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I felt then, as I feel now, that the politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organizing nothing better than legalized mass murder. Harry Patch, last surviving soldier of World War
A production line of death that ended on the western front. But they were only part of an army of women workers recruited to keep Britain’s war machine running. Kate Adie’s Women of World War I, BBC 2014
The home front: An entire nation was drawn into the war. ibid.
Women could be as active and productive as men. ibid.
Close behind were women who worked for a pittance in domestic service. Or were now unemployed. They were needed by the government. The fighting men on the front line were short of ammunition. ibid.
Twelve-hour shifts: It was noisy, dirty, dangerous. ibid.
TNT caused swollen faces and horrible rashes. It turned the women’s hands and faces yellow. Earning them the nickname of the canary girls. ibid.
Britain’s women were still denied the right to vote. ibid.
The lost secrets of another lost tragedy: In 1915 in the depths of World War I nearly 150,000 perished here at Gallipoli on the shores of Turkey. Gallipoli’s Deep Secrets, National Geographic 2014
A perfect storm of military miscalculation. ibid.
The British have severely underestimated the Turks who have made a mockery of Churchill’s Grand Plan. ibid.
‘One must regard these 30 years of strife, turmoil and suffering in Europe as part of one story ... One story of a 30 years’ war.’ The World Wars I, Winston Churchill, History 2014
Over a 30 year period, from 1914 to 1945, more than 60 million people will die. ibid.
At age 25 Adolf Hitler is a poor loner and aspiring artist struggling to survive. ibid.
The trenches cover 25,000 miles. ibid.
Three and a half long years: both the Allies and Germany are exhausted, bogged down in the trenches of northern France. To aid in the fight the Allies recruit a new country to their side. The World Wars II
Years of trench warfare have transformed Adolf Hitler ... He begins to believe in Germany’s superiority. ibid.
Thirty-seven million casualties. ibid.
Germany is ordered to pay the Allies over $80,000,000,000. ibid.
After his failed coup Adolf Hitler is released from prison after only nine months thanks to a sympathetic judge. He emerges more determined than ever to avenge the First War. The World Wars III
By the end of the decade Stalin’s great purges sent more than ten million perceived enemies to camps where up to half die. A million more are executed outright. ibid.
The pictures have been enhanced with the addition of colour and sound. November 11th 1918: At eleven in the morning the guns fall silent. The Armistice has been signed. Apocalypse: World War I, National Geographic 2014
The great European powers prepare for war ... War and death hover over the planet. ibid.
On 27th August 1933 in east Prussia Adolf Hitler and Herman Goering – both veterans of the First World War – paid tribute to Field Marshall von Hindenburg in the awe-inspiring setting of the Monument to the Battle of Tannenberg. Apocalypse: World War I II
As the Germans advance on Paris there is a run of the banks to empty personal accounts. ibid.
Two hundred million shells for the entire war. ibid.
The unbearable odour of blood, ether and gangrene. ibid.
In October [1914] the Germans, determined to hold on to the regions they had conquered, begin to dig, or force civilians to dig for them. ibid.
‘This war is the suicide of Europe. There appears no limit to the destruction and carnage.’ ibid. Pope Benedict
France, 1915, no-one who has not been at the front has any idea what the soldiers are living through. She hasn’t had a letter from him since April; he’s been fighting the Germans for a year. Apocalypse: World War I III
In the trenches the men live like rats among the rats. ibid.
When the whistle blows, men go over the top. Into a living hell. Hell is living with the constant shelling which reeks utter devastation. Perhaps most terrifying of all is shrapnel. ibid.
A line of trenches that stretches four hundred miles. ibid.
Soldiers are issued gas marks ... Chlorine or Mustard gas ... killed thousands of men. ibid.
Constant terror of poisonous gas ... ‘The men sniff about like hunting dogs.’ ibid.
The stench is overpowering ... ‘No-one washes or combs their hair. I’ve never worn the same clothes for so long.’ ibid.
The rats carry fleas. Lice are a scourge in all the trenches. ibid.
Private Oak writes: ‘A glass of plonk too many and they break into song to dispel the gloom that gnaws at them like some invisible animal’. ibid.
Somme: By the end of this hellish day, the British have suffered 20,000 dead; 40,000 troops are wounded. ibid.
1917: Europe is at war. In Germany like everywhere else women are filling in for the men. The men are dead. Or at the front. Or too old. In a Berlin subway station a few lucky soldiers able to get away on leave find widows and fiancés still smiling for the camera. Apocalypse: World War I IV
Germany is descending into apocalypse. ibid.
By 1917 one million German soldiers have already been killed. ibid.
The Russian army begins to mutiny. Many soldiers abandon their posts to join their wives. ibid.
It’s the start of the Russian revolution ... Banners: ‘The people and army united ... Down with the old regime’. ibid.
America has practically no army: only 125,000 troops. ibid.
Soon there will be a million American soldiers. ibid.
‘We will never forget the heroism of our African-American soldiers in arms.’ ibid. French General
Autumn 1917: The world is at war. The United States has joined Great Britain, France, Belgium, Russia, Japan and Italy. Italy is battling the Austrians. Apocalypse: World War I V
Hemingway writes, ‘I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glory and sacrificed’. ibid.
Trench warfare, Verdun, the Somme, the Battle of Jutland ... Death on a scale never seen before. Both sides relentlessly harnessed technology in pursuit of better weapons and communications. But to little avail. The war was fought in deadlock. Technology was not enough. Secrets of War: World War I: Germany’s Secret Gamble
World War I ushered in the modern age of instability. ibid.
The First War, the Great War, was supposed to be the war to end all wars. But along its battle-lines ancient tactics collided with new and powerful weapons. The first weapons of mass destruction. WWI: The First Modern War s1e1: Armoured Beasts, 2014
Half a million men killed in the first five months alone. ibid.
Tank after tank got stuck in the craters. The attack was falling apart fast ... In their first battle seventeen of the twenty-five tanks were destroyed or broke down in no-man’s land. ibid.
The tanks had achieved what was once thought impossible. ibid.