WWI: The Last Tommies

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Stories told by the last Tommies, remembering life and death in World War I.

Vivid and heartbreaking stories told by the last Tommies, remembering life and death in World War I, illustrated with powerful archive.

BBC Four HD

Steve Humphries

Nick Maddocks

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WWI: The Last Tommies: Series 1: Episode 3: The Fight to the End

The Fight to the End

Episode 3

Episode 3: The Fight to the End

Series 1

BBC Four - WWI: The Last Tommies, Series 1, The Fight to the End

The terrible battles of 1917 and 1918, and how defeat was turned into a victory.

The last Tommies remember life and death in WWI. Here, the story of the terrible battles of 1917 and 1918, and how defeat was eventually turned into victory.

The Fight to the End tells the story of the terrible battles of 1917 and 1918, and how Britain and her allies turned a looming defeat into victory. As recruitment levels fell, conscription was introduced. One of the conscripts was Harry Patch - here interviewed for the first time - who went on to live to the age of 111, and who survived to be the last fighting Tommy of WWI. These were years when German U-boats attempted to starve Britain into submission and there were serious food shortages on the home front. 

We hear dramatic stories of the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 - a battle fought in a quagmire of mud at a terrible cost to soldiers' lives. In the Spring Offensive of 1918, the German army made huge advances and almost won the war. Some of our survivors were taken prisoner and worked as slave labour in Germany. But with the help of the United States, there was a final push to victory. 

The sacrifice involved in this total war changed the world forever. We conclude by briefly looking at the effects of the war on some of the characters we have grown to know and love across the series.

WWI: The Last Tommies: Series 1

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Episode 3: The Fight to the End

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