THE GREAT WAR 13 : The Devil is Coming (German soldier) [Main Title]
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- Title: THE GREAT WAR 13 : The Devil is Coming (German soldier) [Main Title]
- Film Number: IWM 1065-13
- Other titles: THE DEVIL IS COMING (German soldier) [Alternative Title]
- Summary: The Battle of the Somme, Western Front, July-November 1916.
- Description: At 7.30am on 1st July 1916 the British and French attacked along the Somme in order to relieve German pressure on Verdun, to pin the German reserves and to wear these down - the object was to defeat the German Army. Fourteen British and five French divisions attacked on a front of eighteen miles. Meanwhile, the Russian offensive in Gallicia had been running for three weeks and a new Italian offensive was being planned; while the Battle of Verdun was 132 days old. However, on the Somme there were not enough guns, and many shells failed to explode; almost everywhere the wire was completely uncut and the surviving Germans slaughtered the attacking British. Only on the right, with French help, was there any advance. It was "a disaster never equalled in the British Army's history," with 57,470 casualties, over 17,000 of them dead. Despite this, General Sir Douglas Haig decided to continue the offensive with another attack. The German Seventh Army, defending the area, was forbidden by its commander to give up ground. On 11th July the British achieved one objective when the German Chief of the General Staff, von Falkenhayn, ordered his troops at Verdun onto the defensive. The question was whether the keen but inexperienced British could defeat the highly professional Germans. On 14th July the British attacked before dawn, but failed to hold all they had captured. As the offensive continued the South Africans took Delville Wood and the Australians took Pozières, losing 5,000 men. By the start of August British casualties were 6,000 officers and 120,000 men. People in Britain, at first ignorant of the fighting, were gradually alarmed by the mounting losses and lack of a visible advance. Haig insisted that the offensive should continue for the sake of the other Allies - the combined offensives in Russia, Italy, at Verdun and on the Somme maintained pressure on the Germans, who began to realise that they were losing. On 27th August Rumania joined the Allies, and a day later von Falkenhayn, his strategy at Verdun a failure, was replaced by Hindenburg, with Ludendorff as his assistant. The British planned a new thrust to knock Germany out of the war, using a new answer to trenches and barbed wire - the tank. On 15th September they almost broke through at Flers but were held. Hindenburg was convinced that if such attacks continued Germany would lose the war, and Ludendorff ordered the building of a new defensive system to the rear of the Somme position. As the offensive continued through October mud immobilised both sides. On 13th November Beaumont Hamel fell, the last British gain. Total British casualties for the offensive were 415,000, and French casualties 195,000. The Germans concealed their own losses, but the spirit of the German Army and its faith in its leaders was broken.
- Alternative Title: THE DEVIL IS COMING (German soldier) [Alternative Title]
- Colour: B&W
- Digitised:
- Object_Number: IWM 1065-13
- Sound: Sound
- Access Conditions: NON-IWM: PROJECTION PRINT ONLY - NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE
- Featured Period: 1914-1918
- Production Date: 1964
- Production Country: GB
- Production Details: Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Production sponsor) Imperial War Museum (Production sponsor) Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Production sponsor) BBC (Production company) Essex, Tony (Production individual) Watkins, Gordon (Production individual) Terraine, John Alfred1921-01-152003-12-27 (Production individual) Rollins, Ed (Production individual) Manefield, Tom (Production individual) Terraine, John Alfred1921-01-152003-12-27 (Production individual) Jarvis, Anne (Production individual) Hipple, Rex (Production individual) Kay Film Laboratories (Production individual) Bigman, Richard (Production individual) Caravel Films (Production individual) McWatt, John (Production individual) Garland, Nicholas1935 (Production individual) Saunders, Robert (Production individual) Read, Bill (Production individual) Keene, Brian (Production individual) Callaway, Ian (Production individual) Bosworth, Pam (Production individual) Carr, Norman (Production individual) Heelas, Peter (Production individual) Toovey, Barry (Production individual) Cave, Julia (Production individual) Broadway, Anne (Production individual) Bryen, Doris (Production individual) Kersey, Jill (Production individual) Davidson, Eric (Production individual) Vigne, Jean (Production individual) Mendelsohn, Robyn (Production individual) Maloney, William (Production individual) Macloughlin, Marya (Production individual) Maros, Basil (Production individual) Virgo, Myrtle (Production individual) Descendre, Anne (Production individual) Edwards, Jeffrey (Production individual) Parry, Audrey (Production individual) Shukman, Harold (Production individual) Kuehl, Jerome (Production individual) Barrie, Alexander (Production individual) Hastings, Max Hugh Macdonald1945-12-28Researcher, BBC TV Great War series, 1963–64; Reporter, Evening Standard, 1965–67; Fellow, US World Press Inst., 1967–68; Roving Correspondent, Evening Standard, 1968–70; Reporter, BBC TV Current Affairs, 1970–73; Editor, Evening Standard Londoner’s Diary, 1976–77; Columnist, Daily Express, 1981–83; contributor, Sunday Times, 1985–86; Editor, The Daily Telegraph, 1986–95; Dir, 1989–95, Editor-in-Chief, 1990–95, The Daily Telegraph plc; Editor, The Evening Standard, 1996–2002; contributor, Daily Mail, 2002–; Contrib. Ed., Financial Times, 2009–13. As War Correspondent, covered Middle East, Indochina, Angola, India-Pakistan, Cyprus, Rhodesia and S Atlantic. Mem., Press Complaints Commn, 1991–92. Churchill Fellow, Westminster Coll., Fulton, Mo, 2011. TV documentaries: Ping-Pong in Peking, 1971; The War about Peace, 1983; Alarums and Exercursions, 1984; Cold Comfort Farm, 1985; The War in Korea (series), 1988; We Are All Green Now, 1990; Spies, in series Cold War, CNN, 1998; Hitler’s Germany, 2000; The Falklands: reluctant heroes, 2002; Winston’s War, 2003; The Falklands Legacy, 2012; The Necessary War, 2014. A Vice Pres., Game Conservancy, 1992–; President: CPRE, 2002–07; Sir Walter Scott Soc. of Edinburgh, 2012–13. Trustee: Nat. Portrait Gall., 1995–2004; Game Conservancy, 2014–. Liddell-Hart Lecture, KCL, 1994; Mountbatten Lecture, Edinburgh Univ., 2004; Leonard Stein Lectures, Oxford Univ., 2009. FRHistS 1988; FRSL 1996. Hon FKC, 2004. Hon. DLitt: Leicester, 1992; Nottingham, 2005. Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards, 1982 (cited 1973 and 1980); What The Papers Say, Granada TV: Reporter of the Year, 1982; Editor of the Year, 1988; Duke of Westminster Medal for military literature, RUSI, 2008; Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement, Chicago Pritzker Library, 2012; Friuladria Prize, Gorizia Internat. Hist. Fest., 2014 (Production individual) Liddell Hart, Basil Henry1895-10-311970-01-29 (Production individual) Terraine, John Alfred1921-01-152003-12-27 (Production individual) Barnett, Correlli Douglas (Production individual) Pitt, Barrie (Production individual) Horne, Alistair1925Trustee of the Imperial War Museum (Production individual) Bonham-Carter, Victor (Production individual) Williams, John (Production individual) Josephs, Wilfred (Production individual) BBC Northern Orchestra (Production individual) Hurst, George (Production individual) Redgrave, Michael (Sir) (Production cast) Richardson, Ralph (Sir) (Production cast) Williams, Emlyn (Production cast) Goring, Marius (Production cast) Luckman, Cyril (Production cast) Shaw, Sebastian (Production cast)
- Personalities, Units and Organisations:
- Keywords: 01/3(4-15).5 (event) 01/3(4-15).57 (event)
- Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Sound Soundtrack language: English Title language: English Subtitle language: None
- Technical Details: Format: 16mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 1438 ft; Running time: 45 mins
- HD Media:
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