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This clip shows original black-and-white footage from the First World War (1914–18), including a military parade of troops, dreadnoughts, the funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and soldiers 'going over the top’. Narration by the broadcaster Robyn Williams, interviews with two naval experts, and contemporary and archival footage of the Kiel Canal in the north of Germany are all used to explain the naval situation in Germany at the outbreak of the War, as well as the importance of the Kiel Canal.

Educational value points

• The clip emphasises the importance of naval power. Some naval historians maintain that naval warfare is more a game of chess than a series of actual engagements, with the armoured 'pieces’ tying up the opponent’s fleet simply by maintaining position. This was certainly the case during the First World War, when the British Grand Fleet blockaded most of the German High Seas Fleet in its harbours. Only one major sea battle took place in the entire war, the 1916 Battle of Jutland, which engaged 250 vessels. Although the outcome of the Battle itself was indecisive, the Germans could claim to have won it because they sank more ships and killed more people.

• The naval arms race between Britain and Germany that preceded the First World War was intensified by the launching in 1906 of HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary class of armoured warship. Commissioned by Admiral Fisher of the British Royal Navy, the huge ship was superior to all previous warships, with a top speed of 21 knots (about 39 km per hour), ten 12-inch diameter (30.48-cm) guns, twenty-four 4-inch (10.16-cm) guns and five torpedo tubes. Owing to its awesome fighting power, the name 'dreadnought’ (meaning 'fear nothing’) became the generic term for all later warships of this class. A number of such warships can be seen in the clip.

• As explained in the clip, the Kiel Canal, a 98 km canal from Kiel on the Baltic Sea to the mouth of the Elbe River on the North Sea, was of major strategic importance to Germany. Originally built in 1784, the Canal was deepened and widened between 1907 and 1914 to accommodate the new German naval fleet. The importance of a connection between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea had long been recognised. From the 1st century, Vikings had carried their ships across 16 km of flat land rather than sail all the way around Denmark. Today the Canal is the busiest artificial waterway in the world.

• Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859–1941), shown in the clip in a military parade, was the third and last emperor of the German Empire and the ninth and last king of Prussia (1888–1918). He followed a military agenda of expanding German territories both at home and overseas. Although he was Queen Victoria’s grandson, he pursued an anti-British foreign policy, promoting hostilities between Austria and Serbia and supporting the South Africans against Britain in the Boer War. The British Navy had long been the most powerful navy on the high seas and Kaiser Wilhelm II enthusiastically supported Admiral Tirpitz, Head of the Reich Naval Office, in his plans to challenge the British Navy’s superiority.

• Footage is shown of the funeral of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863–1914). Archduke Ferdinand was heir to the Austro–Hungarian Empire and his assassination triggered the First World War. Bosnia and Herzegovina had been occupied and governed by Austria–Hungary since 1878 but in 1908 they were annexed into the Austro–Hungarian Empire, a move that angered the West and outraged Serbian nationalists. In June 1914 Archduke Ferdinand accepted an invitation to view military manoeuvres in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. On 28 June 1914, he and his wife Sophie were shot and killed by a member of a Serbian nationalist movement known as the 'Black Hand’.

This clip starts approximately 15 minutes into the documentary.

This clip contains a mix of stock and aerial footage showing Germany’s preparations for war.
Narrator But by 1914, little could conceal the potential for war in Europe. The German miliary machine, led by Kaiser Wilhelm II, now seemed ready to carry its nation to war. As early as 1907, the Kaiser revealed his anticipation for war when he ordered the widening of the Kiel canal to accommodate Germany’s new fleet of dreadnoughts.
Man The decision to widen the canal to carry dreadnoughts was critical to the ability of the Germans to function as a first-class Navy. If they were going to fight the British and they found half their fleet was stuck in the Baltic and would have to come round the north of Denmark, they would be engaged as they came round the north of Denmark by the Royal Navy, and destroyed. It was critical to their strategic position to widen that canal so that she could use the full range of her facilities for a modern dreadnought fleet, though it was in that sense a hostile act.
Narrator The canal reopened in June 1914. It was a festive occasion. For the celebrations, the German high seas fleet welcomed a courtesy squadron of four British dreadnoughts and three cruisers. In mid-afternoon on Sunday, the 28th of June, an urgent telegram reached the Kaiser’s ship, Hohenzollern. It was chilling news. The Kaiser’s close friend, Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria, had been assassinated, along with his wife, in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. The festivities at Kiel ended abruptly. The ships of the Royal Navy sailed from German waters to take up their stations in the event of war.
Werner Rahn, naval historian There was no hate against Germany and within the German naval officer corps, there was no hate against the British. And when the British ships left the harbour of Kiel, they made the signal 'France today, France in future, France forever’.
Narrator A single gunshot in the Balkans had sparked the First World War, and when German boots trampled neutral Belgium, British troops were mobilised in pursuit.