1914: How Did Soldiers React To The True Horrors Of WW1? | The Last Voices Of World War One

In a remarkable exercise spanning 15 years, the last survivors of the Great War were interviewed on film. These are unique stories of courage, sacrifice and tragedy, told by the men who were there. These extraordinary interviews have been brought together for the first time. This six-part series begins in 1914 with the wave of fervent patriotism that accompanied the outbreak of war. It was a euphoria that would soon be shattered, lost in the shell-torn landscapes and water-filled trenches that spanned the Western Front. More than once you'd hear the whizz of a shell going past. I'd say, are you all right? I was speaking to him about something. And then I'd turn to this fellow. I'd turn back again. He was missing. One of those shells, straight at him. He was missing. It made you never forget. Never, not even to this day. To think you shot a man, you know, and do nothing at you. That's how we were on, young and daft. These are the last voices of World War I. In the summer of 1914, three German armies under the command of Kaiser Wilhelm II marched into Belgium en route for Paris. Belgium's neutrality was guaranteed by Britain and the Kaiser was given a swift ultimatum to withdraw or face the consequences. When that ultimatum expired, Britain declared war on Germany. Units from Britain's regular army were quickly mobilised for action and the British Expeditionary Force set sail for France. Public confidence in a swift and decisive victory was high. After all, in 1914, Britain remained a world power. Her Royal Navy was the envy of the world and the British Empire still spanned a quarter of the globe. The patriotic belief in king and country was often instilled in young men at an early age and Britain's rich military history meant many were prepared to fight and die for their country. 19-year-old Londoner Richard Hawkins had been an officer cadet at school, brought up to believe in the importance of duty and empire. This country ruled the British Empire and the British Empire ruled the world. It was a very, very different place. I mean, we were the best country in the world, the best everything in the world. We were all very proud of ourselves. And as a young man, it was my duty and the duty of every young man to defend it against all invaders and to give it, if necessary, our lives to do it. If public confidence was high, there were some within the British government who remained more realistic, not least the new Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener. Sensing a long and drawn-out conflict, Kitchener appealed for 100,000 new recruits through the now iconic poster, informing every fit and able man in Britain that he was needed by his country. Seeing the opportunity to escape from a mundane job and embark on a daring adventure in France, many thousands rushed to join up. Insurance clerk Robbie Burns from Glasgow was 18 at the outbreak of war and amongst the first wave of new recruits to answer the call to arms. Everywhere you went in Glasgow, the great big posters up of Kitchener with his finger pointing at you. No matter where you were, his finger seemed to be pointing at you. Your king and country need you. However, I worked in an insurance office and now and again I could hear the piper in the left, right, left, right. And I went to the window and I could see probably two or three hundred men, some with bowler hats and some with what we called skips, that is flat caps. And the pipes almost seemed to do something to arouse my enthusiasm. I thought to myself, well I want to do something like this. I never thought of being killed, never thought of that. I thought it would be good fun killing somebody. Such was the success of Kitchener's campaign that recruiting stations across the country were quickly swamped with volunteers. Kitchener had no trouble in finding the first hundred thousand. Damaged you couldn't get into the running army. It was such a rush to get there, to get on and defeat the enemy and prevent him from taking over this country. Are you a British subject? Yes. It was our duty, nothing out of the ordinary. It was obvious. But as the ranks of Kitchener's new army began to swell, the patriotic volunteers had no idea of the horrors they were about to witness. After the outbreak of war, the number of new recruits to Kitchener's army rose swiftly. Meanwhile in Europe, German forces continued their ruthless march towards Paris until on the 23rd of August 1914 they met the advancing British expeditionary force at the Belgian town of Mons. After an intense and bloody battle, the overwhelming size of the opposition forced the BEF to retreat. The Germans followed, turning their attention away from the French capital in the hope of destroying the retreating British army. As news of the BEF's gallant retreat reached Britain, the recruitment rate soared again as a new wave of patriotism swept through the country. Idealistic young men like 20-year-old shoe repairer Jack Rogers from London joined up, determined to prevent the Kaiser's forces from reaching England. Lincoln, old Kaiser and his son, we used to hate them people. But we certainly wanted to, you know, get out and do our bit because we thought they might be taken over here, you see, and we didn't want that to happen. So we'd do anything just to fight, of course, and keep them from coming here. And I went up to this place at Shepherd's Bush where we joined on, and they gave me then the choice of all three different regiments I could have been in. The third one was the old Sherwood Foresters, 7th Battalion, and they were called the Robin Hood Rifles. So I fancied that. I thought, I'd like to be a Robin Hood Rifle. Across the country, men were encouraged to enlist with the promise that they would serve alongside friends and work colleagues in so-called pals battalions. Civic pride meant that towns and cities competed with one another to attract the most new recruits, and new battalions were formed made up of men from the same street, factory, or football team. 18-year-old Ted Francis left the paper factory where he worked and joined the 16th Warwickshire Regiment, known as the Birmingham Pals. You'd have thought that an extra bank holiday had been told in Birmingham because people were excited, laughing, joking. Young people like myself were saying, we'll show those Germans, we'll push them back home. How dare they walk over little Belgium, etc., etc. And we were anxious to get to France, to have a go at them, to push them back into Germany. Fearing the worst, many parents tried to convince their sons not to enlist, but most young men saw war as an opportunity too good to be missed. In County Durham, 18-year-old farm worker George Littlefair's mother pleaded with him on her deathbed not to join up. She says, there's a war on now. You know, I says that. She says, do not join now. That was her last words to me. And what did I do? Joined the damned dam. It was more or less a novelty to you, you know. We'd never been out of England, we'd never seen out. We were raw country lads and never seen out. Aye, that was how we felt. We weren't down long for our homeland. I'll tell you. By the winter of 1914, almost a million men had joined Kitchener's army. Meanwhile, across the Channel, it was becoming clear that there would be no swift victory. Both sides had begun to dig defensive positions in the frozen fields of France and Belgium, and a system of fortified trenches emerged, which would eventually spread from the Belgian coast to the Swiss Alps. The age of trench warfare had arrived. At home, new recruits were so plentiful that the army only selected those in A1 physical condition. They were desperate to join the action, but would first have to endure a period of rigorous training to turn them from civilians into soldiers. For many of the volunteers, this period of training was a welcome relief from the daily grind, and much like the scout camps of their youth. Outdoor activities in the open air soon replaced the factories, mines and shipyards many had left behind. But they quickly learned that it wasn't all fun and games. Army discipline could be harsh and punitive. Robbie Burns from Glasgow had just turned 19 and was doing his best to stay out of trouble. If you did things wrong and you lose your pay, which is a lot of money, a shilling a day, don't forget that. Yes, and you lose your name. You have to do extra drills and keep reporting to the guard room at certain times. So it paid to do what you're told to do, and I always did that, always. For the youngest volunteers, this was often their first time away from home, and their mothers, something the sergeant majors didn't let them forget. He wasn't very old himself, but he was a big, tall, young fellow, but he got a nasty, wagging tongue, and he used to call us all you flippin' little mother's boys and all that sort of talk, you know what I mean, and used language that we never liked at all. He used to use swear language too, and we used to absolutely dislike this fellow when he came and took over. I suppose, in a sense, he did you good. You got to know what discipline meant. But this volatile mixture of men from different social classes could, on occasion, turn nasty. Farm labourer George Littlefair took great offence at a comment made by a young corporal. When I was 19 years old, I was 12 stone 2 pounds. I'm a rough country lad. I didn't get a damn for none of that. There was one little bugger, waxed hash, turned up, and he was yapping and shouting. He used to call me Liquorfair, because he was short too, and he couldn't get Littlefair. When I was in one of them good humours, I never answered him. So he come up, Timmer, Who the hell do you think you are? stood. He said, I think you're a bastard. Oh, as soon as he said that, I hit him in the mouth with that. No, I said, don't prove it. George was fortunate. For striking a corporal, he could have faced a court-martial. But he was spared punishment when he revealed to his commanding officers that his mother had recently died. Discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians. All on History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Download the app now to watch everything from the gripping story of the Band of Brothers to Operation Barbarossa and D-Day. Immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description. Taking command of an over-enthusiastic bunch of new recruits could be a daunting prospect for an inexperienced young officer. After first enlisting as an infantryman, 19-year-old Richard Hawkins was granted a commission into the Royal Fusiliers and responsibility for his first platoon. And why the hell they did as they were told by a young man, probably younger than they were, I don't quite know, except that they were told that I was in charge of them and I was the officer and they got to do as they were told, and they did. No question of it. The morale was tremendous. We were anxious to get on with the job. We wanted to go to France and stop this nonsense. And we were all, I think, very proud to be in the Army defending our country for the people to come after us. With vast numbers taking up arms, there were often shortages of equipment and many volunteers learnt to drill with makeshift weapons, broomsticks and shovels. Finally getting to use a rifle was a great thrill. Came the great day when we were issued with rifles. Now, we was all waiting for that. And seeing myself and some of them who robbed that rifle and cleaned it, they were... And even a more thrill was when we had real bullets to fire at a target. That was really something we'd all look forward to. You had to learn how to use a gun. You used to go on musketry courses and you had to pass out certificate exams on these courses before you became a qualified rifleman. And so I got to be, as it happened, quite a good shot. And I became eventually what they called a marksman. And so for which I got an extra sixpence a day on my wages. You used to get an extra sixpence a day if you were a qualified marksman, which I was. Kitchener had expected his new recruits to undergo a year of training before being sent into action. But two major factors meant that this period was cut short. Firstly, during the spring of 1915, the Allies suffered enormous casualties on the Western Front. In just two days of fighting, 11,000 men were lost for a gain of just two kilometres when British and Empire troops launched their first major offensive of the war near the French town of Neuve-Chapelle. Worse was to follow as a further 70,000 men were killed or wounded fighting to defend the Belgian town of Ypres, where the Germans used poison gas for the first time to devastating effect. Then in April, the Allies attempted to open up a new front with the launch of the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey. In the months that followed, over 140,000 British and Empire troops would be lost on Turkish soil in one of the most infamous battles of the war. But for now, this deployment of fighting men to the east, combined with heavy losses in the west, meant that the new recruits were needed in France urgently. And in May 1915, the first divisions of Kitchener's army began their journeys to the front line. One of those preparing to go to France was 18-year-old George Louth from Hampshire. He had lied about his age when he'd enlisted and was given one last chance to avoid the fighting. Because my captain sent a sergeant out to me. He said, Louth, he said, the captain wants to know how old you are. I said, why, Sergeant? He said, because he don't believe you. He said, we're going to France, he said, and we don't want you crying when you get over there. Say you're not old enough. He said, because it won't happen. You won't come back. So say it now. I said, I'm going with the lads. And from then on, we went on. By the time the new recruits began to arrive in France, an uneasy peace had settled over the Western Front. Attack and counter-attack had done little to gain either side an advantage, and the dangers of shell fire and machine-gun bullets kept both sides confined to their trenches. As they marched towards the front, Kitchener's men knew little of the horrors that awaited them and remained confident that victory would soon be theirs. You could see some of them swelling, absolutely fist-to-bust themselves with pride. And I, too, to be cheered by French and mostly girls, too, thought it was great to be a soldier then. We'll show them. We'll push these Germans back where they belong, etc., etc. It was just the thoughts of really young men who didn't know any better. No, I felt a real man then. Watching behind the pipe and going to do something. I felt really well, no fear of whatsoever. We were all happy. We'd start singing. Oh, yes. No, there was no unhappiness about it, because at that time, at that time, we hadn't been in the front-line trenches or reserve trenches. They didn't know what war really was. You could probably hear a very, very faint noise of gunfire. Very, very faint. And then the nearer we got, of course, then we realised what we were in against. Ah, then it began to shake then. It began to shake then, the nearer we got to the front-line. When we went up, we were... It was poem with rain. We're just on foot, walking up, marching, as it were, laden right up with all our equipment, all you could carry, you know, everything on. And fed up with your guns, you've got everything on you. And suddenly you begin to see the sky lighting up, flashing, flashing, flashing. And you begin to hear the noise of the guns. You know, you're getting nearer. You're getting nearer. You can't help feeling butterflies in your tummy. Whether you're going to shoot Germans or whether they're going to shoot you, you never know what the future held. It was a terrible thought, really. Going into war, it's not a very pleasant experience. Terrible. And in the weeks and months that followed, the men of Kitchener's army would learn the dreadful realities of trench warfare, where the possibility of death or serious injury was only a gunshot away. In May 1915, the first divisions of Kitchener's new recruits arrived on the Western Front. Many had been waiting for this moment for months, desperate to do their bit for king and country. But as they moved up to the trenches, men like George Louth saw for the first time the true horrors of war. When we got there, the first thing we noticed was dead horses on the ground. We had to crawl over them, dead horses that had been shot dead or the shells dropping over. And we knew then what it was like. We used to see the lights on and the flashes of the guns, but we knew what we were going into then. However, there was still a reckless naivety amongst those excited by the prospect of war. And then, of course, you get in the front line, the first thing you want to do is, where are the Germans? You put your foot up in the fire step, which might be 18 inches or two feet up, and somebody said, sit down, you silly bee, you'll get shot. We still wanted to look over and see where the Germans were. Tragically, these innocent young men were quickly baptised into the fragility of life in the trenches. The great sensation was the first man in the company to be killed. It kind of sobered us up. And in another day or two, two or three was killed or wounded. And it all came to our minds. This was no outing. This was real. And a German sniper really only wants a few seconds of your head and you'll get a bullet. More devastating than the sniper's rifle was shell fire. Both sides' ability to rain terror down upon the enemy from a great distance changed the face of modern warfare forever. More soldiers were killed or wounded by the shrapnel discharged by an exploding shell than by any other weapon. It was a deadly fact of life that the new recruits had to learn to endure. They were sending their shells over. We were sending ours over. And you got that noise all day long. Day after day, day after day. For weeks. If you wanted to talk to one another while a bombardment was going, you'd have to initiate pretty loud when a bombardment's going because there's thousands of guns going off at the same time. And they keep it up. Well, at times it's indescribable. You could see the train's motors coming over. A great big thing did that with a sort of two-foot handle on it. It looked like that from up in the air. You could see it coming, going up. Going up and then you could see it coming down. If it's coming, you think it's coming towards you, you run to the left, run to the right. And if you're lucky, you miss it. If you're unlucky, well, you're gone. Jack Rogers was lucky to survive when the trench he was in received a direct hit. One of the great big shells, however big it was, I don't know, landed right on the earth above us and exploded. All of a sudden, of course, all the earth above us all suddenly collapsed and came right down straight on top of us. Absolutely as we were sitting there, it buried us just completely alive. It covers right in. And I knew I must have been struggling hard to breathe. I couldn't move. I couldn't move hand, foot, only me toes and me boots. Jack was eventually pulled from the earth by his colleagues. It was a miraculous escape. Throughout the summer of 1915, further divisions of Kitchener's men arrived at the front. As well as the risk from snipers and shell fire, living conditions in the trenches were often uncomfortable, to say the least. During periods of heavy rain, mud and water in the trenches could be ankle-deep, and they teemed with vermin who ate into rations and fed on rotting corpses. When the rain came down, it would just stay there and you'd be walking about in mud. And then when that dried, you can guess the condition of your feet or your legs, particularly to those who wore a kilt. If the mud would work up onto the bare knees, it was pretty painful at times. When the mud dried and the hairs were rubbing, it was pretty painful. More annoying for soldiers in the trenches were the lice, which lived in the seams of their uniforms and the warmth of their body hair. I'd been on sentry go for four hours and the officer says, you're off for two hours now and if you can find the dog out, he says you can have two hours sleep. After my two hours sleep, which I enjoyed very much, I felt itchy and I started to stress myself in various places and I was covered with lice. And I was horrified. More than anything then, I was absolutely horrified. Well, you know, there wasn't a man in the trenches that was worse than lousy. You know, when I was on night duty, I used to get paraphernalia down in Tilleyland. Rub me. Rub me till I'll have no paraphernalia. I killed a bugger, see. Living in such terrible conditions, the men relied on the close friendships they formed with their colleagues to help them through. Well, they were all together for the first time. Where did you come from? What did you do? What did you work at? Any cigarettes? You've got a light, you've got a gas burner. They're all friendly. Married? No. Any girls? Oh, yes. Half a dozen. Yes. Yes, very friendly. Right through the war. Doesn't matter where you went. You came across a soldier, you were friends right away. And you gave them all you had to give. Whatever they wanted, you gave them if you had it. Closest of all were the bonds made between men in the Powell's battalions. Often these men had grown up together in the same town or village or had worked together before joining the army. George Littlefair from County Durham had volunteered together with his best friend from home. I had a pal in the army and we were the best of pals together and they called him Joe. We had our ups and downs between us but still we were always good pals. We helped one another. If he had no writing paper and wanted to write a letter and I had it, he got it. A pen. We were all like that. The officers too had a responsibility to uphold morale and as Richard Hawkins found, the army regulation tot of rum often did the trick. I went round with the rum bottle every morning at dawn round the trenches. The top was an eighth of a pint and I said, I'm going to exaggerate but you could feel that rum going down into your boots which were probably full of icy water, drying up the water, coming up to you and say, look at that, where's that runny hand? It saved lives. It was Old Navy rum. Until supplies ran out and then we got all these other supplies there was a lot of difference. But that Old Navy stuff one would have taken on the whole of Germany at dawn in the morning and I don't exaggerate about that. The sending and receiving of mail also played a vital role in maintaining morale. Although letters were often censored to ensure important military information didn't fall into the wrong hands, the men were permitted to write about their frontline experiences. Many wrote graphic accounts of the tedium and horror of trench life while some were encouraged to pass on only good news for the benefit of their loved ones. I wrote a letter to Mum and I said, same old thing, only beef and biscuits. So the officer came out to me and said, What's this you've got on here? Only beef and biscuits, he said. He said, can't you see you had roast beef and baked potatoes? I said, I can't tell him whether I have an answer. Whilst it was heartwarming to receive good news from the folks back home it could be equally devastating to learn of the death of a family member or of a spouse's infidelity. Jack Rogers was upset when his mother wrote to tell him that she had seen his girlfriend Elsie out with other men. I was upset. You just realise what a position you're in. You don't know what to do. You don't know if the stories you're hearing are true. They're coming from my people telling me just what has happened. I could only believe them, of course, which I had to. Fearing the worst, Jack wrote to Elsie with a proposition. I wrote to her to my home when I heard about different things and asked her would she stay and I'd try and get home and we'd get engaged to be married. She never answered it. So I never heard from her anymore. For all the harsh conditions the most terrifying prospect that awaited soldiers in the front line was the launch of an attack and the sight of men going over the top would become one of the defining images of the Great War. While some welcomed the opportunity to at last engage the enemy, rushing headlong towards a German trench through a deadly fog of machine gun bullets and shrapnel was frequently their final act. Whether a man lived or died in these attacks was often down to pure chance but there were those who had their own tactics for staying alive. Ted Francis went over the top with his brother Harry. When you're waiting at a certain time to go over the top you hear the officer blow a loud whistle and that's the sign that you're supposed to scramble and get over the top and dash for the nearest shell hole. But Harry and I on the sound of the whistle we didn't jump up and get over. Those that did were mercilessly cut down by machine guns and killed, wounded. But we waited till the machine gun had passed our trench and then dashed over quick. And that in a good many instances no doubt saved us from being killed or wounded. You didn't do anything bloody daft. You know, I'm a British Army and in that style you didn't do that. You went over very quietly where the shell to you took it. Aye. Sergeant would shout, get down, get down. Aye. Get down. You'd get in the back of a bloody pistol if you were sheltered. You just had to lie as flat as you could. Don't lift your head up when you're lying flat. Lie down as low as you could. And then with a shelly stop go forward a bit. You're not on the parade ground when you're over the front. On the parade ground you've got to be so many inches away from each other when you go over the top. You can't measure that. Some can run faster than the others. For those that survived the treacherous dash across no man's land there followed the terrifying prospect of brutal hand-to-hand fighting as the attackers attempted to capture the enemy's front-line trenches. But even at close quarters most men preferred to rely on the bullet rather than the cold steel of the bayonet. He was standing solid where there was on the moor. Aye. They would just pull the trigger and down he would go. It made you never forget. Never. To think you shot a man, you know and do nothing at you. That was how I used to always look at it. And then again if I don't get him he'll get me. And my life is worth a hell of a lot to me. That's how we were young and daft. As autumn approached the Allies needed a victory and planned their first truly concerted effort to break through German lines near the French town of Lunes. It would be the first real test for Kitchener's men. On the 25th of September 1915 the Allies launched their first major attempt to break through the German lines. 72,000 men lined up along a seven mile front near the French coal mining town of Lunes as artillery fire bombarded the German positions. The regular army would be the first into action, followed closely by the new recruits. It would be the first major battle for the men of Kitchener's army. Robbie Burns was one of those who went over the top that day. He got close enough to the German lines to see them loading shells into their guns. And the guns would fire almost straight at you. Bang, bang. Bang, bang. It's not the question of bang and well two or three miles, not like that. But those guns bang, bang, just like that. And actually they went more or less straight at you more than once you could hear the whizz of a shell going past. Except on my right I was speaking to him about something and then I turned to this fellow I turned back again he was missing. One of those shells straight at him. He was missing. Then I turned to this fellow on my left, I said Bill's gone. And I turned to this fellow lying there down. By the end of the day the Allies had broken through German lines, but problems with supplies and communications meant that their advance could not be consolidated. After three days of fighting, they were forced to retreat back to where they'd started. British casualties totaled around 20,000 men. The Battle of Loos had been a failure. It also highlighted a major flaw with the concept of PALS battalions, as for the first time scores of men from the same village, town or factory fought and died alongside one another. The impact on life at home was devastating. George Littlefair experienced just this kind of loss. As he went over the top he saw his best friend Joe hit by shrapnel. I knew what had happened and down he went and groaned and that was it, I let it get on. There was another wave coming behind us. If I'd had time to do it, to lift his head up and try to talk to him, that's what I would have tried to do, but no good. He had to keep going. Either that or he'll get trampled on. We've not even said so long to one another. 1915 had been a year of radical change for the British Army on the Western Front as it adjusted to a new kind of warfare. It would have to rethink its tactics if it was to win and that would inevitably mean the sacrifice of countless more young lives. Throughout the ranks of Kitchener's Army, the new recruits mourned lost colleagues. After more than 80 years, Ted Francis remembered off by heart a soldier's poem paying tribute to lost friends. Where we went to, nobody knows. And it wasn't like the fighting as you see in pictures showing. We had days of hell together till they told us to retire. And spotty school language set the watercarts on fire. But him and me were very lucky for two-thirds of us were dead. With their screaming black menias and their shrapnel overhead, but every time they missed us and their fire was murderous hot. Hot, spotty, shout, hot, cold, hot, cold. I said, what's that? He said, that's French for rotten, shout. We were lying down in a hole, yes, dug with our very hands. But you get sick quick and sudden if you move your bat or stand. We were sharing half a peg, yes, turn and turn about. But I, I felt it move towards me. But he said, odd mate, I'm out. His eyes, they couldn't see me. And I never will no more. But his twisted mouth just whispered, so on, matey. I don't know. But there was none quite the same to me. Because he and me were puns. And if I could have his back again, oh, you could keep your fancy girls. But his talking French, he'd hidden there. So it's no use feeling sore. But God knows how I miss him. So long, spotty. Au revoir.