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00:00To be continued...
01:11By the middle of 1918, the guns on the Western Front had been thundering unceasingly for almost four years, but
01:18neither side had been able to win a decisive victory.
01:26It was the Allies who had suffered worst during the first half of 1918.
01:45The most serious blow that had befallen the Western Allies had resulted from the Russian Revolution.
01:51This brought about Russia's formal exit from the war in March 1918 and left her in the grip of a
01:57widening civil conflict.
02:15Russia's withdrawal from the war had enabled the Germans to concentrate the bulk of their forces in the West and
02:21to deal the Allies a series of near-devastating blows.
02:29These attacks had been spearheaded by specially trained storm troops.
02:33They had found a means of breaking the stalemate of trench warfare by infiltrating their way through the Allied defences,
02:40bypassing strong points.
02:56The Allies suffered a total of some 800,000 men killed, wounded and made prisoner.
03:02They also lost almost all the small amount of territory that they had gained during their protracted and bloody offensives
03:09of 1916 and 1917.
03:13Yet the Allies had not broken, and by the middle of July they had managed to exhaust Germany's offensive capability.
03:35Furthermore, there were now 300,000 American troops in France, and more were arriving at a rate of well over
03:41250,000 per month.
03:44The Germans had been well aware of this build-up, and it had been one of the main reasons behind
03:48their spring 1918 offensives.
03:56But now that the Germans had failed, the Allied Generalissimo, Ferdinand Foch, seen here with French Prime Minister Clemenceau, was
04:04determined to attack before they could recover.
04:10America's entry into the war in April 1917 had given the tired British and French renewed hope.
04:16But it had taken a long time for the American contribution to become effective.
04:25The Americans had regarded the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914 as a mere European squabble, which had
04:33little to do with them.
04:34True, there had been sympathy over the rape of Belgium.
04:38This had turned to anger over the sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania in May 1915.
04:44But this was tempered by irritation over Britain's policy of boarding US merchant vessels to ensure that they were not
04:51carrying contraband goods to the Central Powers.
04:54With the long shadow of the American Civil War lying over them, Americans considered that this new European conflict merely
05:01confirmed that war was barbarous and a debasement of humankind.
05:17The result was that strict neutrality was America's watchword, combined with efforts to try and make the warring states see
05:24reason.
05:31Thus, as late as the end of 1916, President Woodrow Wilson asked the combatants to reaffirm their war aims, in
05:38the vain hope that this might make them reconsider and begin to talk peace.
05:46In the meantime, the Americans continued to develop their growing industrial might and to exploit the natural resources of their
05:53vast country.
06:03But the renewal on a much wider scale of Germany's unrestricted submarine campaign against shipping in early 1917 began to
06:12sway popular opinion.
06:13Although Wilson hoped that the severing of diplomatic relations with Germany and the declaration of armed neutrality would make her
06:20think again.
06:24It was Mexico, however, which was the catalyst that drew America into the war.
06:30Relations between the two countries had deteriorated in 1916 as a result of American forces crossing the border to hunt
06:36down the Mexican bandit Pancho Villa, who had made a number of raids into Texas.
06:41In March 1917, British intelligence informed the US government that the Germans were proposing an alliance with Mexico so that
06:49she could regain territory lost to America in the previous century.
06:53This was the last straw for Wilson.
06:55And on the 6th of April 1917, both houses of Congress met to hear the president declare war.
07:05This was much welcomed by Britain and France, but while the United States could provide much needed cash to support
07:11their overstretched war economies, and the Navy could give significant help in combating the U-boat menace in the North
07:17Sea and Atlantic, in other ways she was totally unready for war.
07:24While the arrival of the US Atlantic fleet in European waters was of great help, it was to America's contribution
07:30on land that the British and French mainly looked.
07:33Yet, in April 1917, the standing US army was only 110,000 men strong.
07:41Furthermore, these troops were hardly trained for the type of war being fought in Europe.
07:45They were a mere constabulary, competent enough for chasing such as Pancho Villa across the border and pacifying the Philippines,
07:53but lacking knowledge and experience of the technology and tactics of trench warfare.
08:03So ill-equipped were the American troops that early arrivals in France had to wear French helmets, although they soon
08:09adopted the British model.
08:18As for modern weapons, such as aircraft, artillery and tanks, they had to be entirely equipped by the French and
08:24British.
08:35It was only once the Americans had arrived in France that they could begin to carry out proper training on
08:40these weapons and learn the art of trench warfare.
08:53Most of their training was carried out under French and British supervision.
08:59One essential element was gas warfare, which had become commonplace on the Western Front from 1915 onwards.
09:05Troops had to be taught to overcome the terrors of this weapon.
09:19To learn these new skills took many months, and it would thus be some time before the American presence could
09:25make itself felt on the Western Front.
09:27Even though American troops were parading in Paris on the 4th of July 1917, Independence Day, wearing what the French
09:34called Le Chapeau de Cowboy.
09:39Not until October 1917 did American troops have their first experience under French tutelage of trench warfare in the Lunaville
09:47sector.
09:59This brought about their first battle casualties.
10:06General John Pershing, popularly known as Black Jack, commanded the American Expeditionary Force.
10:12The veteran of the 1898 Spanish-American War, the Philippines, and commander of the 1916 punitive expedition to Mexico, he
10:21was combat experienced by American standards.
10:30Pershing was determined to maintain the entity of the American forces in France, rather than allow them to fight piecemeal
10:37under French and British command.
10:39Even during the dark days of spring 1918, when the Germans seemed to be driving all before them.
10:45He did, however, allow some of his earlier rivals to help the French in repelling the final German attacks in
10:50mid-1918.
10:53In mid-July 1918, the Allies began to mass their forces for offensive action.
11:21At the same time, Pershing ordered the formal creation of the first United States Army of 14 divisions.
11:28America was now poised to take part, in her own right, in the final offensives.
11:35The turning point on the Western Front had finally arrived.
11:39It was, too, the same on most of the other fronts.
11:44British and French forces had had to be sent to Italy after the Austro-German attack at Caporetto in October
11:491917 had driven the Italians back 85 miles.
11:53The Allied line eventually stabilised on the River Piave and just 15 miles from Venice.
12:16The Italian army quickly restored its shattered morale.
12:22Austro-German pressure had been maintained on the River Piave during the first half of 1918.
12:27But in the latter half of October, the Allies struck across the river in such a devastating way as to
12:33split the Austrian armies,
12:34throw them back in confusion and force them to ask for an armistice after just over two weeks' fighting.
12:53In Salonika, in north-eastern Greece, the deadlock that had existed for three years between the Allied forces and the
13:00Bulgarians,
13:01with a little German stiffening, was finally broken.
13:13The Allies launched a major offensive in autumn 1918.
13:17This made quick progress and Bulgaria was soon forced to sue for peace.
13:24Elsewhere during the Great War, there were two long campaigns between the British and Turks.
13:30In Mesopotamia, now Iraq, Indian troops had landed at Basra in November 1914 in order to secure oil fields.
13:39An advance up the River Tigris, almost as far as Baghdad, was then made.
13:43But the logistic support was lacking.
13:46The British fell back to Qut El Amara, where they were besieged and forced to surrender in April 1916.
13:54A fresh commander and reorganisation resulted in another advance,
13:58which relied extensively on fire support from gunboats on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
14:13In April 1917, Baghdad was finally captured.
14:17Thereafter, British forces pushed north and even reached Baku on the Caspian Sea.
14:25Further west, in early 1915, the Turks had made an abortive attack across the Suez Canal into Egypt.
14:31This was garrisoned by British and Dominion troops.
14:42They were able to repulse this attack without difficulty.
14:56At the end of April 1916, the British crossed the canal and began to advance into Sinai.
15:03A stalemate occurred in front of Gaza.
15:06Here, tanks were used for the only time in the Middle East.
15:09But the desert conditions proved too much for them.
15:12Instead, the British relied heavily on horsed cavalry.
15:23It was not until a road, water pipeline and railway line were built across the trackless desert
15:29that the British were able to break through the Turkish defences.
15:39In autumn 1917, the British reached Jerusalem.
15:46Hopes of a further advance were dashed by demands for reinforcements from the Middle East
15:50to help hold back the German drives on the Western Front.
16:00A period of relatively static warfare therefore followed.
16:15It was not until autumn 1918 that the offensive was resumed, thrusting north through what is now modern Israel.
16:28A weapon which proved particularly effective in the Middle East was the Rolls-Royce armoured car,
16:34which was used extensively for reconnaissance.
16:37Such was its reliability that models like this also saw active service in the North African desert over 20 years
16:43later.
16:55The Turks were also facing an Arab revolt in their rear.
17:05This had been largely fomented by a British officer, T. E. Lawrence,
17:09who is seen here in Arab dress to the right of the central bearded figure.
17:19By the end of October 1918, the British had reached Aleppo.
17:23The Turkish armies had been broken and the Ottoman Empire sued for peace.
17:34In Africa, the Allies experienced little difficulty in overrunning German Southwest Africa and Cameroon in 1914.
17:42But the German colony in East Africa proved a much harder nut to crack.
17:51The war here involved not just white troops.
17:54Both sides were largely made up of black Africans, who proved to be skilful soldiers in the bush.
18:04The Germans, with relatively small forces, were able to keep the Allies at bay for four years,
18:10and did not lay down their arms until after the end of the war in Europe.
18:17The campaign was also marked by the high incidence of sickness,
18:21especially malaria, which caused more casualties than combat.
18:28The main drama was played out on the Western Front.
18:31The Allied plan was to keep striking and allow the Germans no respite.
18:37First came the French counter-offensive into flanks of the German salience in Champagne.
18:42Then, on the 8th of August, the British struck at Amiens.
19:05As at the Battle of Cambrai, in November 1917, the attack was led by tanks, 440 in number.
19:12While still slow, with a top speed of no more than 4.6 miles per hour,
19:17and mechanically unreliable, they did help to achieve a breakthrough.
19:24Before the end of the 8th of August, Australian and Canadian troops had penetrated nine miles.
19:29Their casualties were remarkably light, just over 4,000 killed, wounded and missing.
19:39It was the furthest that any Allied attack on the Western Front had progressed in one day,
19:44and with the least casualties for a first day.
20:05On the second day, with only 145 tanks still fit, the advance made a further three miles.
20:23Thereafter, few tanks were available, and the attack came to a halt.
20:30Even so, Erich von Ludendorff, the German Chief of Staff, called the 8th of August the Black Day for the
20:36German Army.
20:37The 30,000 prisoners captured indicated only too clearly that its cohesion was now being brought into question.
20:58In mid-September, it was the turn of the Americans, who successfully eradicated the Saint-Mihiel salient east of Verdun.
21:06This was their first independent operation.
21:15Eight American and three French divisions, supported by 144 tanks, mostly American manned, and 2,800 guns, took part.
21:30Attacking on a 25-mile front, the Americans achieved their objective in four days.
21:35Their sheer enthusiasm more than made up for their lack of experience.
21:42Then the Belgians and British attacked out of the Ypres salient.
21:46For the Belgians in particular, this was very welcome.
21:49For four long years, they had been clinging onto one small remnant of their country.
21:53Now, finally, they could begin the business of liberating the remainder of it.
22:15On the 26th of September, the French and Americans struck in the broken and hilly Argonne.
22:21No less than 600,000 men had been concentrated on a 40-mile wide front.
22:35They were supported by nearly 500 tanks and some 3,000 guns.
22:44On the first day, good progress was made.
22:53From then on, as the attackers entered the wooded hills and German resistance stiffened,
22:58the fighting became tougher and coordination between units was increasingly more difficult.
23:08Tanks could not operate in this broken terrain and the attackers had to rely on their artillery to get them
23:13forward.
23:16Well-prepared German positions and numerous counter-attacks intensified the bitterness of the fighting.
23:30The fighting saw specialist trench weapons come to the fore once more.
23:35Examples were this French grenade thrower and bomb launcher.
23:48The French, with their greater experience, found it easier to cope in these difficult conditions than Americans.
24:04A growing problem was that there were only three roads leading into the battle area.
24:14These soon became congested and meant that reserves could not be deployed in time.
24:29Consequently, on the 30th of September, the offensive was halted.
24:36The torch was now passed to the British, who had begun to attack the formidable Hindenburg Line on the 27th
24:42of September.
24:43Supported by massive artillery, the Canadian Corps fired no less than 7,000 tons of shells in one day.
24:50A breach 12 miles wide and 6 miles deep was created in the German defences.
25:01After four days fighting, there was a short pause for regrouping.
25:08Then, on the 5th of October, the Hindenburg Line was finally broken, with the capture of 36,000 prisoners and
25:14380 guns.
25:16It seemed, at least as far as the British were concerned, that they had now picked the lock on which
25:21the German defence was founded.
25:38Now, the British could begin to advance away from the trenches that had so dominated their lives during the past
25:44four years into the open country beyond.
25:57Thus, mobile warfare came once more to the Western Front.
26:01But could the Allies sustain it and bring about the ultimate defeat of the German armies in the West?
26:16As the Allied troops advanced into open country in October 1918, they found that new tactics were needed to wage
26:23this more mobile warfare.
26:26The Germans, too, fought with skill.
26:28They relied on rearguards, supported by artillery and heavily armed with machine guns, to prevent the Allies from closing with
26:35their main body.
26:36These ensured that the Allies paid a heavy price in casualties for the ground they gained.
26:58Nevertheless, the Allies pushed remorselessly forward.
27:04But, while the German ability to fight was seemingly unimpaired, behind the front there were growing doubts as to German
27:11soldiers.
27:13But, while the German army was in the same way, the German army was in the same way as to
27:14German soldiers.
27:15The Allied blockade had been very tight for a long time and had brought Germany's maritime trade to a standstill.
27:22Food was becoming desperately short.
27:27Inevitably, civilians suffered worst.
27:29But even frontline troops were now subsisting on black bread, coffee made of acorns, bad potatoes and horse meat.
27:37Germany was also beginning to run out of manpower, with 17- and even 16-year-olds being constricted.
27:44By early October, even Ludendorff accepted that the war was lost.
27:50Faced with ever-mounting losses, he recommended an immediate withdrawal to Germany's 1914 Western border,
27:56and that an approach should be made to the Allies for an armistice.
28:05This approach was to be made on the basis of a declaration made by President Wilson in January 1918,
28:12and agreed by his Allies on conditions for peace.
28:15They were known as the Fourteen Points.
28:18Germany and America exchanged diplomatic notes, but on the 16th of October, Wilson suddenly backtracked.
28:24He had not kept his Allies properly informed, and they now insisted that it was up to the military commanders
28:30to lay down armistice terms.
28:32The generals demanded that these must make it impossible for Germany to renew hostilities.
28:37This implied surrender, and threw Berlin, which had been hoping for peace with honour, into confusion.
28:45Meanwhile, the Allied offensive on the Western Front ground on remorselessly,
28:49the troops on both sides being unaware of the high-level armistice negotiations.
28:54Indeed, most on the Allied side remained certain that the war would drag on through the winter.
28:59The German rearguards continued to offer fierce resistance, and Allied casualties were heavy.
29:27As the Germans were forced back, they adopted a scorched earth policy, destroying everything in their wake.
29:54The Allied armies had to expend considerable resources on repairing roads and railways,
29:59so that the momentum of their attacks could be maintained.
30:05For the former inhabitants of the recently liberated towns and villages,
30:09the joy of returning home was often tempered by shock at the destruction.
30:17Ludendorff was right in his fears that cracks were appearing in Germany's military machine.
30:22Army units in the rear areas began to elect soldiers' councils on Russian Bolshevik lines,
30:27and jeered at their comrades who continued to fight on.
30:30The high seas fleet mutinied when ordered to sea.
30:39Germany's allies began to throw in the towel.
30:41Bulgaria had already signed an armistice at the end of September.
30:45Turkey did so on the 30th of October, and then Austro-Hungary on the 4th of November.
30:50The German government, isolated and under intense pressure from below,
30:55finally accepted that the armistice had to be on Allied terms.
31:00Ludendorff disagreed, was sacked, and an armistice delegation was sent through the front lines.
31:06Two days later, under pressure from von Hindenburg, the Kaiser abdicated.
31:11He went into immediate exile in neutral Holland, where he was to spend the remainder of his days.
31:16Germany was now a republic with an uncertain future.
31:23While the guns continued to thunder, a railway train pulled into the forest of Compiègne.
31:31In one of its carriages, at five o'clock in the morning of the 11th of November,
31:35the German delegation signed the armistice agreement.
31:43Six hours later, the guns ceased their angry rumbling,
31:47and France and Flanders experienced a stillness,
31:49which they had not known for over four years.
31:58In Paris, London, and New York, the news brought the crowds out on the streets in hysterical jubilation,
32:04which would last on through the night.
32:28At the front itself, the ceasefire was greeted by the troops not so much with joy,
32:33but relief that they had survived, tinged with sadness for the nine million who had not.
32:42No sooner had the armistice on the Western Front come into effect on the 11th of November, 1918,
32:47than the German forces began their march back into Germany.
32:51Most German frontline soldiers, while glad that the fighting was over,
32:55did not feel that they had been defeated on the field of battle.
32:58They noted that the armistice delegation had been all civilian,
33:02and there was a sense of betrayal.
33:04It was this which would later generate the stab-in-the-back notion propagated by right-wing politicians.
33:17The Allied armies duly followed up a day or two's march behind the withdrawing Germans.
33:28Liberated towns and villages greeted them with wild enthusiasm.
33:33The French moved quickly to bring Alsace and Lorraine, lost to Germany in 1870, back into the fold.
33:40The citizens of Brussels were overjoyed to be reunited with their king.
33:45The Allies now crossed the Rhine and occupied bridgeheads beyond it.
33:54Their military bands met with little response from the sullen German population in this region.
34:05The German high seas fleet sailed into the British base at Scarpa Flow in the Orkneys to surrender.
34:11The ships were impounded, but the Germans were to have the last laugh.
34:20A short time later, their crews scuttled them.
34:23Thirteen capital ships and fifty-eight lesser warships sank to the bottom.
34:41Germany, meanwhile, was in turmoil.
34:44The democratic government had been set up at the beginning of November,
34:47but this came under threat from the hard left,
34:49which was represented by soldiers and workers' councils set up on Bolshevik lines.
35:04There were also the even more extreme Spartacists, followers of Lenin, who were bent on installing a communist regime.
35:16The government itself tried to steer a middle course, forming its own military units to protect it,
35:22rather than be seen to be supported by the army of the old order.
35:25It also promised new elections.
35:32Matters came to a head at the beginning of January 1919,
35:36after clashes with government troops just before Christmas.
35:39The Spartacists declared that the government was no more and called a general strike.
35:45By this stage, though, a number of German army officers returning from the front with their troops
35:50had become so concerned by the growing anarchy that they formed volunteer units known as Freikor.
35:56It was to these that the government was forced to turn,
35:59and they quickly moved into Berlin and crushed the Spartacists with much severity.
36:07Thousands were arrested, and there were many deaths.
36:14Among the victims were the two Spartacist leaders, Rosa Luxemburg,
36:20and Karl Liebknecht.
36:23The government held the promised elections and won them.
36:27But left-wing unrest continued, culminating in a general strike.
36:31Once again, the Freikorps moved into Berlin,
36:33and in the space of ten days crushed the left,
36:36forcing the German communists to go underground.
36:40Nevertheless, the government, concerned over its own safety,
36:43had moved to Weimar, 150 miles south of Berlin.
36:49Matters went even further in Munich.
36:52The hard left actually took over the Bavarian state government
36:54and began brutally to purge political opponents.
37:06It was the Freikorps once more who had to restore order.
37:10Advancing swiftly on Munich, they crushed the revolution with much ferocity,
37:14killing no less than 1,000 people in the space of a week,
37:17and restored democratic government.
37:28Similar political upheavals elsewhere in Central Europe were redrawing the map.
37:34The Austro-Hungarian emperor, Karl, who had succeeded Franz Josef in 1916, abdicated.
37:41Hungary immediately broke away, and in February 1919,
37:45the recently installed democratic government was overthrown by Bela Kun,
37:49who had been indoctrinated into communism while a prisoner of war of the Russians.
37:58In turn, there was a successful right-wing counter-coup led by Admiral Miklos Horty,
38:03seen here in the centre.
38:14But the victorious allies also had their problems.
38:18Instability in Italy soon led to the rise of Mussolini and his fascists.
38:23Britain was rocked by a series of industrial strikes,
38:26which so concerned the government that the crack guards division
38:29was brought home from France and paraded through London's streets
38:33as a warning to troublemakers.
38:35In North America, too, there was much industrial unrest and violence,
38:39largely caused by an organisation called the Industrial Workers of the World,
38:44more commonly known as the Wobblies.
38:47Much of the inspiration for this unrest came from Russia,
38:50but here the civil war had grown ever more widespread
38:53until it engulfed the country.
38:55At base, it was the determination of the Bolsheviks, known as the Reds,
38:59to consolidate their revolution in the face of the Whites,
39:03those opposed to what it stood for.
39:05Not until the whole of their vast country had been brought under control
39:08could the Bolsheviks feel secure.
39:15There was, however, no tsar to put back on the throne,
39:18since he and his family had been executed by the Reds in July 1918.
39:27In spring 1919, three white armies began to converge on the Red Hartland,
39:32based on Petrograd and Moscow in Western Russia.
39:49One advanced west from Siberia.
39:55Another moved north from the Ukraine,
39:58while a third struck from Russia's western border.
40:03Dominating the campaign in the eastern part of the country
40:06was the Trans-Siberian Railway,
40:08which ran from Moscow to Vladivostok.
40:11Fierce battles were fought along its length for control of it.
40:18Another aspect of the war was the part played by the wartime allies.
40:23Initially, they had sent small contingents to Russia
40:25in the vain hope that she might continue to fight on against the Germans.
40:28After Russia's exit from the war,
40:31the western allies, fearing a spread of communism,
40:34and Japan, keen to extend her sphere of influence,
40:37began to give active support to the whites.
40:50Japanese, American and British ground and naval forces
40:54were deployed to Vladivostok.
40:56British and French elements were in the Ukraine and Caucasus,
40:59and British, French, Canadian, American, Italian,
41:02and even Serbian forces in the extreme north,
41:05around the ports of Momansk and Archangel.
41:09The main role of the allied contingents was to arm, equip,
41:12and to advise the white forces.
41:20the white forces were to fight the soldiers.
41:20But often, they found themselves in direct combat with the Reds.
41:29With all this support, the whites should have overcome Bolshevism
41:32with comparative ease.
41:33But this was not so.
41:35The white commanders were generally inept,
41:38and there was little cooperation among them.
41:40Many of their soldiers proved to be ill-disciplined and unreliable.
41:44The Reds, on the other hand, had as their military leader,
41:47Leon Trotsky, who showed himself to be a natural organizer
41:51and an inspiration to his soldiers.
41:55One of his outstanding commanders was Simeon Budjeni,
41:59well known for his luxuriant moustache.
42:03A former Tsarist trooper,
42:05he rose to command the 1st Red Cavalry Army,
42:08which he led with particular dash.
42:21For almost two years, the fighting swept back and forth across Russia,
42:25as the Reds dealt with each white advance in turn.
42:32By early 1920, the whites had everywhere been defeated.
42:40The Allies had seen the writing on the wall well before them,
42:43and had faced increasing domestic questioning over their role in Russia.
42:48Consequently, they withdrew their support for the whites and sailed home.
42:56The main victims of the Russian Civil War were the ordinary people.
43:01They were subjected to barbarities by both Reds and whites.
43:04The war also totally disrupted industry and agriculture.
43:08This resulted in widespread famine and disease.
43:12No one knows how many perished,
43:14but it certainly ran to several millions.
43:17In January 1919, representatives of the Allied nations met in Paris
43:22and began to decide on the peace terms.
43:25While all agreed with United States President Wilson's 14 points
43:29as principles for avoiding future wars,
43:31there was initially much divergence in views
43:34as to the degree to which the defeated nations,
43:37who were seen as the original aggressors, should be punished.
43:40France could not forget the one and a half million dead she had suffered,
43:44and the devastation in the northern part of her land.
43:48Consequently, her Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau,
43:51known as the Tiger,
43:52was especially keen to make Germany pay for the damage she had caused.
44:01British Prime Minister Lloyd George was conscious of the one million British Empire dead
44:06and massive financial debt to America.
44:10Wilson took a softer line, but was undermined by Congress,
44:14which now wanted to disengage from Europe as soon as possible.
44:18Of the other victorious powers,
44:20Italy and Japan were soon to be disappointed by their territorial awards,
44:24even though Germany lost all her overseas colonies.
44:28The Ottoman Empire was also broken up,
44:30with France being awarded the mandates of Syria and Lebanon,
44:34and Britain, those of Palestine, Transjordan and Iraq.
44:39Within Eastern Europe,
44:41President Wilson's principle of self-determination,
44:43one of the 14 points,
44:45exerted a large influence in what was to be a dramatic redrawing of the map.
44:51Three independent Baltic states,
44:53Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were created,
44:56and Poland gained her independence.
44:59She was awarded the whole of Galicia,
45:01and, more significant for the future,
45:03a corridor to the Baltic in the Danzig area,
45:06thus isolating the German territory of East Prussia.
45:13The remainder of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire was entirely broken up,
45:17with Austria becoming a small republic,
45:19and Hungarian independence being recognised.
45:23A new state of Czechoslovakia,
45:25which contained a significant ethnic German minority, was created.
45:29a new state.
45:33Substantial changes also took place in the Balkans.
45:41Serbia, Montenegro,
45:42and the former Austrian provinces of Croatia,
45:45and Bosnia-Herzegovina,
45:47combined to form the state of Yugoslavia.
45:50The Serbs were to be dominant,
45:51but other ethnic groupings did not object,
45:54since they were now members of a victor state.
45:58The armed forces of the conquered nations were severely restricted.
46:03Germany was allowed an all-volunteer army of just 100,000 men.
46:07Her air force, her few tanks, mostly captured British models,
46:12and large guns were to be destroyed,
46:14and her vast munitions industry dismantled.
46:22She also had to pay the Allies huge financial reparations.
46:28A strong body of opinion in Germany was in favour of rejecting the peace terms as being unbelievably harsh,
46:35arguing that her armies had not been defeated in the field.
46:38Indeed, some troops have been allowed to parade in Berlin with their weapons at the end of 1918.
46:49In truth, though, there was no option.
46:52And on the 28th of June 1919, the delegates assembled to sign the peace in the Hall of Mirrors at
46:58Versailles,
46:58the very room in which Kaiser Wilhelm I had been proclaimed Emperor of all Germany in 1871.
47:07Peace treaties were subsequently signed with the other defeated states.
47:15The Allies celebrated the Treaty of Versailles with victory parades in New York, Paris, London and elsewhere.
47:39Now the Allies could turn to the business of dismantling their war machines and winning the peace,
47:45confident that they had taken the necessary steps to ensure that there would be no more major conflicts in Europe.
47:59Numerous war cemeteries and memorials to the war dead sprang up.
48:13These, together with the hundreds of thousands who had been mentally and physically mutilated during 1914-18,
48:20acted as a stark reminder of the horrors of war.
48:29The Paris Peace Conference had, however, drawn up another way of ensuring that major conflict did not break out in
48:35the future.
48:41The establishment of the League of Nations was once again the brainchild of Woodrow Wilson.
48:46All victorious nations and neutral states were invited to join, and 42 did so.
48:52It aimed to prevent potential conflict by arbitration.
48:55If this failed, and one member did attack another, the League could impose sanctions, and as a last resort, force.
49:03Yet even as the League convened for the first time at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland in November 1920, it
49:09was faced with problems.
49:10For a start, the US Senate had refused to ratify it.
49:17Worse, Wilson lost the presidential election in that same month, November.
49:21This meant that America did not join.
49:26But there was already trouble in Eastern Europe.
49:29Poland and Lithuania invaded Ukraine in August 1919.
49:33The Russians struck back, but eventually, a year later, were defeated, leaving part of the Ukraine in Polish hands.
49:41There was trouble, too, with Turkey.
49:47The Allies had insisted that she surrender the extreme western part of Asia Minor to Greece.
49:56Allied troops were landed in the Dardanelles to enforce this.
50:00While the Sultan of Turkey was prepared to accept it, some of his generals were not.
50:04They overthrew him in early 1921 and attacked the Greeks, driving them back in disarray.
50:10The British troops at Chanak, at the western end of the Dardanelles Straits, prepared to intercede in what seemed about
50:17to become a third Balkan War.
50:28Eventually, though, the Allies dropped their demands on the Turkish mainland, and a revised peace treaty was signed in 1923.
50:36Europe breathed again.
50:39In November 1918, the victorious nations believed that they had just won the war to end all war.
50:49But even as the apparatus for maintaining peace in the future was being set up, new forces were stirring.
50:56Forces that would eventually engulf whole populations and threaten the stability of the world.
51:15This is not the most powerful allies, but Jews so quickly naked.
51:18A spoiler�� permitir blame them for the treble for the enemy Brexit civilisation, to Putin's war behind the Islam, being
51:31음식men, who had no기도 equal war.
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