my name is dan snow and i want to tell you about history hit tv it's like the netflix for history hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians we've got an exclusive offer available to fans of timeline if you go to history hit tv you can either follow the information below this video or just google history hit tv and use the code timeline you get a special introductory offer go and check it out in the meantime enjoy this video a war of numbers men ammunition guns ships aircraft quantity is the difference between victory and defeat and for the first time in history everything is recorded in exacting detail a billion artillery shells a million machine guns 50 billion bullets 65 million men at war who die at a rate of 6 000 a day a war of numbers fought by calculating generals for whom no cost is too high [Applause] by the end of 1917 three years of war has transformed europe the war had begun with armies in colorful uniforms advancing behind battle standards but it ended with tactically skilled well-equipped infantry advancing behind machines total war has almost destroyed the romanov dynasty in russia the habsburg empire is on its knees the french army has mutinied britain and germany are bleeding each other to death but a fresh new army is being assembled across the atlantic 1. 2 million americans have been recruited and are preparing to go to europe will they be swallowed up slaughtered like millions who went before them or will they tip the balance bringing victory to the allies and defeat to the germans will 1918 finally see the end game by the beginning of 1918 all sides are only too aware that numbers of men and munitions will decide this war the allies know the numbers weigh heavily in their favor the population of the allies and their empires together came to something like one and a quarter billion people that's about 70 percent of the world's population compare that with the population of the central powers put together and that comes to about 150 million people which is only eight percent of the world's population french general marshall patel makes no secret of his long-term strategy i'm waiting for the tanks and the americans the trouble is the americans won't be ready until 1919. 1.
2 million americans have been called up but only 180 000 men have so far reached europe like britain in 1914 the usa is not geared up for war and it shows when america entered the war its army consisted only of about 208 000 men and of those 80 000 were national guardsmen so america wasn't going to be ready to fight a major offensive for probably another two years america's potential is enormous out of a population of 103 million 24 million will be registered for the draft almost 3 million will be conscripted more than 1 million volunteer in total 4. 4 million americans one in five eligible men will eventually serve the choice of who to send to this terrible war reflects the prejudices in american society immigrants poor rural farmers and african americans are far more likely to be called up [Music] from the 10 million young men examined in the first draft almost one in five of the african americans are called up to fight among the white americans it's only one in thirteen america's upper classes are largely exempt when the army conducts iq tests it discovers that black soldiers from northern cities score higher than white soldiers from the rural south the results of the test are suppressed what's more southerners in particular are wary of giving black people guns so 90 percent african americans are put into segregated unarmed battalions of laborers the american president woodrow wilson was a southerner and he supported segregation so most african-american soldiers ended up as laborers those that did take up arms were organized into two segregated all african-american divisions led by white officers ordinary french people are happy to see the arrival of american troops of all colours black soldiers find their welcome in restaurants and bars where they are cordially served by white waiters and respected as paying customers for many it's their first taste of life as a normal citizen american commanders are alarmed the army even tried to limit contact between african american soldiers and civilians they were worried that that contact would affect their attitudes and make them less willing to accept segregation when they returned home to the states the prospect of more american troops on their way alarms the german high command hindenburg and ludendorff know that if they do not strike now by 1919 the allied tide will be unstoppable and at the start of 1918 the collapse of czarist russia means that there will never be a better time to strike the war-mongering imperial czar has been deposed the bolsheviks backed by german money seized power in november 1917 and try to make peace the germans attempt to negotiate terms with the bolshevik commissar leon trotsky this will allow them to concentrate their forces on the western front but by february 1918 peace talks break down trotsky storms out declaring there will be no peace no war but trotsky is about to learn a lesson in real world politics the germans called his bluff the germans marched on petrograd and in petrograd the sound of warfare was audible the panic in the city was intense and this demonstrated really that russia had no choice unable to resist the german army as it marches on the gates of petrograd the bolsheviks are forced to surrender an area five times the size of germany two and a half million square kilometers of territory 50 million people over half of russia's industry 90 of its coal mines and a third of its agriculture all come under german and austrian control finally the germans have the empire they wanted with russia out of the war the germans and austrians moved more than a million men to italy and the western front by march 1918 the german army has transferred 42 divisions from east to west it can now field 192 divisions in france the german army on the western front has grown to four million men replacing almost all of the 880 000 casualties suffered in 1917 the allies meanwhile have failed to replace the men lost in 1917 their forces shrink to three and a half million they are outnumbered [Music] by march 1918 ludendorff is ready to strike and he's picked his target he will go for the weakest link in the allied line the british army on the somme on the 21st of march 1918 the german guns open fire it's the largest barrage yet seen on the western front over three thousand shells a minute over one million in five hours three million by the end of the first day this was the start of what the germans called the kaiserschlacht the emperor's battle this was the spring offensive the great effort to push the british back to the sea and basically destroy the british army 56 elite german assault divisions are launched against just 15 british in troops they have a three to one advantage their 7 000 guns outnumber the british almost three to one and a thousand aircraft give them two to one air superiority the germans seem to have everything on their side the guns the men the tactics but crucially what they don't have is the americans march 1918 in one last desperate gamble german general ludendorff has launched the kaiserschlacht an all-out offensive against the allied line he hopes to break the british before the americans can enter the war and tip the balance in the allies favor and he has picked on the british for a reason general ludendorff thought that the british were genuinely tired of fighting and wouldn't really mount a spirited defense he thought that he'd be able to punch through them and not only destroy them but also destroy their morale as well the germans are doing everything they can to undermine the british tommy's resolve the germans had also been waging a psychological war they have been dropping leaflets all over the front asking the british tommy what he was fighting for and these leaflets also reminded him that help from america was at least a year away [Music] at the head of the german assault is a new kind of soldier the storm trooper these trench assault troops are armed not just with rifles and bayonets but grenades in 1918 the british army is equipped with this grenade here this is the number five of the mills bomb and it works like this you've got a pin that retains a lever when you're going to use it you pull out the pin retain the pin hold the lever when you let go this spring will send down a firing pin that will begin a fuse burning five and a half seconds later it will go off bang the problem with the grenade is it's efficient but you cannot use it in the open you can throw it from a trench into the open or from the open into a trench if you try and use it an open field the thrower he probably will be injured or even killed by bits from it the germans look at this and think about it slightly differently and they come up with a quite similar grenade the kruger grenade this one by the way designed to be worn on a belt and when you undo it and pull it's ready to throw but even that might cause you a lot of damage if you don't chuck it far enough so the germans develop the classic potato masher bomb the one with the handle i also developed this devil here this is the egg grenade so called it looks a bit like an egg and the way that you use it is a storm trooper will have bags full of these things lots of them and the soldier can in fact pull the fuse setting the grenade started and throw it but keep on going forward because he can chuck it so far that he can probably throw two or three into an enemy position and when he gets there they've gone off and the enemy are either dazed or scared or running away and he can get to work with rifle and bearing before he moves on again throwing yet more grenades the very basis of stormtrooper tactics the storm troopers rely on speed hit the enemy before they know you're coming some british troops are surprised still having their breakfast in places the german advance is so rapid the british troops moving towards the front line are not even aware that the battle has started and are instead intercepted by oncoming storm troopers and taken prisoner almost immediately without a shot being fired within 90 minutes almost a third of the british fifth army have been killed or captured at the end of the first day almost 50 miles of the british front line has fallen and the germans have advanced three miles the british suffer 38 000 casualties the cost of the germans is higher almost 40 000 men killed or wounded nearly all from their elite assault divisions this is the worst single day for casualties in the entire war french general ferdinand fox the hero of the marm back in 1914 intervenes in an effort to shore up allied defenses he orders 13 divisions sent north by rail to help the british but the scale of the operation is enormous it takes 40 trains to move an 11 000 strong french division supplying that many men was a massive challenge each division might need at least a thousand tons of supplies every day but ludendorff now delivers another huge blow to the allies a second surprise attack in the north this will be the most effective attack since the start of trench warfare the british commander-in-chief douglas hague butcher hague to the troops demands that his soldiers fight to the death every position must be held to the last man there must be no retirement with our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each one of us must fight on to the end the british losses are horrendous by the end of april the british army has been seriously weakened it suffered some 260 000 casualties 10 divisions have almost been completely wiped out now with the british on their last legs and the french scrambling to support them in the north ludendorff prepares his coup de the germans have been secretly amassing 36 divisions and over 5 000 guns ready for one massive decisive attack ludendorff's target is the weakest point in the french line at shaman de dam and beyond that lies paris the germans were completely successful in hiding their point of attack fosh and patta were expecting an attack to come in flanders and so they left charmander damn actually very thinly garrisoned the germans were able to muster a superiority of four to one in artillery pieces and five to one in infantrymen the germans advanced 12 miles in the first day further than british advances at the somme and passchendaele combined by day five they are just 39 miles from paris already the germans have been bombarding paris with the most powerful guns of the entire war each so-called paris gun can fire a 264-pound shell up to 25 miles into the stratosphere before falling back to earth 75 miles away it's the first man-made object to leave earth's atmosphere it will kill 250 people and cause panic in paris the situation looks really serious in fact so serious that even the resolute club also considers evacuating paris the british army is reeling the french forces are buckling the allies have lost over 000 men paris is about to fall only one army has the men and the resources to stop the german juggernaut the united states commanded by general john pershing [Music] the allies were desperate now the french were transferring troops from flanders the british were drawing up plans to to transfer 1. 75 million troops to the south of the somme so you had a situation where general pershing was actually informing washington that it was going to be up to america to bail out the allies america speeds up its war effort by june 1918 almost a million american troops are on european soil they arrive in the nick of time on the 6th of june 1918 the might of america finally makes it stand against the vanguard of the advancing german army at bellow wood just 30 miles east of paris when the united states marines first encountered the french at bellow wood the french advised them to fall back but the response from captain lloyd williams is simple retreat hell we just got here but the americans lack the experience that three long years of blood-soaked conflict has given their french allies bella wood the marines will quickly come to understand the savage nature of this war it is the worst single day in marine corps history over a thousand men are killed or wounded the americans learned a very costly lesson at bella wood they learned how to coordinate artillery infantry machine guns to create a successful attack a lot of men were lost but a lot was learned at a cost of 10 000 american casualties the german advance on paris is finally halted and now the numbers begin to turn against ludendorff the german armies have suffered almost a million casualties since the start of their offensive allied numbers are moving up again the british are now sending 10 000 more men every day to france allied forces rise by 500 000 british and almost a million fresh american soldiers what's more these troops are more mobile than ever french factories have been copying american methods of mass production from just 170 motor vehicles before the war by 1918 they have 37 000 they are able to carry over 100 000 men and 7 thousand tons of munitions to the front in a single day the allies now prepare for a mighty counter-offensive and thanks to aerial reconnaissance they know exactly where to strike what i've got in my hand here is a trench map and these are produced in a very straightforward but very dangerous way essentially you get aircraft to fly over your trenches and over the enemy trenches way behind their lines to take photographs vertically downwards which can then be converted into maps credibly dangerous very risky not very glamorous but what it means once you've got that information you can mark up the trenches the barbed wire the batteries the mortar positions [Applause] the allies prepare for a full-on assault against the weak point in the german line at amiens on paper at least the sides seem to be evenly matched the germans have ten divisions the allies have ten divisions far from the two to one advantage an attacking force normally requires but the german divisions are smaller and shrinking fast each with just six and a half thousand riflemen in each american division there are at least fifteen thousand men bearing arms in big guns too the allies vastly outnumber the germans against 749 german guns they have over two thousand against a hundred planes they have one thousand nine 900.
the germans meanwhile have no tanks the allies have over 500 the infantry strength at amions compared to the somme is rather different perhaps a hundred thousand men assaulted on the first day of the song only fifty thousand assaults at the first day of the battle of amiens but those fifty thousand men have more than double the firepower that was carried into battle in 1916. at amiens the german forces are simply overwhelmed the attack on the 8th of august was devastating and broke through the german lines ludendorff is in shock this he says is the black day of the german army germany's forces are reeling the allies are rolling over them the end game is about to begin august 1918 the allied assault ambience has stopped the german advance in its tracks in four days the allies take 30 000 german prisoners german confidence collapses german troops begin to turn against their imperial officers [Music] the success the allied breakthrough showed that germa morale was very fragile large numbers of german soldiers surrendered rather than fight on and reinforcements moving up to the front were shouted at by retreating german troops you're prolonging the war and black legs the rejuvenated allies appear to be going from strength to strength what the british did demonstrate here was a complete mastery of all arms corporation with infantry artillery cavalry and tanks and the royal air force integrating effectively together the allies follow up with the succession of hammer blows along the german line taking back from the germans all the gains made in the spring by september there are increasing signs that german morale is absolutely crumbling and what makes it worse is that the austro-hungarians can't help the germans either because they've just lost at the battle of piave so it's not just the war that's being lost but it also looks like empires are being lost as well the old imperial ruling classes are losing their grip whole empires are falling apart in the habsburg balkans french and serb forces defeat bulgaria which signs a separate armistice the collapse of bulgaria cuts off the ottoman empire from german supplies this leaves them at the mercy of the british forces in the east general allenby fights a brilliant and decisive campaign over the ottomans in palestine at the battle of megiddo the desert mounted corps envelops and encircles the ottoman forces for allenby a complete victory megiddo is just one of a series of shattering defeats that will finally knock the ottomans out of the war germany is facing defeat the allies are poised to deliver the coup de gras but just as it looks like the great war is about to end the allies are struck down not by german guns and bullets but by something even more deadly a terrifying mass killer with such an innocent sounding name it is called the spanish flu but it comes from kansas in september 1918 it takes hold in packed u. s army training camps at camp grant illinois the number of hospital beds has to be increased from ten to four thousand in just six days the virus seemed disproportionately to attack the young and it caused great misery it would destroy the lungs terrible pain it could kill within hours in september and october it sweeps through the u.
s army one million u. s soldiers are hospitalized 45 000 die it is the most deadly disease in the whole of human history 50 million people died of the spanish flu over this period that's about twice as many people has died as a result of the war and if we look at the united states it actually reduced the life expectancy of people in the united states by 12 years with hundreds of thousands of men hospitalized and the germans dug in behind the hindenburg line the allied advance stores but by the end of september the americans are arriving in huge numbers despite the thousands killed by spanish flu they prepare a colossal assault on the hindenburg line more rounds will be fired in this one battle than were fired by the union in the entire american civil war in the end the americans commit 1. 2 million troops to the battle making it the largest offensive in u.
s military history the germans counter with 400 000 and the result is 120 000 american casualties while the bulk of germany's armed might is preoccupied trying to hold back the incredible allied onslaught away from the main action a single british division makes its move 46th north midland division carry out one of the most remarkable actions of the war they cross the canal itself using life rafts and life belts taken from cross-channel ferries and they storm the heights beyond the hindenburg line has finally been broken and once the first breach has been made the allies flood through by the evening of the 30th of september a 50 kilometer stretch of the hindenburg line is in allied hands the british advance is unprecedented the advance of the somme cost more than 5 000 casualties for every mile game passchendaele cost over 8 000 men per mile now the british are losing 83 men for every mile gained germany's imperial elite has lost the war now there is a chilling possibility that they will lose everything with the hindenburg line broken ludendorff calls on the government to negotiate a ceasefire he fears that if the war goes on much longer the german army will lose its hold on germany itself and won't be able to stop a russian-style revolution [Music] the german chancellor prince max von barden begs woodrow wilson for a ceasefire the kaiser and germany's arrogant militaristic ruling class went to war to expand their empire now they must beg the americans just to stay in power wilson will have none of it the kaiser has to go on the 9th of november he is forced to abdicate the german monarchy is dead 2 days later on the 11th of november the armistice is signed it will come into effect at 11 am [Music] 11 000 soldiers are killed or injured on the last day of the war more than all the allied and german casualties on d-day at one minute to 11 the last man is killed henry gunter a 23 year old clerk from baltimore the son of german immigrants killed by a german machine gun [Music] in new york paris and london the end of the war is greeted with an outpouring of relief and rejoicing but many war weary soldiers are somber soon they will become angry allied governments are unprepared for victory they are slow to release soldiers from the army now the anger boils over when 10 000 british troops returning from leave are ordered to board a ship to france they refuse at calais twenty thousand men mutiny demanding to be sent home within days the mutiny is sweeping through army camps across britain britain's ruling elite is suddenly confronted with a vast number of ordinary men who are bitter hostile and armed newly appointed war secretary winston churchill shrinks the army as quickly as he can british forces fall from four and a half million to one and a half million in a matter of months and by 1920 to just 590 000 [Music] but a time of reckoning has arrived for inflicting their imperial war the world's traditional ruling class will pay the price the lower orders who were sent to their death in such huge numbers have had enough their time has come the great war was a war of empires for territorial gain europe's traditional ruling classes demanded that their subjects sacrificed themselves in their millions by the end of the war a third of all men in britain france and germany between the ages of 18 and 22 are dead it's hard for us to imagine these days even in modern wars the scale of the slaughter these were men dying by the hundreds of thousands in a relatively small geographic area and often in the most hideous ways [Applause] [Music] french and russian soldiers repaid the callousness of their masters with mutiny and revolution [Music] [Applause] in britain among the ruling establishment there is a genuine fear that this seditious mood will spread something must be done to relieve the pressure before it boils over into outright rebellion so as the war ends the government quickly passes a law to give all adult males the vote along with women over the age of 30 but the discontent still spreads millions of returning soldiers struggle to find work the munitions industry is rapidly contracting in the war a large section of industry was brought under state control and has lost much of the dynamism and vitality for which british manufacturing was once famous across the world the workforce in the scottish shipyards falls from 100 000 to just 10 000 unemployment in shipbuilding hits 75 [Music] percent facing unemployment and poverty almost one in ten scots will choose to emigrate half a million will leave during the 1920s most traveling to canada and australia the lack of jobs creates a backlash against working women to make way for returning soldiers britain's trade unions insist that women are turned out of their jobs for many of the women who have sacrificed so much to the war effort this feels deeply unfair the working conditions for women during the war were not good they were forced to work 12-hour shifts often at half the pay that men received and when the war was over they lost their jobs although only women over 30 are allowed to vote they make up almost half the electorate as so many men have been killed whether the establishment wants it or not women now have a voice women wanted the vote i think labor movements are already gaining traction and attention before the first world war if anything the first world war might exacerbate them i mean the role of women in the war you can't then put them back in their box both women and the working classes are beginning to push back as the old world they worked and fought and died for slowly starts to break down every empire involved in this terrible conflict has been profoundly affected by the war now they will be torn apart by the peace on the 18th of january 1919 70 delegates from 27 nations congregate in paris to begin the negotiations that will officially end the great war it's supposed to be a lasting peace in this war to end all wars the dominant power at versailles is america the allies owe america money they owe america victory in the war america's president woodrow wilson is calling the shots wilson had decided it was time for the americans to take the lead he could see how the old regimes were exhausting themselves and he realized there was an opportunity here for america america would force the old imperial powers to accept peace but now on america's terms americans had not wanted to fight in this old imperial war and as former rebellious colonists themselves they disapprove of empires in general wilson's terms are set out in a speech that becomes known as the 14 points he wants free trade and democracy and to give rights to colonial peoples the reaction in britain and france is surprise and outrage they know that wilson's 14 points would restrict their imperial power as much as it would germany's this imperial war has ended in mutual destruction india the largest colony of the british empire had been forced to provide a million men to fight in the war sixty thousand of them are dead now the indians want independence britain tries to cling on to its empire in 1919 a british general in india orders his troops to fire into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators killing a thousand people it seems that britain can only hold on to its empire by resorting to the same repressive methods it is so condemned in germany but the tide cannot be held back forever at versailles india becomes a member of the league of nations in its own right and mahatma gandhi begins a long campaign of peaceful resistance that will fatally undermine british imperial rule france's empire 2 is shaking vietnamese militant ho chi minh petitions the versailles conference calling for an end to french colonialism his campaign will eventually lead to independence in the vietnam war it is the beginning of the end for the british and french empires though both powers will manage to cling on to their possessions for a few more troubled decades the world's other great empires have already been torn apart new national governments seize power but many will prove no more stable and democratic than the old empire they've replaced the habsburg austro-hungarian empire splits into independent countries including czechoslovakia and yugoslavia made up of balkan states whose mutual hatred will haunt the world in the decades to come from the ashes of the ottoman empire a multitude of arab states will arise iraq syria and lebanon and later one small jewish state israel which they target as their enemy the collapse of the russian empire brings only temporary relief to its peoples to cement their control of the country the communists wage a bloody internal war the russian civil war caused something in the region of 10 million deaths in russia and the magnitude of that is truly extraordinary [Music] it caused the most catastrophic disruption and dislocation of the population with the country in chaos millions flee the cities to escape starvation the population of petrograd plunges by 75 percent in three years of fighting millions will die due to slaughter disease and starvation ultimately a communist tyranny descends upon the newly formed soviet union even more terrifying than that of the tsar [Music] the dissolution of germany's empire sows the seed of further historic turmoil the versailles treaty hands germany's chinese colonies back not to the chinese but to japan who had invaded them during the war it is in direct response to this betrayal that mao zeitung and others formed the chinese communist party the great war changes the world and alters the course of human history but nowhere is its effects felt more dramatically than in germany at verse i all agree that germany should pay for the horrific war which was so much of its making germany has pillaged the territories it conquered stealing industrial equipment laying waste to industry and agriculture constraining german militarism has cost the allies vast sums of money and left them with gigantic debts in britain public debt has risen nine hundred percent from seven hundred million pounds the start of the war to over six billion but britain's not the only country in trouble almost all the allies are in debt russia and belgium have borrowed from france france and italy have borrowed from britain and britain has borrowed massively from the usa america who wanted nothing to do with the war has ended up lending the allies over seven billion dollars britain borrowed so much money to pay for the first world war that the debt was still being repaid almost a century later and the last repayment was made in 2015 when britain paid 1.
