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00:00We think we know the First World War, the trenches, the barbed wire, the shell holes,
00:28the machine guns, the gas, the high explosives, the mud and the blood of Flanders' fields.
00:49But the first shot, fired by a soldier of the British Army, was fired by an African.
00:55Here in Africa, three days after war was declared.
00:59That soldier's name was Al-Hadji Grunchi.
01:04He'd been born in the British colony of the Gold Coast, modern-day Ghana.
01:08And in 1914, he was a regimental sergeant major in the British West African Frontier Force.
01:15In 1914, they were attacking the Germans in their colony of Togolat.
01:19Now, from the moment Grunchi fired that first shot, the Great War became the World's War.
01:25More than 4 million non-European, non-white soldiers and auxiliaries were sucked in to the World's War.
01:42One and a half million from British India.
01:45More than 2 million from the French colonies in Africa and Indochina.
01:49400,000 African Americans, 100,000 Chinese laborers.
01:55They came as professional soldiers, conscripts, volunteers and mercenaries.
02:01But all had to grapple, not just with a new and terrible kind of warfare,
02:06but with the fears and prejudices that swirled around the questions of race in the 20th century.
02:12Now, history has rightly remembered the millions of Europeans who died on the Western Front and elsewhere.
02:24But fighting alongside them were millions of others, men from every continent, of every race and every religion,
02:30the human capital of the European empires.
02:33It was their war too, and this is their story.
02:36It was their story.
03:06In the first week of August, 1914, the empires of Europe went to war.
03:18Six weeks later, the first contingent of 30,000 troops from British India began to disembark here,
03:25at the French port of Marseille.
03:27It's probably impossible now, a century later, to even imagine the level of disorientation they must have felt.
03:38These were men from villages in rural India.
03:41They'd never left the homeland before, and many of them will have known very, very little about the outside world.
03:46To make matters much worse, when they'd left India, they hadn't even been told where they were going.
03:52It was only in the last days of their journey that they were told the truth,
03:56that they were coming here to France to fight.
03:58The spectators who flocked to see the Indians as they marched from the port had little idea of the sheer complexity of the army they were cheering on.
04:22Alongside units from the regular British army, it was made up of men from a dozen different ethnic groups,
04:29led by white British officers who had made their army careers in British India.
04:35Below them, in the chain of command, were Indian officers who had risen through the ranks.
04:39It was an army designed to guard the Raj, and the decision to bring it to fight in Europe's war was regarded at the time as a hazardous experiment.
04:50But in the crisis of 1914, a good year before Kitchener's mass armies entered battle,
04:58Britain needed all the professional soldiers it could lay its hands on.
05:02And so, they marched out of town to their base camp, and for a few short weeks, Marseille's fashionable racecourse became a little India.
05:20This is an incredible picture of the Lahore division of the Indian army in Marseille on this racecourse
05:30in September or early October 1914.
05:34And it is a panorama of all the different peoples that made up the British Indian army.
05:50In the corner, there are huge brass Indian cooking pots, very Indian pots,
05:56the sort of pots you'd see anywhere in a market in India today.
05:58And beside them are sacks, maybe of flour for cooking chapatis,
06:03or maybe rice, beside the Indian cooking pots.
06:07Down here, you can see some goats, which I'm afraid look like they're being slaughtered,
06:12according to the rules of Halal.
06:14This was an army that expected to eat Indian food, no matter where it was on duty in the world.
06:20And the British were very good at realising that they got the best out of their men
06:24when they were sensitive to their needs, cultural, religious and dietary.
06:28On the old racecourse itself, we've got the British officer on his horse.
06:37It's a tiny little detail in a big photograph.
06:41And this could be me projecting it onto him,
06:43but there's something about his bearing that is haughty, which is arrogant.
06:48It's confident.
06:49This is a man who is a soldier within the Indian army
06:52who feels that he knows the men he's commanding,
06:56that he understands their cultures, that he's in charge.
06:59He's very much an authority figure within this frame.
07:05The authority of the India Corps' British officers
07:09drew much of its self-confidence from a racial theory
07:12that was rooted in the imperial experience of British India.
07:17It took its cue from the Indian caste system
07:20and was known as the theory of the martial races,
07:24a distillation of the received wisdom of the Raj
07:27concerning the inherent qualities of the sepoys, subadas and risaldas,
07:33the private sergeants and captains of the India Corps.
07:38This is a copy of the India Corps in France.
07:42It was written during the war by two white British officers
07:45who served with the India Corps.
07:47The most interesting part is right at the end, the appendix.
07:52This was the work of J.W.B. Merriweather,
07:54who was a lieutenant colonel,
07:56and he was a real advocate of the martial races theory.
08:00And he writes that the majority of the population of India
08:04are people without physical courage and unfit for any military service.
08:09And with a stroke, he dismisses 90% of the population of India.
08:14But he then goes on to describe the various abilities,
08:17the strengths and weaknesses of the martial peoples,
08:20the men who have been recruited into the British Indian Army.
08:24He begins with the Sikhs, who are to him the perfect martial people.
08:28The Sikhs are tall men of strong physique and stately bearing, he tells us.
08:33The chief trait of the Sikhs is a love of military adventure
08:37and a desire to make money.
08:40Merriweather was also a fan of the Jats, who come from the Punjab.
08:44He considers them to be a thoroughbred race.
08:47He says,
08:47As in appearance, they are large-limbed and handsome,
08:50and they are unusually remarkable for their toughness
08:53and their capacity to endure the greatest fatigue and privation.
08:58Next are the Patans,
08:59who are a people from the tribal regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
09:04The Patan is a handsome man, Merriweather tells us,
09:07as a rule built in an athletic mold.
09:09His easy but swaggering gait speaks of an active life in the mountains.
09:13This makes him an ideal raider or skirmisher, full of dash,
09:17but, and this is the important part,
09:19but he's often wanting in cohesion and the power of steady resistance,
09:23unless, critically, he is led by British officers.
09:27Finally, there's the Gurkhas,
09:29the most famous of all of the units of the old British Indian Army.
09:33There is much about the Gurkha,
09:35which especially appeals to the British soldier.
09:37His friendliness, cheeriness and adaptability
09:40make him easier to get on with than any of the other Indian groups.
09:44His native weapon is the kukri,
09:46a long carved knife with a keen cutting edge and a heavy back.
09:50With this, Merriweather says,
09:51he can cut down trees or a man as easily as you can sharpen a pencil.
09:55Every group is given its vices and virtues.
09:59It's determined how reliable they are.
10:01This is a micro-dissection of the British Army of India.
10:05By mid-October 1914,
10:16the India Corps were in northern France and Belgium,
10:19about to get their first taste of battle.
10:22The war had developed into a frantic race to the sea,
10:26as the Germans pushed towards the channel ports
10:29and the French, British and Belgians fell back before them.
10:33Everything was in flux.
10:36There were cavalry battles in the wheat fields,
10:39refugees at the crossroads
10:41and hastily improvised barricades in the towns and villages.
10:46Still in their tropical uniforms,
10:49the India Corps units were thrown into battle
10:51with orders to hold the line at all costs.
10:55At the Belgian city of Ypres,
10:57they played a crucial part
10:59in the first of five battles that would be waged there.
11:04After Ypres,
11:05the German advance ground to a halt.
11:07The armies dug in
11:08and a new and terrible kind of warfare
11:11came to Europe.
11:13Trench warfare.
11:14The India Corps were among the first
11:20to experience the grim realities
11:22of industrialized trench warfare,
11:26ruled by the machine gun,
11:28barbed wire,
11:29high explosives,
11:30and gas.
11:31And alongside the murderous new weapons
11:48was the sheer misery
11:50of life in the trenches
11:52as the autumn of 1914
11:54turned into the first winter of the war.
11:57The winter of 1914
12:08was one of the coldest
12:09that's ever been recorded in Northern Europe.
12:12There's a photograph
12:13of a group of Indian soldiers
12:15in the trenches in the winter of 1914.
12:18They're huddled together,
12:19wrapped in blankets.
12:20They look more like vagrants than soldiers.
12:23The photograph was taken by the Daily Mirror,
12:26the same newspaper
12:27that had taken photographs of the Indians
12:28as they'd arrived in Marseille
12:30just a few months earlier.
12:32By now, they were a different army.
12:34They became veterans,
12:36old soldiers in their 20s,
12:38of a new sort of warfare
12:39that had never been seen before in the world.
12:41We know a little about what they were going through
12:53thanks to a remarkable cache of official documents,
12:56the reports of the censor of the Indian mails,
13:00held at the British Library.
13:02The censor's office was established in late 1914
13:06to vet letters received and sent
13:08by the Indian troops in France.
13:11The chief censor, Captain Evelyn Howell,
13:14was an old India hand,
13:16someone who fancied he knew the difference
13:19between a Jat and a Pataan.
13:22Every week,
13:23he and the small team under his command
13:25would sample some of the 20,000 letters
13:28that passed between the troops in the front line,
13:31those hospitalized in England,
13:32and family and friends back home,
13:35selecting and making exits
13:36of the most interesting ones.
13:38Men are dying like maggots.
13:44No one can count them.
13:46Not in thousands,
13:47but in hundreds and thousands of thousands.
13:51None can count them.
13:54Shantanu Das has made a close study of the letters.
13:58For him, they're not only a unique historical source,
14:01but also a kind of unacknowledged war poetry.
14:05In the letters,
14:07we have some of the first shock of encounter
14:10with Western industrial warfare.
14:14And, for example,
14:15I vividly remember some of the images
14:18that the soldiers employ
14:20to describe their experience.
14:24One sepoy writes,
14:26the shells are pouring
14:27like rain in monsoon.
14:31The enemy's guns roasted our regiments
14:34even as grain is parched.
14:37Corpses lay at every step,
14:40and the blood ran in little rivers.
14:42So, these are men from poor rural villages
14:46in the Punjab,
14:47and so that's why we get phrases like
14:49the corn is being ground.
14:51Absolutely, the corn is being ground,
14:53or, for example,
14:54as bulls and buffaloes lie
14:57in the month of Bhadun,
14:59so are our bodies.
15:01So, these are people,
15:02these are peasant warriors,
15:05because they have largely been drawn,
15:07or in the first months of the war,
15:09exclusively drawn
15:11from the martial races,
15:13or what the British termed
15:14as the martial races,
15:15and they are the peasant warriors,
15:18and they fall back
15:19on these agrarian metaphors
15:22and similes
15:23in order to express
15:24their innermost feelings.
15:28Here it rains always.
15:31Sometimes the noise of the rain is bad,
15:34and sometimes it is the noise of wind.
15:38The rain that sounds like wind
15:40is always falling,
15:42but the banging rain
15:43comes only now and then,
15:45and the corpses cover the country
15:48like sheaves of harvested corn.
15:52It's very important for us
15:53to listen to the letters,
15:55rather than just read the letters,
15:57and when we listen to them,
16:00perhaps we can hear the echoes
16:01of the sepoy heart.
16:03The censor was also interested
16:09in the sepoy's heart,
16:10but not for literary reasons.
16:13Captain Howell wanted to know
16:15how the theory of the martial races
16:17was standing up
16:18under the stress of battle,
16:20and the lyrical language
16:22used by some of the soldiers
16:23gave him cause for concern.
16:25Many of the men
16:29show a tendency
16:30to break into poetry,
16:32which I'm inclined to regard
16:33as a rather ominous sign
16:35of mental disquietude.
16:38So we have an army
16:39that's been recruited
16:40according to the martial races theory,
16:42and we still see that theory in action
16:44in the monitoring of their letters,
16:46that certain groups,
16:48certain races,
16:48will behave in certain ways
16:50according to this great theory.
16:52Yes, absolutely.
16:54It's like a big structure
16:55with which the British colonial army
16:58can work with.
17:00It is instructive to note
17:02the different behavior
17:03of men of different races
17:05under pressure of despair.
17:07The Sikh either grows sulky
17:09or tries to malinger.
17:12The Mohammedan of the Punjab
17:13wails and prays.
17:16The Pathan also believes
17:18in the efficacy of prayer,
17:20but being a man of quicker wit
17:22than either of the others,
17:23in some cases seems definitely
17:25to have taken means
17:26to help himself.
17:29What is interesting
17:30is that often
17:31some of the Sipors themselves
17:32have internalized
17:34these constructions
17:36so that they try pandering
17:37to that notion.
17:39For example, the Sikhs,
17:41they often think of themselves
17:42as lions
17:43because that's how
17:44they have been constructed.
17:46Because it's rather flattering.
17:48Yes, it is.
17:49Another power comes along
17:50and tells you
17:50that you are lions.
17:51Oh, absolutely.
17:52You are warrior people.
17:53Absolutely.
17:53That's why I think
17:54the imperial rule
17:56in India
17:57was so very successful
17:59because it was
18:01a combination
18:02of flattery
18:03and almost
18:04a sort of seduction
18:05that you are so brave
18:06so go into battle
18:08and fight.
18:13In the early spring
18:14of 1915,
18:16for most Indian troops,
18:17the fighting
18:18the fighting
18:18was centered here
18:19in northern France.
18:26Neuve-Chapelle
18:27looks ordinary enough today
18:28but the landmarks
18:30of a battle
18:30that claimed thousands
18:32of lives
18:32can still be seen.
18:34A dense area of woodland
18:36called the Bois de Biais
18:38where the Germans
18:39were dug in
18:39in unknown numbers.
18:41And the Laysbrook,
18:44a narrow but deep canal
18:46that bisected the battlefield
18:47and which was to become
18:49a killing zone.
18:50And here, of course,
19:05we have the memorial
19:05to the Indians missing
19:07on the Western Front
19:07at Neuve-Chapelle.
19:10There are around about
19:114,700 names
19:13of the missing here.
19:16Military historian
19:17Jeff Bridger
19:18has made a close study
19:19of the Battle of Neuve-Chapelle
19:20which took place here
19:22over three days
19:23from the 10th
19:24to the 12th of March,
19:261915.
19:28So in March 1915,
19:31why was there a battle here?
19:33We were trying to establish
19:35that we were indeed
19:35a capable army,
19:37capable of defeating
19:37the Germans.
19:39And the purpose was
19:40to get our lads
19:42away from the wet trenches.
19:44They had been static
19:45for the winter
19:46from about the end
19:48of November 1914,
19:49right the way through
19:50to the end of February 1915.
19:52There hadn't been
19:52a great deal of fighting.
19:54The men were wet,
19:55cold and miserable.
19:56And it was intended
19:58to prove their fighting spirit,
19:59push the Germans back
20:00and hopefully,
20:01more than push them back,
20:03break through.
20:04The ultimate aim
20:05was to get through to Lille.
20:06If we could have got through
20:07to Lille,
20:08which is a vital,
20:09pivotal transport station,
20:10we would have gone a long way
20:12to sort of shorten the war.
20:17So this is the battlefield?
20:19This is the official history
20:20battlefield showing
20:21the situation on the first day,
20:2210th of March 1915.
20:24And these are the German lines?
20:26The German lines are in green
20:27and the British lines
20:28are in red.
20:30The British lines
20:30are running along here.
20:32The Indian lines
20:33are running along here.
20:35And the objective,
20:36essentially,
20:36is to push through
20:37the German lines,
20:38which were forming a salient.
20:40So the idea was
20:40to straighten the line
20:41and to curl off
20:42to the right-hand side
20:43towards the Bois de Biais.
20:45So this is
20:46the greatest attack
20:48that the Indians launch
20:49in the First World War
20:51on the Western Front.
20:52How significant
20:53was their role
20:54in the Battle of Neuf-Shir-Bil?
20:55Very significant, indeed.
20:56They were excellent
20:57fighting soldiers,
20:58especially in hand-to-hand combat.
21:00The long-range rifle
21:01of the British forces
21:02wasn't that useful.
21:03You needed to get
21:04into hand-to-hand fighting
21:05using improvised weapons,
21:06clubs, knives,
21:07whatever was to hand.
21:08And of course,
21:08the cookery was an ideal weapon.
21:10This is the weapon
21:10of the Gurkhas?
21:11It's the weapon
21:11of choice of the Gurkhas.
21:13And that and other things
21:14were used in the trenches
21:15to the terror
21:16of the Germans' opposite.
21:17They really thought
21:18that the Gurkhas
21:19were going to slice
21:19their ears off
21:20as a body tally
21:21and they were
21:21extremely frightened of them.
21:23So it was a good plan
21:25with a good objective.
21:27It made strategic
21:27and tactical sense.
21:29It was an excellent plan
21:30and it should have succeeded.
21:34The first day
21:42is a considerable success.
21:43The bulge of the village
21:45was taken,
21:46which was the first objective.
21:48Unfortunately,
21:49because of confusion
21:50and primarily
21:51lack of communication,
21:53the second and third days
21:54were not such a success at all.
21:56In fact,
21:56the second day
21:57was a day of confusion
21:58and the third day
21:59pretty much a day of disaster.
22:01By the end
22:06of the first day,
22:07Indian and British troops
22:08had reached the edge
22:09of the Bois du Biais.
22:11The woods appeared
22:12to be empty of Germans,
22:13but without confirmation
22:14of this,
22:15the attackers were ordered
22:16to fall back
22:17to the Laysbrook
22:19and dig in for the night.
22:23And what happens overnight?
22:25Overnight,
22:26they are staying
22:26where they are,
22:28but the Germans
22:29are not idle.
22:30During the course
22:31of the night,
22:31they brought up
22:32massive reinforcements.
22:34They had units
22:34further back here.
22:36They brought them up.
22:37They passed through the wood.
22:38They occupied the wood
22:39at night time
22:40so that we couldn't see
22:41what was happening.
22:42And then,
22:42during the course
22:43of the night,
22:44they moved out
22:44from in front of the Bois du Biais
22:46and dug a trench
22:47right in front of it.
22:48And that trench
22:49was then heavily occupied
22:50and once more
22:51was able to cut
22:52straight into the lines
22:53of the Indian soldiers.
22:54But the real disaster
23:13for the India Corps
23:15at Neuve-Chapelle
23:15is not that initial successes
23:17are reversed,
23:18it's the loss of officers.
23:20Indeed so.
23:21The first 39th example
23:22lost all their white officers
23:23in that initial attack.
23:25Any reinforcements
23:26that were brought in,
23:27they were not familiar
23:28with the units.
23:29They didn't speak
23:29the language for a start.
23:31The Indian Army
23:32was a unit
23:33and once it was depleted,
23:34I'm afraid those depletions
23:35could not be made up
23:36during the course
23:37of the war.
23:38And indeed,
23:38they never were.
23:59By the autumn of 1915,
24:01the hazardous experiment
24:02of bringing Indian troops
24:04to fight for Britain
24:05in Europe
24:06had paid off.
24:07At least as far
24:09as the generals
24:09and the top brass
24:10were concerned.
24:12At Ypres,
24:13they had held the line
24:14at a moment
24:14of dire peril.
24:16At Neuve-Chapelle,
24:17they'd shown
24:18that the German trench line
24:19could be broken.
24:21Most importantly of all,
24:22they helped to buy
24:23the time needed
24:25to recruit and train
24:26Lord Kitchener's
24:27new army.
24:29A century on,
24:30it's a record
24:31worthy of remembrance.
24:32So your grandfather
24:36was among some
24:37of the first troops,
24:38the Indian troops,
24:38to fight on the
24:39Western Front.
24:40Yes.
24:40And this is...
24:42Sitar medal.
24:43The Sitar medal.
24:44And on the back
24:45it has his name.
24:47His name?
24:48Boor Singh.
24:50He was a sepoy.
24:51He was number 400,
24:524,874.
24:54Yes.
24:55And his regiment
24:56is the 59 rifles.
24:5859 rifles.
25:00Wild rifles.
25:02So your grandfather
25:03was among the soldiers
25:04who stopped
25:04the German advance
25:05in 1914,
25:06saved the British army.
25:08Yes.
25:08Maybe saved Britain.
25:10And this is his...
25:11Pension book.
25:12His pension book.
25:13So this is your grandfather?
25:14Yes.
25:15Wow.
25:17This is his service record.
25:19With his pension,
25:20how much he gets
25:21in his pension?
25:22Yes.
25:22Five rupees.
25:22Five rupees.
25:23Not a lot of money.
25:24And he's fighting
25:26with the turban.
25:27Always.
25:28He refused the helmet
25:30because he...
25:32The British government
25:33tells you take a helmet
25:35because of your safety.
25:36He says,
25:37my safety in the turban.
25:39He moved.
25:39He don't remove turban.
25:41You must be very proud of him.
25:42A year on the Western Front
25:54almost broke the India Corps.
25:57By the winter of 1915,
25:59nearly 35,000 officers and men
26:02were listed as dead,
26:04wounded or missing.
26:06Around the same number
26:07that had disembarked at Marseille
26:09just a year earlier.
26:13Along with the human cost
26:15came the destruction
26:16of something less tangible.
26:19The Corps' delicate web
26:20of cultural,
26:22religious,
26:22and linguistic diversity
26:24which had been held together
26:25by relationships
26:26between white officers
26:28and their men.
26:31The censor
26:32of the Indian males
26:33had been warning for months
26:34that the Corps
26:35was reaching breaking point.
26:36Finally,
26:37the decision was made
26:38to pull out
26:39all but the cavalry units
26:41from Europe
26:41and redeploy them
26:43in the Middle East.
26:48One last photograph
26:50taken just days before
26:51the India Corps
26:52left northern France.
26:54When we look
26:55at these faces,
26:57war-weary
26:57and battle-hardened,
26:59we see a group
27:00of individuals
27:00who've been to hell
27:02and back.
27:03But for the imperial system
27:04that sent them there,
27:05they were never seen
27:07as much more
27:08than useful types.
27:27The Western Front
27:28was 450 miles
27:30of misery and suffering,
27:33stretching from the Channel
27:34to the Swiss Alps.
27:37Britain and her imperial forces
27:39never held more
27:40than a quarter of it.
27:41Most of the rest
27:42was fought over
27:43by the French
27:44and the Germans,
27:45a bitter struggle
27:46that left deep scars
27:48still visible
27:49a century later.
27:50to understand
27:54the ferocity
27:55of that struggle,
27:56come to Vaucroix
27:57in Argonne.
27:59This crater-pocked valley
28:00was once
28:01a hilltop village.
28:08The French call this
28:09a village disparu,
28:11a disappeared village,
28:13and it's not difficult
28:14to see why.
28:15It was in killing fields
28:22like Vaucroix
28:23that the French
28:24were confronted
28:25with an uncomfortable truth,
28:27one which they'd been
28:28struggling with
28:29ever since
28:30a united,
28:31powerful Germany
28:32had risen
28:32on their eastern borders.
28:34The disturbing realisation
28:36that if it came again
28:37to war with Germany,
28:39they would be outnumbered.
28:41By the end of 1940,
28:46France had lost
28:47a third of a million men.
28:48More Frenchmen died
28:49in that first year
28:50of the war
28:51than any other,
28:52even though there was
28:53only fighting
28:53for five months.
28:55The Western Front
28:56became a meat grinder
28:58that consumed men,
28:59and for the French,
29:00this awoke
29:01a deep national paranoia,
29:04a fear that had haunted
29:04her politicians
29:05and her generals
29:06for a generation,
29:08that the country
29:08could simply
29:09run out of men.
29:11France,
29:13with a population
29:14of 40 million,
29:16seemed destined to lose
29:17when pitted against Germany
29:18with 67 million.
29:21But France had something
29:22Germany did not,
29:24access to an overseas empire.
29:37She may have been
29:38a republic at home,
29:39but on the world stage,
29:41France counted
29:42as an empire.
29:43And in a Paris suburb,
29:45Le Jourdan Colonial
29:46bears witness
29:47to the material wealth
29:48that once flowed
29:50into France
29:51from her former colonies
29:52in Indochina,
29:54the Caribbean,
29:55North,
29:55and West Africa.
29:57When war came,
29:58France,
29:59just like Britain,
30:00drew on her imperial holdings
30:01for something
30:02that had become
30:03far more valuable
30:04than material wealth,
30:07manpower.
30:07France had called on her colonial troops before.
30:32In the 1870s,
30:34in the war against Prussia,
30:36North African Spahi,
30:37Berber and Arab cavalrymen
30:39had been brought over
30:40to fight in Europe.
30:42But in the crisis of 1914,
30:44for the first time,
30:45France decided to bring over
30:47infantrymen
30:48from sub-Saharan West Africa.
30:52Recruited in colonies
30:53like Mali,
30:54Mauritania,
30:55and Niger,
30:56they were known collectively
30:57as the Tirailleurs Senegalais,
31:00riflemen,
31:00named after France's
31:02largest West African colony,
31:04Senegal.
31:10At the Albert Kahn Museum in Paris,
31:13there's a unique collection
31:14of colour photographs
31:16of the Tirailleurs Senegalais.
31:18Soldiers who like the troops
31:20from British India
31:21were recruited
31:21according to elaborate theories
31:23of race.
31:25This is a photograph
31:26that, quite incredibly,
31:28we actually know
31:29the name of this soldier.
31:31His name was Amadou Sarr.
31:33And one of the reasons
31:35that he in particular
31:36is here on the Western Front
31:37is because his people,
31:39the Wolof tribe of West Africa,
31:41were one of those peoples
31:42that the French colonial theorists
31:43had decided
31:44were a naturally warrior people,
31:47a race guerrière.
31:49And this theory
31:49directly influenced
31:51not just who's recruited,
31:53but how they're used
31:53on the Western Front,
31:54whether they're put
31:55into a labor battalion,
31:56whether they're a support division,
31:58or whether, like the Wolofs,
31:59they're seen as shock troops,
32:00troops who should lead an assault.
32:02It's not just a textbook theory.
32:04Work's been done
32:05to look at the casualty rates
32:07among soldiers
32:07who came from the warrior races.
32:10And we know that Wolofs,
32:12men from his community,
32:13were about three times more likely
32:15to die in combat
32:16than white soldiers
32:17fighting in the same campaigns.
32:19And when I look at this young guy,
32:23Amadou Sa,
32:23he looks like half my relatives
32:25from Africa.
32:26He looks like people in my family.
32:28That brings it home
32:29that this idea
32:30that somebody came to his country
32:32with an expertise, supposedly,
32:35in the nature of his peoples,
32:37the characteristics of his tribes,
32:39and made decisions
32:40that determined
32:42whether he would live or die,
32:43whether he would fight
32:44or be left in Africa.
32:47And I've read a lot,
32:48most of my life,
32:49about racial theories,
32:50about colonialism.
32:51And when I look into his eyes,
32:53I can't have seeing him
32:54as a victim
32:55of just the craziness
32:56of the ideas
32:57that surrounded race
32:58in the 20th century.
33:08The Kahn collection
33:09contains other clues
33:10about what can happen
33:12when the madness of war
33:13is overlaid
33:14with the craziness
33:15of racial prejudice.
33:18Oh, this is incredible.
33:21This is two French,
33:24West African soldiers
33:25in their full uniforms,
33:27their combat soldiers,
33:28with the Adrienne helmet
33:30and the coup-coup,
33:32which is a kind of machete
33:33that the West African soldiers used,
33:35and it became an obsession
33:36of German propaganda.
33:38This idea that this was
33:39a barbaric weapon
33:41used by uncivilized,
33:42savage soldiers in Europe,
33:44which is ludicrous in a war
33:45where there was poison gas
33:47and flamethrowers
33:47and U-boats.
33:49But it's really important
33:50to understand
33:51that when the French
33:52decided to bring men like this
33:55into the Western Front
33:56to fight for them,
33:58they were breaking
33:58all of the rules of empire.
34:01The first rule
34:02is that white life
34:03was sacrosanct.
34:04Everywhere in the empire,
34:05but especially in Africa,
34:07when there was violence
34:08against white people,
34:09it was met
34:10with the most extreme responses,
34:12the most extreme violence.
34:13But in the middle
34:14of a war of national survival,
34:16which is what
34:16the First World War became,
34:18the French have to abandon
34:19that taboo.
34:21And to bring black Africans,
34:23Africans from below the Sahara,
34:25into Europe
34:26and order them
34:27order them
34:28to kill white men
34:29is an abandonment
34:31of everything
34:32that empires were built upon.
34:39The French general,
34:41Charles Morgent,
34:42was one of the most
34:43vocal champions
34:44of recruitment
34:45from France's African colonies.
34:48He was as tough
34:50as they come,
34:51and the impression
34:52made by his portrait
34:53is confirmed
34:54by the nickname
34:55given to him
34:56by the troops,
34:58the cannibal.
35:00Morgent hated Germans.
35:02As a child,
35:03he'd been driven
35:04from his family home
35:05when the provinces
35:06of Alsace and Lorraine
35:07were annexed
35:08during the Franco-Prussian War.
35:11He was raised
35:12in the spirit
35:13of revanchism,
35:15revenge
35:15against the hated Bosch
35:17and with a burning desire
35:19for the reconquest
35:20of the lost provinces.
35:24He joined the army
35:25and made a name for himself
35:27policing France's empire,
35:28leading native troops
35:30against tribal uprisings
35:32and suppressing them,
35:33as the Morgent family album
35:35reveals,
35:36with ruthless brutality.
35:39This initiation
35:40into the harshness
35:42of colonial rule
35:42led to the formation
35:44of one of his core beliefs.
35:46France,
35:47as Morgent's statue proclaims,
35:49is a nation
35:50of 100 million.
35:52He believed
35:53that France's 60 million
35:55colonial subjects
35:55could be part
35:58of the French Republic
35:59if they were prepared
36:00to fight
36:01and die for it.
36:05In 1910,
36:07Charles Monjean
36:07published this book,
36:09La Force Noire,
36:11The Black Army.
36:12It's basically
36:12a manifesto
36:14calling for the mass recruitment
36:15of Africans
36:16into the French army.
36:18Part of his argument
36:21was the familiar one
36:23about numbers,
36:24but Monjean
36:25went further,
36:26citing experiments
36:27by French surgeons
36:28who claimed
36:29to have successfully
36:30operated on black Africans
36:32without anaesthetics.
36:34Monjean argued
36:35that the so-called
36:36warrior races
36:37were inured
36:38to the impact
36:39of modern warfare
36:40thanks to what he called
36:42their primitive nature
36:43and underdeveloped
36:45nervous systems.
36:46Monjean
36:48got the chance
36:49to take his arguments
36:50a stage further
36:51at Verdun
36:52in 1916.
37:02Of all the human
37:04meat grinders
37:05of the First World War,
37:06the Battle of Verdun
37:07was surely
37:08the most pitiless.
37:10Over a ten-month period
37:12from February
37:13to December
37:131916,
37:14half a million men
37:16were wounded,
37:17a quarter of a million killed.
37:20There are more than
37:2115,000 French soldiers
37:23buried in this section alone,
37:25including French Muslims,
37:27their gravestones
37:28facing towards Mecca.
37:30At least we know
37:31their names.
37:33In the Osri Tower
37:34that looms
37:35on the skyline
37:36are the remains
37:36of 150,000
37:38unknown soldiers,
37:40their identities
37:41erased by the Armageddon
37:43that was Verdun.
37:46Attrition
37:47on this horrific scale
37:48was precisely
37:50what German commanders
37:51had in mind
37:52when they unleashed
37:53their offensive
37:54early in 1916.
37:56A memorial
37:57at the city gates
37:58recalls a long list
38:00of sieges,
38:01sacks,
38:02and liberations
38:03reaching back
38:041,500 years.
38:06These are the battle-honors
38:08of a citadel
38:09that was of as much
38:10symbolic
38:11as strategic importance
38:13to France.
38:14By attacking it,
38:15the Germans knew
38:16they would provoke
38:17a furious counter-attack,
38:20and this would be
38:20a chance,
38:21in the words
38:22of the German commander
38:23Falkenhayn,
38:24to bleed France dry.
38:25The town of Verdun
38:47is about 10 miles
38:48in that direction,
38:49and in 1916
38:50it was defended
38:51by a ring of fortresses,
38:53and the most important,
38:54the centerpiece
38:55of the whole system
38:56was this place,
38:58Fort Duermont.
38:59The fort's
38:59underneath my feet.
39:01It's encased
39:02under thousands
39:03and thousands
39:03of tons of concrete,
39:05and its defenses
39:06included these.
39:08These are retractable
39:10steel gun emplacements.
39:12It makes this fort
39:13look more like
39:14a battleship
39:14than a fortress.
39:15They rise up
39:16out of the ground
39:17and fire
39:17in all directions.
39:19There are machine gun
39:20emplacements,
39:20observation posts,
39:21and underneath here
39:22there's a barracks
39:23full of soldiers.
39:24And in 1916,
39:25in the Battle of Verdun,
39:27this place took on
39:28the same sort of
39:28symbolic importance
39:29as the town itself.
39:42The battle began
39:43disastrously
39:44and farcically
39:45for the French.
39:46A German soldier
39:47scavenging for food
39:49somehow penetrated
39:50Duermont's defenses
39:51and found a way
39:53into the fort itself
39:54where he was quickly
39:55joined by his comrades.
39:58With barely a shot fired,
40:00the keystone
40:01of Verdun's defenses
40:02became an enemy
40:03stronghold.
40:05Humiliated and shocked,
40:07the French unleashed
40:08a torrent of shells
40:09of the fort.
40:10But by the autumn,
40:11it was clear
40:11that only a full-scale
40:13frontal assault
40:14would drive
40:15the Germans out.
40:18General Nivelle
40:19was in overall charge
40:20of the fort's recapture,
40:22but his second-in-command
40:23was Charles Montjean,
40:25and the cannibal
40:26made sure
40:27that when units
40:28were selected
40:28for the assault,
40:30elements of
40:30La Force Noire
40:31were among them.
40:32On the 24th of October,
40:461916,
40:47French forces
40:48emerged from thick fog,
40:50and after a few hours
40:51of fierce
40:52hand-to-hand fighting
40:53in the echoing tunnels
40:55of the fort,
40:56they retook
40:56Duermont.
41:02When the Senegalese soldiers
41:06who had taken part
41:07in the recapture
41:08of fort Duermont
41:09marched off
41:10this battlefield,
41:11they were ordered
41:12by their white officers
41:12not to wash the mud
41:14off their uniforms
41:15so that the people
41:16of Verdun
41:16and the people
41:17of the French villages
41:18behind the lines
41:19would know
41:20that they were
41:20the Africans
41:21who had taken
41:22Duermont back
41:22from the Germans.
41:30And the message
41:31got through.
41:32The cover
41:32of a popular
41:33Sunday magazine
41:34was soon telling
41:35its readers
41:36that one black
41:37is worth two boche.
41:41But running alongside
41:43the gung-ho patriotism
41:44were less palatable themes.
41:47The innate savagery
41:48of the colonial soldiers,
41:50their lack of civilization,
41:52their otherness.
41:58Today,
41:59a contemporary statue
42:00that honors the black heroes
42:02of Duermont
42:03stresses their humanity
42:05as well as their courage.
42:06But at the time,
42:08they were seen
42:08rather differently.
42:12Throughout the war,
42:13everything to do
42:14with the colonial soldiers,
42:15from the way
42:15they were recruited
42:16to the way
42:17they were deployed
42:17on the battlefields,
42:18was influenced
42:19and shaped
42:20by ideas of race.
42:22But at the same time,
42:23the French liked to believe
42:24that their nation
42:25was colorblind,
42:26that in France
42:27it was culture
42:28and not skin color
42:30that really mattered.
42:32France, in effect,
42:32became trapped
42:33between the racial ideas
42:35she used to justify
42:36ruling over millions
42:37of people
42:38in her colonial empire
42:39and the ideals
42:40of the French Republic,
42:42the revolutionary ideals
42:43of liberty,
42:44fraternity
42:45and equality.
42:46In the midst of battle,
42:50there was little time
42:51to tease out
42:52these contradictions.
42:54But away from the battlefields,
42:56on the home front,
42:57they were harder to ignore.
43:00During the war,
43:01Fréjus,
43:02a small fishing port
43:03on the Mediterranean coast,
43:05was an army town,
43:06surrounded by military bases,
43:08depots and barracks.
43:10And prominent
43:10among the soldiers
43:11stationed here
43:12during the winter months
43:13were the Tirailleurs Senegalais.
43:16As historian
43:17Alison Fell explains.
43:22Fréjus was a very small town
43:24in the First World War,
43:25about 8,000 people,
43:26and there's about
43:2640,000 French African soldiers
43:28who spent the winters here.
43:31And so this small town
43:33on the Côte d'Azur
43:34suddenly has an army camp
43:36four or five times
43:37the size of it,
43:38with men from Africa.
43:40Absolutely.
43:41It must have been
43:41absolutely transformed
43:42and the vast majority
43:43of the population
43:44would never have seen
43:45a black man before.
44:00So, Alison,
44:01what stereotypes
44:02about Africans
44:04and African soldiers
44:04that were common
44:05at the time in France?
44:07Before the First World War,
44:08the common stereotypes
44:09were of savage,
44:11cannibalistic,
44:12highly sexed,
44:13certainly for African men.
44:15And there's a lot
44:16of nervousness
44:17about the presence
44:18of black African troops
44:20on French soil
44:21in the First World War,
44:23which is one of the reasons
44:23why there is an initiative
44:25from the top
44:26to propagate the image
44:27of the African soldier
44:28as a loyal,
44:30simpleton soldier,
44:31a bon enfant,
44:32in order to try
44:32and allay those fears.
44:33One of the main ways
44:49that they propagated
44:50this image
44:50was through an advert
44:51for a drink called
44:52Banania.
44:53It's a very famous
44:54advertisement
44:54with a grinning
44:56tirayeur
44:57and the slogan
44:58is Yabon,
44:59which was the slogan
45:01that was most associated
45:02with the tir senegalese.
45:04And that's part
45:05of the language,
45:06the simple version
45:07of pidgin French,
45:08that the tirayeur
45:09were taught
45:10by the French army?
45:11Absolutely.
45:12The French army realised
45:13that the officers
45:14couldn't communicate
45:15with the African troops
45:17and also because
45:17they spoke a variety
45:19of different languages,
45:20they couldn't communicate
45:20with each other,
45:21so they were taught
45:22a form of pidgin French.
45:24So Yabon,
45:25in standard French,
45:26would be C'est bon,
45:27so it's good.
45:28So it's like baby talk.
45:29It's like baby talk,
45:30absolutely,
45:31and they were taught
45:31a very, very limited
45:32set of set phrases,
45:35so it also really
45:36limited their ability
45:37to express themselves
45:38beyond the most
45:39basic daily needs.
45:45But in Fréjus,
45:46the prejudices
45:47of the French army
45:48came up against someone
45:50who saw things
45:51a little differently.
45:53Lucie Costurier
45:54was a Paris-based painter
45:55who moved to Fréjus
45:57to escape the war.
45:58When African soldiers
46:01came to her house
46:02looking for odd jobs
46:03and scrounging
46:04for cigarettes,
46:05she struck up
46:06what was for the times
46:07an unlikely friendship
46:08with them.
46:09She's kind of quite fascinated,
46:13I think,
46:13like many of the French
46:14civilians,
46:15to meet Africans
46:16for the first time.
46:17She invites them in
46:19and then she starts,
46:20she asks them,
46:21the French army,
46:22if she can teach them
46:23and it develops from there
46:24and then she,
46:25from that point,
46:26she starts to offer
46:26regular French lessons.
46:28She taught them French,
46:30she taught them writing
46:30and reading
46:31and it was through
46:33her work with them
46:34in a way
46:34that some of these
46:35stereotypes then
46:36were unmasked
46:36as the racist assumptions
46:38that they were.
46:41If I had been swayed
46:42by the opinion
46:43commonly held
46:45that the intelligence
46:46of Negroes
46:47develops only
46:48until the age of 13
46:50and decreases after that,
46:53I would never
46:53have set out
46:54to teach a 28-year-old
46:56to read and write
46:57and one who had practiced
47:00for seven years
47:01the muddled jargon
47:02of the Tireilleur.
47:05She's put her finger
47:06on the hypocrisy
47:06of the French deployment
47:09of African soldiers
47:10that it's done
47:10in the name of republicanism,
47:12equality, fraternity,
47:14a colourblind nation,
47:15but that's not really
47:16what's happening.
47:17Absolutely.
47:17There are a lot of objections
47:19within the French army
47:20that treatment
47:22of the Tireilleur Senegal
47:23that they considered
47:24too soft
47:26would spoil them
47:28for military actions.
47:30So they wanted
47:31the Tireilleur
47:32to be savage
47:33on the battlefield
47:34but to be infantilised,
47:37to be children
47:37when they're off duty,
47:38when they're in towns
47:39like Fréjus.
47:40Absolutely.
47:41They said that
47:41they might need
47:42to implement a policy
47:43of what they called
47:43re-Senegalisation,
47:45which was the idea
47:47that they would take
47:47all these kind of
47:48soft, civilising
47:50influencers away from them
47:52and they would become
47:52the fighters again
47:53that they needed to be.
47:56And France
48:00would always need fighters
48:01until the last German
48:03had been driven
48:03from the last trench
48:05that scarred French territory.
48:07From 1917 onwards,
48:10recruitment
48:10of the Tireilleur Senegalais
48:12grew in scale
48:13and intensity.
48:16After the war,
48:17a mosque
48:18in the West African style
48:19was built in Fréjus
48:21in memory
48:22of those
48:22who had rallied
48:23to the Tireilleur.
48:25But the circumstances
48:27of their recruitment
48:28should also be remembered.
48:37French recruitment
48:38in Africa
48:39in the First World War
48:40fell far short
48:42of the country's
48:42republican ideals.
48:44Recruitment in West Africa
48:45was outsourced
48:47to agents
48:47to intermediaries
48:49to men
48:49who worked
48:50to a quota system
48:51and were paid
48:52by results.
48:53Now what this meant
48:54in practice
48:54was that men
48:55were forced,
48:57coerced into
48:57the French army
48:58and they tended
48:59to be from the most
49:00powerless sections
49:01of their communities.
49:02The poor,
49:03orphans,
49:04boys who had
49:05no one to protect them.
49:06But it also
49:07seems certain
49:08that some of the men
49:09forced into the French army
49:11were in effect
49:12slaves.
49:13There's stories
49:14of men
49:14being forced
49:15to the collection stations
49:16bound in chains.
49:18And we know
49:18that the African agents
49:19carried out raids
49:21to seize men
49:21from their villages
49:22and take them
49:23to the collecting stations.
49:25Those raids
49:25were horribly similar
49:27to the raids
49:28of the slave trade,
49:29a trade that took place
49:30in the same parts
49:31of Africa
49:31in earlier centuries.
49:33Now to me
49:34it's really difficult
49:36to think
49:37of a more bitter,
49:38more uncomfortable
49:39irony than that,
49:40that men
49:40were taken
49:41from their homes,
49:42bound in chains
49:43and sent to Europe
49:44to fight
49:45for liberty
49:46and civilisation.
49:56Liberty
49:57and civilisation
49:58were words
49:59often on the lips
50:00of Europe's politicians
50:02as the meat grinder
50:03of the war
50:04continued to turn.
50:06And it wasn't just
50:07the British
50:07and the French
50:08who swore by them.
50:09The Germans
50:10also believed
50:11that these values
50:12were what the fighting
50:13was all about.
50:15To her enemies
50:16Germany was clearly
50:18the aggressor.
50:19Her armies
50:20a teutonic horde
50:21with the blood
50:22of poor little Belgium
50:23on their bayonets
50:24and the rubble
50:25of Liège
50:25under their boots.
50:27But of course
50:29things looked different
50:30from the other side
50:31of the front line.
50:33From Berlin
50:33the aggressors
50:34were the mighty empires
50:36who threatened Germany
50:37with encirclement.
50:39France and Britain
50:40to the west
50:40and the juggernaut
50:42of Russia
50:42to the east.
50:44Worse still
50:45Germany was cut off
50:47from her own imperial holdings
50:48by naval blockade
50:50and could not do
50:51what Britain and France
50:52had done
50:53bring colonial manpower
50:54to fight
50:55on Europe's soil.
50:59To the German public
51:00carefully primed
51:01by the German propaganda machine
51:03this was nothing less
51:05than a betrayal
51:06of civilisation itself.
51:08The modern
51:09hygienic warfare
51:10of the white man
51:12reduced to mere savagery
51:14by a West African
51:15wielding a machete.
51:19That sense of anger
51:21outrage
51:22and betrayal
51:23can still be felt
51:25in all its rawness
51:26in German
51:27satirical magazines
51:28from the period.
51:33John Bull
51:37today
51:38in the German
51:39satirical magazine
51:40Kladder Dutch.
51:43This is John Bull
51:45but he's been
51:46distorted
51:47into an exaggerated
51:48racialised
51:49stereotypical
51:50prejudiced view
51:51of an African.
51:53It's
51:53just
51:54a horrible image.
51:56So he has
51:57the Union Jack tie
51:58as John Bull wore
51:59his pipe
52:00his top hat
52:01but he has a ring
52:02through his nose
52:02and it's
52:03it's the sort of
52:05racialised
52:05hateful image
52:07that we associate
52:08with the American
52:09Deep South.
52:10I really didn't expect
52:12to be shocked.
52:13I don't think
52:13I'm an easily
52:14shockable person
52:14but this is
52:17this is a really
52:17shocking image.
52:19You can still feel
52:20the hate
52:21that inspired them.
52:23So in the name
52:35of civilisation
52:36France
52:36is employing
52:38savages.
52:43All of the clichés
52:45all of the stereotypes
52:46of Africans
52:47are represented here.
52:49there's the hint
52:50of cannibalism
52:51and of the
52:52mutilation
52:52of the dead.
52:53There's wildness
52:55savagery
52:56and the French
52:57white officer
52:58is leading
52:58this army
52:59of supposedly
53:01subhuman savages
53:02into war
53:03pushing them on
53:04pointing them on.
53:05It's a raw nerve
53:06it's a live issue
53:08this sense
53:09of victimhood
53:10that all of these
53:11peoples
53:11these lesser
53:12peoples
53:12are being
53:13turned on Germany
53:15in a way
53:15that's unfair
53:16and uncivilised
53:17and unacceptable.
53:20The brutality
53:21of these caricatures
53:23is a stark
53:24reminder
53:24of a simple
53:25truth
53:26about the
53:26experiences
53:27of the soldiers
53:28of empire
53:29who were sucked
53:30in to the
53:30world's war.
53:32Not only
53:33did they have
53:34the conflict
53:34and all its
53:35manifest horrors
53:36to deal with
53:37they also
53:38had the heavy
53:38load of
53:39ignorance
53:40prejudice
53:40and racism
53:41to carry
53:42on their
53:42shoulders.
53:44And these
53:44experiences
53:45were for the
53:46most part
53:47unrecorded.
53:49We have
53:50their names
53:51far too
53:51many names
53:52but precious
53:53little elves
53:54apart from
53:55the occasional
53:56fragment
53:57preserved by
53:57chance.
53:59A letter
53:59in a census
54:00report.
54:02A photograph
54:03taken behind
54:04a front line.
54:06A medal
54:07and a proud
54:08family memory.
54:09MUSIC
54:09MUSIC
54:15But there
54:16is one
54:16place
54:17where in
54:18the most
54:18unexpected
54:19way
54:19you suddenly
54:20get heart
54:21stoppingly
54:21close
54:22to an
54:22individual
54:23and it's
54:24as if
54:25the forgotten
54:25ghosts of the
54:26world's war
54:27are suddenly
54:28standing there
54:29before you.
54:30TES
54:32MUSIC
54:33TOGETHER
54:34TOGETHER
54:35TES
54:36TOGETHER
54:37TES
54:38A
54:39man
54:40was
54:40a man
54:41was
54:42in
54:43India
54:44and
54:44a man
54:44was
54:46a man
54:46was
54:47a man
54:48and
54:48a man
54:48was
54:51a man
54:52and
54:53a man
54:53was
54:54a man
54:55who
54:55was
54:56a man
54:57That's beautiful, a voice from another world.
55:15You can hear when he makes mistakes, you can hear his stumbles.
55:18Yeah.
55:27The man whose voice has been so miraculously preserved in the Humboldt University Sound
55:35Archive here in Berlin is Mal Singh, a soldier with the British India Corps.
55:41He was brought over to France in 1914 to fight for the British and then taken prisoner by
55:47the Germans on the Western Front.
55:50According to the punctilious notes taken at the time, we know that on the 11th of December
55:551916, at 4 o'clock, Mal Singh, aged 24, from the village of Ranasuki in the Punjab, was
56:04ordered to stand in front of a horn microphone and recite his plaintive poem, which was then
56:10recorded directly onto a shellac disc.
56:14For us, the recording brings to life a poignant story of a man transported across continents
56:20and oceans to fight and to be made prisoner in someone else's war.
56:25But the ethnographers and linguists who made the recording had no interest in that.
56:32All they wanted was a sample of his Punjabi dialect to further their research and cataloguing
56:38of racial and linguistic types.
56:42But it's only thanks to their tunnel vision that a century later, the ghosts of Mal Singh and
56:48hundreds of his comrades materialise in the sound archive, and precious fragments of their
56:55experiences could be recovered.
56:57Here, in a cemetery near Berlin, are the headstones of more than 200 Indian prisoners of war who died
57:25in captivity.
57:26Mal Singh is not among them.
57:31Maybe he made it back to India, to eat butter and drink milk once more.
57:37Maybe he was transferred to another camp, where his death, like the deaths of many others, went
57:42unrecorded.
57:44He survives today as a snatch of crackly sound, recorded for reasons that would have been obscure
57:52to him, and preserved for reasons that now probably seem obscure to us.
57:57In remembrance services every year, we make a promise to the dead of the world's war.
58:14Living up to that promise seems even more necessary when so much and so many have been forgotten.
58:24Living up to that point, we have been forgotten.
58:31Living up to that point, we have been forgotten.
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58:48Black is the new Black, streaming now on iPlayer.