1 00:00:14,560 --> 00:00:20,320 In the autumn of 1916, two merciless years into the First World War, 2 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:22,960 there was one topic on everybody's lips. 3 00:00:24,360 --> 00:00:28,360 It wasn't a military crisis or a political scandal. 4 00:00:28,360 --> 00:00:30,200 It was a film. 5 00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:36,720 A cinema documentary called the Battle Of The Somme. 6 00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:43,280 The movie was the latest piece of Government propaganda 7 00:00:43,280 --> 00:00:47,560 to try to rally the British people behind the war. 8 00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:51,280 But this film was different from the usual patriotic newsreels. 9 00:00:53,080 --> 00:00:57,200 Here, for the first time, were scenes of real fighting, 10 00:00:57,200 --> 00:01:00,000 real bloodshed and real death. 11 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:06,280 Letting the British people see what was happening 12 00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:10,160 to their menfolk on the Western Front was a huge gamble. 13 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:12,920 Would it swing opinion behind the war? 14 00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:15,480 Or would they find the spectacle of modern combat 15 00:01:15,480 --> 00:01:18,640 so horrible that they'd demand it was ended? 16 00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:26,800 The film was seen by over 20 million people 17 00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:28,280 in just six weeks. 18 00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:32,920 The effect on audiences was electrifying. 19 00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:39,040 Men cheered the start of each assault. 20 00:01:39,040 --> 00:01:42,040 Women wept at the sight of the wounded. 21 00:01:47,640 --> 00:01:51,960 But it was this scene in particular that had the most dramatic effect. 22 00:01:56,280 --> 00:02:00,040 At the Electric Cinema in Droylsden, Lancashire, 23 00:02:00,040 --> 00:02:03,520 a woman leapt to her feet, pointing at the screen and crying, 24 00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:06,360 "That's Jim! That's my husband!" 25 00:02:07,880 --> 00:02:11,960 She'd just been told he'd been killed in the Battle of the Somme, 26 00:02:11,960 --> 00:02:14,680 leaving her a widow with nine children. 27 00:02:18,640 --> 00:02:21,240 There were some who thought that seeing 28 00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:24,320 British soldiers' suffering was grotesque. 29 00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:29,200 But most people felt a surge of pride and sympathy. 30 00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:35,320 One woman who saw the film in London had lost her brother at the Somme. 31 00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:40,640 She had tried many times to imagine what his last hours 32 00:02:40,640 --> 00:02:43,600 must have been like, and then she saw the film. 33 00:02:43,600 --> 00:02:47,560 She said, "Now I know and I shall never forget." 34 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:54,240 The gamble of showing people what was happening on the Western Front 35 00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:55,760 had paid off. 36 00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:05,240 The film would make people in Britain more committed 37 00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:07,000 to the war than ever. 38 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:12,440 And they would need every ounce of optimism 39 00:03:12,440 --> 00:03:14,480 and resolve they could muster. 40 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:19,600 They were about to enter the darkest hour the country had ever known. 41 00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:11,320 In February 1917, 42 00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:13,960 after more than two years of stalemate, 43 00:04:13,960 --> 00:04:16,560 the German High Command decided that 44 00:04:16,560 --> 00:04:18,840 if they couldn't defeat Britain's Army, 45 00:04:18,840 --> 00:04:21,480 they could crush her people. 46 00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:30,480 In the words of the German Kaiser - "We will starve the British people 47 00:04:30,480 --> 00:04:36,520 "who have refused peace until they kneel and plead for it." 48 00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:40,240 The plan was to sink the merchant shipping which brought the food 49 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:44,040 and supplies on which the country lived. 50 00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:47,480 The weapon would be the submarine - U-boats. 51 00:04:54,320 --> 00:04:58,160 On a desolate mud bank in the salt marshes of Kent lies 52 00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:02,120 the metal carcass of a First World War German U-boat. 53 00:05:13,560 --> 00:05:17,160 British ships were blockading German ports, 54 00:05:17,160 --> 00:05:21,440 but the U-boat was a new and terrifying way to wage war, 55 00:05:21,440 --> 00:05:24,480 and it came close to defeating Britain. 56 00:05:28,440 --> 00:05:33,200 The Germans knew that Britain imported two-thirds of her food 57 00:05:33,200 --> 00:05:35,600 and they made a simple calculation. 58 00:05:35,600 --> 00:05:40,080 If they sank 600,000 tons of merchant shipping every month, 59 00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:45,080 they could starve Britain into submission in a mere five months. 60 00:05:49,320 --> 00:05:52,760 So, on 1st February 1917, 61 00:05:52,760 --> 00:05:56,200 the Germans sent their U-boats in for the kill, 62 00:05:56,200 --> 00:06:00,080 ordering them to attack all merchant shipping supplying Britain. 63 00:06:01,520 --> 00:06:05,800 The devastation in the shipping lanes was catastrophic. 64 00:06:16,640 --> 00:06:23,200 In 1917, 46,000 tons of meat were sent to the bottom of the sea. 65 00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:29,160 Between February and June, 85,000 tons of sugar were also sunk. 66 00:06:29,160 --> 00:06:32,160 Flour and wheat were soon in short supply, 67 00:06:32,160 --> 00:06:36,400 and a stunned House of Commons was told that very soon 68 00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:38,960 Britain would not be able to feed herself. 69 00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:47,000 The U-boat stranglehold seemed unbreakable. 70 00:06:50,440 --> 00:06:57,440 Britain faced a stark choice - to grow much more food or to starve. 71 00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:01,640 But British farms were in crisis. 72 00:07:01,640 --> 00:07:05,920 Many farmhands were now at the Front, and so were the horses. 73 00:07:10,440 --> 00:07:13,000 So a new force was sent into the fields. 74 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:22,360 84,000 disabled soldiers, 30,000 German prisoners of war 75 00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:25,800 and over a quarter of a million British women. 76 00:07:31,640 --> 00:07:36,240 By the following year, over seven million extra acres had been dug up 77 00:07:36,240 --> 00:07:38,280 to grow more food. 78 00:07:44,160 --> 00:07:45,840 Well, it helped, 79 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:49,720 eventually yielding about a month's extra food each year. 80 00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:52,400 But that was still nothing like enough to make up 81 00:07:52,400 --> 00:07:55,760 for the thousands of tons being sent to the bottom of the sea 82 00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:57,640 by German U-boats. 83 00:07:57,640 --> 00:08:00,360 War was being waged on civilians, 84 00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:03,720 and it was up to civilians to save themselves. 85 00:08:13,960 --> 00:08:17,000 The order came to plough up Britain, 86 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:19,440 to hand over land to the people 87 00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:21,720 so they could provide for themselves. 88 00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:26,800 This strip of land was waste ground until 1917. 89 00:08:26,800 --> 00:08:30,200 Then it was dug up to provide cabbages, potatoes 90 00:08:30,200 --> 00:08:33,800 and marrows for a hungry nation. 91 00:08:37,080 --> 00:08:41,400 Armies of women, children and the elderly set about transforming 92 00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:44,480 the landscape of Britain's towns and cities. 93 00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:49,880 The nation had a new craze which the press called "allotmentitis". 94 00:08:53,760 --> 00:08:57,400 Before the war, allotments had been a hobby for eccentrics. 95 00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:02,480 By the end of the war, there were over 1.5 million of them 96 00:09:02,480 --> 00:09:06,400 squeezed into any scrap of earth that could be dug up, 97 00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:10,320 from grass verges to village greens to railway embankments. 98 00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:22,080 Even the Royals were at it. 99 00:09:23,440 --> 00:09:25,920 Here, in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, 100 00:09:25,920 --> 00:09:28,960 the King turned his herbaceous border over to turnips 101 00:09:28,960 --> 00:09:31,960 and other delights, and the same thing happened 102 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:33,800 in London's Royal Parks. 103 00:09:33,800 --> 00:09:37,120 If the daintiest fingers in the land could get earthy, 104 00:09:37,120 --> 00:09:39,080 well, so could anybody's. 105 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:45,440 But however many turnips left the gates of Buckingham Palace, 106 00:09:45,440 --> 00:09:48,280 one desperate shortage remained. 107 00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:53,200 Eight out of every ten loaves were made from imported wheat. 108 00:09:54,200 --> 00:09:57,960 The poor depended on bread, few of them could afford much else. 109 00:10:03,200 --> 00:10:07,560 In May 1917, the King issued a Royal Proclamation. 110 00:10:07,560 --> 00:10:11,280 Being a Royal Proclamation, it takes a bit of time to get going. 111 00:10:11,280 --> 00:10:14,800 "We, out of Our resolve to leave nothing undone 112 00:10:14,800 --> 00:10:19,000 "have thought it fit to issue this, most earnestly exhorting 113 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:24,400 "the men and women of Our realm to practise the greatest frugality 114 00:10:24,400 --> 00:10:28,080 "in the use of every species of grain." 115 00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:32,160 In other words, lay off the bread, the buns and the cake. 116 00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:34,480 The idea was that richer people, 117 00:10:34,480 --> 00:10:37,160 who could afford other kinds of food, 118 00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:40,080 should leave bread for the poor. 119 00:10:44,240 --> 00:10:49,280 The Government decided it was time to step into the nation's kitchens. 120 00:10:50,320 --> 00:10:54,200 The Win-The-War Cookery Book appealed to the middle classes 121 00:10:54,200 --> 00:10:58,360 to leave bread and other cheap ingredients to the less well-off. 122 00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:06,320 "To the women of Britain. The British struggle is not only 123 00:11:06,320 --> 00:11:10,360 "on land and sea. It is in YOUR larder, YOUR kitchen 124 00:11:10,360 --> 00:11:12,600 "and YOUR dining room. 125 00:11:12,600 --> 00:11:16,840 "Every meal you serve is now literally a battle." 126 00:11:22,200 --> 00:11:24,960 The chef Angela Hartnett has prepared 127 00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:27,440 some of the recipes from the win-the-war cook book. 128 00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:32,440 - What's that, Angela? - It's a fish chowder with bacon, potatoes, 129 00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:35,400 a little barley flour, cos we weren't allowed to use proper wheat, 130 00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:38,120 cos that's what the poor ate - they made bread, they used wheat 131 00:11:38,120 --> 00:11:40,960 as their base for their food and their staple diet. 132 00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:43,360 So they made sure the middle classes and the rich 133 00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:45,560 - were using other ingredients. - It IS good. 134 00:11:45,560 --> 00:11:49,360 - It's not bad, is it? - It's a little bit like 1917 MasterChef, mind you. 135 00:11:49,360 --> 00:11:52,720 The cook book suggests you use oysters, lobster, turbot, 136 00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:56,040 all these luxury ingredients, so the working poor were left with 137 00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:59,560 the cheaper fish, but the rich had to use all this stuff. 138 00:11:59,560 --> 00:12:03,760 So this is fried mush, which doesn't sound delightful. 139 00:12:03,760 --> 00:12:06,560 - The old English way with menus, eh? - Yeah, I know. 140 00:12:06,560 --> 00:12:10,160 You can see why we were considered a culinary capital of the world(!) 141 00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:12,360 But essentially, this is maize flour, 142 00:12:12,360 --> 00:12:15,440 and it would be something that could be savoury or sweet, 143 00:12:15,440 --> 00:12:17,760 but used for breakfast or as a dessert, 144 00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:21,800 so I'm going to serve it to you with a little bit of golden syrup. 145 00:12:21,800 --> 00:12:23,840 - That sounds like a threat. - No! 146 00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:26,720 So, what did you make of it as a cook book? 147 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:29,600 I thought it was actually very good, because one of the things 148 00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:32,480 I thought was brilliant about it, which you see all the way through, 149 00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:35,120 is there's very little waste. Like, they'd make a meat sauce, 150 00:12:35,120 --> 00:12:38,600 or roast meat, then they'd make soup out of it, a leftover pie. 151 00:12:38,600 --> 00:12:41,520 It was absolutely wasteless, which I thought was brilliant. 152 00:12:50,080 --> 00:12:54,120 But no amount of patriotic cook books could hide the fact 153 00:12:54,120 --> 00:12:56,400 that things were simply getting worse. 154 00:12:58,200 --> 00:13:00,440 The U-boat blockade was biting. 155 00:13:02,760 --> 00:13:08,160 In autumn 1917, shortages were so severe that huge queues formed 156 00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:10,120 outside butchers and grocers. 157 00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:15,400 In some cities, people looted the shops for food, 158 00:13:15,400 --> 00:13:18,240 breaking the windows and beating up the shop owners. 159 00:13:23,960 --> 00:13:27,360 Finally, the Food Controller had to think the unthinkable. 160 00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:29,240 "It may well be," he told a colleague, 161 00:13:29,240 --> 00:13:32,200 "that you and I are all that stands between this country 162 00:13:32,200 --> 00:13:33,840 "and revolution." 163 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:37,920 People would HAVE to be told what they could and couldn't eat. 164 00:13:37,920 --> 00:13:41,880 And so, in January 1918, rationing was brought in. 165 00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:46,120 Now, this was one person's ration for a week - 15oz of meat, 166 00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:51,160 5oz of bacon, 4oz of margarine and 8oz of sugar. 167 00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:57,240 # Keep the home fires burning 168 00:13:57,240 --> 00:14:01,600 # While your hearts are yearning... # 169 00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:06,080 This was the first time a British Government had ever rationed food. 170 00:14:06,080 --> 00:14:07,720 And it worked. 171 00:14:08,880 --> 00:14:11,760 The queues outside the shops disappeared. 172 00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:16,440 Rationing, allotments and a system of convoys to protect merchant ships 173 00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:18,760 kept starvation at bay. 174 00:14:22,960 --> 00:14:26,400 So this had become a war that was not just being fought 175 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:29,680 on the battlefields, but on every street in the land. 176 00:14:29,680 --> 00:14:32,760 A new term entered the language - the Home Front. 177 00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:36,280 And just as on the Western Front, there were cowards and deserters, 178 00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:38,360 so the question began to be asked - 179 00:14:38,360 --> 00:14:41,480 was everyone on the Home Front doing their bit? 180 00:14:41,480 --> 00:14:44,800 Was the burden being shared equally? 181 00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:59,360 As the hardships of 1917 bit deeper, neighbour began to spy on neighbour. 182 00:15:00,720 --> 00:15:04,440 An unlikely hate figure was smoked out in that quintessentially 183 00:15:04,440 --> 00:15:07,440 English town, Stratford-upon-Avon. 184 00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:14,000 It was a hugely successful romantic novelist, Marie Corelli. 185 00:15:16,800 --> 00:15:21,920 In October 1917, Corelli's neighbours watched as a grocer's van 186 00:15:21,920 --> 00:15:27,480 delivered box after box of sugar and tea here at her home, Mason Croft. 187 00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:33,800 In a time of shortage, hoarding was a serious crime. 188 00:15:34,960 --> 00:15:36,840 Someone tipped off the police. 189 00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:40,840 Stashed away in Marie's kitchen, 190 00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:46,440 a constable found 183lb of sugar and 43lb of tea. 191 00:15:48,880 --> 00:15:53,040 Marie Corelli told the constable exactly what she thought of him. 192 00:15:53,040 --> 00:15:56,640 "I'm a patriot, I wouldn't dream of hoarding," she said. 193 00:15:56,640 --> 00:15:59,760 "It's a fine thing when a woman cannot live in her own home 194 00:15:59,760 --> 00:16:03,040 "without being interfered with by a policeman. 195 00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:06,080 "There'll be a revolution in England within a week." 196 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:14,320 Well, the revolution never happened, 197 00:16:14,320 --> 00:16:17,240 and Marie Corelli was ordered to appear in court. 198 00:16:18,280 --> 00:16:20,320 She protested her innocence. 199 00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:23,680 The sugar, she said, was to make jam for the poor. 200 00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:28,720 It was no use. She was found guilty of hoarding. 201 00:16:28,720 --> 00:16:30,960 Her reputation was shredded. 202 00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:34,000 MUSIC: "Oh, It's A Lovely War" by The Jolly Old Fellows 203 00:16:39,400 --> 00:16:43,200 But some people really did seem to be having a lovely war. 204 00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:50,200 It was suspected that toffs were ignoring Government advice 205 00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:52,840 not to gorge themselves, 206 00:16:52,840 --> 00:16:55,360 and that restaurants were flouting restrictions 207 00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:57,280 on what they could serve. 208 00:17:03,160 --> 00:17:07,160 One evening, a reporter from the campaigning newspaper the Herald 209 00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:09,400 decided to put this to the test. 210 00:17:10,400 --> 00:17:13,640 He walked into one of London's leading hotels 211 00:17:13,640 --> 00:17:15,640 and ordered dinner. 212 00:17:19,120 --> 00:17:22,360 It was some feast - there were hors d'oeuvres, 213 00:17:22,360 --> 00:17:26,440 there was a rich soup, there was sole, there was lobster, 214 00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:30,800 there was chicken, there were three rashers of bacon and three tomatoes, 215 00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:33,400 fruit salad, coffee - each with lashings of cream - 216 00:17:33,400 --> 00:17:36,800 and the reporter managed to eat four bread rolls, though he said 217 00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:39,280 there were plenty more available had he wanted them, 218 00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:42,240 if he could've eaten any more. 219 00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:47,000 The next day the Herald ran a full-page splash on the story. 220 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:49,160 It caused a sensation. 221 00:17:49,160 --> 00:17:51,280 "There are whole circles of society," 222 00:17:51,280 --> 00:17:53,840 said one disgusted commentator, 223 00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:57,240 "in which the spirit of sacrifice is unknown." 224 00:17:59,040 --> 00:18:02,120 The Government line was, "We're all in this together." 225 00:18:02,120 --> 00:18:04,760 It obviously wasn't true. 226 00:18:04,760 --> 00:18:09,400 As a good campaigning journalist, the reporter noticed on his way out, 227 00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:14,720 "Three old women, huddled in rags, sheltering beneath the arches 228 00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:16,400 "in front of the hotel." 229 00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:26,880 It's little wonder that soldiers began to resent the comfortable life 230 00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:28,600 of some civilians. 231 00:18:30,240 --> 00:18:33,600 They saw at first hand what was going on at home. 232 00:18:33,600 --> 00:18:36,880 The Western Front was close enough for soldiers to return 233 00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:39,080 to Britain on leave. 234 00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:44,120 Many found these visits uncomfortable and upsetting. 235 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:49,680 These soldiers were often deeply distressed by the chasm 236 00:18:49,680 --> 00:18:52,440 between home and life on the Front. 237 00:18:52,440 --> 00:18:56,720 On a Monday, you might see your best friend blown to pieces. 238 00:18:56,720 --> 00:19:00,480 Home on leave on Thursday, you were having tea on the lawn. 239 00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:03,520 Life at home just seemed to carry on regardless. 240 00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:11,840 The soldier and writer Herbert Read 241 00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:14,120 was shocked by people's indifference. 242 00:19:14,120 --> 00:19:18,320 "They simply have no conception whatever," he wrote, 243 00:19:18,320 --> 00:19:20,920 "of what war really is like 244 00:19:20,920 --> 00:19:23,440 "and they don't seem concerned about it at all." 245 00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:28,760 Increasingly, many men no longer felt at home 246 00:19:28,760 --> 00:19:31,360 in the homes they were fighting to save. 247 00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:42,520 But civilians carried their own burdens, too. 248 00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:48,640 By 1917, every family in the land knew somebody who'd been killed. 249 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:52,920 Never before had such sorrow penetrated to 250 00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:55,040 the very heart of the nation. 251 00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:07,560 There was really no way you couldn't be aware of the toll 252 00:20:07,560 --> 00:20:11,040 that the war was taking because the deaths were published every morning 253 00:20:11,040 --> 00:20:13,000 in the Times newspaper. 254 00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:17,680 In this one, for example, there are two entire pages covered with 255 00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:22,960 very small type, giving the names of those who've died. 256 00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:25,480 143 officers 257 00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:30,960 and 5,770 privates, corporals and sergeants. 258 00:20:39,280 --> 00:20:43,080 Wives and mothers learned the news that would shatter their lives 259 00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:46,000 by opening a plain envelope like this. 260 00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:56,440 The envelope contained the form that every family learned to dread, 261 00:20:56,440 --> 00:21:00,200 Army Form B 104-82. 262 00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:05,240 "Dear Madam. It's my painful duty to inform you that a report 263 00:21:05,240 --> 00:21:08,120 "has this day been received from the War Office 264 00:21:08,120 --> 00:21:11,720 "notifying the death of..." - space for the number, space for the rank, 265 00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:14,480 space for the name and space for the regiment. 266 00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:18,400 "The cause of death was killed in action." 267 00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:22,000 A form is a horribly impersonal way to learn of anybody's death, 268 00:21:22,000 --> 00:21:26,200 but given the huge numbers of people who were being killed, 269 00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:28,800 there probably was no alternative. 270 00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:36,120 Soon after came a personal letter 271 00:21:36,120 --> 00:21:38,680 from the dead soldier's superior officer 272 00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:40,560 attempting to soften the blow. 273 00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:47,000 This is a letter written to the mother of John Enticknap, 274 00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:49,000 who was a village boy from Sussex. 275 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,800 It's written by his company commander in pencil 276 00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:53,360 in the trenches. 277 00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:59,480 "Dear Mrs Enticknap. It is with the sincerest feelings of regret 278 00:21:59,480 --> 00:22:03,640 "that I write to tell you of the death of your son. 279 00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:07,280 "I am well aware that anything that I can say will do little to assuage 280 00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:10,600 "the pain that you must feel at your loss, 281 00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:13,840 "but I'm sure it will be some slight comfort for you to know 282 00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:16,920 "that your son died gamely." 283 00:22:16,920 --> 00:22:20,840 And he finishes, "He stood out among his comrades 284 00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:25,520 "as a man who was without fear. I cannot say more." 285 00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:36,880 The war was subjecting the British people to pressure 286 00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:38,720 they had never known before. 287 00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:45,560 They were increasingly governed by fear. 288 00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:49,560 Fear of loss, fear of hunger. 289 00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:54,200 Some even feared a collapse of moral values. 290 00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:58,760 For there was a new and hidden danger on the streets 291 00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:00,880 and in the parks of Britain. 292 00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,080 DOG BARKS 293 00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:07,360 The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, 294 00:23:07,360 --> 00:23:10,160 wrote to the Times to warn of vile women 295 00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:14,320 who preyed on soldiers home on leave, luring them to their rooms, 296 00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:18,640 plying them with drink, and leaving them with a dose of disease. 297 00:23:27,360 --> 00:23:33,320 By 1917, it was believed there were 60,000 prostitutes in London alone. 298 00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:38,040 They found willing clients in young soldiers desperate to lose 299 00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:40,320 their virginity before it was too late. 300 00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:44,600 The consequences were predictable. 301 00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:50,680 It was estimated that at least 55,000 British soldiers 302 00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:53,200 were hospitalised with venereal disease. 303 00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:01,720 The Government decided that something had to be done. 304 00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:12,400 Worry about the damage being done to the war effort 305 00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:16,240 chimed with a general moral concern about what the war was doing 306 00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:21,080 to behaviour. But with so many policemen away at the Front, 307 00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:24,320 who was to keep vice off the streets? 308 00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:26,640 The answer was women. 309 00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:38,880 The Government had already employed hosts of women to do vital war work. 310 00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,560 Now they invited them to join the police to safeguard 311 00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:48,120 the nation's morals, and keep young soldiers away from temptation. 312 00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:57,320 By 1917, there were over 2,000 women's patrols 313 00:24:57,320 --> 00:24:59,160 up and down the country. 314 00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:06,600 The streets of Grantham in Lincolnshire were the regular beat 315 00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:08,400 of Edith Smith... 316 00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:11,640 ..the first woman to be sworn in 317 00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:14,160 as a member of the English police force. 318 00:25:16,360 --> 00:25:19,920 There was an enormous Army base just outside Grantham, 319 00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:23,200 which inevitably attracted loads of easy women. 320 00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:27,600 But Edith Smith was a formidable figure who worked seven days a week 321 00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:31,440 for two years, and her notebook is full of comments like 322 00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:33,200 "foolish girls warned" 323 00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,160 or "prostitutes driven out of Grantham". 324 00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:40,400 She even compiled a blacklist of girls who were not to be allowed 325 00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:43,120 into the cinema or theatre, because they were going to be more 326 00:25:43,120 --> 00:25:47,440 interested in their own performance than in anything happening on stage. 327 00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:57,120 But women like Edith Smith were also given powers to police 328 00:25:57,120 --> 00:25:58,560 behind closed doors. 329 00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,680 She wrote that a regular part of the job was, 330 00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:07,600 "Husbands placing their wives under observation during their absence." 331 00:26:10,120 --> 00:26:14,000 Another policewoman recorded visiting the house of a woman 332 00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:18,400 of suspected bad character - seven children, and a husband away 333 00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:22,120 at the Front - and finding there another soldier. 334 00:26:22,120 --> 00:26:25,400 The woman, she reported, was very obviously alarmed 335 00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,360 and promised to send the man away after supper. 336 00:26:28,360 --> 00:26:30,360 But the police officer reported that 337 00:26:30,360 --> 00:26:34,920 when she returned at 11pm, she found the man still in the house, 338 00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:39,360 so she drove him out, cautioning him not to return. 339 00:26:39,360 --> 00:26:43,800 The State was now effectively policing people's bedrooms. 340 00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:51,280 It was merely one aspect of official intrusion into 341 00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,000 almost every aspect of people's lives. 342 00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:59,440 In this new kind of war, the Government was having to find 343 00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:03,040 new ways to manage and control the civilian population. 344 00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:09,760 The British public had so far been overwhelmingly behind the war, 345 00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,840 but as things grew more desperate, there was a fear this resolve 346 00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:17,560 might crumble under the influence of the so-called enemy within - 347 00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:21,560 pacifists, socialists, trade unionists. 348 00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:25,280 Could they set Britain, like Russia that same year, 349 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:27,440 on the road to revolution? 350 00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:32,880 By 1917, the Government held over 30,000 secret files 351 00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:35,040 on those they suspected. 352 00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,240 Official anxiety burst into the open 353 00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:45,800 when the nation found itself gripped by a sensational court case. 354 00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:54,000 It was a headline-writer's dream, involving spies, poison 355 00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:56,720 and conspiracy to murder. 356 00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:02,880 Alice Wheeldon, a working-class mother from Derby, 357 00:28:02,880 --> 00:28:07,640 was accused, along with her family, of plotting to assassinate 358 00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:10,400 the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. 359 00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,880 It started here, on Derby's Pear Tree Road, 360 00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:23,880 where Alice Wheeldon ran a second-hand clothes shop, 361 00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:26,200 nowadays a travel agent. 362 00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:30,280 Alice Wheeldon and her family were a real cocktail of subversion. 363 00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:33,960 Her son Willie was a conscientious objector on the run. 364 00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,480 Her daughters Hettie and Winnie were both suffragettes. 365 00:28:37,480 --> 00:28:43,600 And all were passionate pacifists, socialists and atheists. 366 00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:51,440 The police had been tipped off that Alice used her shop as a safe house 367 00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,240 for conscientious objectors on the run. 368 00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:57,360 One night, a young man turned up here 369 00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:00,000 and introduced himself as an anarchist. 370 00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,120 His name, he said, was Alex Gordon. 371 00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:07,680 But Alex Gordon wasn't who he said he was. 372 00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:11,680 In fact, he was a secret agent for British Intelligence. 373 00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,280 A month later, Gordon went to his spymasters 374 00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:22,240 with an extraordinary story about the Wheeldons. 375 00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:28,880 Alice and her daughters were promptly arrested 376 00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:31,800 and brought here to the Guildhall in Derby. 377 00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:39,800 The Wheeldons were held in these cells, 378 00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:42,200 charged with conspiring to murder 379 00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,960 the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. 380 00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:49,000 Alex Gordon had told his handlers they were plotting to creep up 381 00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:55,120 on him and fire a poison dart from a blowpipe while he was playing golf. 382 00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,680 The full force of the British Establishment 383 00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:02,640 came down on the Wheeldons. 384 00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:08,160 They were brought to the most famous court in Britain. 385 00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:13,960 The Attorney General himself led the prosecution. 386 00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,320 It was David against Goliath. 387 00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,760 The Attorney General began by describing what he called 388 00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:28,600 the "diseased moral condition" of the defendants. 389 00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,360 When Alice refused to swear on the Bible, 390 00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:36,000 the jury and the packed public gallery drew their own conclusions. 391 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:40,960 She then freely admitted to helping young men evade conscription, 392 00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,600 and as to the Prime Minister, Lloyd George, 393 00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:45,680 she wouldn't mind if he was dead. 394 00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,400 It wasn't a good start. 395 00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:53,320 But the prosecution had 396 00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:56,520 an astonishing admission of their own. 397 00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:59,360 They weren't going to call their chief witness. 398 00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:03,280 The secret agent on whose word the whole case rested 399 00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:05,520 wasn't going to give evidence. 400 00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,840 What sort of a witness would he have made? 401 00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:14,040 Well, the jury might have learned that he'd got previous convictions 402 00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,000 for theft and blackmail, that he'd twice been declared 403 00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,880 criminally insane, and had done time in Broadmoor. 404 00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:24,280 They might also have learned he was an agent provocateur, 405 00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,400 offering bombs and poison all over the place. 406 00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:30,400 The Government did the sensible thing - they gave him 407 00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:33,440 a one-way ticket on a ship to South Africa. 408 00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:41,560 In spite of this gaping hole in the evidence, 409 00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:45,280 the Government pressed ahead with the prosecution. 410 00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:49,280 It took less than a week for the jury to find Alice guilty. 411 00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:52,360 She was sentenced to ten years' hard labour. 412 00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:55,440 One of her daughters got five years. 413 00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:04,240 Alice Wheeldon's great-granddaughter believes it was a show trial. 414 00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:06,920 I think no-one who knows what happened, 415 00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:11,920 and how the Government arranged the information for what happened, 416 00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:15,760 could ever believe that that was a fair trial that happened here. 417 00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:19,080 - You think she was framed? - I do. Not for who they were, 418 00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:21,120 but for what they stood for, 419 00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:26,920 because they stood for things that the Government wanted to demonise 420 00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:32,000 and suppress, and to hold up as a warning to other people, 421 00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,480 because, in fact, there were many people all over England 422 00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:38,600 who were concerned about the war and raising questions. 423 00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:41,960 What happened to your great-grandmother after conviction? 424 00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:46,680 Well, after conviction, she was sent to prison, 425 00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,840 and she became very ill in prison, and in fact 426 00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:53,520 there's documents to show that there was debate about the fear 427 00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:56,760 from the Home Office perspective that she would die in prison 428 00:32:56,760 --> 00:33:00,320 and she would become a martyr, and they didn't want that. 429 00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:02,680 And that was why they released her. 430 00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,680 But she was ill when she came out of prison 431 00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:09,440 and she died not all that long after. She died in 1919. 432 00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:15,160 We'll never know for sure whether Alice Wheeldon was innocent, 433 00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:19,120 but it's clear that the British Government knew all too well 434 00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:23,600 that she'd been framed by an unreliable secret agent. 435 00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:29,040 In truth, it wasn't the enemy within 436 00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:31,440 the British public needed to fear. 437 00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:40,880 At 11.30am on Wednesday 13th June 1917, 438 00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:45,120 people in the financial district of London heard a distant roar. 439 00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:50,280 In the sky they saw more than 20 planes heading towards them. 440 00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:56,120 Many thought they were British... and rushed out to wave at them. 441 00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:01,920 And then the bombs began to fall. 442 00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:04,160 On the streets there was terror, 443 00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:07,560 there was shock and there was disbelief. 444 00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:11,080 An Army sergeant at home on leave recalled that, 445 00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:15,240 "No thought of the planes being German had entered our heads. 446 00:34:15,240 --> 00:34:20,080 "It wasn't possible for them to raid London in daylight." 447 00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,720 Zeppelins, the great German airships, 448 00:34:26,720 --> 00:34:31,240 had attacked London before, but always at night. 449 00:34:31,240 --> 00:34:35,080 An attack by planes on the capital during daylight 450 00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,760 was something completely new. 451 00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:46,600 72 bombs were dropped on London that day, killing 162 civilians. 452 00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:51,800 It was the most destructive air raid of the war. 453 00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,360 But this new, brutal way of waging war 454 00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:03,560 was about to deliver one more shock. 455 00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:12,000 A stray 100 lb bomb fell here, 456 00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:15,480 the site of Upper North Street School in east London. 457 00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:24,160 The bomb smashed through the roof of the school. 458 00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,320 On the top floor, the girls were having a singing lesson. 459 00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:30,520 One of them, a 13-year-old, was killed outright. 460 00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,280 It then plunged through the middle floor, where the boys were 461 00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:37,320 having a maths lesson. There it killed a 12-year-old. 462 00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:39,760 And finally, it struck the bottom floor, 463 00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,800 where there were 54 5-year-olds gathered. 464 00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:45,240 It blew 16 of them to pieces. 465 00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:55,080 The events of that day were recorded in the school's logbook. 466 00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:59,360 - This is the headteacher's log, is it? - Yes. 467 00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:01,080 So from August 1913 468 00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:03,440 to April 1928. 469 00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:08,400 And what does it say about the terrible day when the bombs fell? 470 00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:13,600 "13th of the 6th, 1917. 11.40am. Air raid. 471 00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,760 "Bomb fell through roof of north-east corner of E room 472 00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:19,520 "and went through floor. 473 00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,600 "Rose Martin of 10 Annabelle Street killed. 474 00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:27,120 "Anne Pritchard - foot blown off, seriously ill in hospital. 475 00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:31,120 "Mrs Allen, teacher in E room, probably blown across room. 476 00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:35,640 "I saw her crouching in corner with A Pritchard in front later. 477 00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,240 "There was no panic, but children sobbed and wailed, 478 00:36:39,240 --> 00:36:42,280 "clinging and standing close to their teachers. 479 00:36:42,280 --> 00:36:45,400 "No school held 13/6/17 pm." 480 00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:48,600 So they stopped... 481 00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:52,080 - There was no school for the rest of the day, is that right? - Hmm. 482 00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:55,520 - And how soon after that does it reopen? - The next morning. 483 00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:58,560 What did you think when you found this? 484 00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:03,000 Well, I must admit, I did cry. I thought it was very poignant. 485 00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:06,440 And, you know, you hear about how stoic the British were, 486 00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:09,440 and I think this really shows that, you know, 487 00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:12,720 there was that real, "We'll just carry on and we'll get through this." 488 00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:26,320 A week after the raid, the funeral for the 18 dead children took place. 489 00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:32,880 It was one of most emotional moments in the history of the East End. 490 00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:51,480 The Bishop of London told the mourners that it was inconceivable 491 00:37:51,480 --> 00:37:54,600 that after 2,000 years of Christianity, 492 00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:58,200 war could now be made on women and children. 493 00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:03,720 But in this, the first modern war, technology was changing everything. 494 00:38:03,720 --> 00:38:07,480 Each side was trying to starve the other into surrender, 495 00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,440 U-boats were sinking passenger ships, 496 00:38:10,440 --> 00:38:13,960 and aircraft bombing civilians. 497 00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:18,400 The rules and conventions of war were casualties, too. 498 00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,920 But in November 1917 came a glimmer of hope. 499 00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:31,600 Another terrifying new weapon had entered the war. 500 00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:34,080 But this time... 501 00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,080 ..it was British. 502 00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:46,200 The tank was a brand-new British invention 503 00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:50,400 developed with the enthusiastic support of Winston Churchill. 504 00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:56,640 He wanted a land ship which could smash through barbed wire 505 00:38:56,640 --> 00:38:58,360 and cross trenches. 506 00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:02,080 No-one had ever seen anything like it. 507 00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:07,600 The tank clanked its way straight out of the pages of science fiction. 508 00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:12,280 A giant, hideous mechanical toad. 509 00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,200 Many of the Germans were so terrified they threw their hands 510 00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:18,360 in the air and begged for mercy. 511 00:39:22,240 --> 00:39:26,680 In November 1917, British tanks won a stunning victory. 512 00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:32,720 Nearly 400 of them snatched seven miles of ground at Cambrai 513 00:39:32,720 --> 00:39:34,520 in Northern France. 514 00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:39,800 The German line had never been so successfully penetrated. 515 00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:51,800 Across Britain, church bells rang out in celebration. 516 00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:57,320 Might this at last be the weapon to break the stalemate 517 00:39:57,320 --> 00:39:59,280 and beat the Germans? 518 00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:02,800 The British people went tank crazy. 519 00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,440 The Government saw an opportunity. 520 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:11,880 They decided to deploy tanks at home to raise morale...and funds. 521 00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:16,680 Tank number 130 rumbled into Trafalgar Square 522 00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:19,600 not to fight the Germans, obviously, 523 00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:22,400 but to help raise money to fight the Germans 524 00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,000 through the sale of war bonds. 525 00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:29,120 The Trafalgar Square Tank Bank was aimed at the ordinary man 526 00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:31,800 or woman in the street, the sort of person who didn't have 527 00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:35,080 a stockbroker but who wanted to do their bit. 528 00:40:38,240 --> 00:40:41,000 Thousands queued to see the tank 529 00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:44,400 and to buy bonds from two women sitting inside. 530 00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:52,880 The stunt was so successful that tanks were sent around the country. 531 00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:56,120 Towns and cities competed with one another 532 00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:58,520 to see who could raise more money. 533 00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:02,120 The winner was Glasgow, with £16 million. 534 00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:05,880 There, a tank called Julian showed off its tricks 535 00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,760 on a specially prepared obstacle course. 536 00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:15,200 And everywhere the tanks went, 537 00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:18,880 ordinary people turned up to buy the bonds. 538 00:41:22,240 --> 00:41:26,720 In Birmingham, a cowherd arrived with £75-worth of sovereigns 539 00:41:26,720 --> 00:41:31,560 he'd previously had buried for 30 years in his cottage garden. 540 00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:34,880 In Preston, a woman arrived with about half a crown. 541 00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:37,160 It wasn't enough to buy a war bond, 542 00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:39,960 but she insisted on donating it anyway. 543 00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:43,520 And an old man came and gave £100... 544 00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:47,080 He said he'd happily give more if he had it. 545 00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:51,160 ..in memory of his four sons who'd already given their lives. 546 00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:58,240 The success of the Tank Bank 547 00:41:58,240 --> 00:42:02,400 came to symbolise British values of self-sacrifice and pluck. 548 00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:05,560 One Tank Bank customer 549 00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:09,000 declared the tank to be like the British character - 550 00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:12,840 rather slow to move, somewhat heavy, but sure. 551 00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:21,800 In total, the Tank Banks sold over £300 million-worth of war bonds, 552 00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:26,320 that's about £11 billion-worth at today's values. 553 00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,520 In the darkest hour, they had persuaded the British people 554 00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:33,760 to rally behind the war effort and reach deep into their 555 00:42:33,760 --> 00:42:36,080 increasingly empty pockets. 556 00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:38,360 It was an astonishing achievement. 557 00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:46,640 But as the third year of the war drew on, 558 00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:50,400 the situation on the Western Front had become bleaker than ever. 559 00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:55,480 Britain's Allies were tottering. 560 00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:58,160 There was mutiny in the French army. 561 00:42:59,160 --> 00:43:02,000 Fellow ally Russia, torn by revolution, 562 00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:04,160 was about to pull out of the war. 563 00:43:07,240 --> 00:43:09,360 And the killing didn't stop. 564 00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:19,080 More than half a million British dead since the start of the war. 565 00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:25,840 Even war heroes were now wondering what they'd risked their lives for. 566 00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:33,200 In 1917, one of them, the poet Siegfried Sassoon, 567 00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:36,000 went public with his doubts about the war. 568 00:43:37,720 --> 00:43:42,600 In the trenches, his men had known Lieutenant Sassoon as Mad Jack 569 00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:44,560 for his astonishing fearlessness, 570 00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,320 and he'd won a Military Cross for bravery. 571 00:43:47,320 --> 00:43:50,720 But now he was denouncing the whole thing. 572 00:43:50,720 --> 00:43:55,080 "The war upon which I embarked as one of defence and liberation," 573 00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:59,400 he wrote, "has become a war of aggression and conquest. 574 00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:03,960 "I am protesting against the political errors for which the lives 575 00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:06,680 "of fighting men are being sacrificed, 576 00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:10,240 "and against the callous complacency with which those at home 577 00:44:10,240 --> 00:44:13,760 "regard agonies they do not share." 578 00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:17,360 From a decorated war hero, this was incendiary stuff. 579 00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:26,360 Sassoon risked court martial, imprisonment, even execution. 580 00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:31,160 But the generals were cleverer than that. 581 00:44:31,160 --> 00:44:35,240 They pronounced him mad and sent him here to a military hospital 582 00:44:35,240 --> 00:44:37,000 called Craiglockhart. 583 00:44:46,480 --> 00:44:49,280 Sassoon was surrounded by men suffering from 584 00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:52,680 the newly diagnosed condition of shell shock. 585 00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:58,400 This war wasn't only killing and maiming soldiers, 586 00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:01,000 it was unhinging their minds. 587 00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:08,120 At first, doctors thought it was a physical condition, 588 00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:10,920 concussion caused by exploding shells. 589 00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:15,560 Treatment was often brutal. 590 00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:18,000 Some doctors used solitary confinement 591 00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:22,560 and electric-shock treatment to try to snap their patients out of it. 592 00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:37,480 But then they began to understand something of the stress of life 593 00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:40,840 in the trenches - the lack of sleep, the shattering noise, 594 00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:44,680 the sight of so much death and mutilation. 595 00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:47,880 As one lieutenant put it, "Quite apart from the number of people 596 00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:52,000 "blown to bits, the explosions were so terrible 597 00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:56,160 "that anyone within 100 yards was liable to lose their reason." 598 00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:08,880 At Craiglockhart, doctors were pioneering a radical new approach 599 00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:10,800 to shell shock. 600 00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:17,600 Dr William Rivers believed that patients were repressing 601 00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:20,520 the terrifying experiences they'd had, 602 00:46:20,520 --> 00:46:24,400 and that in order to get better, they needed to talk about them. 603 00:46:26,240 --> 00:46:29,760 In 1917, Rivers' work was groundbreaking. 604 00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:34,240 His methods, his practices 605 00:46:34,240 --> 00:46:37,160 lie at the heart of trauma treatment even today. 606 00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:39,960 He was ahead of his time. 607 00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:44,680 He was using practices that none of his contemporaries were using. 608 00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:48,280 What was it he understood that others hadn't understood? 609 00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:52,200 I think he understood how trauma memories work. 610 00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:57,280 He... He understood that by repressing traumatic memory, 611 00:46:57,280 --> 00:47:01,680 all you do is you make it intrude even more. 612 00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:04,640 It doesn't work, suppressing it. 613 00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:09,360 And he advocated the opposite of that. 614 00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:13,240 He encouraged his patients to talk about their traumatic memories, 615 00:47:13,240 --> 00:47:17,400 and by doing so helped them to connect with the emotion 616 00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:20,520 of the memory and to process that. 617 00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:22,720 Would you have liked to have Rivers on your team? 618 00:47:22,720 --> 00:47:25,680 Very much so. In a flash. I would've employed him... 619 00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:28,880 ..today, if he applied. Hmm. 620 00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:34,400 But Craiglockhart's most famous patient, 621 00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:39,480 the anti-war Lieutenant Sassoon, wasn't suffering from shell shock. 622 00:47:40,520 --> 00:47:44,560 And he realised that unless he gave up his protest 623 00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:47,640 and returned to the Front, he'd be stuck here for ever. 624 00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:53,920 After three months, Sassoon was restless. 625 00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:56,280 He hadn't changed his anti-war views 626 00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:01,040 but he chose solidarity with his soldiers over private principles. 627 00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:05,000 As he wrote when he returned to the Western Front, 628 00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,960 "I'm only here to look after some men." 629 00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:15,840 Sassoon's protesting voice had been silenced. 630 00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:21,840 But in the autumn of 1917, events on the Western Front would prove 631 00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:25,240 so terrible that a growing number of British people, 632 00:48:25,240 --> 00:48:27,560 soldier and civilian alike, 633 00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:32,000 would begin to voice doubts about the dreadful human cost of the war. 634 00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:37,440 One of them was a 32-year-old Army chaplain, 635 00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:39,560 the Rev Julian Bickersteth. 636 00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:52,680 In August 1917, Bickersteth had been posted to Poperinge in Flanders. 637 00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:56,840 His job - to minister to the British troops as they launched 638 00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,760 a new offensive to break the German lines. 639 00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:07,320 This battle would be so bloody its name has come to sum up, 640 00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:10,680 more than any other, the horror of the First World War. 641 00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:13,920 Passchendaele. 642 00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:23,920 Julian Bickersteth was so passionately pro-war 643 00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:26,760 that he had travelled all the way from Australia 644 00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:28,440 to serve at the Front. 645 00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:31,520 For him, loving God and hating the enemy 646 00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:33,520 were one and the same thing. 647 00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:35,720 "We shall win this war," he said, 648 00:49:35,720 --> 00:49:40,480 "because God cannot allow such German scum to exist." 649 00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:45,640 That belief in a righteous crusade was about to be utterly destroyed. 650 00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:53,920 Bickersteth kept a diary recording his growing concerns about the war. 651 00:49:56,240 --> 00:49:58,000 It tells how, in August, 652 00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:02,480 he arrived here at an odd little place called Talbot House. 653 00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:05,560 MUSIC: "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down On The Farm?" by Harry Fay 654 00:50:05,560 --> 00:50:09,040 # Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking 655 00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:13,320 # Said his wifey dear... # 656 00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:18,360 This was a refuge, designed as a wholesome home-away-from-home 657 00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:22,600 for exhausted soldiers taking a few days out of the trenches, 658 00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:25,200 an alternative to beer and brothels. 659 00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:36,000 Here, they could relax, write letters, read books and drink tea. 660 00:50:45,720 --> 00:50:48,280 But Bickersteth was here for another reason. 661 00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:57,480 On the top floor of Talbot House there was a small chapel 662 00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:01,040 decorated with ornaments saved from the ruins of other churches 663 00:51:01,040 --> 00:51:02,440 in the area. 664 00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:07,240 One afternoon, in this room, 665 00:51:07,240 --> 00:51:11,560 Julian Bickersteth witnessed 120 men being confirmed. 666 00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:14,680 "Many of them had come straight from the battle," he said, 667 00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:17,600 "and they were returning there that evening." 668 00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:21,760 They knew that this might be their last chance to make peace 669 00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:23,480 with their God. 670 00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:35,600 Bickersteth followed his men to the battlefield, 671 00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:38,880 a mere 12 miles from the comforts of Talbot House. 672 00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:46,760 The battle was marked by a horror all its own - mud. 673 00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:49,360 Mud that swamped you, mud that sucked at you, 674 00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:51,880 mud that could even drown you. 675 00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:55,960 30 days of incessant rain and shellfire had turned 676 00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:59,960 the whole battlefield into a foul-smelling quagmire, 677 00:51:59,960 --> 00:52:04,960 stripped of any living thing but men trying to kill each other. 678 00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:15,600 Bickersteth couldn't believe his eyes. 679 00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:20,240 "This is the most appalling country that it has ever been 680 00:52:20,240 --> 00:52:22,240 "my misfortune to see. 681 00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:28,080 "Swamp, shell holes, stench, water, 682 00:52:28,080 --> 00:52:34,600 "mud, broken-down tree stumps, destroyed dugouts and gun pits, 683 00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:38,680 "unburied bodies of horses and men all over the place." 684 00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:49,640 If you fell off a duckboard into a shell hole, God help you. 685 00:52:49,640 --> 00:52:53,360 A major in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment came across a soldier 686 00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:55,360 stuck up to his knees. 687 00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:58,960 His men tried to pull him out, but they couldn't do so. 688 00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:01,080 Two days later, the major returned. 689 00:53:01,080 --> 00:53:04,360 He said, "The wretched fellow was still there, 690 00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:08,960 "but now only his head was visible and he was raving mad." 691 00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:18,400 It's not known how many soldiers drowned here. 692 00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:24,040 Belgian farmers still dig up the bones of the dead to this day. 693 00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:33,960 One morning, Bickersteth found himself tending to the wounded 694 00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:36,560 at a dressing station behind the front line. 695 00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:44,720 He wrote that, "At least six men died in my arms. 696 00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:51,120 "The courage of these grievously wounded men moves me to tears." 697 00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:57,760 Julian Bickersteth's disillusionment was growing. 698 00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:01,480 The British press loyally banged on about great victories, 699 00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:06,280 but he said, "It's maddening to those of us who know the truth." 700 00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:14,960 The carnage continued until November, 701 00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:18,520 when British and Commonwealth troops finally captured the small 702 00:54:18,520 --> 00:54:22,560 and now devastated village of Passchendaele, 703 00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:25,520 the village that gave its name to the bloodletting. 704 00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:34,760 The British began their advance in July 1917 on the horizon over there. 705 00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:40,840 It took them four long months to advance five miles to Passchendaele, 706 00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:44,160 which is where the church is on the horizon over there. 707 00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:46,400 It came at enormous cost. 708 00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:49,680 The total number of British and Commonwealth casualties 709 00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:53,920 was 300,000 - 80,000 of them dead. 710 00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:02,400 For Julian Bickersteth, this was not what war should be. 711 00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:09,640 His nephew Bishop John Bickersteth 712 00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:12,760 has collected and published his diaries. 713 00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:16,600 Tell me about how he describes his feelings at Passchendaele. 714 00:55:17,720 --> 00:55:22,120 At Passchendaele, he says this... 715 00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:23,680 He says this. 716 00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:26,040 "When will this senseless murder end? 717 00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:28,640 "The country is being hoodwinked. 718 00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:33,000 "Facts are distorted, totally misrepresented by the press. 719 00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:35,240 "My nostrils are filled with the smell of blood. 720 00:55:35,240 --> 00:55:38,560 "My eyes are glutted with the sight of bleeding bodies 721 00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:40,120 "and shattered limbs, 722 00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:43,240 "my heart wrung with the agony of wounded and dying men." 723 00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:48,080 He was, if you like, he was disillusioned about the war. 724 00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:50,360 I think that most of them were. 725 00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:53,720 But this was a man who was, by no stretch of the imagination, 726 00:55:53,720 --> 00:55:56,280 - a conscientious objector. - Absolutely not, no. 727 00:55:56,280 --> 00:55:58,680 - He'd won the Military Cross. - He won a Military Cross. 728 00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:01,280 He was mentioned... Oh, no stretch of the imagination 729 00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:03,800 was he anywhere near being a conscientious objector, no. 730 00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:07,400 What do you think caused Julian to change his attitude? 731 00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:09,760 I think he was sick of war, yes, I... 732 00:56:09,760 --> 00:56:13,760 And he realised how stupid it was to go on with it. 733 00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:17,960 That was really the fact of the matter. He realised it was silly 734 00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:21,000 to go on with it, but how was anyone going to stop it? 735 00:56:27,480 --> 00:56:30,440 12,000 of the Passchendaele dead 736 00:56:30,440 --> 00:56:33,680 lie here on the site of the battle itself. 737 00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:40,680 This is the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world. 738 00:56:43,080 --> 00:56:48,120 The terrible sacrifice made by those buried here prompted further doubts 739 00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:50,160 about the point of it all. 740 00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:55,800 In November 1917, a former Minister for War broke ranks, 741 00:56:55,800 --> 00:56:58,600 calling on Britain to make peace. 742 00:56:59,800 --> 00:57:02,360 But the country had gone too far to turn back. 743 00:57:03,480 --> 00:57:06,680 And an awful realisation was dawning... 744 00:57:08,120 --> 00:57:10,120 ..that many more might have to die. 745 00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:16,400 Long ago, way back in 1914, in that great recruiting poster, 746 00:57:16,400 --> 00:57:20,440 Lord Kitchener had said that the war would be won by 747 00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:22,840 the last million men. 748 00:57:22,840 --> 00:57:27,320 Was it really possible that it could go on until one side, 749 00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:30,640 exhausted, broken, bled white, 750 00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:33,280 had nothing more to give? 751 00:57:33,280 --> 00:57:36,120 And if so, when would that day come? 752 00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:06,920 Next time - Sherlock Holmes comes to the aid of a beleaguered nation. 753 00:58:08,480 --> 00:58:12,280 At the 11th hour, victory at last on the Western Front. 754 00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:18,080 And after the celebrations, Britain counts the cost of war. 755 00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:27,280 Explore the full story of World War I at... 756 00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:32,400 Or to order your free copy of the Open University's booklet 757 00:58:32,400 --> 00:58:36,120 that accompanies this series, telephone...