the troops of both sides life was not always unrelenting warfare during 1916 the average British soldier spent a hundred days at the front for the remainder he was in reserve on work detail resting or on leave addo for the 500-mile front some sectors were easier than others even busy ones had their lulls one day British general Lord Edward glycan visited the frontline when going round the trenches I asked a man whether he had had any shots of the Germans he responded that there was an elderly gentleman with a bald head and long beard who often showed himself over the parapet well why didn't you shoot him shoot him said the man why Lord bless you sir he's never done me now armed a shocking example of live and let live live and let live was a pervasive phenomenon on both sides of accommodation with the enemy it arose because in quiet times and in quiet lines men were learning to adapt to war and to adapt war to them we sometimes got out of the trench into the tall grass behind which the Sun had dried and enjoyed a warm indolence with a book not infantry training I think the war seemed to have forgotten us in that placid sector [Music] [Music] [Music] I'm with officers and sergeants who a great fun there's lots of schnapps and wine and every day we get so drunk we forget whether we're at war or in civvy Street there's a piano actually in the trench in the front line [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I feel great I have never lived so well and probably never will again I've just joined our sports club this evening someone got a football now we can play football racing long jump chocolate is the prize donated by a platoon commander [Music] life in this sector is gloriously lazy weather is perfect the enemy's most peaceful and there's little to do but lie on one's back and smoke or write imaginative letters back home it would be child's play to shell the road behind the enemies trenches crowded as it was with ration wagons and water carts into a blood-stained wilderness but on the whole there is science after all if you prevent your enemy from getting his rations his remedy is simple he will prevent you from drawing yours [Music] we often see the smoke of the Germans mealtime fires ascending in blue-gray spirals it is only common courtesy not to interrupt each other's meals with intermittent missiles of hate [Music] one day while our infantry was cooking there was a shout from the enemy trench could he come and eat - he was invited over the Frenchman came an ace and made himself comfortable and from then on whenever the Frenchman noticed that food was ready in the German trenches he came and joined in sometimes an officer tried to stir his men into a little action how about posting a sniper or lobbying over a grenade we received the following message tied to a stone from the German trenches opposite we're going to send a 40-pounder we've been ordered to do this but we don't want to it'll come this evening and we'll blow a whistle first to warn you so that you have time to take cover all happened as they said it would the sniper is a very necessary person he serves to remind us that we are at war wherever a head or anything resembling a head shows itself he fires were it not for his enthusiasm both sides would be sitting upon their respective para bits regarding each other with frank curiosity and that would never do British directive March 1960 with trench warfare there is an insidious tendency to lapse into a passive and lethargic attitude against which officers of all ranks have to be on their guard and the fostering of the offensive spirit calls for incessant attention Livan that live was dependent on the sector and the troops Manning it the Germans didn't like facing the Highland regiments the British couldn't get along with the Prussians but some of the other Germans were fine the soldier Mike ever some useful hints it's the Saxons that's across the road he said pointing to the enemy lines which were very salient they're quiet fellows the Saxons they don't want to fight any more than we do so there's a kind of Understanding between us don't fire at us and will not fire at you [Music] live-and-let-live did not occur where elite regiments were operating they had their own ideas about getting at the enemy rare footage of a daylight raid by South African troops the idea was to dominate no man's land to say to the enemy it's not no man's land it's ours [Music] raids broke up trench routines brought intelligence from prisoners encouraged aggression this British High Command thought was the cure for live-and-let-live [Music] training sessions were organized using elaborate models of the target area [Music] raiding became compulsory for all regiments and laggards were routed out [Applause] higher ranks appeared in our midst chief of all the Brigadier General followed by an almost equally menacing staff captain what was my name I had not been round the company's water why not I was to go reports of daring raids were duly submitted but some at HQ like brigadier general Crozier smelt around it became increasingly difficult as time went on to obtain correct reports from officers patrols it was my habit to order samples of German wire to be cut and brought back thus one would know that the German line had been visited at least one squad of reluctant Raiders had an answer to that they found a large coil of German barbed wire in no man's land and just snipped bits off sending them in with bogus reports that went on every night and the old man never knew we had a coil of Jerry wire on our side many though entered the spirit proudly displaying their trophies raiding and shelling help put the war back into the gaps between battles one night in May 1916 siegfried sassoon joined a raiding party into no-man's land the Raiders vanished into the darkness on all fours and I crawled out after them shells started a fire news came back and brian says it's a washout they can't get through the wire the botton burst then a concentration of angry flashes wounded men were crawling back among them a gray-haired Lance Corporal hood had one of his feet almost blown off thank God for this I've been waiting 18 months for it now I can go home Sassoon's raid was launched from these trenches the objective this ridge but it all went badly wrong I went to look for O'Brien groping my way along the edge of a crater bullets hit the water near me there I discovered him he moaned he'd been hit several times the stretcher bearer bent over him and straightened his surprising gesture he took off his helmet O'Brien had been one of the best men in our campaign [Music] shelling was the biggest killer of the war [Music] live-and-let-live continued on and off but the loss of comrades made it increasingly difficult to sustain [Music] [Music] speaking for my companions and myself I can categorically state that we were in no mood for any joviality with Jerry we hated his guts we were bent on his destruction at each and every opportunity our greatest wish was to be granted an enemy target worthy of our Vickers machine gun [Music] [Music] we went under shellfire for eight hours it was like a dream some of the men looked quite insane after the charge [Music] as we entered the German trenches a great number came out asking for mercy needless to say they were shot right off the Royal Scots took about 300 prisoners and immediately shot the whole world there were many cases on both sides of prisoners being killed after surrender such atrocities fueled hatred further but many prisoners were captured they provided excellent opportunities for propaganda British newsreel film of German POWs was used to convince audiences back home that Britain was gaining the upper hand by the end of the war there were nearly 9 million prisoners in total and captivity was not their only hardship it's already been two years since she were here last and Mother Nature needs to fulfill her urges again as you can't come and see me I'm forced to go looking elsewhere don't think I'm joking I'm serious I don't care what you think of me but you can't expect me to waste my youth like this after all I'm not made of wood and what a person needs a person must get please don't be cross with me will you your ever-loving Felmy your sweet children send you lots of love another German wife was careful to reassure her absent husband we've got a real [ __ ] in our house who's always got someone new with her that [ __ ] isn't good enough for such a decent man the poor thing fights at the front or she swans off to the cinema and the pub with the other fellas back home dearest nan please don't think evil thoughts because there are also good women who are faithful to their male letters from home of the soldiers lifeline [Music] German troops were offered these beguiling calipers cards to reassure loved ones that they were comfortable happy and safe [Music] but news from the front was rarely so cozy a German factory worker learning that her husband had been killed wrote to her boss to resign my beloved husband worked here for years and I did the same work with his tools and I was proud that while he was fighting at the front I could represent him here it was not always pleasant in the factory but my husband's letters gave me courage and so until his death the job was sacrosanct to me that's why I can't do it anymore more and more women in Germany France and Britain were making munitions many men were contemptuous of women's abilities to do their jobs and fearful that if they managed it the women might not clear off after the war Jeanne Reilly wrote to her husband at the front about her new job we were told that the amount of work we do in three weeks woulda taken a man three years and Jamie the men are getting quite mad at us one woman I work with will well she lost her finger in the machine in the works but she's a tough one when she came back from the westin and firmly she carried on like nothing had happened I have to get up at half past four every morning so I'll have you up at the same time when you come home if God's Beauty Jeannie's husband Jamie did come safely home the most important battle Jeannie Riley and her colleagues were working towards in 1916 was the psalm it's now a byword for wholesale suffering and slaughter but it's architect General Sir Henry rowlandson conceived it as an offensive with limited objectives more dependent on guns than manpower [Music] with plenty of guns and ammunition we ought to be able to avoid the heavy losses which the infantry of all was suffered on previous occasions the French would you to play the lead role but with VirB down dragging on the British bore the brunt and there was intense political pressure to deliver a victory General Sir Douglas Haig was the British Army's commander-in-chief he turned Rawlinson's plan into a major offensive when the British guns opened up on the Somme on the 24th of June 1916 the windows rattled in London 160 miles away but after seven days of bombardment the British artillery had neither silenced the German guns nor destroyed their defences a sergeant of the Tyneside Irish went over the top on the 1st of July with lines of men on either side of him I heard the patter patter of machineguns and the distance by the time had gone another 10 yards there seemed to be only a few men left around me by the time had gone another 20 yards I seemed to be on my own then I was hitting yourself farmers around the psalm still gather a harvest of armed for the French army to collect and defuse in this war what happened in the factory directly affected the outcome on the battlefield thirty percent of British shells fired on the Somme were duds a drastic failure of quality control but the key factor was that there weren't enough heavy guns and British artillery wasn't much good on that terrible first day it became clear that the French knew what they were doing and the British did not the French artillery in their attacks did not shoot the ground to bits before they moved over it a short intense bombardment followed by a rush of men gave them the position clean and intact we would shoot our ground into a quagmire and then send troops slowly forward over it and expect them to provide their own cover from the enemy's retaliation [Music] on the first of July the French gained all their objectives at a cost of a few thousand men Britain achieved virtually nothing with casualties of 50 7470 [Music] it was the heaviest loss suffered in a single day by the British Army in its entire history there had been a host of lessons for both sides since 1914 and the British became avid learners how to lay down shell far over the heads of advancing men how to locate enemy guns using flash spotting sound ranging and trigonometry and how to knock them out better shells better fuses better guns and better Gunners while the Germans came to rely more on skilled infantryman often acting on their own initiative the British concentrated on fighting a technical war [Music] it was all too late for the song [Music] Haigh was bear the responsibility for not stopping the slaughter when the breakthrough fail [Music] the battle petered out in November 1916 with around half a million casualties on each side [Music] cambree in northern france on the 20th of november 1917 the site of the first major use of Tanks in the world [Music] here the British army would put what they had learnt into practice [Music] Britain's invention of the tank cracked a key first world war problem how to combine firepower and movement [Music] tanks needed dry hard ground they got it at Cambre the attack was led by a general from the front a live figure strode up piper glow ash dick under his arm unexpected it was general Ellis I'm going over in this tank he announced tapping Hilda I swung the door open and he squeezed through inside [Music] the artillery now knew not to chew up the ground ahead a short sharp bombardment and then over 300 tanks rolled into the first light just before 6:30 a.m. the barrage commenced and we started off our first bump came fairly soon we climbed a bank crashed through a hedge and came down heavily on the other side we were thrown about like so many peanuts and we had to clutch onto whatever we could [Music] the tanks looking like giant toads became visible against the skyline some of the leading tanks carried huge banners with tightly bound brush with which they dropped into the wide German trenches and crossed over it was broad daylight as we crossed no-man's land in the German frontline I saw very few wounded coming back and a few German prisoners [Music] the enemy wire had been dragged about like old curtains the tanks appeared to have busted fro the tanks still experimental were part of one of the most sophisticated innovative plans of the war the aim was to break through the German lines with minimal loss of life [Music] the artillery would use their new skills and technology to locate and target the German batteries before the battle the tanks would punch a hole in the German lines with the infantry tucked up close for mutual protection while the cavalry pushed through secrecy was crucial screens are erected to hide movements telltale tracks were covered with mud [Music] the question ever uppermost in all our minds was does the hon suspect anything it was most exciting about 9:00 a.m. the treating infantrymen gave us an account of swarms of tanks so many that it was absolutely impossible to stop a little later the tank monsters came creeping to the ridge south of the village not one of us had seen such a beast before then a dramatic indication that real progress had been made for the first time we saw the Magnificent spectacle of our field artillery limbering up and going forward first at a trot then at a gallop battery after battery to take up new positions on the captured German front line the Germans were caught on the hop then pushed back five miles a greater Allied advance than anything achieved on the psalm or in Flanders [Music] it was a long hard day but the sight of all the ground that had been taken with so little bloodshed was a real Tom Troop seemed very pleased with our tanks so pleased we had many drinks with them it's astonishing how much whiskey the British Army carries into battle [Music] on the 21st of November church bells rang out across Britain just as they had done in Germany for Velden and again the celebrations were a little hasty the British had not achieved all their objectives some villages near Cambre remained in German hands including flesh gear the Highlanders in this sector had been ordered to keep well away from the newfangled tanks so they couldn't help them by knocking out machine-gun nests on artillery and lurking near flesh gear was one of the few German batteries trained against tanks [Music] a tank emerged from the village distance 275 metres fire down too far fire very close aim a little to the right fire hit a hit Oh Lord a column of fire was bursting out of the monster two of our men ran to the tank and when they returned they described the half burned bodies of the crew inside the tanks the crews wrestled with the world's latest technology under farm just at this critical moment the auto vac supplying petrol to the engine failed the engine spluttered and stopped we were now a stationary target in the sudden silence we could hear the third third of falling shells and metal and earth striking the sides of the tank the atmosphere in the tank was found with tense faces the crew watched the imperturbable second driver as he coolly and methodically put the auto that right ignoring all the profit advice to give it a good hard knock the Germans knocked out 32 tanks at friskier [Music] more were crippled by stormtroopers in the narrow streets of Fontaine not radon [Music] there was horrible slaughter in Fontaine and I who had spent three weeks before the battle in thinking out its possibilities had never tackled the subject of village fighting I could have kicked myself again and again for this lack of foresight but it never occurred to me that our infantry commanders would thrust tanks into such places [Music] the Germans also had the bright idea of mounting anti-aircraft guns on lorries and attacking the tanks with armor-piercing shells nine tanks rolled towards us the captain orders steady men wait for it when the enemy is less than a hundred metres away the command rings out rapid-fire the first tank rears upwards those following halt one direct hit after another within a week the Germans launched a massive counter-attack with stormtroopers supported by aircraft within ten days they recovered all their lost ground [Music] yet Cumbre was crucial for the British they'd gained valuable experience with the tanks and cracked their artillery problems vital lessons were learned about teamwork on the battlefield the big challenge for both sides now was how to consolidate the successful breakthrough the master of that would win the war [Music] you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Id: d5yjc4kC3VE

Length: 49min 38sec (2978 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 08 2018