WWI: How The Scars Of The Great War Changed The 20th Century | Long Shadow: Parts 1-3 | War Stories

[Music] from the theatre of war to the theatre of memory along the old front line but also in every parish back home are the now familiar monuments to the dead of 1914-18 every year we observe solemn and moving rituals at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them but for those of us now who didn't live through the great war what are we remembering a terrible sacrifice and for what in britain the usual answer is for nothing we tend to think of the great war as pointless slaughter mud and blood the carnage illuminated only by poignant war poetry but i think that mentally we have become stuck in the trenches our view of 1914-18 is now a caricature in this series i want to get out of the trenches [Music] and look afresh at the impact and meaning of the conflict in britain and across the world there's a strange paradox about the great war for us now it's a static futile and inconclusive conflict yet i want to explore how this deadlocked war unleashed huge dynamic forces that have pummeled and shaped the whole century since 1914. one of the biggest legacies is our memory of the great war the story we tell ourselves about it this isn't something fixed in stone it's shifted repeatedly over time and different countries remember the great war in different ways above all the contrast between the memory of 1914-18 in britain as against germany would really matter in the years that followed this film is about how the great war has cast shadows over the whole century since 1914 and how equally important the events of that turbulent century have cast shadows over the way we remember the great war [Music] in 1918 the british commonwealth forces started to return from france yet most people had little sense of what soldiers had been through in body and mind from the start it was hard to come to terms with the enormity of the great war in the quiet moments of the night when the wind blew in the right direction it said that you could hear the low rumble of the guns on the western front here in britain but even if people might be able to hear the war they couldn't see it and they struggled to imagine it that i think is a deep paradox about the great war it was the biggest conflict in british history 720 000 dead a million and a half wounded and yet the reality of warfare remained distant and obscure so the british entombed the unknown horrors in grand monuments graced with fine words like honor and sacrifice memory was cloaked in remembrance in july 1919 veterans marched through london in a victory parade to allow them to salute the memory of their dead comrades the architecture edwin lutchens was commissioned to build an appropriate monument tellingly what he came up with was not a traditional victory arch but a tomb in fact an empty tomb the cenotaph at first a temporary structure of wood and plaster and then in november 1920 made permanent in stone one and a quarter million people filed past in the first week the memorial stood ten feet deep in flowers for a nation numbed by grief and uncertainty about the war the appeal of the cenotaph lies i think in its simple yet abstract character luncheon's design was in effect an empty space onto which people could project their own memories and emotions while the cenotaph allowed the british people to remember the war in their own way the british state took control of the dead politicians refused to bring soldiers bodies back the cost would be prohibitive and anyway many men had been literally blown to bits instead the bodies of british and commonwealth soldiers were carefully collected along the western front buried with reverence and canopied with striking architecture the interwoven arches luchans designed a tip file were not to trumpet victory but to bear 72 000 names of the missing of the song the new menin gate at april was inscribed with a further 55 000 names and these were just two of nearly a thousand more cemeteries and memorials today still maintained by the commonwealth wargraves commission [Music] the project was the brainchild of fabian ware who at 45 in 1914 was too old to fight volunteering instead as an ambulance driver ware was appalled by the random carnage he became determined that each soldier whether a general or a private a canadian or an australian should have his own named grave very different from the mass graves into which the soldiers were dumped a century earlier after the battle of waterloo helping ware to design the gravestones was another man too old to fight the poet rudyard kipling had especially guilty memories he pressed his only son jack to join the army jack was last seen stumbling in agony across the battlefield of luz with half his face blown off his body was not found for those like jack who were forever missing kipling coined the phrase known unto god today the project has state imposed remembrance spearheaded by luncheons ware and kipling seems extraordinary and impressive but at the time this was enormously controversial parents wanted to mourn their sons at home in their own country churchyards the standardized headstone was denounced as a prussian imposition one mother complained that the tombstones looked like so many milestones but the project was pushed through by old men in london who had sent the boys to war and were now contorted by grief and probably guilt this was the survivors saying on a grand scale sorry the british had buried the dead with honor they had created rituals to remember but also to sanitize the war and it seemed that life could get going again [Music] for a new generation who'd come of age after the war the 20s were a time of new music and new fashions they had been too young to fight and were quite happy to forget the great war to consign it to history but the past has a way of fighting back 1928 was the 10th anniversary of the end of the war the media then and now love anniversaries as a source of cheap and easy stories but these often generate deeper discussion about the meaning of the past 1928 was just such a trigger private grief began to enter public debate a succession of new books and memoirs took the wraps off the soldiers experiences in the trenches and gave voice to their enduring pain but more than anything it was a play that brought home to the british people something of the hellish reality of the great war the author was rc sheriff who'd served as an officer on the western front and then it seemed returned to normal life as a shy insurance clerk living with his parents in suburban surrey yet like many veterans sheriff struggled to cope with his war experiences and ten years on they came to the surface as theater journey's end was set in a gloomy dugout with soldiers sitting around talking bickering and using drink to numb their emotions and keep them going war imagined against a stone memorial was one thing the dead brought to life on stage was very different and sheriff was terrified about how his play would be received by the audience the performance ended in what sheriff called an eerie and unreal silence the cast took their bow while a thousand faces just stared back no clapping no reaction nothing the curtain descended again as if on a two and then the cheers erupted it was the start of a west end run that lasted 18 months the reviews were glowing praising above all the realism of the play but others saw a deeper meaning interpreting journey's end as a stark warning for the future about the horror of war the author jb priestly wrote of the play it is the strongest plea for peace i know today that reaction to journey's end as a plea for peace may seem to us rather pathetic even tragic because we know with hindsight that in 1939 the world was plunged into another great war for us the 1920s and 1930s are the inter war years but we have to remember that for the people who lived through them they were the post-war years when the future still seemed open and even hopeful the great hope was never again that 1914-18 would be in the cliche of the time the war to end all war britain's payoff for the great war had to be the great peace [Music] in the 1920s this yearning for peace was focused on a new international body the league of nations based in neutral geneva one of its key architects and champions in britain was another guilt-ridden man who'd been too old to fight robert cecil was the son of tory prime minister lord salisbury he grew up here at hatfield house part of a family that had served the british state since the days of the first queen elizabeth cecil was a man of the establishment but he was also an instinctive reformer with a deep christian conscience who loved to campaign for unlikely causes he championed votes for women but he was equally passionate about the dangers of the motor car as president of the pedestrians association he helped to bring in the driving licence and the 30 mile an hour speed limit in towns but what cecil really wanted to put the brakes on was warm [Music] cecil was haunted by memories of the great war in 1914 he'd worked for the red cross in france helping the wounded like where he was appalled by the destruction but after 1918 his eyes were not on the dead and the past but on the living and the future if there is a quarrel between two individuals they do not fight it out unless they are barbarians or schoolboys cecil was an idealist with a highly moral view of international affairs for him the league of nations was the essential machinery as he put it to prevent states from going to war in other words stopping another 1914 and that meant no more secret deals between an international mafia of aristocratic diplomats instead democratic decisions open to public gays and if rogue states didn't settle disputes through talking then sanctions or even force could be used against an aggressor and the league soon made a difference in 1914 the great war had exploded out of a little balkan crisis in 1923 there was another dangerous flare-up in the balkans between italy and greece in retaliation for the murder of some italian soldiers italy's new dictator benito mussolini occupied the island of corfu the league intervened imposed a fine on greece and persuaded mussolini to withdraw his troops for the british corfu was a positive sign that the league could stop 1914 happening again but in germany a very different way of remembering and understanding the great war was taking hold for germany what mattered was not preventing another 1940 but another 1918 the year of humiliating defeat autumn german soldiers were still fighting in france when the government fell apart and the capital berlin became a political battleground between right and left so much so that the constitution for the new german republic was hammered out 200 miles away in weimar weimar was a sleepy provincial town but also the historic heart of german culture home to bach schiller and goethe [Music] the creation of the republic here in weimar was a calculated attempt to root the new democratic germany in all that was best in the country's past but it was also a panic mission forced on germany's politicians by the street violence gripping berlin the weimar republic would never escape the bitter controversy in which it was born in july 1926 an obscure right-wing party held its annual rally in weimar and its leader delivered his keynote speech equally deliberately in the national theater he was taking command of germany's past for a very different purpose the party leader had fought on the western front and his version of germany's war echoed that of many fellow veterans the german army had not been defeated in 1918 it was still fighting heroically on foreign soil only to be stabbed in the back by the reds and pacifists at home the weimar republic had then sold out by accepting the vindictive peace terms of the treaty of versailles a point that he rammed home on the very spot where the republic had been founded this was very different political theater from journey's end hitler's speech celebrated germany's centuries-long struggle to become a great power then he turned in fury to the great war the whole world was against us on the battlefields of france belgium russia the ukraine in the south and on the high seas and now now we are a ridiculously small splinter of a country like poland serbia croatia no hitler lusted to make germany a world empire once more it was a far cry from never again more like bring it on [Applause] nazi members held rallies in weimar and other german cities many of them war veterans turned paramilitaries this was a total contrast with the veterans of the british legion armed only with poppies [Music] in 1926 hitler was a fringe politician but his spin on the memory of the war struck a chord with many ordinary germans in the devastating economic depression of the early 30s hitler was able to convince millions of his countrymen that the weimar republic was as bankrupt as germany's economy [Applause] in 1933 hitler maneuvered his way to become chancellor of germany then stalked out of the league of nations and started to react britain in turn also began rearmament [Music] the escalating arms race was alarmingly like europe before 1914 but this arms race would provoke an extraordinary response from ordinary people back in britain [Music] charles bormann was editor of the ilford recorder on the edge of london [Music] borman wanted the league to put pressure on hitler and so he launched what started as a little local campaign a questionnaire for the people of illford which was taken door-to-door by volunteers from the league of nations union today the league of nations union is largely forgotten but in the 1930s it was a hugely powerful pressure group inspired by the belief that peace would be the most sincere way to remember the dead of the great war it had an extraordinary reach into the british population by 1931 the lnu had over 400 000 members in 3 000 branches across the country with links to rotary groups trade unions boy scout troops and women's institutes in ilford twenty six thousand people responded to charles bormann's appeal bormann arranged a special meeting here in ilford town hall in february 1934 to present the results to the press and the public robert cecil was invited as guest of honor deeply impressed he decided to try out the idea nationwide and so the lnu launched what became popularly known as the peace ballot half a million lnu supporters volunteered to knock on doors and deliver and collect the forms the questions weren't easy for example number four about whether the manufacturer of arms for private profit should be banned by international agreement some door knockers spend hours discussing the issues with people often in their own homes one man in sussex answered yes to all six questions his wife entered six nos completed questionnaires flooded in from cities towns and villages and the results were announced at a rally in london's albert hall in june 1935 [Music] the hall was packed and the atmosphere triumphed cecil would have been happy with five million responses but the eventual total was 11.6 million more than a third of the british population over the age of 18 a truly extraordinary figure the peace ballot showed a clear nationwide pattern over nine out of ten respondents supported britain's continued membership of the league of nations and backed international agreements to reduce armaments even more remarkable given our stereotype now of the appeasing 1930s 60 percent clear majority were willing to support military sanctions against aggressor states military sanctions meant running the risk of starting another war a sobering gamble for a generation living in the shadow of 1914-18 but what's striking even moving is that nearly two-thirds of those who signed the peace ballot said they were willing to risk war in the hope of keeping the peace the peace ballot was uniquely british and in a way that would also have been inconceivable in berlin or moscow it penetrated deep into london's corridors of power the pressing problem for the british foreign office in 1935 was once again mussolini fascist italy had invaded the east african state of abyssinia and this provoked an outcry in britain here was a crunch test for the league of nations and its supporters [Music] in public the government took a firm pro-league line supporting limited economic sanctions against italy otherwise foreign secretary samuel hall told the cabinet there would be a wave of public opinion against the government we're all out for peace we are all out for carrying out our obligations under the league but behind closed doors at the foreign office the talk was very different samuel hall was a canny politician irreverently known as slippery sam in reality he was pretty skeptical about the league and thought cecil and the lnu were utopian the war now looming unlike 1914-18 would be truly global with japan an ally of germany and italy so [ __ ] reverted to old style power politics bypassing the league he and his french counterpart pierre lavalle tried to buy off mussolini when the british and french deal-making was exposed public uproar forced hor to resign the new man at the foreign office came from the war generation and had made his political reputation as a champion of the league anthony eden was dashing and handsome and had won the military cross in 1918. he also had a bizarre shared memory of the war with the most notorious veteran on the german side eden held talks with hitler in berlin in 1936 chatting later at dinner they discovered they'd been only 500 yards apart in the trenches in march 1918. setting politics and nationalism aside they nattered like old veterans exchanging war stories and drawing maps of the front on the back of menu cards after the dinner the french ambassador took eden aside i understand you were opposite hitler and you missed eden always opposed doing deals with mussolini and continued to take a pro-lead line but now the public mood was shifting towards appeasement of italy and germany because after 1936 people could begin to discern the face of a future war the civil war in spain showed the frightening power of aerial bombing endured not in the trenches by soldiers like the last war but in towns and cities by women and children tough sanctions against an aggressor might provoke apocalypse now [Applause] the 1930s came to their notorious climax in a desperate one-man crusade to prevent a second great war by the time neville chamberlain took over as prime minister in 1937 the hopes for peace were narrowing chamberlain was another old man with a burden of guilt about the great war hanging upon his shoulders like robert cecil he'd been too old to fight and was gutted by the death in action of his younger cousin and closest friend norman now like millions of british people he was horrified by the terrible war that was looming and like sam hall he was ready to cut a deal to try to stop it in september 1938 chamberlain took to the air to avert the threat from the air making a face-to-face deal with hitler at munich chamberlain's gamble delayed a new great war but only for a year we have done all that any country could do to establish peace the situation in which no word given by germany's ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel itself safe and become intolerable the declaration of war in 1939 dashed the hopes of the 11.6 million people who'd signed the peace ballot back here in ilford the man who'd pioneered the ballot charles bormann resigned as editor of the ilford recorder on the day that war broke out and signed up that essex man was going to war again seemed like an utterly damning comment on the meaning of 1914-18 [Music] for britain the new war was in every way totally different from the last this time britain was heavily bombed and in danger of invasion and the conflict was truly global with commonwealth forces engaged from north africa to singapore this was also a war with heroes like the fighter pilots who won the battle of britain or the australians who defended to brook and heroic leaders looking back 1914-18 seemed by contrast messy and inconclusive this story of 1939-45 was celebrated in dozens of post-war british movies pitting square jawed goodies played by stars such as jack hawkins and richard todd against the evil nazis and evil was no mere cliche the nazis had hit depths of depravity previously unimagined in civilized europe a few miles from the great shrine of german culture weimar was buchenfeld [Music] inside its grounds this stump is all that's left of a fabled oak tree under which the poet goethe wrote some of the classics of german literature how far had germany fallen [Music] the camps showed to the world the utter barbarity of nazi rule this second war unlike 1914-18 seemed unquestionably a good war truly a noble sacrifice to defeat an appalling evil so 1914-18 shrank in significance and this was reflected in a change of name it may seem like a word game but renaming the great war as the first world war changed its meaning officially highlighting the sense that 1914-18 had been a failed attempt to end war an ineffectual sacrifice that required a second round in fact winston churchill and others now talked about a 30 years war from 1914 to 1945 into which the great war was subsumed armistice day so sacred in the thirties was now abandoned in favor of remembrance sunday for the dead of both world wars you might have expected that with time the first world war would slide into ever fainter memory but in the 1960s dramatic world events and a new generation once again combined to reinvent the war in public memory the great war had shaped the 1920s and 30s but the 1960s shaped our view of the great war it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launch from cuba against any nation in the western hemisphere as an attack by the soviet union on the united states the cuban missile crisis in 1962 when the world seemed on the brink of a third world war brought home to people the horrors of the nuclear age the first world war caused in 1914 by similar miscalculations by leaders had cost 10 million dead another war it seemed in the 60s would be the war to end war and probably the world as well 1964 was 50 years since the outbreak of the great war it was a chance for a new generation to discover 1914-18 afresh but they came at it through the tinted lens of world war ii and amid nightmare fantasies about world war three this was a less deferential generation ready to question even mock the attitudes of their predecessors and also a more egalitarian society interested in the experience of ordinary soldiers rather than the posturings of upper class generals [Music] one of the most profound shifts in thinking about the war in the 1960s occurred in germany [Applause] after 1945 most germans still believe that the hitler era was just a terrible blip in the proud sweep of russian and german history they continued to look back on 1914-18 as a good war fought in self-defense [Music] but in 1961 an obscure leftist professor fritz fisher gained access to imperial german archives that were now in communist east germany fisher published a book arguing that in 1914 germany had caused the war by launching an all-out grab for world power germany was not the victim it was the aggressor just as in 1939 i tried to show that 1914 germany kept the aims she was pursuing since the last century a position of germany in europe and the world on equal footing with the british empire what's important to understand about fisher is that he was attacking head-on the comfortable west german story that the crimes of the nazi era were the work of just a few evil men instead he argued that hitler was the culmination of an aggressive militarism ingrained in german history right back to the days of bismarck and frederick the great fischer's dramatic claims captured the imagination of a rebellious younger generation and sparked years of furious debate among politicians in the media the irony is that just when germans were being forced to think about 1914 as an immoral war caused by their own country's aggression most british people came to see it as a war that had no clear cause no moral justification and achieved nothing at all [Music] in britain it would be a piece of theater about the war that set the tone for this new era much as journey's end had done 30 years earlier [Music] oh what a lovely war started life here in east london as a production of joan littlewood's theater workshop before going on to have global impact as a feature film like the first night of journey's end the audience in the theater was overwhelmed many were in tears oh what a lovely war was a story of ordinary men squandered in hopeless offensives by aristocratic bone-headed generals convinced that victory was just around the corner it was savaging the apparent futility of the great war but also satirizing the class war within it at the moment my men are advancing across no man's land in full pack the men are forbidden on pain of court-martial to take cover in any shell hole or ducat the loss of say another 300 000 men may lead to really great results oh what a lovely war drew on a mishmash of often partial sources quoted out of context to skewer the generals the soldiers were now not real people as in journey's end they were simply victims [Music] this idea of the great war as futile slaughter was reinforced by a uniquely british obsession one that seared the memory of the war into the imagination of an even younger generation in the 1960s britain rediscovered the poetry of the great war as publishers produced several new 50th anniversary anthologies the soldier poets of the great war have become our most trusted guides to the meaning of the conflict these anthologies shaped how the war has been taught in schools and understood in public memory but in reality they are carefully edited selections that preach a particular message about the war great poetry bad history because the anthologists took a few soldier poets as the authentic voices of the war and portrayed them moving along a kind of poetic learning curve from the innocent patriotism of rupert brooke to the bleak pity of wilfred owen as the horrors of war are revealed at the psalm and passchendaele [Music] owen was killed in the last week of the war while peace terms were being discussed so his death seems to sum up neatly the futility of the conflict but the real story is more intriguing here in 1918 in the beautiful physic garden in chelsea owen wrestled with whether to return to frontline duty for several hours on a hot summer afternoon his friend siegfriek sassoon tried to dissuade him but owen did go back today wilfred owen is regarded as the archetypal war poet meaning a soldier poet who was anti-war but owens poetry like his decision to go back to fight on the western front reveals something more complex owens poems convey the ecstasy of fighting as well as the horrors of dying owen was not a pacifist in fact he won the military cross for mowing down germans with a machine gun but his younger brother harold self-appointed custodian at wilfrid's memory tried to conceal this in the 1960s because being a killer did not fit the image of a poet renowned for evoking the pity of war [Music] wilfred owens poem exposure is now usually quoted to illustrate the misery of soldiers here on the front line but in it owen also conjures up a peaceful england worth fighting for and dying for since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn nor ever sun smile true on child or field or fruit therefore not loathe we lie out here exposure suggests that even in the last months of the war owen still believed the struggle had meaning but the owing of 1918 was repackaged for the anti-war 1960s helping set firm public memory of a war suffered by poetic soldiers and waged by stupid generals they shall grow not old as we that are left grow old age shall not weary them nor the years condemn at the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them the solemn call to remember carries a huge burden of sadness and duty but unlike the immovable pillars and headstones of the western front public memory as we've seen has been molded even caricatured by what happened after the great war we have remembered the soldiers and tried to imagine the warfare they endured but that's got in the way of understanding the great war's full character and impact of course we can't ignore the mud and the suffering but i believe that a hundred years on from 1914 it's time to let go of the dead we can't just feel the great war as a piece of poetry or a stark morality play we need to understand it as history history that cast long shadows over the years that followed a hundred years on the great wall still has enduring resonance but our understanding of it is often a caricatured mixture of modern death poets and poppies in this series i want to clamber out of the trenches to explore the deeper meaning of the great war and its momentous legacies one paradox of the war is that it wasn't caused by profound political or ideological divisions but it did create them in its wake the war made politics red-hot it gave birth to an age of mass democracy with the vote extended to ordinary men and women today we take democracy for granted elections are familiar even boring but a century ago democracy hit europe like a big bang in the aftermath of war the old order was blown apart and the people rose up three leaders offered three very different visions for harnessing and directing this people power three ideologies that would convulse the world [Applause] first lenin and the bolsheviks seized control in russia they presented their one-party state as the stepping stone to a workers paradise a series of copycat revolutions ignited the center of europe second woodrow wilson the american president championed liberty and republicanism with no place for monarchs and aristocrats by 1919 europe had nine new american-style republics a third leader benito mussolini in italy smashed communism and rejected liberal democracy to pioneer a new militaristic ideology with the cult of the great leader his model fascism would inspire demagogues right across the continent communism and fascism were dramatic dynamic and seductive the big ideas in the aftermath of the great war and they polarized much of europe between left and right but one country peculiarly muddled on little touched by these great ideological battles britain its unlikely leaders were pipe-smoking parliamentarians forging a series of coalitions and reaching for the center ground and while monarchs toppled across europe the british royal family was rebranded as a symbol of the nation and apex of the british dominions in the commonwealth in fundamental ways i think the long shadow of the great war has shaped the politics of britain and the world right up to the present day a century on from 1914 we are still trying to manage the explosive force of democracy [Music] [Music] the great war was a people's war truly democratic in its impact it was indiscriminate in its slaughter of officers and conscripts it also demanded the toil and the sweat of millions of men and women on the home front unable to win a quick victory the warring powers were forced to mobilize their whole economies and societies this total war imposed a massive stray the question was which country would buckle first [Music] 1917 was the year when the old world order started to crack in the russian capital petrograd the bread supply collapsed triggering a wave of strikes and street protests that toppled the czar soviets or workers councils spread virus light through factories in the army by the end of 1917 lenin and the bolsheviks had seized power in the name of the workers their ideology of class revolution directed by a one-party state posed a radical challenge to the old world order of empires monarchies and parliaments democracy can mean very different things for us it's a political idea freedom of speech and free elections but for revolutionary marxists like lenin it was more about economics and equality seizing private property in the name of the workers and forging a modern industrial state when germany and austria hungary collapsed in the autumn of 1918 revolutions spread from russia across the continent one uprising in the name of democracy triggering others you can think of it as a european precursor to the arab spring of our own day [Applause] a botched but bloody revolt engulfed berlin and communist governments were proclaimed in hungary and bavaria in britain the masses also seem to be getting [ __ ] soldiers mutinied at their camp in calais and miners rail women and transport workers launched one of the biggest waves of strikes in british history threatening to bring the country to a standstill in the corridors of power there was genuine fear of bolshevik-style revolution after pushing his way through a lobby of soldiers in whitehall so henry wilson chief of the imperial general staff told the cabinet grimly that the men bore a dangerous resemblance to a soviet mainstream politics in britain were also taking a leap into the unknown by opening up the ballot box in the shadow of the terrible carnage the government had granted the masses a say in running the country in 1918 the vote was given to almost all men over the age of 21 and most women over 30. then on the 14th of december little more than a month after the armistice to end the war britain went to the polls in its first truly general election the electorate had almost tripled in size but how would these unpredictable new voters male and female use their new power adding to the tension the election results would not be declared for a full two weeks until after christmas so that millions of soldiers votes could come in from abroad amid this fevered atmosphere another vision of radical politics took britain by storm this came not from alien russia but from a leader that the british like to think of as their friend we come from every quarter from the north south east and west to clear the way to freedom for the land [Music] the american president woodrow wilson rode into town thousands throng the streets cheering his carriage wilson was an unlikely celebrity austere and intellectual a devout presbyterian sure of his own rightness but he was also a bit of a showman who knew how to play to the gallery and in london he dramatically highlighted his distance from the british government wilson intended to signal that america had fought for much purer war aims than his allies the empires of old europe to make the world safe for democracy in the egalitarian republican american mode [Music] while in london wilson was guest of honor at a victory dinner hosted by the british king george v here at buckingham palace hundreds of generals and politicians princes and ambassadors from across the british empire were arrayed in all their finery [Music] wilson cut a very different figure dressed in an ordinary black suit without medal or braid and his clipped cold speech made no reference to the contribution of the british empire in the allied victory the gilded audience at buckingham palace was chilled almost as if they had seen the ghost of oliver cromwell [Music] a few days later the election results were finally declared having been spooked by the slogans of lenin and wilson the british elite were relieved when the ballot boxes were finally opened britain's wartime coalition government was re-elected with a huge majority giving the vote to ordinary men and women hadn't triggered revolution after all britain had scraped through its immediate post-war crisis the big bang of democracy had been contained but not every country was so fortunate [Music] in other parts of europe in 1918 the political turmoil sparked by communism and mass voting produced a radical reaction a militaristic nationalism centered on the cult of the strong leader fascism the testing ground for this new type of ideology was italy and the story starts with a desperate battle across this mountain river [Music] italy had a poisonous great war in 1915 it entered the conflict on the side of the allies but without broad public support divisions were then made worse by the italian high command's bungling campaign against austria-hungary maintaining discipline through savage punishments and random executions of his men during 1916 and 1917 the army chief of staff luigi cadona drove his troops forward mercilessly one offensive after another up the steep alpine mountains rising from the azonzo river the futility of these assaults makes the first day of the song look like a work of military genius eventually in october 1917 at the twelfth battle of the azanza things completely fell apart for the italians today the battle is better known as caporetto the great humiliation of italy's wall bolstered by german stormtroopers the austro-hungarian army launched several surprise counter offenses one of them was led by a daring young german commander called irwin roble [Music] in just over two days rommel's single platoon advanced over 10 miles capturing two whole italian regiments rommel had soon realized that italian mara was brittle pressing on resolutely with just a pistol in his hand he overruled the italians with his personal courage they rushed forward throwing down their rifles and shouting a viva gemania before hoisting an astonished rommel onto their shoulders the italians reeled back to within 30 kilometers of venice 300 000 were taken prisoner another 350 000 deserted caparetto entered the italian language as a word for shambolic collapse italy emerged from the war divided and frustrated to placate the returning troops in 1918 the government in rome gave all adult men the vote crucially the voting system was proportional representation something discussed but rejected in britain pr by encouraging small parties led to highly fragmented coalitions in parliament making italy ungovernable strikes by workers and farmers provoked a sharp backlash from right-wing paramilitary groups foremost among these were the blackshirts who called themselves fascists harking back to the symbol of authority in ancient rome the fasces their leader was benito mussolini a journalist and great war veteran who'd served on the front at the azonzo river until accidentally injured by a mortar bomb mussolini was originally a socialist but as a soldier he became a passionate pro-war nationalist fuming about incompetent leaders and striking workers for a time he was even in the pay of british intelligence as a useful anti-bolshevik getting the not insignificant sum of 100 pounds a week but mussolini did not intend to work for anyone except himself [Music] mussolini cleverly rebranded his fascist movement as a political party that allowed him to play the parliamentary game while keeping the thugs up its sleeve [Music] when in 1922 socialists mounted a general strike mussolini's fascist bother bombings marched on rome the government caved in under this pressure and the king appointed mussolini prime minister mussolini then falls through a new election law giving two-thirds of the seats in parliament to the party that won a quarter of the votes a figure the fascist squads could ensure through intimidation [Music] and so in italy the democratic experiment proved short-lived like lenin mussolini believed that liberal democracy was a relic of the past parliamentary politics produced only corruption and paralysis yet in post-war britain parliamentary governments survived what's more a socialist party became part of the political mainstream and a king remained the head of state unlike other countries that fought the great war britain managed to hold these incongruous elements together that i think was largely due to two politicians who tend to be written off today [Music] first stanley baldwin a worcestershire industrialist conservative leader for 14 years from 1923 to 1937 and prime minister three times the country needs well and experienced men at the helm it is no time for weak government the nation cannot afford to embark on reckless experiments behind the bluff exterior this was a shrewd politician with a distinctive take on how to cope with the post-war era of mass politics baldwin was concerned about how as he put it democracy had arrived at a gallop giving the vote to the masses was potentially very risky if democracy was not kept on a tight reign britain would be riding for a fall woodrow wilson had talked about making the world safe for democracy baldwin's take was very different we must make democracy safe for the world baldwin's plan for making democracy safe was to stake out the center ground of politics quietly redistributing wealth even if that meant hurting the landed rich the tory's natural constituency in 1919 inheritance tax rates soared to 40 percent and then up to 50 after 1930 forcing the sell-off break-up and even demolition of many grand estates this is wooleton hall once the baronial seat of the willoughby family the willoughbys served king and country in the great war in 1915 francis willoughby was killed in flanders and in 1916 henry willoughby died at the naval battle of jutland while the remaining brother michael was awarded the military cross for service in mesopotamia but then after the war the willoughbys was stuffed by the government's inheritance tax [Music] by the time michael willoughby inherited this house in 1924 as the 11th baron middleton he was forced to sell up nottingham corporation bought the park for the public and used some 300 acres of land to build homes for the people today the old house is home to nottingham's natural history collection the author charles masterman called the breakup of old estates like wooleton perhaps the greatest change in the history of the land in england since the norman conquest [Music] just as remarkable as the tories adaptation to the era of democracy was the shift of the labour party from the radical fringe before the great war to the center of british politics after it this was a story of new labour twenties style giving workers the vote as a reward for their war efforts began to tilt the balance of british politics in january 1924 labour led by james ramsey mcdonald was able to form a minority government the party's very first taste of power macdonald and his cabinet were summoned to the palace deputy leader of the house john kleins recalled later as we were waiting for his majesty amid the gold and crimson magnificence of the palace i could not help marveling at the strange turn of fortune's wheel which had brought macdonald the starving clerk and climbs the mill hand to this pinnacle we were making history but george v reflected in his diary that queen victoria would not have been amused it is 23 years to the day since dear grandmama died i wonder what she would have made of a labor governed before meeting his new cabinet here in buckingham palace the king recalled reports of a recent rally at the albert hall where labour supporters had sung the marseilles his cousins are nicholas had been gunned down by the bolsheviks and one labour mp warned darkly of what happened to charles the first when he opposed a people's government [Music] but the king's fears would prove groundless like baldwin ramsay macdonald was a pragmatist drawn to the center ground as prime minister in 1924 and again in 1929 to 31 mcdonald's priority was to make socialism respectable in 1931 mcdonald turned to wall street for financial support to stop a massive run on the pound the conditions the american bankers attached were harsh including a cut in unemployment benefit and they split the labour cabinet an exhausted mcdonald went to the palace and offered to resign but the king's opinion of mcdonald had come a long way since 1924. george v insisted that he was the only man to lead the country through the crisis playing on mcdonald's vanity and also his patriotism a sensitive issue after the nightmare of the war royal arm-twisting worked in an extraordinary compromise to weather the financial crisis mcdonald formed an emergency coalition with the liberals and baldwin's conservatives the national government instigated by george v as a short-term crisis measure went on to run britain for the rest of the 1930s [Music] while most of the crowned heads of europe were long gone the house of windsor was becoming a keystone of political stability in britain's new democracy something few would have predicted amid the revolutionary fervor of europe in 1918 in private george v was not a very attractive person a martinet to his children and obsessive about core protocol he was happiest when sticking stamps into his stamp album or shooting defenseless animals but in his own way the king was a patriot with a paternalistic feel for his people the king learned to speak to the nation and the wider commonwealth via the new medium of radio though this was quite an ordeal his first christmas broadcast in 1932 was delivered with a thick cloth on the table to muffle the sound of pages rustling in his trembling hand i can only say to you my very dear people that the queen and i thank you from the depths of our hearts i dedicate myself anew to your service for the years that may still be given to me so the british monarchy german in origin aristocratic to the core and deeply dysfunctional in private was remarketed for the modern age as the royal family harold lasky the labour intellectual observed with grudging admiration the monarchy has been sold to the democracy as the symbol of itself to see how unusual britain's democracy was you only need to look at continental europe while britain muddled on with a coalition government under a constitutional monarchy in italy mussolini was now in his prime as il ducey the great militarist leader overriding people and parliament in the 1930s at ready puglia near the disastrous battlefield of caporetto mussolini built an extraordinary monument containing one hundred thousand italian dead at the great wall it's all very different from london's understated cenotaph here is an army of the dead arrayed rock-like line after line when the reality of caparetto was chaotic route it's not so much a war memorial more a fascist fantasy through fascism italy's shambolic war could be turned into grand opera and the will of the masses harnessed to a monolithic national party this was mussolini's distinctive vision of democracy discipline must be accepted when it is not accepted it must be fascism rejects in democracy the conventional lie of political equality the present century is a century of authority a century of the right a fascist century fascists like mussolini were convinced that the masses needed firm leadership from a superman figure although we now think of mussolini as a kind of theatrical joke he did inspire others to take an iron grip on the ballot box [Music] today superman is a cartoon character but in the early 20th century this idea of a dynamic force taken from the philosopher friedrich nietzsche gripped people's imaginations at a time when parliamentary politics seemed corrupt and ineffective the most familiar example is adolf hitler but this yearning for a superman caught on right across europe even in advanced civilized countries like france although france like britain emerged victorious in 1918 it soon slipped into the political whirlpool that typified continental europe as in italy and in britain the nature of the constitution really mattered the third republic's constitution had been designed to block the rise of a napoleon style superman but this led to a weak government and a strong parliament the result was political division a wide variety of parties who formed unstable short-lived coalitions here in the national assembly france had over 40 separate governments between 1918 and 1940 a striking contrast with britain and in the 1930s as a divide between right and left deepened france seemed close to civil war the country's socialist and communist left the biggest in europe did not accommodate itself to the establishment like the british labour party and the left was challenged from the right by fascist-style paramilitaries many of them wore veterans who terrorized red districts in february 1934 fascist leagues massed here in the place de la concord site of the guillotine during the french revolution and at the very heart of paris police stopped the protesters getting across the river sen to the national assembly but during a night of rioting 16 people were killed next day the leftist government resigned this was an ominous sign of street power [Music] french democracy came under even greater strain in 1936. when a new left-wing government was elected investors fled the country forcing a devaluation of the frank in paris's 8th arrondissement a fascist leader in the making brooded unhappily in the wings philippe peter hero of the defense of verdan in 1916 was invited to address the nation on the radio to mark the 20th anniversary of the battle france's most costly victory of the great war france having won the war is on the verge of losing the peace to his fury that was censored by the government but pentagon was still able to make clear his conviction that french politics and society had become rotten there is a whole program that must be revived family school army the three guiding steps which make a child into a man [Music] in 1936 peter's time had not yet come but fractured from within france was in no position to stand up to the looming threat from the supermen of italy and germany on the continent extremist politics were driven by charismatic leaders and personality cults britain too had its fascists but oswald mosley unlike mussolini and hitler could never turn his fringe operation into a mass political party by dominating the political center the national government squeezed out extremist demagogues like mosley and it also pushed britain's most charismatic conviction politicians out of mainstream politics the superman whom stanley baldwin really feared was winston churchill this was a politician whose formidable will and boundless energy seemed potentially destructive at times churchill's loathing of bolshevism made him sound positively anti-democratic visiting rome in 1927 churchill lavished praise on mussolini if i had been an italian i am sure i would have been wholeheartedly with you from start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of leninism in the 1930s desperate to get back into office churchill attacked the national government again and again on some issues he was proved right notably rearmament against nazi germany on others he seems to us now an impossible reactionary particularly over india baldwin wanted to give india greater self-government part of his attempt to move the british empire on into the age of democracy churchill was a passionate die-hard opponent [Music] during a break in one of the bitter commons debates on india churchill popped into the jets only one space was vacant and he found himself standing next to baldwin there was an embarrassed silence even more embarrassed than as usual on such gentlemanly occasions then baldwin said well i'm glad there's still one platform where we can meet together but britain's stability in the 1930s compared with the chaos on the continent wasn't just a matter of politics there were deeper economic forces at work now we tend to stereotype the 1930s as a uniformly bleak era of depression and mass unemployment but after 1933 there was a surge in new industries producing cars and consumer goods the good times were felt in the midlands and particularly the south east and the national government's policy of low interest rates fueled a house building boom in contrast to germany and france's pact rented tenement blocks where poverty and protests could fester in britain suburban semis spread through the southern half of the country [Music] democracy in britain had been established by political compromise and then buttressed by economic recovery but britain's peculiar dynamics of democracy threw up victims as well as winners the trade-off for the nation's heartland doing well was poverty on the periphery [Music] coal textiles and shipbuilding were in decline the great wall had stimulated new and cheaper production across the world right out to india and china in the old industrial areas of northern england scotland and south wales the 20s and 30s were an era of almost unrelieved depression here veterans of the great war and their sons spent years on the dome [Music] the victims took to the streets so-called national hunger marches on london became a feature of the period the industrial north and west were labour's heartland their sense of betrayal would fuel the party's politics when it finally got back into power but that was only after a second brutal war in which two ideologies spawned by the great war fascism and communism fought their climactic path by 1945 hitler and mussolini were dead fascism and nazism things of the past now only the heirs of lenin and wilson remained locking horns in a half century of cold war both talked the language of democracy but in very different tones the soviets championed a one-party state and a command economy to promote equality the americans offered political freedoms and unregulated capitalism in the name of liberty meanwhile the british yet again contrived their own peculiar compromise version of democracy but this time in reaction to the political settlement of the 20s and 30s the new pattern was defined by the labor government of 1945 led by clement atlee himself a great war veteran wounded at gallipoli in 1915. labour's case was clearly set out here in its 1945 election manifesto this argued that after 1918 the people had allowed the hard-faced men who'd done well out of the war to craft the kind of peace that suited themselves labor intended to use its massive commons majority to write what it saw as the wrongs of the 20s and 30s state ownership of the coal mines was the last battle in a long war that stretched back into the victorian era and the mass strikes after the great war and similarly there was real elation when in july 1948 the minister of health and iron beven was ceremonially handed the keys of park hospital david hume near manchester the first nhs hospital in the country bevin watched as a 13 year old girl became the first patient to benefit from free and comprehensive medical care labor proudly claimed that 2751 hospitals had been brought under state ownership on the same day it appeared that britain was making a radical departure from the past but behind all the symbolism atleast revolution was a very british form of socialism mixing public and private the national health service for instance nationalized the patients but allowed doctors to continue their private practice only in the 1980s under margaret thatcher was labor's social democracy program seriously questioned under thatcher some of the state industries were dismantled and privatized but the underlying balance of public versus private remains a live political issue to this day although churchill is now widely regarded as the greatest britain because of his war leadership it's atleast peace settlement that still shapes contemporary britain and that was itself a reaction to the era of mcdonald and baldwin two leaders who helped make britain a stable democracy at the price of deepening the north-south divide as dozens of young men pulled on a rope and chains the chant went up maura veg done with the wall with the collapse of the soviet union communism joined fascism in the dustbin of history [Music] but the other great ideologies spawned by the great war woodrow wilson's all-american vision of global democracy was given a new lease of life by the george w bush administration when al qaeda attacked america on the 11th of september 2001 bush's advisers wanted to use american power to enforce liberal democratic values especially in the middle east freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended the american invasions of afghanistan and iraq were based on the simplistic assumption that toppling a tyrant would produce freedom and democracy it was rather like the heady hopes across europe in 1918 the ensuing mess was a painful reminder that wilsonianism was no more an easy answer at the start of the 21st century than it had been in the aftermath of the great war in 2011 a wave of popular uprisings in support of democracy toppled more tyrants in tunisia egypt and libya the wind of change has come egypt congratulations congratulations to the whole arab world we've done it the echoes of europe in 1918 are clear and now just as then real freedom and stability remain elusive [Music] almost a century on from the european spring of 1918 the challenge is still as stanley baldwin recognised to make democracy safe for the world [Music] this is the upper silesian coal field in central europe a place haggled and fought over by rival nations for almost a century [Music] during the grape war this coal was in the habsburg empire austria-hungary as revolution swept away the old empires in 1918 it was taken over by poland a year later it belonged to a new state called czechoslovakia in 1938 the poles got the coal again in 1939 it was seized by nazi germany after 1945 it was czechoslovakian once more but under soviet control in 1993 it was in a new state called the czech republic and then in 2004 this coal joined the european union that story of one lump of coal sums up the history of europe's brutal 20th century the them versus us struggle between nations was a root cause of the great war and national rivalries particularly over vital war-making resources like coal and iron continued to cast a shadow over the decades that followed setting government against government and blighting the lives of ordinary people in this series i'm exploring the meaning and legacy of the great war and nowhere was that legacy more profound than in the unleashing of nationalist fervor the war made national identity a stark either or issue a matter of us versus them and europe's story in the century after the great war has been a recurrent struggle between nationalist fragmentation and empire building i want to compare what happened to two of the great european empires of 1914 the habsburg empire austria-hungary collapsed under the burden of war its territory was parcelled out among five new nation-states but these new states hastily patched together would destabilize the whole european continent for much of the 20th century the second great power is britain and its story was very different the british empire grew ruling nearly a quarter of the earth's land surface and population before 1914 britain itself seemed to be breaking apart but the great war actually strengthened england's union with scotland and wales a feel-good sense of britishness endured for over half a century and only recently has been seriously challenged the movement for national self-determination [Music] the grim exception in the british story is ireland there imperial oppression ethnic nationalism and paramilitary violence were closer to the experience of central europe leaving shadows that have darkened irish and british history to the present day in grappling with the forces of nationalism the not so united kingdom is still in the long shadow of the great war historians love to debate how wars start but what really matters about the great war is how it ended the vast dynastic empires of continental europe built up over centuries disintegrated in just a few weeks the greatest of these was the habsburg empire austria-hungary the empire centered on vienna and 50 million strong was europe's third most populous state yet it was a loosely sown tapestry of national groups for every 100 men in the habsburg imperial army in 1914 there were on average 25 german speakers 18 hungarians 13 czechs 11 serbs and croats nine poles nine ruthings six romanians four slovaks two slovenes and a couple of italian speakers pity the poor officers who had to whip that lot into shape as an army [Music] national self-consciousness among these ethnic groups of the habsburg empire was rising before the war mass literacy and print newspapers enable propagandists to play up an us versus them sense of identity and when habsburg power crumbled in 1918 nationalist leaders seized their moment to unweave the imperial tapestry and stitch together new nations of the most resourceful was the czech intellectual thomas maserik who spent most of his war in exile in gentile hampstead traveling into town on the bus he taught at london university and cultivated his contacts in the british foreign office on statues and photographs masarik looks pretty grim he was a serious academic who specialized in philosophy and sociology one of his publications was entitled suicide as a social mass phenomenon of modern civilization but the bookish philosopher proved a skillful politician [Music] weeks after the armistice that ended the war maserik returned in triumph to his home city of prague as president of the new invented state of the czechs and slovaks czechoslovakia masarik's coup was copied across much of the former habsburg empire with more or less bloodshed as nationalist politicians grabbed power [Music] but their new nations caused nightmares for the politicians gathering in paris to hammer out the peace treaty that would officially end the great [Music] warning get your gun the hall of mirrors in the palace of versailles we tend to think of the paris peacemakers as the grand designers of the new map of europe blaming them for the border conflicts and ethnic tensions that afflicted the continent after 1918. but in reality by the time the peace conference opened in paris the outlines of post-imperial europe were clear on the ground independence had been proclaimed for czechoslovakia for poland and for a kingdom of the serbs croats and slovenes soon to be called yugoslavia this left once great hungary and austria as disgruntled little states most austrians wanted to be part of germany woodrow wilson lloyd george and the other statesman in paris could do little more than tidy up the new european map and they did so in a rush without much knowledge or information on one occasion president wilson's wife came across her husband and other leaders on their hands and knees on the floor pouring over a map of europe trying to determine the borders of some obscure new state she found it rather amusing you look like a lot of little boys playing a game wilson looked up wearily alas it is the most serious game ever undertaken for on the result of it hangs in my estimation the future peace of the world war had let the genie of nationalism out of the bottle and the peacemakers could not put it back the worst flash points were the disputed new borderlands this is the town of titian in 1914 it was the duchy of teschen a tiny province of the habsburg empire under the habsburgs poles and czechs lived here together a mix of catholics and protestants getting on okay without too much friction but things had changed dramatically by 1918. [Music] testing spanned the border between the new states of poland and czechoslovakia it included a river crossing a coal field and a strategic railway junction so the town became a real bone of contention [Music] the paris peacemakers spent hours on the matter besieged by czech and polish delegates banging on about the new slogan of national self-determination an armed to the teeth with maps grass and statistics the british prime minister david lloyd george had never heard of teshan beforehand by the end of the peace conference it was a name he would never forget [Music] eventually the allies set up a commission which partitioned the whole area the czech state got most of the coal field even though half the miners were poles while the town of teshan was split into one bemused american observer recalled the larger eastern portion goes to the poles but the western part with the railroad station goes to the checks the electric light plant goes to the one state but the gas works to the other and i do not recall what was to become of the municipal waterworks [Music] so the new post-war nations were formed with disputed boundaries and fractious minorities mazarix czechoslovakia was in its own way a troubled mini empire the czechs dominated the government keeping under their thumb disaffected ethnic groups such as the ukrainians the hungarians the poles and the jews but the minority that eventually would really matter was the germans in border towns like cadan the german population felt alienated from the new czechoslovak state they wanted to be part of the german-speaking heart of the old habsburg empire austria [Music] in march 1919 when demonstrators raised the german flag over the central square and sang german nationalist songs czech soldiers panicked 24 germans were killed and some 80 wounded the kadan massacre memorialized here in the town cemetery was an early sign of the ethnic conflicts that would ravage europe for years to come the frenzy of nationalism after the great war caused chaos and suffering but it also raised a more fundamental question was nation building a zero-sum game in other words can i feel secure only if you do not feel secure or can we together create some larger grouping in which we both feel equally at home much of europe's history in the 20th century would revolve around those questions [Music] the story of nationalism in britain at its empire was very different from that of central europe the stereotype we have now of british dominions like canada australia and new zealand is that the war drove them further down the path of independence from the mother country in 1915 at gallipoli the anzac myth was born of rugged fighters from the bush and of a classless society defined above all by a deep loyalty to one's mates rather than to the poems especially snooty english officers and at battles like framel in 1916 and vimy ridge in 1917 dominion forces fought heroically the war kindled a new sense of national pride but also for many whose families had migrated from britain a strong sense of being part of a british world as newer and better britons much of the british isles too was brought closer together through war the united kingdom had appeared to be pulling apart in 1912 the liberal government introduced a home rule bill for ireland where nationalists feeling rooted in the gaelic language and the catholic faith had been on the boil for decades in response protestants in ulster organized paramilitary units the ulster volunteers or uvf the stage seems set for civil war ireland hit the headlines but it wasn't the only nationalist problem in 1913 scottish radicals introduced their own home rule bill and in wales nationalists backed by the british chancellor of the exchequer david lloyd george campaigned for the disestablishment of the anglican church in wales whose large estates reinforce the power of english landlords so in the summer of 1914 the united kingdom looked increasingly disunited but then everything changed [Music] in the july crisis after the assassination of the heir to the habsburg throne the european powers mobilized for war what counted for lloyd george and much of the public was the rights of small nations like serbia and especially neutral belgium as the german army brutally invaded the country british opinion was shocked by eurid reports about the shooting of hundreds of belgian civilians and there was outrage at the german shelling of the great cathedral at ias in france [Music] british values of freedom and civilization seemed to be pitted against a menacing alien force the hun the british government played up the issue for propaganda to a cheering london audience lloyd george praised the resistance of belgium and serbia like wales he said little five foot five nations fighting for freedom against the great big prussian yonker storming around like the roadhog of europe and so the national question within the united kingdom which had dominated the run-up to war was suddenly eclipsed by fury about german imperialism [Music] with this dramatic turnaround even catholic irishmen were ready to join the british army to enlist in a europe-wide fight for freedom irish home rule and welsh disestablishment were approved by parliament but put on ice for the duration of the war scotland's home rule bill was dropped because of pressure of wartime business [Music] the war economy fueled a coal steel and shipbuilding boom in wales and scotland then the fighting itself changed the national debate soldiers from scots and welsh regiments gave their lives for the british cause in the great battles along the western front so the experience of war drew scotland and also wales back into the union nationalist politics faded away after the great war most people felt scots or welsh but also british and proud of it across the irish sea however the story was very different two blood sacrifices in 1916 helped split ireland asunder here in ireland uniquely in europe nationalists made a bid for independence during the great war in april 1916 sinn fein a fringe nationalist republican movement launched a coup hoping to seize dublin with weapons supplied by germany here at the general post office they melodramatically proclaimed an irish republic but the coup was watched only a few hundred men were involved and the rebels had little support from the bulk of the population some local women married to soldiers fighting for the british army in france were furious that the siege prevented them from getting into the post office to draw their military allowances british troops brought up heavy artillery and blasted the rebels into surrender by the weekend the british had regained control of the post office and the city the easter rising might have faded away as a crazy act of folly but for the brutal reaction of british military commanders martial law was imposed some 3 000 people were arrested and the ringleaders executed the executions transformed what had seemed a loony left international martyrs hallowed in mourning badges and iconic photographs [Music] then came the second very different blood sacrifice of 1916. at tifaal ridge on the 1st of july the opening day of the battle of the somme the 36th ulster division went over the top the 36 were largely protestants from belfast many of them previously in the paramilitary ulster volunteers and the first of july marked the traditional anniversary of the battle of the boyne in 1690 when william of orange repulsed the catholics [Music] the ulster boys fought their way through the first line of german trenches and on to the second before they were eventually driven back to the woods five thousand men were killed wounded or missing a third of total strength [Music] back in ulster unionists contrasted what they saw as their self-sacrifice in the war for civilization in 1916 including four victoria crosses on the psalm with the judas-like stab in the back perpetrated at easter in dublin for nationalists and unionists 1916 was a year of blood sacrifice but the bloodshed drove them further apart the easter rising and the first day of the psalm would become vivid emotive emblems of the rival ideologies all changed changed utterly yates marveled in his poem eastern 1916 a terrible beauty is born as soon as the war was over nationalists in ireland like those in central europe seized their chance sinn fein proclaimed an independent irish republic in january 1919 just as the peace conference opened in paris shinfane's leader was eamonn de valera one of the few top figures from the 1916 easter rising still alive tall gangling or steer dev was a complex figure deeply religious fanatical about rugby passionate above all for a free ireland sinn fein argued that ireland should be treated like czechoslovakia and other new nations whose freedom had been approved by the paris peace conference but the british government refused to grant ireland more than home rule within the united kingdom so shin fein had to win irish independence by force and the result was a brutal paramilitary campaign but all the bloodshed resolved nothing so the british made a dramatic u-turn granting dominion status to the 26 counties of the south this put them on a par with countries like canada and australia running most of their own affairs yet still in the british empire but the six counties of ulster remained within the united kingdom the incomplete victory split ireland's nationalist movement and led to a 10-month civil war during that civil war more irish people died than in the war of independence against britain what was left after the traumatic convulsions of post-war nationalism was a bitter divided island partitioned between the irish free state and northern ireland this was an invented mini state nominally run from belfast but in reality dependent on london for funding and security in northern ireland as intestine no neat dividing line could be drawn on the ground between rival ethnic groups in working class areas of belfast the two communities often lived in adjacent streets the protestant majority quickly took a firm hold ulster unionists redrew constituency boundaries to their political advantage and did their best to keep catholics out of the police and civil service in ulster one ethnic and religious group was restricting the rights of another in order to keep itself on top this was a familiar story on the continent of europe as in mazarik's czechoslovakia these kind of tactics usually worked in the short term but they stored up huge problems for the future ulster would eventually face its day of reckoning but in the 1930s it was czechoslovakia that came to the boil the crisis had its origins in the fallout from the great war post-war czechoslovakia contained some 3 million ethnic germans nearly a quarter of the population they lived mostly in the northwest of the country in places like cadan around the sudaytan mountains during the habsburg era these germans had run the empire but now the former top dogs were second-class citizens through a series of land reforms mazarik's czechoslovakia broke up the large german-owned estates in the sudetenland [Music] yejazi was the ancestral seat of one such german aristocratic family the lob convinces [Music] they were hardly troublemakers in 1918 max lobkovitz declared allegiance to the new republic despite being stripped of his title of prince [Music] but by 1924 even lobkowitz was writing to maserik to complain that the director of the regional land office was putting pressure on him he wanted lobkowitz to replace the german manager of his estates and his german head forester with checks just one example of the new order maserik's lieutenant edward banish told a british diplomat bluntly that the hardline policy of checkification was intended to teach the germans a lesson before the war he said they were here and we were there but now we are here and they are there but the sudeten germans did not intend to stay there and unlike the other disaffected minorities of czechoslovakia in the 30s they found a big power to protect them [Applause] adolf hitler played up the treatment of sudatan germans using stories of persecution like the kadan massacre as justification for bringing the sudetenland into the german right britain and france let him do so in the now infamous munich pact german troops marched in and the czechoslovak government now led by edvard benich fell the crisis was an early step towards a second and even more terrible world war hitler was determined to redraw the map of europe ratified here at versailles at first he did so slyly playing the nationalist card against the peacemakers and claiming as over the sudetenland that he just wanted to bring all germans into germany but eventually it became clear that hitler dreamed of a racially pure germany dominating all of europe and eliminating the lesser races his version of nationalism was truly demonic hitler nearly got what he wanted by the time he shot himself in 1945 50 million people had died sacrificial victims on the altar of paranoid nationalism them against us us against them after the second world war europeans still struggled with the question of nationalism in some eastern european countries one response was to get rid of the nationalities population transfer so that states would no longer have troublesome minority groups what we would now call ethnic cleansing five days before our victory in europe the czechoslovakians went to work on the germans there was victory in the air and they knew it [Music] this was how benice and his people got their revenge for world war ii the german occupation had been brutal and in 1945 the czechs turned not only on the german army but on the ethnic germans who lived within their borders some were held in fortresses such as this one telezine formerly the brutal ss concentration camp of turasianstart tembury wartime home to some 150 000 jews enroute to auschwitz and other nazi extermination camps terezianstadt was an old habsburg garrison town symbol of an empire that hung together because its people were allowed several identities but after 1918 identity became an either or question most appallingly in hitler's aryan or nothing ideology and after 1945 benicious czechoslovakia made its own either or decision you couldn't be german and czechoslovak more than two million germans were driven out of the country between 1945 and 1950. [Music] [Music] and now a new empire the soviet union was taking a grip on czechoslovakia and most of eastern europe it demanded that national identity be subsumed in socialist internationalism as defined by the kremlin [Music] when nationalist independence movements exploded in budapest in 1956 and prague in 1968 moscow cracked down hard in eastern europe the soviets tried to submerge nationalism but in western europe a remarkable group of men still scarred by the great war came up with a very different solution to the challenges of nationalism much more creative and one that still defines europe to the present day [Music] [Music] it's really rather appropriate that the founding father of the european union has a roundabout named after him here in the heart of europe brussels because his life sums up the bizarre merry-go-round of national identity in the first half of the 20th century [Music] when war broke out in 1914 robert schumann was a lawyer practicing in german-controlled loren and he was nearly conscripted into the german army after the great war when france recovered alsace and loren schuman became a french citizen and got into french politics during the second war he served in the wartime resistance before becoming france's foreign minister this turbulent early life highlighted for schumann the limits of hard-line nationalism the cycle of wars and revenge between france and germany as he put it if one does not want to fall back into the same old errors when dealing with the german problem then there is only one solution and that is a european solution in other words the issue was no longer them and us more like if you can't beat them join them that was essentially the message of the schumann plan which called on france germany and their neighbors to give up national control over their coal and steel industries [Music] coal and steel were double edged essential for industrial growth but also vital tools of war making if france and germany gave up their national sovereignty over these key assets it would make a new conflict between the two old enemies impossible schumann's coal and steel community was a first step to the treaty of rome in 1957 which created the european economic community [Music] the growing bond between france and germany was cemented by the rapport between two other veterans of the great war era french president charles de gaulle and the german chancellor conrad ardana de gaulle had spent half of the great war in german prisoner of war camps ardanow's first visit to paris had been to see the german delegation just before it had to sign the treaty of versailles but against all the odds the two men got on really well [Music] [Music] in 1962 in a moving and intensely symbolic moment the two leaders took mass here in laos cathedral this was the sacred coronation place of french kings and also site of one of germany's most notorious cultural atrocities of 1914 when the shelling of the cathedral had helped define the destructive hun in popular imagination [Music] less than two decades on from 1945 france and germany these age-old enemies were finally emerging from the shadows cast by the great war and its successor this was an astonishing turnaround nowhere was there more astonishment than in london for britain national sovereignty had worked during the second world war so in the 1950s the british view was that european integration was okay but for them not us by the time britain changed its mind and finally joined the european community in 1973 the eec had been in operation for 15 years by then the original european deal making had set firm requiring britain to accept arrangements like the common agricultural policy that did not really fit its economic interests and so britain became the perpetual awkward partner inside europe but not feeling european [Music] britain's shift in focus in the 1960s from empire to europe encouraged the dominions to go their own way in australia labour leaders like paul keating claim britain simply walked out on us and joined the common market another legacy of the great war was now becoming positively toxic 1966 was the 50th anniversary of the easter rising in ireland in dublin the old rituals were still observed devalera aged 83 and almost blind but clinging to power as president of ireland addressed gatherings of veterans from 1916. and the past still echoed into the present because for hardline nationalists the battle for independence was still not over the brits remained in control of the north to highlight their case in april 1966 70 000 nationalists paraded along the falls road a colour party carried the irish tricolor followed by large banners with etchings of the executed leaders of 1916. hardline protestants denounced this as a betrayal of the faith and the union they took to the streets and to the pulpit i'm a pre-formed protestant on all the intimidation and all that slander and all the lying about me will not stop me and my campaign and ulster to keep ouster out of the side of ireland the reverend ian paisley led a countermarch of protestant loyalists and a service here in the ulster hall a unionist shrine the service was intended as an act of thanksgiving for the defeat in 1916 of what paisley called a papist german plot to stab england in the back in time of war for paisley the nationalist celebrations of the easter rising were an insult to our constitution as tension mounted 1916 cast a second shadow over ireland the first of july 1966 was the 50th anniversary of the sacrifice of the ulster division on the first day of the song paisley again brought his supporters out onto the streets sparking violent clashes with catholics and nationalists [Applause] the troubles in northern ireland officially started in october 1968 when police and civil rights marchers clashed in derry but the long shadow of the great war also played its part [Music] what's important to realize is that an essential catalyst of the troubles was the rival rhetoric and competing reenactments of 1916 50 years on for new generations in north and south each side was using history for its own end [Applause] by the 1970s ireland seemed almost to his return to the great war era with the british army back on the streets and cycles of tit-for-tat violence in 30 years of the trouble some 3 500 people would be killed only in the 1990s with the peace process and the good friday agreement did the irish begin to transcend the rival sagas of 1916 the new island of ireland peace tower in belgium commemorated the sacrifice of irish catholics as well as ulster protestants in britain's great war in eastern europe too the great war settlement was finally coming apart after being frozen for years during the cold war as the soviets withdrew from czechoslovakia friction between the czech and slovak lands intensified the state fabricated by thomas masarik in 1918 split into two republics the town of titian is still divided now between poland and the new smaller czech republic tensions between the nationalities remain but both are subsumed within a modern form of empire the european union as they had been a century ago under the habsburg empire the eu may seem bureaucratic and intrusive but within its ponderous structures the beast of nationalism which had ravaged europe for most of the 20th century is finally being tamed while nationalism was being contained on the continent the united kingdom was out of sync again the britain that fought the war was straining apart the great war had rekindled a sense of britishness in scotland and also in wales but that began to wane by the 1990s as the unifying force of the two world wars and the cold war receded into history in 1997 scotland and wales finally gained home rule and the scottish national party maneuvered its way to a full-scale referendum on independence in 2014. friends we are scotland's independence generation and our time our time is now [Music] nationalist sentiment against europe also escalated with the rise of the uk independence party membership of the european union has never been very popular on the english side of the channel yet the task of disentangling the british us from the continental them would be immense the british were reluctant europeans in 1914 and remain so today victory in the great war came at enormous cost the dead left britain with a sense of wariness about europe a feeling which the rest of the 20th century served only to deepen in this as in so many ways the great war still casts a long shadow you

Channel: War Stories

Views: 59,984

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, the long shadow, first world war, thiepval, flanders field, rememberance sunday, The Cenotaph, Commonwealth & War Grave, commonwealth war graves commission, mussolini documentary, adolf hitler, post ww1 britain, roaring 20s, war graves, first world war documentary series, great war, history channel, world war i (military conflict), ww1, ww1 full history, full documentaries, David Reynolds

Id: zFo9YpOgmW0

Length: 147min 2sec (8822 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 01 2021