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MILITARY DRUMBEAT

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OMINOUS MUSIC

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At three in the afternoon of May 7th, 1915,

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a rocket was fired high into the sky off the southwest coast of Ireland.

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It summoned the crew of the local lifeboat.

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A passenger ship had been spotted in distress on the horizon.

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The lifeboat of 1915 had no engine.

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It was powered by 12 strong volunteers,

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who, as they rowed, prayed,

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because they reckoned it would take at least three hours

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to reach the scene of the disaster.

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They were met with a horrifying sight.

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In the water, were hundreds of bodies

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and the wreckage of a vast ocean liner.

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The Lusitania had left New York six days earlier

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loaded with British and American passengers.

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She was the fastest ocean-going liner in the world...

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..a floating five-star hotel.

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The Lusitania was expected in Liverpool later that afternoon.

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But she would never reach her destination.

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The ship was the victim not of natural disaster,

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but of an unprecedented act of war...

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..by a German submarine.

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When Kapitan Walther Schwieger fired his torpedo from his U-boat,

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the U20, he scored a direct hit

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on the most famous ocean-going liner in the world.

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And, in so doing, he signalled the start of a new kind of warfare -

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a warfare which made no distinction between those who wore a uniform

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and those who didn't,

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between men and women,

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or between adults and children.

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Almost 1,200 people were murdered.

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It was the biggest single maritime disaster of the First World War.

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The bodies of the dead were brought ashore

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and laid on the quayside among the tins of paint

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and the coils of rope, while survivors searched

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desperately among them to try to identify missing relatives.

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One mother posted a notice in a shop window over there.

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It read, "Lusitania - missing baby, 15 months,

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"very fair, curly hair, rosy complexion...

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"tries to talk and walk."

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For the first time in the nation's history,

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ordinary people were being dragged into total war.

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This is the story of how that conflict transformed the lives

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of everyone in Britain.

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Each man and woman would have to play their part,

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and the nation would have to change utterly, and change quickly,

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to have any hope of victory.

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THEME MUSIC PLAYS

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BIRDSONG

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CROW CAWS

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Bodies of the dead from the Lusitania

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were washing up on the Irish coast for weeks afterwards.

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144 of the victims are buried in mass graves

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in this single cemetery.

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It was the fact that so many of the victims were women,

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so many of them were children, so many of them were babies,

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that really angered people.

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The sinking of the Lusitania seemed to bring war

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to a new level of barbarism, and ever closer to home.

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The reaction in Britain to the sinking of the Lusitania

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was instant and violent.

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Mobs surged through the streets

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smashing any remotely German-sounding property.

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In London, there were anti-German riots in the East End...

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..but public outrage provided the Government with an unexpected boost.

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It acted as a recruiting sergeant for Britain's volunteer army.

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The Secretary for War and hero of Empire Lord Kitchener

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pleaded for thousands more volunteers to go to fight

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in France and Belgium.

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But, at the front,

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nine months of heavy fighting had failed to drive out the Germans.

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The two sides faced each other along a line of trenches

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stretching almost 500 miles.

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In this new kind of industrial warfare,

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there was one thing the army needed even more than it needed soldiers.

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It needed munitions -

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guns...

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bullets...

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and shells.

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But despairing frontline commanders

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claimed they were being supplied

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with the wrong kind of shells - simply not powerful enough

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to destroy well-built enemy defences.

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The shocking truth was exposed not in Parliament,

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but in the popular press.

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The patriotic Daily Mail decided it was time to break ranks,

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launching a sensational attack on the War Secretary,

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Lord Kitchener, himself.

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On May 21st, 1915, a fortnight after the Lusitania,

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the Daily Mail published an editorial.

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"The Tragedy of the Shells - Lord Kitchener's grave error."

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It alleged that the British government had sent the wrong kind

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of shells to the Western Front and thereby caused the deaths

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of British servicemen.

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Now, it doesn't look very much on the page,

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but, in the context of the time, this was a sensational accusation,

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because it maintained that the British government

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had been directly responsible for the deaths of its own citizens.

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The shells scandal raised an alarming question -

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were Britain's ruling class up to the job of winning the war?

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The reputation of Kitchener would never really recover.

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He was forced to make way for the man who, more than any other,

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saw that, to achieve victory,

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Britain itself would have to be transformed.

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David Lloyd George, the newly created Minister of Munitions,

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was a different sort of politician.

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A Welshman with the common touch...

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a passionate speaker...

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a wily deal maker...

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and the country's future Prime Minister.

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From now on, in many ways, it would be Lloyd George's war.

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Well, he was

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an exceptional man in his own time.

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And I think his great thing was that he had the foresight

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to think strategically ahead and to get things moving,

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and to mobilise the whole workforce in the country.

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He had a different imagination

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of how the war could be fought, didn't he?

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Yes. He did actually have two sons

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fighting in the front line in the war.

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My Uncle Dick was a sapper and my father Gwilym was a gunner.

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They were actually at the front throughout the war.

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They would come back on leave to Downing Street

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and he'd get first-hand information

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about what things were like in the war.

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And I think he saw very quickly that the way to increase

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supplies of shells, and things like that,

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was to harness businesspeople who were used to doing things,

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and were used to doing them to a timetable.

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He really was the man for the job, wasn't he? Yes.

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He had the vision, and he had the strategy,

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and he had the determination.

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Lloyd George needed every worker in Britain on side.

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But there could never be enough of them to produce

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the amount of munitions the country needed to fight a modern war.

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He'd have to mobilise a new workforce -

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a new industrial army -

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the women of Britain.

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The trouble was, some of the women in Britain

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saw the Government as their sworn enemy.

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The suffragettes wanted the vote for women

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and had made serious trouble before the war to get it.

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The Government had so far refused.

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But Lloyd George saw that women's rights

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and winning the war could be one and the same cause.

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He set up a meeting with the notorious leader

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of the suffragettes, Emmeline Pankhurst.

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She had just finished a jail sentence for a bomb attack -

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a bomb attack on his own house.

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Pinfold Manor was the country home

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Lloyd George had just built

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for himself in the Surrey stockbroker belt.

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Shortly before the outbreak of war,

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a bomb tore through the house, wrecking five rooms.

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The job of the police was made easy

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when hat pins were found at the scene.

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Emmeline Pankhurst and her suffragettes owned up to the attack.

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They got in through this very tiny window.

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It is tiny, isn't it? Absolutely minute.

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There were two bombs, I believe -

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one which went off, and one which didn't.

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I think there were three... Three?! ..and one went off and two didn't.

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Wow. Had they gone off, probably more would have been damaged.

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Lucky, otherwise you'd have nowhere to live, would you? True.

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When asked why she had done it, Pankhurst replied, "To wake him up!"

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that is, to frighten the Government into giving women the vote.

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Fortunately for Lloyd George, he'd yet to move in.

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But now there was a war on. It was time for the suffragette bomber

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and the government minister to cut a deal.

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These were strange days and no time to be bearing a grudge

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over a little matter like someone trying to blow your house up.

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Lloyd George wanted women for the war effort,

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and Emmeline Pankhurst wanted women to have the vote.

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MUSIC: "The March Of The Women"

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# Life! Strife... #

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They would eventually get it,

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though they'd have to wait till the war was almost over.

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A mere few weeks after the meeting,

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Emmeline Pankhurst fulfilled her side of the bargain.

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On July 17th, 1915, she led 30,000 women down London's Embankment

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to demand a place in the struggle for victory.

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It was called the Women's Right to Serve March.

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What few people knew was that the Government was paying for it.

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# ..Shoulder to shoulder and friend to hand... #

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Many of those watching did so in horror.

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These marching women,

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with their strident demands and their noisy voices,

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did not conform to the traditional idea of femininity.

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But those watching would be astonished,

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because this was the start of the biggest social revolution

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of modern times.

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Women in the workforce were nothing new.

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But now women began to do jobs which only men had done.

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Suddenly, Britain began to look very different...

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..on the streets...

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in the fields...

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and in the factories.

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The biggest change in the fortunes of women

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would take place in a strange, sometimes frightening, new world.

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In 1915, this was one of the most dangerous places in Britain.

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It's pretty hard to believe now, but this peaceful place was once alive

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with 6,000 people making explosives for the armies on the front.

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These strange structures were designed

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to withstand accidental blasts.

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To mix the high explosive nitroglycerine.

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To make cordite, providing the bang that powered shells and bullets.

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For some, it wasn't the work that came as a shock,

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it was the accents.

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"Frankly, I didn't care for my companions,"

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said one middle class woman.

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"They struck me as rough, ill-natured, loud-voiced,

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"vulgar little hussies."

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But she added,

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"Within a week, I had come to like them and, finally, to love them."

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They were known as munitionettes.

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The ones who worked at the Royal Gunpowder Mills

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formed just a part of the million strong female workforce

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employed by Lloyd George's new Ministry of Munitions.

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The experience was exciting, new and dangerous.

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Inevitably, there were casualties.

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This is a photo of a woman called Charlotte Mead,

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mother of five children, with a husband fighting in France.

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It's taken in a photographer's studio,

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where she's posing in munitions factory overalls.

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It's probably just as well it's in black and white,

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because working in close contact with high explosives

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could do terrible things to you.

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It could, for example, turn your skin yellow.

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Within a year of this photograph being taken,

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she was dead of toxic jaundice.

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Not that you could have read about it in the newspapers,

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because the press was banned from reporting such things.

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By the time her husband returned from the front, it was too late.

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The need for bullets, guns and shells was almost insatiable

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in this relentless, total war.

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Meeting that need involved the most dramatic

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transformation of production the country had ever seen.

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Lloyd George's impact on the munitions industry was spectacular.

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Within six months, the number of shells being manufactured

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had increased 20-fold.

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Weapons, which had previously taken a year to manufacture,

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were now being turned out in three weeks.

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There would be no more shell scandals.

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But, for Lloyd George, this was just the beginning.

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"An undisciplined nation," he said,

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"was fighting the best disciplined country in the world."

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Every person in Britain had to dedicate themselves

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to winning the war.

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Starting in the pub.

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# Another little drink Another little drink

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# Another little drink wouldn't do us any harm... #

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Hangovers were harming the war effort.

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"Workers who drank," said Lloyd George,

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"were murdering men in the trenches."

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So brewers were ordered to water the beer,

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00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:12,000
pubs to limit opening hours,

258
00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:15,000
and public figures - including the King -

259
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:17,000
pledged to give up drink till the war was over.

260
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:20,000
# ..Another little drink wouldn't do us any harm. #

261
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:24,000
Under the No Treating rule,

262
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:28,000
it became an offence to buy a drink for someone else.

263
00:20:29,000 --> 00:20:34,000
A man in Southampton was fined for buying his wife a glass of wine.

264
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:36,000
So was his wife.

265
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:38,000
So was the barmaid.

266
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:43,000
Britain was learning to do as it was told.

267
00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:49,000
Or much of it was.

268
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:53,000
For not everyone was so ready to knuckle down to government demands.

269
00:20:55,000 --> 00:20:58,000
On the banks of the Clyde, a crisis was brewing

270
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:01,000
that threatened the very conduct of the war itself.

271
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:10,000
The Clyde shipyards were at the heart of the war effort.

272
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:16,000
From here came battle cruisers, destroyers,

273
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:19,000
minesweepers and merchant ships.

274
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:26,000
The shipbuilders of the Clyde were skilled,

275
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:30,000
comparatively well paid and militant.

276
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:33,000
And they weren't impressed by the Government telling them

277
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:37,000
the nation had to pull together in a spirit of sacrifice.

278
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:41,000
They saw the bosses doing very well out of the war.

279
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:50,000
Because, to some people, the war was less about sacrifice

280
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:52,000
and suffering than it was about an opportunity

281
00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:54,000
to make money, a lot of money.

282
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:57,000
There were uniforms to be made, guns to be assembled,

283
00:21:57,000 --> 00:21:59,000
ships to be built.

284
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:02,000
Some engineering firms saw their profits really soar,

285
00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:06,000
and some workers weren't prepared to put up with that.

286
00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:12,000
They called it profiteering.

287
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:15,000
But when workers on the Clyde threatened to strike,

288
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:16,000
there was outrage.

289
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,000
Lloyd George went to meet them.

290
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:23,000
Talk of patriotic duty fell on deaf ears.

291
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:29,000
Strikers sang the Red Flag and told him to get his hair cut.

292
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:34,000
The Government's patience snapped.

293
00:22:34,000 --> 00:22:37,000
The ringleaders were arrested under the Defence of The Realm Act -

294
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:41,000
an emergency law designed to muzzle anyone undermining the war effort.

295
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:45,000
The strike collapsed.

296
00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:50,000
A century later, the episode still evokes

297
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:53,000
powerful feelings from local trade unionists,

298
00:22:53,000 --> 00:22:57,000
like Davie Torrance and Davie Cooper.

299
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:00,000
There would be many people, and it was said, that it was an act of

300
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:05,000
disloyalty for the trade unionists to start being difficult,

301
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:10,000
disrupting things, making demands that were not very readily met,

302
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:11,000
certainly by the employers,

303
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:14,000
and there was a lot of public resistance too, wasn't there?

304
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:16,000
Indeed. There was a feeling there that it wasn't our war,

305
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:20,000
it was the bosses trying to carve out more capital for themselves.

306
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:23,000
That was the feeling. But vast numbers of people did volunteer.

307
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,000
Well, people got conned.

308
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:29,000
They're still conning people to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.

309
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:30,000
The point, of course,

310
00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:33,000
the people who wished to continue with the war,

311
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,000
to a great extent, were profiteers

312
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,000
and racketeers, in many cases.

313
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:41,000
So, therefore, to say that we were less than patriotic

314
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,000
I don't think is quite correct.

315
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:47,000
You really think that the ruling classes unnecessarily

316
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:50,000
prolonged the war so that some people could make money out of it?

317
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:54,000
Yeah. Yep. It's a fair assumption.

318
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:58,000
I get the strong impression talking to you two that you actually

319
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:01,000
think that these guys who caused this industrial disruption,

320
00:24:01,000 --> 00:24:03,000
about which the Government was extremely

321
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:06,000
exercised during the First World War,

322
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:08,000
because of the dangers they saw to the war effort,

323
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:11,000
that these guys are actually heroes of yours?

324
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:12,000
Definitely. Obviously. Definitely. No?!

325
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,000
Political and industrial heroes. Yeah.

326
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:17,000
You were difficult buggers, weren't you? Aye, absolutely.

327
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:19,000
Very well-organised, difficult buggers.

328
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:21,000
THEY LAUGH

329
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:29,000
The Government had acted tough with the striking shipbuilders...

330
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,000
and won.

331
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,000
But the pressure of war allowed - indeed, compelled -

332
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:37,000
politicians to intervene even further in the lives

333
00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:38,000
of British citizens,

334
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:41,000
including where they were to live.

335
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,000
Men and women flooding into the shipyards

336
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:55,000
and factories of Glasgow needed homes.

337
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:03,000
In these rented tenements, families lived crammed together,

338
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,000
eight families to a block.

339
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:09,000
The fathers, husbands and sons worked in the shipyards,

340
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,000
or were now away fighting at the front.

341
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:15,000
With demand high, and the menfolk away,

342
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:19,000
the landlords saw their chance.

343
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,000
What better opportunity to raise the rents?

344
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:30,000
The results were devastating.

345
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:35,000
Families who had lived for years in this tightly-knit community

346
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,000
now faced being uprooted.

347
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:54,000
One woman decided she wasn't going to have it.

348
00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:00,000
Mary Barbour was a 40-year-old mother of two

349
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,000
and a pillar of the local Socialist Sunday School.

350
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:09,000
She decided to organise a campaign of resistance - a rent strike.

351
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,000
Soon, over 20,000 Glasgow tenants

352
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:18,000
were refusing to pay the rent increases.

353
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:22,000
They quickly became known as Mrs Barbour's Army.

354
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:29,000
It wasn't long before some of them

355
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,000
ended up in court.

356
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:38,000
On the morning of the 17th November, 1915,

357
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:42,000
an enormous crowd of women and children from the tenements

358
00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:47,000
had gathered here outside the Sheriff's Court in Glasgow.

359
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:51,000
Inside, 18 defendants were on trial for refusing to pay

360
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,000
the increase in their rents.

361
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:57,000
Mrs Barbour's Army had been joined by a new influx of recruits -

362
00:26:57,000 --> 00:27:00,000
men from the factories and shipyards -

363
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:03,000
determined to force a confrontation.

364
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:12,000
The crowd carried placards which caught the eyes of the press.

365
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,000
The last thing the Government wanted were pictures

366
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,000
of the families of soldiers being thrown out on the street.

367
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,000
The crowd was getting restless, and the Sheriff was worried.

368
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,000
He telephoned London and got through

369
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,000
to the Minister of Munitions, Lloyd George.

370
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,000
"The workers have left the factories", he said,

371
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:38,000
"they are threatening to pull down Glasgow. What am I to do?"

372
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:41,000
Lloyd George's response was instant -

373
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:43,000
"Stop the case.

374
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:46,000
"A Rent Restriction Act will be introduced."

375
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:48,000
There was wild cheering in the streets.

376
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:56,000
Tenants would now be protected from exploitation by landlords,

377
00:27:56,000 --> 00:27:59,000
and rents fixed at pre-war levels.

378
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:04,000
It was one of the most important laws of modern times.

379
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,000
Once again, the war had forced government

380
00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,000
to intervene in the lives of British citizens.

381
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,000
It had put women into the workplace,

382
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,000
it had made laws about strikes,

383
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:20,000
it had even determined what and when people could drink,

384
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:23,000
and now it was making a law about what they paid

385
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:26,000
to keep a roof over their heads.

386
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:28,000
A social revolution was under way.

387
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:37,000
But whatever the Government might do for families at home,

388
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:40,000
for men at the front, it could do almost nothing.

389
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:46,000
The war had ground to a deadly stalemate.

390
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:51,000
Life in the trenches was muddy and miserable.

391
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,000
Rats and lice were everywhere,

392
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,000
food was usually cold,

393
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:04,000
and feet were rarely dry.

394
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:12,000
The air was heavy with the smell of explosives, death and decay.

395
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:22,000
The trenches were intended to protect you from bullets.

396
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,000
Artillery shells were another matter altogether.

397
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:33,000
A direct hit on a trench meant scorchingly hot metal,

398
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:38,000
shards of wood, earth and body parts flying everywhere.

399
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:41,000
One soldier recalled making his way along a trench

400
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:43,000
when a shell landed behind him.

401
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:47,000
He looked back and he saw just a black hole

402
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,000
where, moments earlier,

403
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:53,000
a lance corporal had been boiling water in his mess tin.

404
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:11,000
In the muck and fear of the trenches,

405
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,000
a new sort of family was formed.

406
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:18,000
A corporal and a few men in a trench were like survivors

407
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:20,000
from a shipwreck on a raft,

408
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:22,000
was the way one veteran remembered it.

409
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:26,000
# Oh, how I want you

410
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:31,000
# Dear old pal of mine... #

411
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:35,000
The extended family was the few dozen men in your platoon.

412
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,000
And the father figure - the lieutenant.

413
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:43,000
This was usually a boy of no more than 19 or so.

414
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,000
As in the factories back home,

415
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,000
the war was creating - if briefly -

416
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,000
a new kind of society,

417
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,000
bringing together people who'd scarcely been aware

418
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:03,000
of each other's existence.

419
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:12,000
It was the responsibility of young officers in their dugouts to read

420
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:16,000
and, if necessary, to censor their men's letters home.

421
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,000
As a lieutenant in the trenches, the future Prime Minister

422
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:26,000
Harold Macmillan described the effect of reading their mail.

423
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:33,000
"Dear Mother, are you on the drink again?

424
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:36,000
"Uncle George says the children are in a shocking state."

425
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:42,000
Macmillan found the task brought him much closer to his men.

426
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:45,000
"They have very big hearts, these soldiers," he said.

427
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:49,000
"It is very moving to read all their letters home."

428
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,000
Before battles, soldiers wrote home

429
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,000
for what they knew might be the last time.

430
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:00,000
One was John Scollen,

431
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,000
a miner from Durham who had volunteered with his friends

432
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:05,000
early in the war.

433
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:11,000
"We are about to attack those awful Germans.

434
00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:15,000
"If it's God's Holy will that I should fall,

435
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:19,000
"I shall have done my duty to King and country."

436
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:22,000
"Dear Tina, you have been a good wife and mother,

437
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:25,000
"and brought up our canny bairns,

438
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,000
"whom I'm sure will be a credit to both of us.

439
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:32,000
"My Joe, Jack, Tina and Aggie,

440
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,000
"not forgetting my bonny twins Nora and Hugh,

441
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:39,000
"and my flower baby, whom I have only had the great pleasure

442
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,000
"of seeing once.

443
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:45,000
"I know these are hard words to receive,

444
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,000
"but God's will be done.

445
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:54,000
"From your faithful husband, soldier and father, John Scollen.

446
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,000
"Goodbye, my loved ones. Don't cry."

447
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:07,000
DISTANT EXPLOSIONS

448
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:10,000
Five days later, John Scollen was killed in battle.

449
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,000
His body was never found.

450
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:35,000
By the end of 1915,

451
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:39,000
British forces had suffered almost half a million dead

452
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:44,000
and wounded for no significant military advantage.

453
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,000
How, then, was the war to be won?

454
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:02,000
The answer to some seemed obvious.

455
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:06,000
There were still nearly two million men of fighting age

456
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:09,000
who HADN'T volunteered.

457
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:12,000
Why should some risk their lives at the front,

458
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:14,000
while others stayed at home?

459
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:19,000
Any man who wouldn't volunteer to fight should be made to fight.

460
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:22,000
In other words, conscription.

461
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:28,000
But compulsory military service went against the grain of the British

462
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:32,000
way of doing things, of respect for individual freedoms.

463
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:34,000
Never before in the nation's history

464
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:38,000
had the law compelled men to fight in war.

465
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:45,000
But never had the nation been in such desperate straits.

466
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:52,000
In January 1916, men aged between 19 and 40

467
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,000
were ordered to turn up at their local recruiting office.

468
00:34:57,000 --> 00:35:01,000
Failure to attend would be seen as desertion.

469
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,000
The authorities began to round up

470
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,000
men of military age in public places.

471
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:13,000
At one London station, passengers found the exits blocked

472
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,000
and taxis nowhere to be seen.

473
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:19,000
Those without the right papers were taken away and questioned.

474
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:26,000
But getting the dreaded call-up papers

475
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:28,000
wasn't always the end of the story.

476
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,000
All over Britain, tribunals of local worthies

477
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:46,000
heard appeals from anyone who felt they had a right to stay at home.

478
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:52,000
Over a million men - more than half the number called up -

479
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:55,000
took the opportunity to plead their case.

480
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,000
Presiding over the tribunal in Preston

481
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,000
was the Mayor, Harry Cartmell.

482
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:11,000
According to the law, anyone doing essential work was excused.

483
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,000
But what exactly was essential?

484
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:20,000
The Preston tribunal heard an application from a man

485
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:23,000
who gave his occupation as tripe dresser.

486
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:28,000
The man told Mayor Cartmell that he supposed the tribunal would accept

487
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,000
that tripe, and pig's trotters and cow's heels,

488
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,000
were items of food.

489
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:37,000
The Mayor nodded. "We go for that, certainly," he said.

490
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:42,000
The man went on - "In fact, they're essential foods."

491
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,000
The Mayor wouldn't have any of that, though.

492
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:47,000
The man protested.

493
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:51,000
"But tripe and onions is a most useful dish," he said.

494
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,000
"Delicious, I am told," said the Mayor,

495
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:56,000
"but hardly essential."

496
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:01,000
The tripe dresser was sent off to war.

497
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:05,000
But tribunal verdicts varied widely.

498
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,000
The men who looked after the horses of the Atherstone Hunt

499
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:13,000
were exempted because the country needed a good supply of horses.

500
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:18,000
Men who staffed bathing huts in one seaside town were exempted

501
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:22,000
because they were said to promote public health.

502
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:27,000
Corset makers claimed that "Ladies must have corsets."

503
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:30,000
"The Army must have men," came the reply.

504
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:35,000
There were some heart-breaking cases too.

505
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,000
A widow appeared before one committee to argue that her

506
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:41,000
11th son should be exempted.

507
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:44,000
Of the ten elder brothers,

508
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:46,000
five had already been wounded,

509
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:49,000
two were prisoners in Germany,

510
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:51,000
and one a prisoner in Turkey.

511
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:53,000
The request was granted.

512
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:00,000
About a third of the men who asked not to serve

513
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:04,000
were granted exemption, if only for a few months.

514
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:11,000
But there were some - around 16,000 in all -

515
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,000
who claimed that any kind of killing was wrong,

516
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,000
and they simply refused to serve.

517
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:21,000
Conscientious objectors - or 'conchies',

518
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:25,000
as they were mockingly called - weren't exactly popular.

519
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:29,000
Angry mobs raided their meetings.

520
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,000
They were accused of being soft on the Hun.

521
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:38,000
They were routinely ridiculed in the press.

522
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:49,000
Some of the conscientious objectors got pretty short shrift.

523
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:53,000
"You are a coward and a cad," one was told,

524
00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:57,000
"nothing but a shivering mass of unwholesome fat!"

525
00:38:57,000 --> 00:39:02,000
But it seems to me remarkable that a country which considered

526
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:06,000
itself in the grips of a struggle for national survival

527
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:09,000
nonetheless allowed individual citizens to decide

528
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:11,000
whether they could reconcile that struggle

529
00:39:11,000 --> 00:39:14,000
with their personal conscience.

530
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,000
It didn't happen elsewhere in Europe.

531
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,000
The authorities were faced with a new question -

532
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:28,000
what should be done with men who refused point-blank

533
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:30,000
to have anything to do with the war effort?

534
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:35,000
The answers were often confused, even chaotic.

535
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,000
In the spring of 1916,

536
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:44,000
a group of objectors was brought here,

537
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,000
to the medieval castle in Richmond.

538
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,000
Among them, was Norman Gaudie -

539
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,000
a young railway worker

540
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:59,000
and a forward with Sunderland Football Club reserves.

541
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:07,000
The group, who became known as the Richmond Sixteen,

542
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:11,000
included a member of the Church of England, Quakers,

543
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:14,000
Jehovah's Witnesses, a Methodist and a Baptist.

544
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:20,000
For several months, Gaudie and the rest of the Sixteen

545
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:22,000
were imprisoned in the castle.

546
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,000
Some objectors were prepared to go to the front

547
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:29,000
as ambulance drivers or labourers.

548
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:33,000
Gaudie and his companions were absolutists -

549
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:35,000
they refused absolutely

550
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,000
to have anything to do with war.

551
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:44,000
The cells still bear the evidence of their time here.

552
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:50,000
The story of Gaudie's arrival at the castle is remembered

553
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:51,000
by his daughter-in-law.

554
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:56,000
When he first came here,

555
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:59,000
it took eight soldiers

556
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,000
to try and get his uniform on

557
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,000
because he was a great sportsman. It was...

558
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,000
They were trying to get the uniform on him? Yes.

559
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:09,000
It was only his friend who said to him,

560
00:41:09,000 --> 00:41:13,000
"Well, that wasn't a very pacifist thing for you to do."

561
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:16,000
Do you know why he was such a vehement pacifist?

562
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:21,000
Because of his connection with the Church,

563
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:26,000
and he believed that the message of Jesus was not to kill

564
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:30,000
and to be friendly, to love one another.

565
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:33,000
But if I said to you he was just being awkward?

566
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:37,000
No, he really, genuinely believed

567
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:43,000
that it was absolutely wrong to kill another fellow human being.

568
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:48,000
And... What, even if it came at the price of your country being invaded?

569
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:54,000
At any price. He... That's how he felt.

570
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:58,000
And this seems to be a picture on the wall of his mother.

571
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:02,000
"N Gaudie's mother," it says here. Yes, yes, yes.

572
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,000
It's quite a good likeness, really.

573
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:05,000
Is it? Yes.

574
00:42:05,000 --> 00:42:10,000
His mother had sewn a little pocket

575
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:14,000
on his vest and put the photograph in it,

576
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:17,000
and that's how he came to have the photograph

577
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:19,000
of his mother with him.

578
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:23,000
And it's amazing how clear it still is, really. It is, isn't it?

579
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:25,000
100 years on, nearly.

580
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:35,000
But the Richmond Sixteen were yet to face their ultimate test.

581
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,000
They were ordered to France.

582
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:49,000
Here, once again, they refused absolutely to serve in any way.

583
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:55,000
But now they were under military discipline,

584
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:59,000
and the punishment for refusing to fight was death.

585
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:07,000
On a June morning, the men were marched onto a parade ground

586
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:09,000
in front of hundreds of troops.

587
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,000
They were led to a raised platform

588
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:18,000
and there, their sentences were read out to the assembled soldiers.

589
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:23,000
"The sentence of the court is to suffer death by being shot."

590
00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:27,000
There was a pause.

591
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:30,000
"Confirmed by the Commander in Chief."

592
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:32,000
There was another pause.

593
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:36,000
"Commuted to penal servitude for ten years."

594
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:43,000
It was a reprieve, but it was a reprieve most cruelly delivered.

595
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:53,000
When it came to it, shooting men for sticking to their principles

596
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,000
was a step too far for the Government.

597
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:06,000
Instead, absolutist objectors served out much of the rest of the war

598
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:08,000
in British jails.

599
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:17,000
To be honest, the extreme conscientious objectors

600
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:19,000
have always struck me as cranks.

601
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:23,000
The war was dreadful and it was bloody,

602
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:27,000
but unless Britain was prepared to see the rest of Europe

603
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:32,000
turned into some enormous German colony, it had to be fought.

604
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:34,000
And most British people saw that.

605
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:40,000
One by one, the great majority of those who needed persuading

606
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:44,000
had fallen into line to give their support for the war.

607
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:53,000
With few exceptions, the people of Britain saw the war as a just cause

608
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:56,000
and necessary for national survival.

609
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:07,000
But the most bitter resistance to the conflict was still to come.

610
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:09,000
There was one part of the realm

611
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:15,000
where the war would unleash opposition, bloodshed and death,

612
00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:18,000
and change the course of a nation's history.

613
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:30,000
In April 1916, much of the city of Dublin was reduced to ruins.

614
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:36,000
Not by German bombs, but as the result of fighting

615
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:40,000
between two forces supposedly on the same side -

616
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:44,000
the soldiers of Britain and Irish citizens.

617
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:51,000
Ireland in 1916 was part of the United Kingdom.

618
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:55,000
But many Irish people believed they had been living for generations

619
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,000
under foreign occupation.

620
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:02,000
Their watchword was that England's difficulty

621
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:04,000
was Ireland's opportunity.

622
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:10,000
Rebel leaders such as James Connolly

623
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:12,000
were prepared to turn to Germany for weapons.

624
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,000
The revolution started here.

625
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:27,000
On Easter Monday 1916, Connolly led a group of armed rebels

626
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:31,000
as they seized the General Post Office, symbol of colonial power.

627
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:37,000
Within hours, they had proclaimed the birth of the Irish Republic.

628
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:44,000
British troops surrounded the building and prepared for a siege.

629
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:50,000
On Wednesday, there was the sound of shelling,

630
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:53,000
because the British had brought a gunboat up the Liffey.

631
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:55,000
On Thursday, machine guns opened up

632
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,000
and James Connolly was hit in the ankle.

633
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:03,000
And then, on Friday, incendiary shells struck the building.

634
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:09,000
With the Post Office in ruins,

635
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,000
the rebels surrendered.

636
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:17,000
What became known as the Easter Rising had been crushed.

637
00:47:18,000 --> 00:47:21,000
Connolly and the other leaders were brought

638
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,000
to Kilmainham Gaol, in Dublin.

639
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:26,000
For the British authorities,

640
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:29,000
the rebels were simply traitors in time of war.

641
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:33,000
15 of them were executed by firing squad.

642
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:35,000
GUNFIRE

643
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:41,000
Mass arrests followed of anyone

644
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:43,000
suspected of being a rebel sympathiser.

645
00:47:45,000 --> 00:47:50,000
2,500 Irish people were sent to internment camps.

646
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:57,000
Reaction in Ireland was outraged,

647
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:02,000
and the executed nationalists became martyrs in the cause of freedom.

648
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:11,000
The Easter Rising had been a hopeless, scatterbrained failure.

649
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:15,000
But the British response - the executions, the mass arrests,

650
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:20,000
the internment without trial - had turned failure into triumph.

651
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:23,000
James Connolly and his comrades had been amateurish

652
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,000
and passionate and doomed,

653
00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:27,000
but they had made the cause

654
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:30,000
of Irish freedom from British rule unstoppable.

655
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:40,000
The executed rebels were buried in a British military prison cemetery,

656
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:44,000
now venerated as a national monument in independent Ireland.

657
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:49,000
So Connolly's buried here? Connolly's here.

658
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:51,000
'The grandson of one of the leaders

659
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:54,000
'testifies to their enduring influence.'

660
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:57,000
The first week of the Rising was a failure,

661
00:48:57,000 --> 00:49:00,000
but it was a significant political success,

662
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:04,000
so there's no harm in losing the battle if you win the war.

663
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:07,000
And if I were to say that your ancestors,

664
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:08,000
including your grandfather,

665
00:49:08,000 --> 00:49:12,000
were effectively on the side of the Germans, what would you say?

666
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,000
I'd say that nothing could be further from the truth.

667
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:18,000
The Irish people were on the side of the independence of this country.

668
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:23,000
They had to, obviously, get arms from somewhere

669
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:26,000
and the only people willing to give them arms were the Germans.

670
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:28,000
Do you think it's an exaggeration then to say

671
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:32,000
that the First World War MADE Ireland independent?

672
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:35,000
I think it's fair to say that the circumstances warranted a response

673
00:49:35,000 --> 00:49:37,000
of the British to the Rising.

674
00:49:37,000 --> 00:49:42,000
It did precipitate the independent Ireland we have today.

675
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:54,000
At the start of the war, Lloyd George had almost despaired

676
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:58,000
of what he had called his "undisciplined nation".

677
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:04,000
But by the summer of 1916, all that had changed.

678
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:11,000
Britain had become a machine for waging war.

679
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:16,000
Every factory and farm, every able-bodied man,

680
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:18,000
and millions of women too,

681
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:23,000
had been drawn into a titanic struggle to win the conflict.

682
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:26,000
But would it be enough?

683
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:29,000
The nation was about to find out.

684
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:40,000
July 1916.

685
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:46,000
The rolling landscape around the River Somme in northern France.

686
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,000
Here, Allied generals planned an attack

687
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:54,000
they hoped would decide the outcome of the war.

688
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:57,000
MILITARY DRUMS

689
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:06,000
Through May and June,

690
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:09,000
some three-quarters of a million Allied soldiers

691
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:11,000
gathered in preparation for an offensive,

692
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:15,000
massive in scale and ruthless in execution,

693
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:18,000
to end the stagnation of trench warfare.

694
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:24,000
Key to the plan was the destruction of German defences

695
00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:27,000
before Allied troops even left their trenches.

696
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,000
On June 24th 1916,

697
00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:41,000
the order was given to unleash the greatest artillery bombardment

698
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:43,000
the world had ever seen.

699
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:58,000
This was war on an industrial scale.

700
00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:01,000
Seven days and seven nights of bombardment

701
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:06,000
in which a million-and-a-half shells poured down on the Germans,

702
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:10,000
an apocalypse so violent it could be heard miles away,

703
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:14,000
across the Channel, in the English Home Counties.

704
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:24,000
But it wasn't over yet.

705
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:27,000
The climax of the bombardment was still to come.

706
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:32,000
Two minutes before the attack was set to begin,

707
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:35,000
there was one of the biggest man-made explosions

708
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:37,000
in the history of the world.

709
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:40,000
This is the result.

710
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:43,000
The British had spent six months tunnelling

711
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:45,000
beneath the German fortifications

712
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:49,000
and now, at 7.28 on 1st July,

713
00:52:49,000 --> 00:52:53,000
they detonated 30 tons of explosives.

714
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:58,000
The debris flew 4,000 feet into the air.

715
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:13,000
The generals were confident little could have survived the assault.

716
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:17,000
So confident, in fact, that there had been jokes

717
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:20,000
that all the troops would need to carry across no-man's-land

718
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:22,000
were their umbrellas.

719
00:53:31,000 --> 00:53:35,000
At dawn, on July 1st, the men were assembled

720
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:39,000
ready to clamber out of the trenches and go over the top.

721
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:42,000
Most of them were volunteers from Kitchener's Army,

722
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:45,000
including many from the so-called Pals battalions.

723
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:48,000
It was a glorious summer's day.

724
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:51,000
BIRDSONG

725
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:58,000
At 7.30, whistles blew along the whole of the front.

726
00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:01,000
WHISTLES BLOW

727
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:04,000
A football was kicked in the direction of the German trenches.

728
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:10,000
The Battle of the Somme was about to begin.

729
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:13,000
GUNFIRE

730
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:20,000
Wave after wave of soldiers marched towards the German trenches.

731
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:26,000
Among them were the 16th Battalion of the Royal Scots,

732
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:29,000
known as the McCraes -

733
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:32,000
a Pals battalion formed round the players and fans

734
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:34,000
of Heart of Midlothian Football Club.

735
00:54:36,000 --> 00:54:41,000
But what met them was not what they had been told to expect.

736
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:46,000
As the football fans marched on,

737
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,000
German guns took a terrible toll.

738
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:55,000
Thousands of British shells had failed to explode.

739
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:57,000
The enemy wire had barely been cut.

740
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:04,000
The Germans had had months to build their defences.

741
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:05,000
Their dugouts were deep,

742
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:07,000
many reinforced with concrete,

743
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:11,000
and a week of shelling had caused only partial damage.

744
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:17,000
As the day wore on,

745
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:22,000
the hope for decisive victory turned into decided disaster.

746
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:28,000
McCrae's Battalion came on steadily and bravely up the hill

747
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:30,000
and then, to their horror,

748
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:33,000
a German machine gun opened up on them from the side.

749
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:36,000
They fell in great numbers.

750
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:40,000
One survivor recalled the shock of seeing men he had looked up to

751
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:43,000
cut down in front of him.

752
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:45,000
His company sergeant major took a bullet,

753
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:49,000
fell to his knees and his last words were,

754
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:51,000
"Be brave, my boys."

755
00:55:51,000 --> 00:55:53,000
Then he fell forward, dead.

756
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,000
Andy Ramage, who was a printer,

757
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:09,000
had this photo taken of himself with his pal Frank Weston, a student.

758
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:14,000
Ramage was hit in the throat by flying shrapnel.

759
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:21,000
Weston was shot as he pulled him into a shell hole to protect him.

760
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:31,000
810 members of McCrae's Battalion went over the top that day.

761
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:37,000
576 were either killed or wounded.

762
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:42,000
By the end of that first day,

763
00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:50,000
the British Army had suffered a total 57,470 casualties.

764
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:53,000
A little ground had been taken,

765
00:56:53,000 --> 00:56:56,000
but there had been no breakthrough.

766
00:56:56,000 --> 00:57:00,000
It was the bloodiest day in the history of British warfare.

767
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:19,000
The Somme offensive dragged on for months.

768
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:21,000
It did eventually yield some gains,

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but they were bought at tremendous cost,

770
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:29,000
and the whole thing raised really troubling questions.

771
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:31,000
Were Britain's generals up to it?

772
00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:33,000
Were Britain's soldiers?

773
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:38,000
Could the country cope with losses on this sort of scale?

774
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:40,000
And bleakest of all -

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00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:42,000
how much longer was it going to go on?

776
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:57,000
Next time -

777
00:57:57,000 --> 00:58:00,000
German U-boats try to starve Britain into submission...

778
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:06,000
..an alleged pacifist plot to murder Lloyd George

779
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:08,000
lands this Derby family in prison,

780
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:14,000
and the state intervenes to police the sex lives of British citizens.

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00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:21,000
Explore the full story of World War I

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00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:25,000
at bbc.co.uk/ww1

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00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:28,000
or to order your free copy of the Open University's booklet

784
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:29,000
that accompanies this series,

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00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:34,000
telephone 0845 271 0016.