- Narrator: The German soldiers were urged to hold in murderous contempt the whole population of Belgium. The orgy of burning, looting, and wanton slaughter kept them in a state of raw excitement.
- Narrator: The Austrian capital was still the Vienna of Johann Strauss - the capital of music, gayety, and laughter.
- Narrator: Under the cruel illusion, inspired in every country by misguided leaders, that hostilities would be over in four to six weeks, the people of Europe went to war. Not for four or six weeks, but for over 4 long years - and many of them never to return. Fifty hours earlier, people all over Europe had held peace demonstrations, now, caught in the emotional frenzy of farewells, The same people found themselves jubilantly going off to war - their governments having consistently mismanaged the situation, no longer could see any alternative but to send thousands off to unknown battles.
- Narrator: The German high command, having completed the rape of Belgium, looked now to the rapid march on Paris and the early capitulation of the enemy.
- Narrator: Nowhere was the illusion of divine destiny more real than the German Empire's militant people and their vain glorious leader: Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert von Hohenzollern - Kaiser William
- Narrator: In Paris, the city's taxis were recruited to rush 6,000 troops of the 4th Corp to the front, to participate in the decisive battle of the Marne.
- Narrator: Like a huge, multi-pronged machine, three German armies swept across Belgium in eight days of plundering, burning, and slaughtering.
- Narrator: Under the scorched earth policy of the Imperial Army of Germany, the heart of France was turned into a desolate wasteland.
- Narrator: Indulging their love of martial music and marching feet, the German people were fed on the desperate delusion of the will that deems itself absolute: that they were destined to rule the world.
- Narrator: The citizens of France asserted their individualism. A major crisis was a strike of winegrowers, precipitating what was for Frenchmen a national emergency of the first order.
- Narrator: For 10 months, throughout 1916, hundreds of thousands of men fought for an area of some three and a half miles.
- Narrator: All over Europe, as the munitions factories lost men to the battle fronts, women, for the first time in industrial history, provided the labor in factories.
- Narrator: Deeply entrenched warfare, the symbol of World War I, began at Verdun. And it was at Verdun that grim phrase, "over the top", became a commonplace. The Germans abandoned the offensive and went over to the defensive in July, after sustaining untold losses in casualties and prisoners. Their six month assault had gained them nothing. News of the steady German losses in a fight for a town of little strategic importance, undermined German prestige at home. The battle became a huge and senseless battle of attrition. Neither side yielding and neither side gaining advantage.
- Narrator: Bogged down on land, the German warlords turned to the sea. To a startled world, their embassies announced that all ships in the war zone would be sunk, whether their purpose was peaceful or not. Once again, the Germans assumed that announcing their intentions made their acts legal and moral.
- Narrator: The number of prisoners and casualties of Verdun soared to close to a million. The drain on the manpower of both sides was unprecedented in the long history of warfare. The losses at Verdun were to be a decisive factor in the ultimate outcome of the war - two years later. In 10 months, over 300,000 men were wounded. Another 100,000 were classified as missing. 250,000 known dead - from both sides - lay ready for their graves.
- Narrator: The misery, the atmosphere, and the smell of the world's deadliest battlefield was constant and unrelenting.
- Narrator: Frustrated by the French resistance, the Germans introduced the use of deadly poison gasses. Once again, horrifying the world.
- Narrator: As the contending forces stiffened their positions, trench warfare now became a necessity.
- Narrator: On November 8th, 1918, the war was ended by German surrender and with it the 30 year regime of the Kaiser was also ended, by German revolution. In cities everywhere there was rejoicing and celebrations when the armistice came on November 11th, 1918. Four years of war were over. Eight and a half million men lay dead. Twenty-one and a quarter millions were wounded. Seven and three-quarter millions were either missing or prisoners. A total of thirty-seven and a half million casualties.
- Narrator: The Battle of the Somme also saw a new air tactic - the flying circus - introduced by the Germans. Picked leaders, like Baron von Richthofen, lead squadrons that were shifted as necessary all over the front. To combat the menace of the barnstorming circus squadrons, the British introduced anti-aircraft weapons.
- Narrator: [last lines - from "The Dead" by Rupert Brooke] These laid the world away; poured out the red, Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be, Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That men call age; and those who would have been, Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
- Narrator: 14,000 American troops landed in France in the summer of 1917 when the morale of the allies was at a low ebb. Although this small initial force could have little immediate affect on the front, its presence in France was of immense symbolic value.
- Narrator: No innovation of World War I was to have such a fateful affect on the future of mankind, as the beginnings of aerial warfare.
- Narrator: With the innovations of the first Great War of the 20th century, the British tried a revival of such 18th century customs as the slow walk. Waves of battalions marching with stately formalism into enemy fire. German machine gun fire mowed them down, rank by rank, until by the end of the first day of battle, the British had lost close to 58,000 men of their new army. By the time the Battle of the Somme ended, four and a half months after it began, 400,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded. In addition, there were 200,000 French, dead or wounded.
- Narrator: Midway through the battle, the British had introduced a new weapon: the tank. At first they looked far more fearful than they were. For they were mechanically unreliable and manned by inadequately trained men. Of 49 used, only nine were able to move ahead.
- Opening Title Card: THE YEAR 1914 - Millions of peaceful and industrious people were hounded into a war by the folly of a few all-powerful leaders. This war was in no way inevitable. But the results determined the shape of the world in which we live today.
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