1
00:00:16,750 --> 00:00:20,562
1915. No one,
who has not been at the front,

2
00:00:20,626 --> 00:00:23,464
has any idea what the
soldiers are living through.

3
00:00:33,881 --> 00:00:37,148
She hasn't had a letter
from him since April.

4
00:00:38,239 --> 00:00:40,871
He’s been fighting the Germans for a year,

5
00:00:40,989 --> 00:00:45,289
every hour of every day she
wonders when he'll come home.

6
00:00:47,775 --> 00:00:54,403
He writes that the British troops
tell of hardship, cruelty, violence.

7
00:00:59,452 --> 00:01:05,461
He writes that to stay alive, the Germans,
like them, have dug themselves in.

8
00:01:12,373 --> 00:01:16,663
In the trenches,
the men live like rats, among the rats.

9
00:01:16,727 --> 00:01:22,968
APOCALYPSE
World War I

10
00:01:42,739 --> 00:01:46,823
In the trenches, every day is the
same. Despite repeated attacks,

11
00:01:46,887 --> 00:01:49,387
neither side gains any ground.

12
00:01:57,853 --> 00:02:02,638
When the whistle blows,
men go over the top into a living hell.

13
00:02:02,702 --> 00:02:06,321
3/5
HELL

14
00:02:07,207 --> 00:02:11,274
Hell is artillery,
the shelling wreaks devastation.

15
00:02:18,695 --> 00:02:23,197
Most terrifying of all is shrapnel,
shells filled with lead pellets and gunpowder

16
00:02:23,261 --> 00:02:25,761
that explode in midair.

17
00:02:27,529 --> 00:02:32,414
The writer Maurice Genevoix describes this:
“I'm caught in a hail of shrapnel;

18
00:02:33,582 --> 00:02:36,082
the lead shot riddles the ground around me,

19
00:02:36,968 --> 00:02:40,311
pierces muskets and splits men's skulls”.

20
00:02:43,647 --> 00:02:47,320
All around him,
men are being disfigured for life;

21
00:02:47,384 --> 00:02:50,270
the French call them “broken faces”.

22
00:02:57,346 --> 00:03:01,855
Doctors encounter horrific
wounds never seen before.

23
00:03:13,363 --> 00:03:16,566
They can do nothing for the
trauma caused by the shelling -

24
00:03:17,957 --> 00:03:23,433
fits of terror, trembling, paralysis.

25
00:03:33,316 --> 00:03:38,503
Millions of men find themselves caught
in the deadly trap of this massive war.

26
00:03:44,487 --> 00:03:49,736
September 1915.
In the East, the Turks, the Austrians,

27
00:03:49,800 --> 00:03:52,439
and the Germans battled the Russians.

28
00:03:53,799 --> 00:03:57,464
In the South, the Austrians
hold the Italians in check.

29
00:03:58,906 --> 00:04:02,814
In the West, the Germans face the Belgians,
French, and British

30
00:04:02,878 --> 00:04:06,373
along the line of trenches
that stretches 400 miles(644km).

31
00:04:09,804 --> 00:04:13,736
To hold their positions,
the Allied troops need better protection.

32
00:04:15,312 --> 00:04:20,998
So in September 1915, French factories,
now staffed by women,

33
00:04:21,341 --> 00:04:26,338
convert to war work with a rush
order for 20 million helmets.

34
00:04:26,561 --> 00:04:31,679
These are complicated to produce but are
designed to offer protection from shrapnel.

35
00:04:39,031 --> 00:04:43,587
A film features one of these factory
workers leaving a note in a helmet,

36
00:04:43,651 --> 00:04:46,254
in order to boost the morale of its wearer.

37
00:04:50,126 --> 00:04:53,265
“Dear soldier, I am a simple Frenchwoman,

38
00:04:53,329 --> 00:04:56,700
wishing you a quick and happy
return to your loved ones”.

39
00:04:56,837 --> 00:05:00,459
“May this helmet bring you luck!”
Lucie Lambert.

40
00:05:02,789 --> 00:05:07,022
This lucky soldier and his
companions also supports new uniforms.

41
00:05:07,658 --> 00:05:13,316
The color, dubbed horizon blue, is supposed
to blend in with the sky during assaults.

42
00:05:20,775 --> 00:05:24,662
But the men worry that this new
kit is a sign of a drawn-out war.

43
00:05:25,554 --> 00:05:29,949
Although the official cameramen instruct
the men to appear smiling and warlike,

44
00:05:31,398 --> 00:05:34,075
one soldier pretends to commit suicide.

45
00:05:37,585 --> 00:05:41,321
Like the French,
the British adopt the metal helmet.

46
00:05:43,614 --> 00:05:47,833
A Canadian, Private Corneloup,
complains that it's too heavy.

47
00:05:47,897 --> 00:05:52,526
It weighs over 2 pounds(0,9kg) but it is
sturdier than the French helmet

48
00:05:53,542 --> 00:05:57,747
and with its shallow shape can be
made from a single sheet of steel.

49
00:06:02,331 --> 00:06:06,942
Still, they are outclassed by their
enemies with the famous Stahlhelm,

50
00:06:07,119 --> 00:06:11,528
or steel helmet, which comes to
symbolize the German soldier.

51
00:06:14,284 --> 00:06:17,260
Its wider shape covering more of the head,

52
00:06:17,324 --> 00:06:22,215
its better suited to this new
form of warfare - trench warfare.

53
00:06:40,064 --> 00:06:44,258
In “Storm of steel” lieutenant
Ernst Jünger writes:

54
00:06:44,730 --> 00:06:48,048
“It’s an easier matter to describe
these sounds than to endure them,

55
00:06:48,112 --> 00:06:53,934
because one cannot but associate every single
sound of flying steel with the idea of death”.

56
00:06:55,634 --> 00:06:58,962
This artillery warfare requires
that the troops hold their ground

57
00:06:59,026 --> 00:07:03,585
beneath every barrage, even when the
shells are filled with poison gas.

58
00:07:08,074 --> 00:07:11,536
In addition to helmets,
soldiers have issued gas masks,

59
00:07:11,600 --> 00:07:14,617
as a protection against
this new form of warfare.

60
00:07:16,137 --> 00:07:22,444
The race is on to discover the most lethal
formula, such as chlorine or mustard gas

61
00:07:22,549 --> 00:07:27,389
which appeared at the battle of Ypres
in Belgium and killed thousands of men.

62
00:07:29,383 --> 00:07:32,483
A military doctor, Major Faleur writes:

63
00:07:35,174 --> 00:07:40,532
“Men turn purple, they cry for air, and
complain of burning in the chest and stomach”.

64
00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:45,774
“We have seen it all, ghastly wounds,
and deadly avalanches of steel,

65
00:07:46,149 --> 00:07:51,469
but they are nothing compared to the fog
that darken the Sun in the sky for hours

66
00:07:51,703 --> 00:07:54,203
which seems like centuries”.

67
00:07:59,286 --> 00:08:04,639
And these Canadian soldiers, now blind,
have to be led by the hand like children.

68
00:08:08,316 --> 00:08:11,412
The International Committee
of the Red Cross protests.

69
00:08:12,274 --> 00:08:17,611
Since 1899 the use of asphyxiating
gases has been outlawed,

70
00:08:18,456 --> 00:08:21,998
nonetheless, all sides will use poison gas.

71
00:08:32,443 --> 00:08:35,840
The French army perfects
its protective measures.

72
00:08:36,126 --> 00:08:41,658
Cotton for the respiratory tract, and a cloth,
on which the soldier is to urinate;

73
00:08:41,898 --> 00:08:44,785
this is supposed to help
protect against chlorine.

74
00:08:47,336 --> 00:08:53,261
Found to be ineffective, this approach
is replaced by goggles and a thick pad,

75
00:08:53,325 --> 00:08:55,825
soaked with a protective chemical.

76
00:09:03,576 --> 00:09:08,047
Like the hoods, used by the British, which
make it almost impossible to breathe,

77
00:09:10,202 --> 00:09:12,702
they are soon abandoned.

78
00:09:18,422 --> 00:09:20,725
Finding a German corpse, the French learned

79
00:09:20,789 --> 00:09:24,254
just how much more advanced their
enemies are in this technology.

80
00:09:27,232 --> 00:09:31,612
By autumn 1915 the Germans
are using the Gummimaske,

81
00:09:31,869 --> 00:09:35,489
a rubber mask with a filter
of activated charcoal.

82
00:09:35,716 --> 00:09:40,710
It will soon be copied by every Army and
remain in service until the end of the war.

83
00:09:46,274 --> 00:09:50,928
Combatants on all sides now live
in constant terror of poison gas,

84
00:09:51,110 --> 00:09:53,610
obsessed with the smell.

85
00:09:57,506 --> 00:10:02,643
As one German artillery officer puts it:
“The men sniff about like hunting dogs”.

86
00:10:05,705 --> 00:10:10,503
But once protected, they can hold their
ground, the front line doesn't budge.

87
00:10:13,456 --> 00:10:18,480
The Germans occupy almost all of
Belgium and ten French provinces,

88
00:10:18,544 --> 00:10:21,814
including the cities of Lille,
Cambrai, and Saint-Quentin.

89
00:10:24,814 --> 00:10:28,983
German troops are better supplied than their
families back in Brandenburg and Saxony.

90
00:10:30,853 --> 00:10:35,025
They take over the livestock that peasants
left behind when they fled the combat-zone,

91
00:10:38,185 --> 00:10:40,685
and the rabbit hutches,

92
00:10:41,275 --> 00:10:43,775
and stores of cheese.

93
00:10:45,513 --> 00:10:49,014
The finest residences are
reserved for the military brass,

94
00:10:49,078 --> 00:10:51,578
far from the realities of the front.

95
00:10:52,576 --> 00:10:56,400
Among all the belligerents,
the class system is upheld.

96
00:10:56,749 --> 00:11:02,011
The Lords inhabit the chateaus,
while the peasants, underlings, and servants

97
00:11:02,116 --> 00:11:04,616
huddle in foxholes.

98
00:11:13,578 --> 00:11:17,294
On the French side,
excavators tear up the countryside,

99
00:11:17,658 --> 00:11:22,416
digging ever more trenches which are
now organizing three successive lines.

100
00:11:27,534 --> 00:11:32,396
The first line of trenches is the
most dangerous, the deadliest of all.

101
00:11:37,595 --> 00:11:40,733
Human ingenuity knows no bounds
when it comes to killing.

102
00:11:45,132 --> 00:11:49,513
Anything can be used to launch explosives
at the enemy in the opposite trench.

103
00:11:49,951 --> 00:11:54,737
Grenade launching rifles,
flying torpedoes,

104
00:11:56,448 --> 00:11:59,184
even medieval crossbows are put to use.

105
00:12:06,034 --> 00:12:09,524
And then there is the giant slingshot,
used by British soldiers

106
00:12:11,677 --> 00:12:15,116
as well as their “plum pudding”,
a strange projectile

107
00:12:15,180 --> 00:12:18,804
that is almost as dangerous for
its gunners as for the enemy.

108
00:12:33,678 --> 00:12:37,238
Between artillery barrages,
the soldiers wait.

109
00:12:39,157 --> 00:12:43,397
They sleep, they play cards, write letters,

110
00:12:45,044 --> 00:12:48,820
and stave off boredom,
by cobbling together all sorts of objects

111
00:12:48,884 --> 00:12:51,384
out of copper cartridges.

112
00:13:00,433 --> 00:13:05,805
They construct makeshift shelters and
give them suggestive names like this one,

113
00:13:05,976 --> 00:13:08,616
meaning “home miserable home”.

114
00:13:12,732 --> 00:13:17,317
The stench is overpowering,
Private Albert Thierry writes:

115
00:13:17,723 --> 00:13:22,867
“No one washes or combs their hair. I've
never worn the same clothes for so long”.

116
00:13:29,557 --> 00:13:33,439
At night the soldiers descend
to their underground shelters,

117
00:13:34,115 --> 00:13:38,507
one man even builds a cage to
protect himself from rats.

118
00:13:40,616 --> 00:13:45,927
Sergeant Beck writes: “One of my men was
bitten on the ear, another on the nose”.

119
00:13:45,991 --> 00:13:49,640
“When we are lying down,
rats scamper over us like cats,

120
00:13:50,394 --> 00:13:56,131
they devour everything we have; chocolate,
Camembert cheese, even our rightful stocks”.

121
00:13:56,396 --> 00:13:58,608
“The men hunt them any way they can”.

122
00:13:58,672 --> 00:14:02,862
“In just one hole they killed 17 of them,
like small rabbits”.

123
00:14:04,505 --> 00:14:10,267
The rats carry fleas and scabies.
Lice are a scourge in all the trenches.

124
00:14:14,013 --> 00:14:17,966
But for soldiers on the frontline,
the appalling hygienic conditions

125
00:14:18,030 --> 00:14:20,835
and the serious diseases
they engender are nothing

126
00:14:20,899 --> 00:14:23,435
compared to the terror of going over the top.

127
00:14:27,680 --> 00:14:29,933
And they have to stay at
least a week at the front,

128
00:14:29,997 --> 00:14:33,842
before being relieved by troops from
the second line, the support line.

129
00:14:43,262 --> 00:14:48,789
After an attack, first line survivors
carry the wounded through narrow ditches,

130
00:14:50,289 --> 00:14:55,852
to reach the third line, the reserve line,
located among the abandoned towns.

131
00:14:58,997 --> 00:15:01,497
They need time to catch their breath.

132
00:15:05,788 --> 00:15:11,475
Lance corporal Tanty writes:
“We read the letters of Hun prisoners;

133
00:15:11,829 --> 00:15:15,883
they are the same as ours; misery, despair,

134
00:15:16,635 --> 00:15:19,204
the monstrous stupidity,
of all these things”.

135
00:15:19,642 --> 00:15:24,069
“Those wretches, the Huns, are the same as us,
they are like us,

136
00:15:24,231 --> 00:15:26,731
and for all of us
the hardship is the same”.

137
00:15:35,336 --> 00:15:39,027
The reserve line allows the French soldiers,
known as Poilus,

138
00:15:39,091 --> 00:15:42,966
or hairy beasts, to wash and feel human again.

139
00:15:47,565 --> 00:15:52,003
Lance corporal Tanty writes:
“The Poilu is an animal,

140
00:15:52,067 --> 00:15:56,712
halfway between a human and a chimpanzee
that the 20th century has bond”.

141
00:15:57,226 --> 00:16:01,069
“The Poilu is the monster of
a civilization going backwards,

142
00:16:01,284 --> 00:16:05,281
his only human characteristic
is his ability to suffer”.

143
00:16:09,270 --> 00:16:13,146
A Private from Montreal,
Georges-Ulric Francoeur, writes:

144
00:16:13,437 --> 00:16:18,813
“I'm trying to avoid the taint beef,
all I care about is getting warm,

145
00:16:19,054 --> 00:16:25,137
we are soaked, everything is always damp.
We’ve run out of tobacco,

146
00:16:25,441 --> 00:16:27,941
I'm smoking my prayer book”.

147
00:16:39,408 --> 00:16:41,758
October 1915.

148
00:16:41,822 --> 00:16:44,322
In the West, it's a stalemate.

149
00:16:45,616 --> 00:16:49,635
In the Balkans the Germans,
Austrians, and Bulgarians,

150
00:16:49,699 --> 00:16:53,379
who have entered the conflict,
overrun Serbia in one month.

151
00:16:54,435 --> 00:16:59,385
The French and British open a new
front in Salonika to assist the Serbs

152
00:16:59,449 --> 00:17:02,467
and to bring Greece into
the war on their side.

153
00:17:06,725 --> 00:17:09,616
On the morning of October 12, 1915,

154
00:17:10,413 --> 00:17:14,735
Sergeant Potard aboard to
French cargo ship writes:

155
00:17:15,887 --> 00:17:20,934
“Having come from the Alsatian front,
still red with the blood of our comrades,

156
00:17:21,161 --> 00:17:25,735
we arrive at what has been described
to us as an unknown destination”.

157
00:17:30,480 --> 00:17:34,352
Salonika comes into view
a simply marvelous site,

158
00:17:34,422 --> 00:17:36,967
bathed in the golden light of the Orient”.

159
00:17:37,031 --> 00:17:39,302
“The city spreads out before me,

160
00:17:39,366 --> 00:17:44,713
bleached white with its minarets
on mosques and domes on churches”.

161
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:50,575
“Imagine my stupefaction when I land;

162
00:17:50,907 --> 00:17:54,908
the dock is crowded with people
of every race and every language,

163
00:17:55,235 --> 00:17:59,594
all one sees are faces,
ravaged by jaundice and smallpox”.

164
00:18:08,976 --> 00:18:13,544
Disease will decimate the 500,000 men,
concentrated around Salonika;

165
00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:19,041
a 100 square mile(259 KM²) enclave on Greek territory,
protected by a ring of artillery.

166
00:18:23,582 --> 00:18:28,754
What is known as “the Army of the Orient”,
is an amalgam of British,

167
00:18:29,487 --> 00:18:34,001
French, Serbs,

168
00:18:36,282 --> 00:18:39,999
Montenegrins, Italians,

169
00:18:41,352 --> 00:18:46,948
Russians, and Annamese or Tonkinese
from French Indochina.

170
00:18:59,735 --> 00:19:03,484
They will be dragged into a series of
ambushes against the Bulgarians

171
00:19:03,548 --> 00:19:06,048
who prove more combative than expected.

172
00:19:06,269 --> 00:19:11,643
Temperatures hit 105F (40,5C) in the shade and
the swamps team with flies and mosquitoes,

173
00:19:11,707 --> 00:19:14,968
leading to 6,000 deaths from malaria alone.

174
00:19:29,259 --> 00:19:33,404
For the time being “the Army of
the Orient” does not see combat.

175
00:19:33,757 --> 00:19:35,990
These immobilized French and British divisions

176
00:19:36,054 --> 00:19:38,958
could've been more useful in the
trenches of northern France.

177
00:19:44,546 --> 00:19:47,147
As one German journalist writes ironically:

178
00:19:47,343 --> 00:19:51,448
“The allies have parked themselves in the
biggest internment camp in the world”.

179
00:20:01,447 --> 00:20:03,764
In London, King George V

180
00:20:03,828 --> 00:20:07,111
is concerned about his government’s
talk of withdrawing from Salonika

181
00:20:07,175 --> 00:20:09,819
and about the fate of
his troops on all fronts.

182
00:20:13,657 --> 00:20:18,328
He writes: “I shall follow your every
movement with the deepest interest,

183
00:20:18,392 --> 00:20:22,310
indeed your welfare will never
be absent from my thoughts”.

184
00:20:24,291 --> 00:20:29,178
King George and every other head of state
should be seeking a way to halt the massacre.

185
00:20:29,277 --> 00:20:34,303
After 16 months of the war,
5 million men are already dead,

186
00:20:34,529 --> 00:20:37,029
but no one wants to stop.

187
00:20:39,451 --> 00:20:42,046
Even most of the widows call for vengeance,

188
00:20:42,261 --> 00:20:46,356
and the leaders judge the human
and material costs to be so high

189
00:20:46,420 --> 00:20:50,922
that the enemy must be made to
pay and so war goes on.

190
00:20:55,378 --> 00:21:00,734
On December 6, 1915,
the military and political leaders of France,

191
00:21:00,798 --> 00:21:06,331
Great Britain, Belgium, Russia,
and Italy convene in Chantilly, near Paris.

192
00:21:09,060 --> 00:21:12,234
They agree to improve the
coordination of their armies

193
00:21:12,298 --> 00:21:15,391
to stop depleting the
resources in separate attacks

194
00:21:15,556 --> 00:21:20,286
and to organize a United Anglo-French
offensive for the summer of 1916.

195
00:21:21,230 --> 00:21:25,542
The offensive will originate from the British
and French positions on the Somme River.

196
00:21:28,126 --> 00:21:33,914
But the Germans beat them to it,
by launching their own offensive on Verdun.

197
00:21:37,461 --> 00:21:40,953
Verdun is a gateway city on the Meuse River

198
00:21:41,017 --> 00:21:43,684
but the French consider
it to be a quiet sector.

199
00:21:47,162 --> 00:21:52,124
They have dismantled the canons of its forts
and sent them to the hot spots on the front.

200
00:21:52,397 --> 00:21:58,747
The garrison has been reduced to a minimum
yet the Germans are only 12 miles (19km) away.

201
00:22:04,131 --> 00:22:08,765
In early February 1916, the Germans
begin massing troops and artillery,

202
00:22:08,829 --> 00:22:11,329
for what they hope to be the decisive battle.

203
00:22:14,754 --> 00:22:18,686
German cameramen arrived
to film Kaiser Wilhelm II

204
00:22:18,950 --> 00:22:21,450
who has come to encourage his son and heir.

205
00:22:22,740 --> 00:22:26,762
The crown prince leads
a force of 150,000 men.

206
00:22:27,789 --> 00:22:32,437
Their plan - either capture Verdun
and open the road to Paris

207
00:22:32,965 --> 00:22:37,350
or, if the French army digs in,
the Germans decimate it.

208
00:22:50,274 --> 00:22:54,481
At 7:15 on the morning of February 21, 1916,

209
00:22:55,277 --> 00:23:00,049
the crown prince launches
operation “Gericht” or judgement.

210
00:23:13,158 --> 00:23:18,626
Within hours 1 million shells have
pummeled the French positions.

211
00:23:28,047 --> 00:23:31,897
95 miles (153km) away, troops in the
Vosges can hear the bombardment.

212
00:23:39,048 --> 00:23:44,702
For their attack on Verdun, the Germans
deploy a terrifying weapon, the flamethrower.

213
00:23:51,585 --> 00:23:55,056
They break through the French
lines and enter the Caures forest

214
00:23:55,489 --> 00:23:58,152
where the trees have been blasted by shells.

215
00:24:00,364 --> 00:24:04,404
Here the Germans encounter unexpected
resistance from the French soldiers

216
00:24:04,468 --> 00:24:06,968
who survived the barrage.

217
00:24:26,804 --> 00:24:31,114
The sacrifice of Colonel Driant’s
men slows down the crown prince,

218
00:24:31,392 --> 00:24:35,499
but he remains confident and
congratulates the Stormtroopers.

219
00:24:40,248 --> 00:24:44,709
Shaken, the French General Staff
decide to defend Verdun to the end.

220
00:24:45,345 --> 00:24:51,063
A new commander is named; General Philippe
Pétain, who has remained on the sidelines.

221
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:58,188
The 60-year-old general is known to oppose
the French strategy of offense at all costs

222
00:24:58,252 --> 00:25:00,752
and he implements a defensive strategy.

223
00:25:02,551 --> 00:25:08,833
His orders are to dig in and hold on.
The French stop the German advance.

224
00:25:10,300 --> 00:25:12,800
The battlefield becomes a slaughterhouse.

225
00:25:17,253 --> 00:25:23,819
Verdun survivor and winner of the Nobel Prize
for literature Jean Giono later writes:

226
00:25:25,208 --> 00:25:29,331
“We are nine in a hole,
nothing will get us out of here”.

227
00:25:30,102 --> 00:25:32,940
“But we've eaten,
we must relieve ourselves”.

228
00:25:33,303 --> 00:25:35,803
“The first of us to feel
the urge climbs out”.

229
00:25:37,012 --> 00:25:41,944
“He has been there for two days now,
10 feet away killed, with his trousers down”.

230
00:25:42,666 --> 00:25:47,421
“We crap on paper and throw it up and out,
when we have no more paper,

231
00:25:48,505 --> 00:25:50,735
we go in our haversacks”.

232
00:25:50,799 --> 00:25:54,619
“The battle of Verdun continues,
we go in our hands”.

233
00:25:55,228 --> 00:26:00,729
“Dysentery flows between our fingers,
we crap blood, we go where we lay,

234
00:26:02,037 --> 00:26:06,047
we are devoured by flames of thirst,
we drink our own urine”.

235
00:26:07,906 --> 00:26:12,713
“If we remain on this battlefield, it
is because they won't let us get away”.

236
00:26:32,719 --> 00:26:37,561
Two second lieutenants, Herduin and
Millant, are executed for desertion.

237
00:26:37,846 --> 00:26:41,540
They have retreated after the Germans
had smashed through the French lines.

238
00:26:45,578 --> 00:26:48,628
With so many killed,
there is insufficient manpower.

239
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:55,564
High command institutes a rotation system

240
00:26:55,628 --> 00:26:59,906
so that nearly every regiment of the
French army is forced through this Hell.

241
00:27:02,136 --> 00:27:05,651
This torrent of men is backed
by a massive industrial effort;

242
00:27:07,504 --> 00:27:13,518
a fleet of 12,000 trucks and special railway
transport the 2,000 tons of ammunition,

243
00:27:13,582 --> 00:27:16,082
required each day to defend Verdun.

244
00:27:19,298 --> 00:27:23,613
The French and Germans each
fire 300,000 shells a day,

245
00:27:24,598 --> 00:27:27,333
20 million shells during the entire battle.

246
00:27:33,344 --> 00:27:35,990
How are the millions
of soldiers to be fed?

247
00:27:39,531 --> 00:27:42,684
The generals think that the
men need to eat lots of meat.

248
00:27:44,599 --> 00:27:47,482
Troops get far more than
civilians behind the lines.

249
00:27:51,586 --> 00:27:55,041
The armies’ butchers slaughter
the horses wounded in combat.

250
00:28:00,354 --> 00:28:04,493
In the battle of Verdun,
7,000 horses die in a single day.

251
00:28:11,418 --> 00:28:14,936
It takes an enormous effort to
transport the food to the front lines

252
00:28:17,249 --> 00:28:19,749
and a great deal of courage.

253
00:28:25,496 --> 00:28:28,641
Marksmen on both sides
target the supply convoys.

254
00:28:56,417 --> 00:28:58,670
The trenches lack water.

255
00:28:58,734 --> 00:29:02,368
Private Potcher writes:
“We are dying of thirst,

256
00:29:02,432 --> 00:29:06,435
but I drink more hooch in one day
here than I have in my entire life”.

257
00:29:08,237 --> 00:29:11,914
Hooch or rum,
keeps the men going before an assault.

258
00:29:15,128 --> 00:29:20,752
To cope with the horrors of daily life, there
is an endless supply of rough wine or "plunk".

259
00:29:25,630 --> 00:29:29,983
Private Hoques writes:
“A glass of "plunk" too many

260
00:29:30,650 --> 00:29:33,480
and they break into song to dispel the gloom

261
00:29:33,544 --> 00:29:36,321
that gnaws at them like
some invisible animal”.

262
00:29:55,387 --> 00:29:57,887
The Germans too need comfort.

263
00:30:02,474 --> 00:30:08,770
They find it in schnapps,
in camaraderie, and religion.

264
00:30:15,012 --> 00:30:17,929
Their experience mirrors
that of their adversaries.

265
00:30:21,048 --> 00:30:24,695
Corporal Carl Fritz of the 10th
Mountain Battalion writes:

266
00:30:26,774 --> 00:30:31,577
“We spent three days lying in shell holes,
looking death in the eye,

267
00:30:31,869 --> 00:30:34,369
expecting it at any moment”.

268
00:30:36,507 --> 00:30:41,304
“One shell buries the dead the
next one uncovers them again”.

269
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:56,002
In Verdun, in this cold month of March
1916, only the aviators escape the trenches.

270
00:30:57,201 --> 00:31:03,117
The Kaiser's pilots are Lords of the skies.
Mounting their wooden canvas deeds,

271
00:31:03,184 --> 00:31:05,684
they see themselves
as modern-day Knights.

272
00:31:06,627 --> 00:31:12,475
One of them is Hermann Göring,
23 years old, aggressive and ambitious.

273
00:31:12,539 --> 00:31:17,238
He amasses aerial victories and develops
the heart of a merciless killer.

274
00:31:22,324 --> 00:31:26,759
But in reality, pilots face every
bit as much danger as foot soldiers.

275
00:31:33,042 --> 00:31:35,886
Rarely strapped in, with no parachutes,

276
00:31:36,472 --> 00:31:39,479
German aviators fly over
the French lines of Verdun;

277
00:31:39,543 --> 00:31:44,749
to photograph enemy positions
or if possible, drop bombs on them

278
00:31:45,348 --> 00:31:48,447
that is if they can evade
French fighter aircraft.

279
00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:02,967
The Germans also shoot down the
balloons of artillery spotters.

280
00:32:08,167 --> 00:32:13,257
It takes a lot of courage to go up with
these balloons but it is a vital work.

281
00:32:14,879 --> 00:32:19,152
Link to the ground by telephone,
the officers direct artillery fire.

282
00:32:20,709 --> 00:32:26,132
Protecting them becomes the priority as
general Pétain affirms with this order:

283
00:32:26,329 --> 00:32:28,829
“Sweep the Germans from the sky”.

284
00:32:31,375 --> 00:32:35,083
With the development of
AckAcks or antiaircraft guns,

285
00:32:36,833 --> 00:32:39,492
the appearance of new and faster airplanes,

286
00:32:40,630 --> 00:32:44,388
and the arrival of squadrons of
fearless and implacable young pilots

287
00:32:45,011 --> 00:32:49,647
in just three months’ time, France regains
the upper hand in the skies over Verdun.

288
00:32:51,835 --> 00:32:56,438
After five aerial victories fighter
pilots earned the title of “ace”.

289
00:32:56,554 --> 00:33:01,470
They become famous like Second Lieutenant
Georges Guynemer, the 21-year-old,

290
00:33:01,534 --> 00:33:05,396
who would be rejected by the Army in 1914,
as too scrawny.

291
00:33:05,554 --> 00:33:09,828
Now promoted “flag bearer for the public”,
he is a national hero,

292
00:33:09,892 --> 00:33:14,061
decorated with the “Legion of honor”,
a model of devotion to his country.

293
00:33:29,402 --> 00:33:33,964
The war in the sky is every bit as
brutal as the war in the trenches

294
00:33:34,325 --> 00:33:37,413
and more often than not ends in the same mud.

295
00:33:43,416 --> 00:33:49,006
April 1916 sees the spring thaw;
the Verdun soil, torn up by shelling,

296
00:33:49,070 --> 00:33:51,811
turns into an impassable quagmire.

297
00:34:00,976 --> 00:34:04,630
But the Army wants to project
an image of determination.

298
00:34:07,077 --> 00:34:11,099
After a French counterattack that advances
the front of the few short yards,

299
00:34:11,792 --> 00:34:15,493
a cameraman films another cameraman,
filming an infantryman

300
00:34:15,938 --> 00:34:18,438
who is laying new barbed wire.

301
00:34:22,919 --> 00:34:26,999
In no-man's-land, the deadly expanse
between the opposing trenches,

302
00:34:27,277 --> 00:34:32,159
the enemy returns the very same
night to cut down the barbed wire.

303
00:34:41,184 --> 00:34:47,018
In Verdun, for 300 days and 300 nights,
the Germans attack and the Allies hold on.

304
00:34:59,614 --> 00:35:04,709
Yet there are touching human stories.
When his entire company is gassed,

305
00:35:05,114 --> 00:35:08,190
Corporal Pierre Weber, whose lungs are burnt,

306
00:35:08,321 --> 00:35:11,499
is carried out by his less
severely wounded comrades.

307
00:35:14,025 --> 00:35:16,270
In a large hospital, far from the front,

308
00:35:16,334 --> 00:35:20,683
Pierre Weber is cared for by a
nurse Charlotte, they fall in love.

309
00:35:27,653 --> 00:35:31,710
He is granted permission to recover
in L’Étang-la-Ville, outside Paris,

310
00:35:31,801 --> 00:35:34,649
and he brings Charlotte with him.
Here they are,

311
00:35:34,748 --> 00:35:37,401
in the Rose Garden of her sister Jaqueline,
who is married

312
00:35:37,465 --> 00:35:40,794
to a pioneer of home movies René Ferrari.

313
00:35:50,633 --> 00:35:56,142
At 40, too old to fight, René Ferrari
is assigned to the medical service

314
00:35:56,496 --> 00:35:58,996
and is allowed to sleep at home.

315
00:36:01,758 --> 00:36:05,956
Many such men serve on the home front,
posted to factories or offices,

316
00:36:06,649 --> 00:36:10,034
soldiers on leave view them
with envy and bitterness.

317
00:36:13,638 --> 00:36:16,012
Charlotte, like thousands of women,

318
00:36:16,076 --> 00:36:19,075
devotes herself to her
handsome military invalid

319
00:36:19,431 --> 00:36:23,893
but does she really have a choice,
already there are few men left.

320
00:36:24,839 --> 00:36:29,776
Women don't want to be old maids and
even worse fate then being a young widow.

321
00:36:36,878 --> 00:36:42,330
In England, it is now common to marry in a
heist, before groom returns to the front.

322
00:36:48,306 --> 00:36:51,750
She will receive his pay after his death.

323
00:36:53,718 --> 00:36:56,960
Everyone senses that the
worst is yet to come.

324
00:37:03,477 --> 00:37:09,500
Across the British Empire, a vast recruiting
campaign enlists 500,000 more men.

325
00:37:14,791 --> 00:37:19,141
Fathers and sons, cousins,
neighbors, often enlist together,

326
00:37:20,060 --> 00:37:25,284
but these patriotic volunteers cannot meet
the ravenous needs of the major offensives.

327
00:37:29,048 --> 00:37:33,089
Voluntary enlistment is eventually
replaced by conscription.

328
00:37:34,183 --> 00:37:36,846
French Canadians,
have been reluctant to volunteer,

329
00:37:36,978 --> 00:37:41,115
they do not identify with England,
which they don't consider the motherland.

330
00:37:42,379 --> 00:37:46,512
United by an unshakable Catholic faith,
they are mistrustful of France,

331
00:37:46,576 --> 00:37:52,456
which they see as anticlerical, but at the
urging of their parish priests they sign up.

332
00:38:01,269 --> 00:38:05,630
Upon their arrival in France, they are
grouped in an entirely French-speaking unit;

333
00:38:06,740 --> 00:38:10,228
the Royal 22nd Regiment or The Van Doos.

334
00:38:10,292 --> 00:38:14,749
They are sent to the front on
Somme River in early summer 1916.

335
00:38:17,805 --> 00:38:21,811
They are pleasantly surprised by the warm
welcome they received, but after all,

336
00:38:21,875 --> 00:38:27,324
the local men and women speak French
just as they do or almost as they do.

337
00:38:27,992 --> 00:38:31,618
In the Van Doos,
Édouard Légaré from Québec recounts:

338
00:38:31,928 --> 00:38:36,328
“To strike up a conversation with a pretty
girl, the favorite joke was to ask:

339
00:38:36,392 --> 00:38:39,371
“Excuse me miss,
where is the road to Berlin?””.

340
00:38:47,636 --> 00:38:52,494
For French president Raymond Poincaré
and the British King George V,

341
00:38:52,692 --> 00:38:57,386
the Somme offensive decided upon at
the conference of December 1915,

342
00:38:57,529 --> 00:39:01,256
will break the German lines
and open the road to Berlin.

343
00:39:05,539 --> 00:39:08,786
However, French Commander-in-Chief,
General Joffre,

344
00:39:09,033 --> 00:39:13,446
now argues in favor of relieving the
French forces, still entrenched in Verdun.

345
00:39:13,711 --> 00:39:19,110
The fighting there has inflicted enormous
losses - 40,000 dead in six months.

346
00:39:20,173 --> 00:39:24,209
General Foch of France and
General Haig of Britain

347
00:39:24,634 --> 00:39:27,182
will have the honor of
commending this huge offensive,

348
00:39:27,246 --> 00:39:31,606
aimed at putting an end to the war, and
they proudly display their full confidence.

349
00:39:35,449 --> 00:39:40,354
The British are massed to the north of the
town of Albert and the French to the south.

350
00:39:41,521 --> 00:39:45,143
Their goal is to march on the occupied
towns of Péronne and Bapaume,

351
00:39:45,207 --> 00:39:48,812
penetrating the German trenches
along at 30-mile(48km) long front.

352
00:39:51,639 --> 00:39:55,848
The plan is familiar by now;
crush the Germans with artillery fire,

353
00:39:55,912 --> 00:39:58,412
before sending in the troops.

354
00:40:07,430 --> 00:40:11,649
The size of the force is staggering -
40 divisions,

355
00:40:11,776 --> 00:40:15,913
almost 600,000 men,
and 4,000 pieces of artillery.

356
00:40:18,782 --> 00:40:23,736
Lieutenant John Buchan writes:
“Troops were everywhere on the move,

357
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:28,841
and the shifting of ammunition dumps nearer to
the firing line, foretold what was coming”.

358
00:40:44,419 --> 00:40:48,632
Buchan adds: “There was a
curious exhilaration everywhere”.

359
00:40:50,265 --> 00:40:54,192
“For the soldiers,
the great offensive had finally come,

360
00:40:56,212 --> 00:41:00,565
but these young recruits, smiling at the
camera, have received minimal training,

361
00:41:01,418 --> 00:41:03,918
this will be their first battle”.

362
00:41:05,246 --> 00:41:10,037
The British are also counting on underground
explosives to destroy the German front-line.

363
00:41:19,471 --> 00:41:23,292
Since the introduction of trenches,
each side has tried to tunnel

364
00:41:23,356 --> 00:41:25,860
under the enemy trenches and blow them up.

365
00:41:31,093 --> 00:41:35,615
It’s a sort of parallel war,
harrowing and hidden.

366
00:41:37,482 --> 00:41:40,375
Everyone listens for sounds
coming from underground

367
00:41:40,813 --> 00:41:43,862
which can mean either that the
enemy are burrowing toward you

368
00:41:44,158 --> 00:41:46,658
or that you’re closing in on his trench.

369
00:41:55,455 --> 00:42:01,372
This time British sappers dug a tunnel nearly
a mile (1.6km) long beneath the German trenches,

370
00:42:01,796 --> 00:42:05,290
filling it with 24 tons
of a powerful explosive.

371
00:42:11,741 --> 00:42:16,528
July 1, 1916, 7:20 AM, the mine is blown up,

372
00:42:16,592 --> 00:42:19,213
leaving a crater 300 feet across.

373
00:42:22,868 --> 00:42:25,555
But the Germans had heard
the sappers and withdrawn.

374
00:42:27,144 --> 00:42:31,216
The most powerful underground
mine of the war left no victims.

375
00:42:41,100 --> 00:42:43,600
20 other mines are blown up.

376
00:42:44,308 --> 00:42:50,204
7:30 AM, the British artillery which have been
shelling the German lines for eight days

377
00:42:50,268 --> 00:42:53,717
hold their fire,
opening the way for an assault.

378
00:43:01,684 --> 00:43:06,293
But the shelling hasn't cleared the
barbed wire or destroyed concrete bunkers.

379
00:43:06,357 --> 00:43:09,943
The Germans come out, stunned, but alive.

380
00:43:14,958 --> 00:43:20,138
For 10 minutes nothing happens, the Germans
have time to set up their machine guns.

381
00:43:22,496 --> 00:43:26,371
7:40 AM, the British prepare to attack.

382
00:43:26,773 --> 00:43:29,773
All these young
inexperienced men are afraid.

383
00:43:30,371 --> 00:43:33,997
To reassure them, Captain Billy Neville, 22,

384
00:43:34,061 --> 00:43:38,190
is the first man over,
dribbling a soccer ball across no-man's-land.

385
00:43:49,542 --> 00:43:52,042
Until he is felled.

386
00:44:04,195 --> 00:44:09,103
By the end of this hellish day,
the British have suffered 20,000 dead.

387
00:44:22,309 --> 00:44:24,809
40,000 troops are wounded.

388
00:44:27,379 --> 00:44:31,064
They will have to endure a long and
excruciating journey to the hospital.

389
00:44:32,902 --> 00:44:37,878
Most of the time does delay means
gangrene, amputation, or death.

390
00:44:45,136 --> 00:44:48,782
Survivors report that the
shelling destroyed nothing.

391
00:44:52,720 --> 00:44:57,702
This doesn't stop General Haig from
ordering further suicidal attacks.

392
00:45:10,163 --> 00:45:14,695
In Paris, in the Élysée Palace,
the president of the French Republic

393
00:45:14,759 --> 00:45:17,628
Raymond Poincaré writes in his diary:

394
00:45:19,067 --> 00:45:22,109
“Saturday, July 1, 1916”.

395
00:45:24,204 --> 00:45:27,211
“Blood is flowing like
water north of the Somme,

396
00:45:27,275 --> 00:45:31,202
meanwhile sunlight dabbles
the trees of the Elysée”.

397
00:45:31,321 --> 00:45:35,672
“Elms, sycamores, chestnut trees, acacias,

398
00:45:35,736 --> 00:45:39,188
radiate greens of every hue
and delicious harmony”.

399
00:45:40,624 --> 00:45:44,678
“Blackbirds, wood pigeons,
and smaller birds, frolic on the lawn".

400
00:45:46,274 --> 00:45:50,712
And he concludes: "Over there;
in Verdun and the Somme,

401
00:45:50,848 --> 00:45:54,020
thousands of brave young men are dying”.

402
00:46:09,176 --> 00:46:13,135
In September at the Somme,
the British unveiled a new weapon,

403
00:46:13,199 --> 00:46:17,780
capable of piercing the barbed wire
and opening the way for the infantry.

404
00:46:18,456 --> 00:46:24,294
To mislead enemy spies, they refer to
these armored assault vehicles as tanks.

405
00:46:35,303 --> 00:46:38,437
At first,
the Germans are terrified by the tanks,

406
00:46:38,501 --> 00:46:42,209
but slow and vulnerable and
deployed in too small numbers,

407
00:46:42,273 --> 00:46:45,900
the early models prove easy
targets for enemy artillery.

408
00:46:52,706 --> 00:46:55,614
And day after day the carnage continues.

409
00:46:59,832 --> 00:47:03,520
The troops of the Somme question
their leaders’ intractability.

410
00:47:07,824 --> 00:47:10,919
As a result, 50,000 Frenchmen die.

411
00:47:11,133 --> 00:47:17,072
Overall 130,000 British troops also fall,
including 23,000 Australians,

412
00:47:17,136 --> 00:47:22,473
8,000 New Zealanders,
30,000 South African, 24,000 Canadians,

413
00:47:22,537 --> 00:47:26,863
and every single volunteer from the
then independent Dominion of Newfoundland,

414
00:47:27,865 --> 00:47:30,652
as well as 160,000 Germans.

415
00:47:45,485 --> 00:47:48,160
On November 18, 1916,

416
00:47:48,297 --> 00:47:52,264
the French and British announce the end
of the bloody battle of the Somme,

417
00:47:52,328 --> 00:47:54,828
which has lasted five months.

418
00:47:58,886 --> 00:48:03,539
They have advanced only 10 miles(16km) and
reoccupied some German trenches,

419
00:48:03,603 --> 00:48:07,368
where they take prisoners,
either exhausted or death from the shelling.

420
00:48:14,225 --> 00:48:17,892
Here, in Courcelette,
the German prisoners and their captors,

421
00:48:17,956 --> 00:48:22,144
French Canadians of the Van Doos,
briefly put the war behind them.

422
00:48:29,207 --> 00:48:34,595
A German doctor, Georg Batlin, of
the 26 infantry division writes:

423
00:48:34,746 --> 00:48:38,930
“It is inconceivable that this horrible
fighting can continue much longer”.

424
00:48:39,002 --> 00:48:41,619
“In the end, there will be no one left”.

425
00:48:42,140 --> 00:48:47,348
“But how can there be peace, when we are
intent on mowing down a whole generation

426
00:48:47,412 --> 00:48:49,912
in the flower of its youth?”

427
00:49:02,897 --> 00:49:07,772
In the spring of the following year,
after the disastrous offensive,

428
00:49:07,836 --> 00:49:12,287
known as the “Chemin des Dames”,
French troops by the thousands

429
00:49:12,351 --> 00:49:18,242
will refuse to move up to the front line which
they know is a direct route to a mass grave.

430
00:49:29,378 --> 00:49:34,423
In the prisonlike universe of the trenches,
the men smoke nonstop

431
00:49:34,487 --> 00:49:37,069
to mask the odor of rotting flesh,

432
00:49:38,165 --> 00:49:41,542
and they vent their despair with
the song “La Chanson de Craonne”,

433
00:49:41,697 --> 00:49:45,687
named after the village where hundreds
of their fellow soldiers were killed.

434
00:49:48,749 --> 00:49:54,396
Farewell to life, farewell to love,
Farewell to all women.

435
00:49:56,543 --> 00:50:02,466
It's all over now, we are done
for good with this awful war.

436
00:50:04,953 --> 00:50:10,682
It’s in Craonne,
upon the hill that we must meet our maker,

437
00:50:11,934 --> 00:50:16,754
cos we are all sentenced to die,
we've all been sacrificed.

438
00:50:28,406 --> 00:50:33,708
On June 15, 1917,
at the court-martial of the 17th division,

439
00:50:33,772 --> 00:50:37,262
one of the French mutineers is
found guilty of having said:

440
00:50:38,633 --> 00:50:43,106
“We need to end the war not through victory,
but through revolution”.

441
00:50:48,049 --> 00:50:53,170
Revolution which has already
broken out in Russia in February 1917,

442
00:50:53,954 --> 00:50:56,659
the Russian soldiers have also mutinied.

443
00:50:58,576 --> 00:51:01,146
The Czar has been driven out.

444
00:51:02,056 --> 00:51:04,991
Will the revolution
mean an end to this war?

445
00:51:05,895 --> 00:51:10,374
Who can put an end to this inferno,
when it is fanned by so many forces

446
00:51:10,438 --> 00:51:12,938
and so much rage?

447
00:51:16,938 --> 00:51:32,938
TIMING & TRANSCRIPTION danel32
/eng. to.est@gmail.com/