The Great War

A summer Sunday, 1914.

All across Europe, the bells were peeling, calling men and women to church.

Sunday - the Lord's day and a day of rest.

It was a world of firm beliefs. The established order was not widely questioned.

Father at the head of the family, The monarch at the head of the nation, God in his heaven.

Sunday, after church, was a day of quiet pleasures.

# Little Dolly Daydream, Pride of Idaho,

# So now you know, and when ye go

# You'll see there's somethin' on her mind;

# Don't think it's you,

# 'Kase no one's got to kiss dat garl but me!

In the Bois de Boulogne, The Tiergarten or Rotten Row, ...

the aristocracy displayed themselves.

Carriages, servants, dazzling clothes.

Material progress had marched swiftly in the peaceful decades before 1914.

It was a world of novelties, clashing with established ways.

Wireless and telephones, motorcars and motorcycles, ...

electric light and electric trains, submarines and airships.

A world humming with new energy and power.

But under the smiles, the relaxation, it was a world of tensions.

The old order, with its economy based on land and its society based on owning land, ...

was in conflict with the new order of industry and teeming cities.

Industry had uprooted populations, expanded them beyond belief, ...

tempted them, enriched them and impoverished them.

The peace of Europe in 1914 was a fragile thing.

On the idle hill of summer, sleepy with the sound of streams,...

far I hear the steady drummer, drumming like a noise in dreams.

In the Germanic empire lying across the heart of Europe, ...

the clash of old and new was obvious.

Under the leadeshhip of Prussia, under Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, ...

Germany had emerged as a nation and as a world power.

In 1871, her 39 separate states, after centuries of discord, had united at last.

The kings of Saxony and Bavaria, the princes, dukes and electors of ...

Brunswick, Baden, Hanover, Mecklenburg, Wurttemberg, Oldenburg, ...

all paid allegiance to the King of Prussia, the Kaiser.

This unity fulfilled a deep wish in the German hearts. It gave them a sense of destiny.

Even the leadership of Prussia was better than insignificance.

And with unity had come an extraordinary upsurge of energy and expansion.

In 1871, there were 41 million Germans.

In 1913, there were nearly 68 million, an increase of more than half.

And more than half of them were living in towns and cities.

But it was not merely an expansion of population.

Foundations of economic strength at the turn of the century was steel and coal.

Germany had made great strides with both.

Steel production multiplied by 12 in 30 years.

Coal production multiplied by nearly 5 in 30 years.

- Manufactures multiplied by 4. - Exports multiplied by 3.

- Exports of chemicals multiplied by 3. - Exports of machinery multiplied by 5.

In 30 years, Germany's share in world trade had risen by a third.

Now, in 1914, Germany was, after America, the most powerful industrial nation in the world.

The epitome of her industrial might lay in the firm of Krupp.

Essen, city of steel, where the first Krupp factory was built, became by 1902:

"A great city with its own streets, its own police force, fire department and traffic laws. ...

There are 150 kilometres of rail, 60 different factory buildings,...

8500 machine tools, 7 electrical stations, ...

140 kilometres of underground cable and 46 overhead."

Germany delighted in the prowess of Krupp's.

When Alfred Krupp died in that year, the Kaiser attended his lavish funeral ...

and called him "a German of the Germans".

In 1914, the firm employed 80,000 workers.

They lived in Krupp houses, their babies were delievered by Krupp doctors, ...

their children educated in Krupp schools.

They bought at Krupp stores, borrowed books from Krupp libraries, ...

married in the Krupp church and were buried in the Krupp cemetery.

Under Bismarck, Germany had come closer than any other state ...

to modern conceptions of social welfare. German workers enjoyed sickness, accident ...

and maternity benefits, canteens and changing rooms ...

and a national pension scheme, before these were even thought of in more liberal countries.

Yet the life of the workers was hard.

The steel mills operated a 12-hour day and an 80-hour week.

Neither rest days nor holidays were guranteed.

In Germany, as in every industrial state, there was poverty and protest.

By 1912, the Socialist party was the strongest party in the Reichstag, the German parliament.

But the Reichstag did not rule Germany.

The Keiser ruled Germany through officials whom he personally appointed.

"No one", said Sir Winston Churchill, "should judge the Kasier Wilhelm II ...

without asking the question, 'What should I have done in his position?'"

Imagine yourself brought up to believe that you were appointed by God ...

to be the ruler of a mighty nation.

Imagine succeeding in your 20s to the prizes of Bismarck's 3 victorious wars.

Imagine feeling the magnificent German race bounding beneath you ...

in ever-swelling numbers, strength, wealth and ambition.

And imagine on every side, the thunderous tributes of the crowds ...

and the skilled, unceasing flattery of the court.

With this background, subjected to these pressures, trying to hide a left arm ...

withered from birth, for 30 years, Wilhelm the second ...

had vexed and perturbed the peace of Europe, but always short of war.

His first public utterance when he came to the throne was addressed ...

not to the people but to the army.

We belong to each other, I and the army. We were born for each other ...

and will indissolubly cleave to each other. I promise ever to bear in mind ...

that from the world above, the eyes of my forefathers look down on me ...

and that I shall one day have to stand accountable to them for the glory ...

and honour of the army.

These were not empty words. The German Kaiser was also the king of Prussia ...

and it was precisely for the sake of Prussian strength that the other Germany, ...

the Germany of the merchants, the industrialists, ...

the musicians, the philosophers had accepted her rule.

The Prussian influence was seeping through the whole nation.

It was, above all, a military influence, well described by one of its advocates, ...

General von Hindenburg.

The army trained and strengthened that mighty organizing impulse ...

which we found everywhere in the Fatherland.

The conviction that the subordination of the individual to the good of the community ...

was not only a necessity but a positive blessing had gripped the mind of the ...

German army and through it that of the nation.

With Prussia as the core, the German empire was the most powerful ...

military organism in the world. And at its head, posturing, gesturing, ...

stood the all-powerful Kaiser, challenging Europe.

Without germany, and without the German Kaiser, no great decisions must ever be ...

taken. If this should happen, the position of Germany in the world would vanish ...

forever and I do not purpose that this should ever happen. To employ suitable ...

and, if necessary, violent means ruthlessly is my duty, my fair privilege.

Germany's neighbours watched her clamorous progress with alarm.

The republic of France uneasily remembered her overwhelming defeat ...

at Germany's hands in 1870.

Then, the rich lands of Alsace and Lorainne had been torn from her.

Patriotic Frenchmen bitterly resented the loss and the bitterness ...

was passed on to new generations.

Think that the Motherland is your second mother, that she weeps and suffers ...

over the children they have torned from her bosom.

France had her iron, her coal, her industry, but the French were above all, ...

tillers of the soil.

Produce of her fields and vineyards made France self-supporting.

The French cared for good food. The specialities of each province ...

acquired international fame. While the ploughland and pastures ...

of the provinces fed Paris, Paris itself fertilized not only France, but Europe, too.

The curiosity and enthusiasm of Parisians matched a period ...

which seemed to produce new novelties every day.

Louis Bleriot was the first man to fly the channel.

I began my flight steady and sure. I have no apprehension, no sensations, nothing.

I am making at least 42 miles an hour, travelling at a height of 250 feet.

Below me is the sea. There is nothing to be seen, neither France nor England.

I am alone. For 10 minutes, I am lost and then I see the cliffs of Dover.

There were flying experiments of another kind, not so successful.

Cranks or pioneers, the French greeted them all expectantly.

A moving pavement was displayed at the exhibition of 1900.

Looking down from it, Paris was truly, "sovereign of cities, seemliest in sight."

The wide, bustling boulevards, the cafes, the Louvre, storehouse of Europe's ...

treasures, the imprisoned sunshine of the Impressionists, the acting of ...

Sarah Bernhardt, the Moulin Rouge and the legs of Mistinguett, dinner at Maxim's.

Picasso and Matisse were painting. In her quiet laboratory, Madam Curie ...

was discovering Radium.

Paris was the Mecca of the west. But Paris is not France.

The glamour of Paris did not reflect the deepest truths about the French.

It encouraged their optimism, but it concealed unrest and violent agitation ...

among the industrial classes, who felt left out of a rising tide of prosperity.

It concealed the backwardness of French industry in a world where this counted ...

more and more. It concealed a declining birthrate in a world ...

which paraded its millions. It concealed the canker at the heart of ...

French politics, memory of the defeat of 1870 and fear of the rising might of Germany.

Because of this memory and this fear, the army played a special part ...

in the life of France. Shattered in 1870, it had made a remarkable recovery.

It became a national army, based on universal conscription.

It schooled itself in colonial wars, but its eyes were fixed on the German frontier.

In 1914, there was a socialist government. Anti-militarism, pacifism and ...

internationalism were being proclaimed with swelling voices.

The delegates of the Workers' organizations judge that wage earners obliged to go to ...

war have this alternative only, either to take up weapons in order to menace other ...

wage earners, or to take up battle against the common foe - capitalism.

Anti-militarist and anti-patriotic propaganda must become ...

evermore intense and audacious.

Discordant voices in France, strident voices in Germany. For, as Germany pursued ...

the destiny preached by her thinkers, another neighbour took fright.

The Germans were not content with military might and industrial supremacy.

They still felt cheated. They wanted a place in the sun, an empire.

Between 1884 and 1890, German sovereignty was proclaimed over an area

more than 4 times larger than Germany herself.

And on the pretext of protecting these colonies and her expanding trade, ...

Germany began to build a battleleet.

This was a threat that any British newspaper reader could understand.

The sea served Britain in the office of a wall or as a moat defensive to a house ...

against the envy of less happier lands.

Now envy was reaching across the sea.

Winston Churchill spoke for all Britain when he said, "Our naval power involves ...

British existence. If our naval supremacy were to be impaired, the whole fortunes ...

of our race and empire would perish and be swept utterly away."

Britain awoke to the truths of the 20th century. Reality jarred against ...

the romantic image of merry England. Yet the image lived on, ...

reinforced by the royal family, in its role of country squire.

Englishmen like to think of themselves in these terms.

They attached magical virtues to walking over fields.

They also found virtue in royal pageantry, jubilees, coronations, ...

state openings, funerals.

The funeral of King Edward the seventh in 1910 provided a last glimpse ...

of royal Europe in all its panoply.

9 kings followed Edward's coffin through the streets of London.