>> almost one year into world war i, an american journalist and a cinematographer left chicago for berlin, germany and traveled with the german army to prussia and poland. they shot about 5.5 hours of film. they returned in december of 1915 -- september 1915 and in december released a film "on the firing line with the germans." it was screened widely in the united states despite the fact it presented a favorable view of the german forces. it wasbout how discovered and restored by the library of congress. and then listen to two scholars discuss how it was done. this film is about two hours. >> my name is cooper graham. at the moment i am retired but i used to work at the library of congress and while i was here, among the fascinating things i've found buried in the vaults, and there is a lot of stuff buried in the vulture, is a film "-- and there is a lot of stuff buried in the vaults, is the on the firing line with the germans are co- he and i think it reflects very well what was going on with the united states, where the united states was looking with suspicion that this war in europe and wondering how much it wanted to get involved and how much it could stay out and whether circumstances would allow it to do so. jim: i am a scholar retired from a computer system's career. i wanted to research my family history. i was looking into a journalist thewas a workhorse for german news stories and world war i. researching him, i came across saw there had been a film in 1915 and that he the photographer for getting real war pictures. did not startubro andnalism until until 1909 was finally at the chicago examiner in chicago. and eventually was an independent contractor. the bestly was reporter to be sent on assignments like the mexican troubles. i the background research, wanted to see a film to see what they were witnessing on the east front and it was hard to research because he changed careers a lot. years, he was still -- i was still working on the research and i was going to write an article and so i was organizing notes when low and this, i readned this fabulous article and was glad to her somebody else was interested in and i contacted him. with total ignorance to the fact that this was a lost film. nobody knew what the contact was. through contact with cooper, he gave me the magic key and the library of congress, buried in paper from the original copyright filing was a few small images from the original frames which allowed us to document the in bringing ind a co-author, he brought in a lot of missed pieces of film who working with the library of congress encouraged them to re-create. >> i am george. it has been my jump for the past 30-some years to take care of the film collection of the library of congress. what that means is these are the films made from the beginning of stock.on nitrate film the reason it is different is because nitrate tends to deteriorate and more importantly it is highly flammable. so it is important for us to maintain not only the film but the atmosphere it is stored in to give them long life and keep them from blowing up. preservation specialist in the moving image section. my duty is ensuring the physical integrity of the collection. handling and storage. i concentrate on the safety side. maintaining the circulating film loan program and as assignments projects whether it is assisting in reconstruction of research or roger x. ""on the firing line with the germans." where does that come from? why do we still have it? >> it is just one of this fascinating things. a film from long ago. from the son of one of the original backers of the film had founded in his father's wine cellar. and-some reels of film. it had been sitting on a shelf and several attempts had been made to put it together but there was no paperwork. sat there.kind of the nitrate vaults in ohio were at wright-patterson air force base and i thought, what are all of these reels? what is this? i am so glad that finally we were able to put it all back together because it is one of those things that should not have survived. you know, there is no reason for it to survive. lynanne: a behind seller is not a good place to store a film, particularly a nitrate film. ask how do we get to the point from it sitting in storage to now where it is available for the public to view? tracks i think people in the library had always wanted to see this film put back together. i note the burke has always been very interested in it. for myself, from a viewpoint of it being a film in news to be put back together i never thought i would be able to see it put back together. , as it was, script was put together by james cooper and resented to is, that is when the time came plus the time had come when we were able to do high enough levels of scanning of these film reels that they could be edited together digitally rather than having to try to make the film copies and try to edit it that way because there was such a huge falling of material, -- a huge volume of material, the cost would have been astronomical. a doing it digitally, it was easier for us to put things in their face or say, here is a better version we will use this. so without digital technology i do not think this project would have happened. >> i guess it was two years altogether. lynanne: yes. >> that does not count all of the pre-work. >> it takes a lot of time and effort. what is the value for the american public? why is it worth it? >> one of my sort of guiding principles and actually the first face i thought was on the wall of the air force museum and gain, ohio, and it is a saying "those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it." so i thought it was important for us to make it available for people to see so we learn from it. whether or not we do learn from it is not my problem but i want to make sure i do my part for people to have the ability to see this other part of history that is not in the books, you know. whether it be this film or a or dairy, a laundry or newsreels. newsreels were some memorable, so many of them are lost but there were a lot of interesting stories besides the major one. just to see what we did, how we talked, how we walked, all these major things that we do not forget. soause our society is disposable. we were at the point now where it seems like people are disposable. that is bad. i want to make sure all of that, as much as we can carry, is still there. lynanne: i think particularly refugee references reinforce this idea of history repeating itself. we are looking at different scenes of the refugees. and going home at night and watching the news and reading the paper with the refugees, different refugees from different parts of the world best nonetheless, human affection and political actions that cause the regular populace to endure and figure out and repeating itself. almost 100 years to the day, we were looking at the same scenes we were seeing in the news every night. that was really shocking. >> at you will see in the first he rarely missed an opportunity for self promotion. it only came about because of his initiative. go abroad and to there he is in the spotlight. there is a certain kind of hard-charging tension about him. this is the cameraman. little belooked a wilderness but game. there he is with a cigar. both of the guys had a cigar habit. but he looked affable. >> this really documented in his trip to europe. durburough's trick to europe. come about.hey >> he was commissioned to moonlight as long as he paid for extra cost and he met some chicago businessman and convince and then wentt around purchasing cameras and equipment and here he is going abroad. >> this is about the time the lusitania was sunk, so submarines were very much on everybody's mind. >> and the only ones that ran were between new york and holland. statse is the famous bearcat. this is the lamborghini of its time. a wonderful car. one just sold in california i 595 -- $595,000. urough'shat was durb personality. >> it was a hot car. and i think he realized the film and the car would help him get access to the individuals he wanted to film and interview. he was very good at projecting his personae and had a definite flamboyance to him. >> so, was world war i a really in newspapers at the time in the united states? >> it was. obviously, the official position of wilson was neutrality. we had a tendency to stay out of foreign affairs, at least european affairs which seemed to always be mixed up. and, there was concern about trying to get involved by several different groups of citizenry. >> what are we saying here? gerard.is ambassador pro-rned out to be very british. president wilson did not very much like him. he did a very good job of getting americans out of their once we started the war. >> the ambassadors were only to give input. eyes, ears, and to implement whatever was put into play. ranz max was interesting here. the first leader of the republic which a lot of people never forgave him for, but i think he was a good fellow . rough and thedurbu newspaper cover the war from the germans and viewpoint. >> in the midwest, there was a lot of pro-german sentiment. i will not say everybody was but there were a lot of germans and scandinavians, especially the germans, happen to be on the pro-german side. there was a large irish voice in some of the big cities like milwaukee and so the feeling in the midwest was very different than on the east coast, which tended to have the most pro-ally sentiment. i think one of the reasons was the germans could get the german side of their story told because they did not feel the new york times and so on was doing most for them. and german propaganda was not either.d get, >> by the time, seven months into the war, there were a large number of casualties. soldiers, if you to use, what not, you will see some of that in the film here. henrietta setis up the home of the blind in did hospital work. she became very famous. she was married to a very famous architect. andwas originally italian italy had just entered the war on the allied side. she did work for the german wounded. after the war, it was turned over to the german government and i think it is still in existence. here is alexander hamilton and miss jane adams. there she is on the right. three extremely powerful women. it is funny, as jim said, that shot you just saw is probably the most famous shot that has come out of this. addams?ne who was she? addams ran h for europeans to get integrated into ourull hous society. e she did a lot of effort in the piece movement. her reputation was so important she was invited to be the cochair of the peas conference the women organize. >> this is visiting day of the hospital? >> is is very interesting. it would've showed the dark side becoming more and more evident perio thed summer. of 1915. footage.ot frivolous >> interestingly, cigarettes became much more prominent in the trenches, obviously. i guess because they could not drink in the trenches so smoking became more popular. cigarettes pre-made really grew in popularity among the army. >> why do you think they decided to film these things? how did that happen? >> i do not know. you can see this kind of frivolous guy going for the main chance but some of the footage -- you have to think that he was very much aware of the tragic side of all of this. he wanted to capture the civilian perspective and show it just as he could see in the film lens. >> there is an interesting shot. in a way, it is a godsend that it toough could not make the front and was stuck-unstuck in berlin. he has sort of a nice portrait of the city that is beginning to suffer. you would not have gotten that if he had sort of wandered off to some battlefield. getting, and the correspondence, initially, they should've gotten permission. they go on their own. they connect out there. >> this is rather famous. this is shot at the workshop of veryfessor who became famous for working with prostatic devices for soldiers. you see it in the scientific american and three or four newspapers in the united states. the same guy, the same workshop. evidently, he was very famous. you will see a bit of the emphasis on the horse opportunities in the film. he was quite a horseman. >> did he go into this project with a plan about what would happen with this film when he thinkck? >> no, i do not so. i think he just wanted to record his trip and get enough footage so it would be able to be shown in theaters around the united states as a profit-maker essentially. >> but also i thought to drum up sympathy for germany, which was already unsuccessful largely in its propaganda. >> but i do not think the syndicate had that as the motive. was just that obviously there was a large population or market for the german situation. >> that is true. of course. i'm i mean, they were not pro- german. you can argue about wilson but they were businessmen. they wanted to make money. bener wanted to make his name. i should mention that. he is in 25% of the film have. seen bynd-most government is the pluschke. the germans liked to take correspondence from cameramen. safe trip. the germans like to do it because they had a lot of control over what the correspondence i ended not see and nobody was likely to get hurt and it showed the germans the chance to show they were treating prisoners well. giving them enough to eat. like these shots, there may be a bit of parity but these guys do seem happy. apparently they are happy enough to be in the trenches. >> putting the best foot forward. to be fair, as a neutral he did watch over for the allied prisoner war camps and he did get credit for improving the conditions which were pretty bad later on. >> do you know of these camps were close to berlin? >> one camp was very close to berlin. there, it was a major training field. >> as i say, i do not know. i don't know if the prisoners were trying to make the germans happy but it looks to me that they seem not to be unhappy to be warm and dry. >> you will see later, with like warsaw here, film is a new commodity. featured ineing films, a novel experience so i think that was the thing that stimulated everybody if they wanted to get in front of the camera. >> and maybe it was a way to say, somebody from your family might see the footage and say, oh he is all right. especially on the russian side. >> they recruited prisoners to help repair the roads and farms ,ho worked without the tools the ones with the shovels and stuff would fix the roads. >> these look like british. >> you sort of get the impression there are many journalists going around with them? was this almost like a media tour in some cases or -- >> yeah, well, these trips to prison camps they would maybe take 10 people. it would be a group trip. they controlled them pretty well. you'll see in a bit, waiting to go to the front. they are in uniform. initially they did not have uniforms, they did not have good control. they arrested many journalists who started to walk around and got caught and were almost shot as spies so they decided they would give them official uniform said they could be recognized by ancorted from berlin officer. >> what are we seeing here? >> the band is leading the soldiers from berlin out from the train station to go to the front. the hotel avalon, one of the most famous hotels about a block away. actually, they are going to go by the hotel. right in front of the hotel marquee. these guys are headed east or west, i cannot tell you which. anyway, -- >> they are coming from the garden area said they were headed east. >> at this time in the war, the german army looks rather happy. what was the situation. >> they were not thrilled in the again, one of the reasons for this film was there was a huge drive in the summer of 1915 starting in may, as a matter fact these guys maybe headed towards the battle front which was designed to check the poland.army out of there was a ring of austrian and german troops and then a northern ring which was headed toward warsaw. the two germans i think were situation asth the they and vision then in the summer and one of the reasons they might've been invited to do this was because they wanted witnesses and they wanted it film. evidently, this footage is extremely privileged. i mean, you did not just go up and start shooting the royal family at 20 paces. so whether he shut this about it from somebody else, i did not know. >> i am pretty sure he did this. he did get to the castle. they said it up so he would be able to film this >> this was a review for the kaiser. the hussars were his favorite unit. a firstbernardi as lieutenant led the hustlers -- hussars. >> who are we seeing here? kaiser.ife of the >> the daughter of victoria luisa. she was the only daughter of the kaiser. i think he had five sons and victoria luisa. and some of the sons were appointed the head of armies. later afterlieved they did not do too well. >> somewhere sort of nominal heads. , he wasr son wilhelm actually in charge of the army at verdun. this is where all of the correspondence or most of them stayed waiting to get permission to go to the front. is some kind of hat, fedora hat. >> there wearing the uniform. you mention in your essay about him speaking german. >> is here. this part of the trip is actually -- they got cents to east prussia. one of the correspondence is a guy from new york. he spoke fluent in german. he loved war. he wanted to fight everybody and that people who did not fight wars that she was kind of a controversial leader. >> notice the train in the background. meant created a very handful of friends. those were still they had from the copyright paper that made it look really natural. i'm going to mention this, because what these guys are wearing, my wife did not know what a friend of ours did not know -- these are spiked helmets. explain in the early part of the war, these germans were distributed those helmets. that theyy in 1916 got the helmets that they think of as the typical german helmets. the same time the british got their tin hats and the french got their helmets. fred -- head wounds were so bad. >> it is amazing how much the calvary where the shock troops wherever infantry would attack. you often said the cover into break them apart and then set them back. >> still lances. you will see something else. that startedar with horses and ended up in tanks and airplanes. in credible. >> is is one of the larger cities in east prussia. it was not damaged much by the russians during the occupation. they were still pretty rough. the happened with some of smaller powers where the russians did do some damage, the russians want there long. you will see there is this slow tracking shot and you can get a look at the background and see how much wreckage there was. supply imagine trying to a massive army with these wagons. they have an infinite number of them. >> this is east prussia. the russians invaded there in august very >> it was a part of germany. it was quite for east of most of germany. it is now part of poland since world war ii. the russians were pretty rough here. maybe no worse than the germans were in belgium. i'm not going to get into who is worse. this is another city that really took it. somebody said there was only one family left in the whole city after the russians got through with it. their raining nobility and to care or supposed to take care of the area. after their own castles burned by the russians. >> you can see some of the destruction. >> may be compared with the russian army did in 1945, this is no big deal. or what the germans did in smolensk. these were incredibly powerful images, for the germans especially. it is one of the reasons they made fun hindenburg their savior of world war i. religioushim almost a figure for better or for worse. >> the battle of tandberg, hindenburg pushed the russians out of east prussia? the germans set up this tour for the correspondence to take a bad the see first how destruction has been. how theit shows russians were rebuilding and how it had not cap them down. >> look at the pile of rubble. the mentality of the central european cities that were over .he various areas of war one side germany or the other, squeezed between two big powers. ofchanges the whole concept their nationality and how they have to live. >> there does seem to be some wanton destruction. this is kind of interesting that the correspondence were sort of on the road. they got a chance to see the great man himself, von hindenburg, the savior of tandberg. correspondence who were pro-german suggested von hindenburg looked like a mixture of foxy grandpa and father christmas. i don't get that impression. he looks like he has his mind another things. the guy on the left is functionally from. this was germany's idea of how to win. is the head of the 20th our marine corps which was stationed in outshine. he was very much involved in the big battles in poland. here the correspondence are taken to the area of the lakes and the battle of town park where they took place. it is almost like visiting gettysburg. this is only a year after the battles. evidently there are people who are going and touring and let us see what happened. i think the guy right behind dobro is his official watchmen, guardian. you can see a bit of the missouri lake area. you can see the barbed wire emplacement is everywhere. whether the russians put them up in the first place with the germans, i don't know, but they look formidable. here they have correspondents cars. you can see them on the back of the lake. they did not make it on this trip. they were bundled up in six cars and toward the battlefield. look at the barbed wire. can you imagine trying to cut through that stuff under machine-gun fire? i am glad i have not been born yet, i will tell you that. >> would this have been german barbed wire? >> i don't know. whatever barbed wire they could find. there the correspondence again. these people are touring the area. where von hindenburg saved germany. i think that is the way the germans really did look at it. >> that is the front there. or try to figure out what is where. >> this is the story, you can see on the inter-title. i could never quite verify but there was a report in the paper that the germans saw the russians coming across a lake and it was very thick ice so the russians that they were sneaking up on positions. the germans fired artillery at the lake and something like 10,000 germans -- i mean russians did go into the lake and die. either way, there are a lot of debt russians in that lake. you can get a feeling of how beautiful this area is. even shot 100 years ago in ortho chromatic film. it is a great holiday place for germans and polish. very lovely. >> on april 1 mall they were on the boat, they started rationing fuel. no private vehicles were allowed. specialo get permission. incredibly, he got it from the authorities. this was another town that was destroyed by the russian army. >> it is hard to tell who has destroyed it. >> probably this part was the russians. wet., it got pretty , this isa shot here clearly taken from a car. driving down the main widen. >> is good film for the time. would american audiences have seen other world war i films when this was shown later? >> i don't know. american film, i don't know. i doubt it. there was a tie in with hearst. >> pathway films was french. company that did distribute quite a bit of various reels. i don't think it was seen much more broadly. left is kind of a rakish character. he fought in the spanish-american war. he is a soldier of fortune kind of guy. also in the boers war. grandfather was very prominent. working for frederick the gate in prussia. again, these families of nobility that they seem to run into fairly often out there. >> there's also the issue of facemasks. we till you see. >> again you get the feeling of space. you get this feeling of whether it is true or not of them kind of wandering around and seeing who they bump into. out,l seems kind of spread kind of random. poland is a big place. >> that is him there shaking hands again. 25% of the film he shows up. >> and sometimes you have to look hard. i can come and say there he is again. oftentimes he is sort of invisible he is there. obvious.es it is if he has a camera in his hand, that is probably bureau. >> is about here that the film stops shooting the correspondence in east prussia and starts to zero in on the german armies headed into poland. right, it was a big railroad center, a jumping off point for the troops heading east. >> usually has the still camera in his hand. >> at the same time he was taking still photos and writing articles as well? >> he was taking still photos while he was filming for his own war film syndicate. reade cameraman is usually -- reece. >> everything was handcranked. about 19 to 21 frames per second. it had to take a steady hand. this was done pretty well. you mean the cranking up the camera would dictate the speed of the film? >> yeah. there was no electricity out there, or electronically timed stuff. it was all regular study. to, iomb goes off next guess they cut that scene out. it is hard. >> he was a good cameraman. i think he did some useful framing. >> it should be a delousing station. grammaticalfew errors. >> describe what is happening here. >> they are going into get fumigated. apparently the foregoing home or whatever or moving around after a period of time, they visit stations like this and spend a little time. i guess there was a special chemical. the soldiers said the lice grew like crazy. seeater on you're going to even more impressive, what was required to supply the calvary horses. and the wagons horses. remember, this part of the .and was like a pyramid just of the land had been devastated. you had to provide it as the army traveled. the infantry used to use mostly should love her back then. these uniforms the germans are wearing our blue instead of the usual field grade. some of the units still had not been issued field grade. floppynd in the white cap disappearing is someone who is kind of interesting. he is a correspondent with them and is the brother of the famous theologian. he is with them for the rest of the trip. he wrote quite a few dispatches. somewhat controversial. some people thought he might be a spy. he certainly was pro-german. after united states got into it, he then worked very arduously for the americans and was involved in making some great pro-american propaganda films. an interesting person. these guys a pretty squared away i think. >> in this part of the film they're working their way towards the front. tell us where they are going >>. most of it is behind the front. than there was the first big offensive movement towards warsaw. >> was poland and independent country at this time? >> it was pretty much occupied by the russians. matter of fact, they did control it. they are not particularly happy under russian rule. regionsre some polis that were set up to help the germans get the russians out. there is the man of the strange floppy hat. here are these guys digging in a bit. again, this may be shot during training. again, you get the feeling everything would have stopped dead without horses. it was a horse war. >> you had mentioned a spiked helmet. how long had the germans been wearing that? why did they give it up? is it something it went back a long time? >> the british were wearing a cloth cap at the beginning of the war and the germans were wearing these pickle helmets. they are not metal. they're kind of leather and copper engraving, some of them. they did not give you any kind of protection if you got it will it in your head. decidede of the army's about the same time that they needed some kind of metal helmet to protect headlands. the germans came up with the there helmet. the french, was also worn by the italian. british had much the same thing the americans were when they got into it. they are presenting this as combat, but this was a training exercise. the camera is up to hide. there are some shots later. machine-gun practice. in in theliced them last part of the assault. it is obvious they are not actually in combat. that scene was not taken in combat. that wouldsomething have been found upon at this time as far as journalism is concerned? >> i don't know. people were lucky to get any film in those days. it was germans showing the type of how they approach the combat and infantry support and what's not. he is trying to make a narrative story that is interesting. i think if you look at it from that perspective, i think it is ok. unless you documented and say this is how they train and were used in combat. probably not the best. >> the sensors took an awful lot of the stuff. you kind of had to -- this red cross for instance, there are photographs of this same shot that appear in berlin newspapers in june, which is three months before they headed east. >> these were used to sniff out the people from the battlefield after the assault was over. get triage and red cross to them quickly. they were not individual soldiers. >> it is hard to imagine that many horses. >> there is some scary to diptych about how many horses died in world war i. it is millions. 500,000, i don't know. >> this is also probably pretty fake. this is him at his hammy us. he can't stand to have all of these guys in some kind of fake warfare without him being in it. in a minute he will pop up to the right here. they will re-splice it and he will be there. >> there he is. >> same spot. >> it is hard to get a really good shot of the shell or rocket firing. when you do get a good one, it tends to get reused. this shows how primitive things were with the aero planes and aircraft. aircraft. the pretty primitive. they really evolved quickly. notice the hobnailed boots. this is probably training film. again, they say any shot with a camera -- where the camera is looking down at the soldiers is probably fake because a camo would almost immediately be dead. this is kind of interesting to show you prussian training. these guys are digging shoulder trenches and you can see they can't hold their rifles while there digging, but rather they put them on the ground, lay them across the back of their legs so they will stay clean. is pretty clever. >> i think this looks real. >> i think this is real. >> you can see the hole in his cap at the end. when this film was released in the united states later, how was it received? >> it was acclaimed. the second showing was in chicago. news.the chicago daily the movie critic for the tribune praised the film highly. she had panned the chicago tribune's film. she said a few hundred marching around. this one, she really gave it the blue-ribbon. was a rivalne newspaper for the daily news. was a prettyat fair assessment of her opinion. >> this filming is in june of 1915. you wrote that it opened in milwaukee in 1915. arrived inback and new york city in september. 1915. in october 1915, the chicago daily news was announcing this film was going to be made, and it first showed in milwaukee at a scripps newspaper for a week. then a week later, it started in chicago sponsored by the daily news. later, three weeks by the syndicate and later by the local theaters on the rhone financial exposure. this is one place that evidently was not faked. isck in the back, he kneeling with a pipe. he is loading film into his camera at least i think he is. he just got hit. you will see some guys as soon as they get their act together trying to chase him down. i don't think that was staged at all. >> he had his head down. that has a look of authenticity. >> there is a lot of mod. a lot of mod. >> just to go back to the screenings, would someone have made a profit? i'm pretty sure they have a good profit for the syndicate. onlysaid, the syndicate went for about two years while they were distributing the film. it was widely viewed around the country. i found it all over in the u.s. in march 1917 before we cleared war. we brokered relations in february. gerard took the train out. , german film was not a popular thing in the theaters and the market dropped and disappeared. a few people subscribed earlier and continued showing it. april -- i have not found it again. >> do you know where we are now? it is that junction in poland which was a big jumping off place for the german army. >> it was a distance of about a couple hours drive from warsaw. >> it is hard to tell. have in him? was him.'m pretty sure greece was awarded the iron cross. for taking film for the trenches that enabled them to do some information about the strength of the russian side. i think it was big publicity for the germans. >> the couple million iron crosses awarded several million -- more than a couple. by the german army. >> i don't see anything that looks like any kind of troop movement. it did look like they had a couple lines if you look closely. all of the trenches have usually two or three lines. >> we try to find something on count kaiser. he seemed to is have an air squadron, was in poland and he likes horses. i would be curious to know more about him. >> he also threw dust flew on the east front briefly. it was the thing to do. watch the pile drivers. in in the 60's, they were still doing it. a couple of hours anyway. >> i don't think this is the -- >> how they got down there, i'm not sure. it is kind of outside warsaw. this is an area where if you do see something like trenches, builty the russians had fortified positions and the germans did as well. about 80 miles or less. i think if they're willing to show them constructing a pontoon bridge, that was probably a good thing to be taken to. warsaw was not defended. the russians abandoned it. they could not do it. the entry into warsaw was very peaceful. especially interesting is you are going to see some shots of the jewish quarter in warsaw. it should be remembered, this may seem ironic, but 25 years before hitler's, the germans were very much trying to get the jews in poland on their side. they had suffered terribly under the russian pogroms. the germans were hoping they could enlist the jewish community into the german side. here are some germans who have been very happy and celebrating their entry into poland. in thee are the guys trenches. >> this was their big war. >> count kaiser link pops up again here. the train station right behind him. the guy the right cap gun is someone who shows up in a lot of shots. >> here is the jewish quarter of warsaw. everybody was trying to stay in front of the camera. >> that is an engineering core? >> it was basically people that trenches, some big tunnels under the enemy position and then lined with explosives and blow it up so they could penetrate the wall or the front line. >> this is warsaw, which looks like an incredibly attractive town in the shop. again, there are some shots coming in here. also, some of these guys are not even wearing the helmets. armyunits in the german for reasons i don't understand, you have the lancers here. it looks incredibly old-fashioned to me. they had their uses. >> do we know she warsaw citizens were happy the germans were there? >> i think they were happy enough. they did not like the russians. think very best, i probably they were neutral. i don't think they had a hard time. i like this shot of his. framed by the door, i think that is really a nice shots. watch them scuttling out of here. >> is all smoking. a different world. you will see a couple of shots of one polish officer. as i say, i think there were detachments. germans against the russians. also because plenty of germans are catholic and since the polls are catholic there is an affinity there to thank. >> the central powers had to make friends quickly depending on how the power was flowing. they had to survive. it was survival. so this is being built because the russians destroyed bridges? >> yes. pretty much the only destroyed the bridges in warsaw. >> in the background, i think you will see the bridge. >> that comes later. >> there is. in the top right, you can see this war. there will be a couple of the shots of its too. we don't know where they are going. >> i don't know if they are looking for shelter. later on you will see some of the peasants in the farm coming back. is just utter disaster. the alexander street bridge. i am sure the russians did blow the bridges very there would not have been much of a point in the germans blowing them. they were trying to go in that direction. >> this was a bridge that was ill by the germans, i guess. is the bridge that the russians with the demolitions, demolished. smallfaster to build a bridge then to try and rebuild that. >>-also mention i think from here on -- never mind. they joinint, i think a bus of correspondence on its way to the big fort that the germans took. i don't exactly know when that happens. >> that for was like the national punchline in world war ii. -- french line in world war ii. the artillery had leapfrogged the offensive. calledgeneral was also the battering ram because he was an expert with heavy artillery which took out these huge parts tobelgium and was now given destroy. >> the heavy artillery to plan the assault. >> yeah. >> the zeppelins had on to london by now, but they were also used on this front. i don't know why. i don't think they would have been affected that effective. it would have been spotting for artillery maybe. >> it is a little big for an observation. >> again, you get the feeling it is a rather attractive city. before it was pretty well destroyed in 1939. >> this was the start of another real. you get the feel of the actual viewing of the theater at the time. had nine reels and there were eight real changes from the start. the projectionist handcranked it as well which would speed up and slow down. it would probably take about a minute or two to switch out the film. when they showed it, did they have music a covenant -- a compliment? violinistd pianists, in some big cities. they always had music. they had a repertoire that would change with the music to match the screen. i think you also wrote that he went along and was present at many of the screenings? >> he lectured at many of the early screenings. the with him and in philadelphia and between lectures before-and-after films he would run up and down the street firing a big loud gun to draw attention. he is one of these polish officers i was just talking about. like it wasst looks not in warsaw. this is a suburb of warsaw. this was the side towards before they were going to assault. don't they look happy and excited? nothing like lancers to attack the fort. the cavalry they were famous for. >> german cavalry? i don't know. >> the film seems to be building to the point of this attack on the fort. is that right? how would you put the battle for the fort in perspective in the larger war? was it important or is it over exaggerated? >> it is over exaggerated. the climax of the film's story is travel to capture the german side of the war. the fella in late august. he left in september. once he got this, he came home. to be fair, i think his assignment had already been pretty long. you have to appreciate the stress and strain physically that these correspondent endured. hadcameraman especially heavy cameras, a tripod and some film. they had to what set it up, they could not just folded in their hand. it was an ordeal. >> the russians regarded as their linchpin defense a series of forts in poland. you shop one shot of a bridge that was farther south. this series of forts was supposed to be a line to protect russia from that russian poland. it had been built in something like 1850 and it would not have even withstood the artillery of 1870, let alone what they were going to throw at it. agesstles in the middle originally were often positioned at critical points in the the crossings of rivers where there with atural citadels rock or he'll that could be easily fortified. this stage, that theory and that mentality was still prevailing. >> a lot of the russians knew it was a loser. they said they could not evacuate because there was just so much stuff in it. there were some a guns and ammunition that they never could get it out in time. reasonsy said spiritual call for us to defend it. think deep down they knew their not going to be able to hold it for long. it is one of those things you cannot avoid, i suppose. i'm not taking away from what the germans did. it was not an easy target by any means and a lot of people died. it did not help that the germans captured a rum -- a russian officer who had in his pocket a complete map of the defenses of the fort. like soldiers anywhere, anytime they got a chance for refreshments -- >> i think it is fair to say that these guys were pro-german. which is no crime. you could be pro-anything you wanted to be. the guy on the right was an extremely good writer for the chicago tribune. he chose the wrong side sort of. >> you had mentioned the difficulty for the camera people. you have a book about that subject, don't you? >> about the cinematographers of the great war, yes. alonemera equipment weighed about 100 pounds at least edit it was three pieces you had to lug around. almost didhing, you not want to leave without some roles in your pocket or sandwiches. you never knew when you're going to get your next meal. at the front, it was difficult with circumstances. remind peopleto the timing of this, when did they start filming and what month of 1915, and how long did this all go on? >> he started filming in april of 1915. he got some shots in berlin. he got there about mid and got permission to film somewhat. probably late august, early september. he had to go through the film censors. so much was rejected, he postponed, changed his tickets to a slightly later ship and he arrived back at the very end of september. he probably left mid -- it took about nine days for steamships. the 20's, he arrived in the very end of september in new york. took race between the 10th and 22nd of june. if he left for poland after that, i don't know. these must be unique shops. at one point, they burn out it much going over a sandy spots. he had to chain into a tree out there and come back to her three weeks later. in the field, it was not easy to keep that car running at times. develop closer emotional relationship than you do with threes. -- reece. this is the earlier prewar blue uniform on the right. >> first date on the way to the fort? >> this could have been taken anywhere and just place in there. it does look like a real wound. he was doing something and he got shot. >> you mentioned the censors. could you describe that in more details. the german sensors? >> yes. texthad to pass all their before they were transmitted by telegram or whatever. place withship took controlling who they got access to, where they could go, who they could interview. in that sense, it was both before and after. and the text that was cabled back to the u.s. from germany, the first thing the british did was cut all the cables except for the cable coming from europe to london. that enabled them to filter all of the correspondence that was sent back to america. they changed some of it significantly. some small stuff and some large stuff. sections of text. much film he how shot and how much the germans prevented him from using? >> he brought 25,000 feet of fresh nitrate film. he shot one or two reels going over. processed filmed and 400 feet of film to take on the way back. printed not all of the film, but most of it in berlin. --had to show sensors about censors about 20,000 feet. they cut a lot of stuff. max when he prince got back from the censors. the prince made a phone call and said they were going to have another review and he would be there and guaranteed he would get a better result. that is why he had to postpone a week before he got on the ship. the film the germans did not allow him to use, what they have just destroyed it? >> it got destroyed. i went looking for it. probably was lost to the ages. but if anybody seeing this thinks there might be any of this film, let me know. this a special intertidal? this is where he gave a shout out. later on in chicago and there was aere longtime journalist who had a lot of friends, he have that she gave a shout out you will see in a minute. that is him in the back with the he sometimesat did also wore an upper cape. -- an opera cape. >> i don't know if even drove much. he did not own a car up until that point in his life. that is a large gun. i tried to find a german artillery book, but i'm not sure that is right. >> that looks at a 42. that is not a mortar. >> you will see a mortar in a second i believe. that is a 30.5. >> yeah, the mortars. i understand the germans actually had some that were pretty good inaccurate. they were not as able to be repositioned as the austrians. >> we know that the fort so we know that the fort fell and the russians moved back. what happened with the russian army in the next year or so? >> retreat. movingmuch they kept back and germans kept following them and captured 300 per day. 100 pounds of three or four packages back and forth between the third line trench and the second and the first. , an you put the camera up paris scope is prime target. >> that but the germans in a dilemma. did they follow the russians and go all the way to moscow? and the head of german general said he remembered napoleon and didn't think that was a very good idea. they basically chased the russians out of poland and set up a line along the rule polish russian border. it stayed that way until the russian revolution. >> they later did open a battlefront with the italian, with the austrians. the germans sent liaison officers because the ostrich didn't perform quite as well as they were hoping. >> is this actual combat? >> hard to say. i believe it is. >> if you look at that hill there is an occasional shell burst. we found an article, suggesting a shot coming up of, it is rather dark. it seems to be a general one -- general shot. i guess we're not area, sorry. the troops advance in front of them. click c has something in his mouth. >> he wrote about that shot. so it seems to be authentic. >> the weather seems so different. >> i would be suspicious. >> is there any evidence that thurber wrote and the reenactment for his camera? -- though reenactments -- thorough askedth for the reenactment for his camera? >> that is typically the equipment and the timing, that is fair game, i think. there are some things he asked people to do. and presented it as part of the offensive thrust into this battle. i think he was just trying to represent as best as he could what actually was there. this is the target range. >> it would very much suggest it was shot under training conditions. >> i assume that is an officer. mainly without the battle helmet on, that was probably the training officer. >> is a very kind of free war -- think at the time audiences would have thought this was authentic? or would they have known? >> i think they probably took it as representing reality. effects in the theater had not yet been developed very well. >> i think anybody who had been in combat, anywhere. >> the germans and the audience would be pleased and cheering and would be happy to see it. again you can say it may not be that you may be fake that some level but it is a real machine gun. these are drills they are performing. >> you definitely wanted to take a practice run. i think this was at the front. have thosethey canvas covers over their home it tends to suggest this is for real. they generally wore those to field, maybe partially is camouflaged. >> i think a lot of times people try to clear the field to make sure they have the defensive positions in the line of fire. just like in world war ii, retreating troops. >> there is a picture of that in the new york times, june 21. this was shot when he was still in berlin. >> these guys had to get as realistic. you have to go through mud. don't hesitate. they made use of what the forral landscape provided positions and cover. you can see people in the back, whether it is a training exercise. the horsemen are hiding in the trees and tend be less prime targets. >> it is just hard to say. >> i guess we don't think of russian aviators and world war i. but there must have been. >> there were a few. mostly used for intelligence spotting. getting a sense of strength of the enemy. now this is interesting, they say they are behind a nice little help. i'm inclined to think this is real. >> this was probably real. you will see the same shot a couple of times. >> in a minute here they will pan to the right here. pretty clearly the camera isn't quite sure where they are going to land. >> obviously the russians were over a little to the right. >> it's interesting how sometimes the authentic stuff is the least exciting. >> when they got that nice trail -- i think george might have included it. >> according to the title, that's the way they explored it. it looks like rockets going off. >> i will have to complement -- for theman and selection and getting the best quality. this has been an excellent film. member looking through all the film and seeing all the damage? >> when he first went through the film, where was it? >> it was in the nitrate of vaults of culpepper. , repurposed federal reserve, for rising thege economy after a thermonuclear a disaster. they keep it in 40 degree nitrate refrigerated vaults, special spark resistant lights .nd covers and switches it is very explosive film. and then you stand in a cement floor with no static generation usually. >> i think this stuff might be right and real. the national archive had made a partial, they had just taken the film and shot it and made a tape. parts were repeated. to get an idea of what was there. film startedels of up in this wine cellar. he couldn't do anything with it but he got the afi, there was no commercial value. realized the significance of it and offered it to the national archives. film was sof the badly corrupt at that time. >> here is an austrian gun crew. a formidable weapon. what he must have done is bringing in some austrian teams with these incredible weapons. the -- isn't as big as the mortars in belgium, but it is a much easier weapon to do and still does the job. terrible andre a scary weapon. >> for the people who don't know what a mortar is -- >> drop a very heavy shell over andghly loft, comes down just a modest visit. when it hits, it is not just a hard mastic goes through a wall -- mass that goes is a largeall chemical bomb, if you will. >> and that is pretty much true. the surrender did take place in the middle of the night, which is always unfortunate for cameramen to read especially in world war i, there were always attacks before dawn. all of the action seemed to take place before dark, that is the way it goes. >> if you see a film of going over a top trench, they usually pounded the trench with artillery first, and then after maybe an hour or two or three, then there was a slight pause and they went out of the dark, they went out over the top. everything opened up. >> here is 42 centimeter gun. i cannot for the life of me see it. >> look in the back, back in the upper right corner, and you will also see the wounded guys being carried in stretchers. >> i did not see the gun. >> it is off the screen now. >> i believe you. >> here is the pallbearers, the stretcher bearers bringing back the wounded. you have to give credit to the medic, ther the unarmed medics that go in there. some of this was shot earlier in east prussia. they came up with this ingenious system of trailers so they could carry the wounded. i have no reason to think these are fake shots, though. >> they are dropping them off at the fieldhouse. wounded he never got except for maybe mexico, he had a slight shrapnel wound in the knee. he said he fainted from lack of food and sleep. you have to let the army get by with the truck's and the fumes were just incredible that he got nauseous and fainted and woke up in the field hospital. i think that is a valid, i'm pretty sure that happened. but he never got shot or wounded in europe. >> 85,000 russians. victory.huge russian and poland. >> you can see this is a bit of a rainy day. except you will see a fellow -- i don't think the russians were at all interested. probably a couple of thousand soldiers and a couple of dozen germans. they were glad to be out of the battle. >> this is kind of interesting. kaiser wilhelm shows up with he is toalled -- where congratulate his troops. here is the old car. stand,orough couldn't and he started running out and started filming. -- ad a couple of officers >> he asked for permission and said, no, you can't leave the area. another person turned robin told to stop smoking. >> his feats made the cover of los angeles times. >> though the time you drew a lot of attention for -- he drew a lot of attention himself or his activity. he saluted him. i was the part that didn't survive. recognized and saluted. he mayas speculation have been shot at the firing squad. they figured that the kaiser didn't look disgusted and acknowledged him. i don't think the kaiser understood or heard him. this is part of the destruction. >> has the film is coming close to an end, what was the risk of durborough's career after this? >> in 1917 he was sent abroad to be behind the ally line and behind the british sector. nothing was published, and i think it was because by that the the british hated journalists as much as germany did. nothing was published and he came back after six months in the middle of the year. soon the committee for public while they were processing his commission he joined as a first lieutenant in the cinema group with a couple of others. defend fort how to lewis in the state of washington. people, but wounded he starts out with people sitting and enjoying their sunday, they're relaxed sunday visit. telephone calls coming in to rile the troops. also took some film of ships being launched and other similar types of things to show howard getting prepared and getting ready to fight the war, take the war to the germans. 1919 after two years in the army. they sealed the tires and the air in the tires and spent a lot of the tour in canada and northeastern u.s.. quite a few thousand miles. and a certified that the tires held up. a recapping process that was a more efficient process that was less expensive. i think durborough has the good taste to stop showing off his imagesnd just let the speak for themselves. including some incredible shots of refugees. think the inner title is all too accurate. a couple of people in the red cross were asked to take a look at the refugee situation in poland. they said what they saw and poland was infinitely worse than anything they had seen in belgium. but unfortunately the political situation had gotten so bad at the time that neither the germans nor russians nor anybody ane were allowed international relief. he had written quite a bit about the severe shortage. >> when you think about these ii,sh refugees in world war but not world war i, so is this what we're seeing here? >> yes. i mean thesh -- russians and the germans blamed each other. the russian said it was the german's fault because they were carrying out a scorched earth policy. they were destroying crops and houses as they retreated. russians would probably say no, that germans were taking everything like locusts as they headed east. and there's probably truth on both sides. either way, these are the people who are going to pay the bill. >> a centrally they had to pack up everything they thought they toe -- essentially they had pick up everything they thought they were going to have in the future. there's a great shot coming up. these wagons, it's amazing they held together. >> the wheel is at 45 degrees. >> i think this is the one. there it is. good luck, buddy. >> so these are presumably returning to their homes because the russians had been forced to leave? >> i guess, i think so. >> it is interesting to know whether they were heading east or west, and what a difference it would have made. >> they were just trying to survive. they cared for either, just leave them alone. we know anything about how many civilians might have been killed in this part? starvationdied of and disease -- again, more people probably died of disease and starvation and accidents and whatnot. the civilians we are talking about. i haven't seen any real numbers. and these were probably forced off the road to let the army come in. the army comes in with a big caravan. you would probably say, would you just stand there for a while? but this has to be real. this is what people had coming up. and there is that lean to. in philadelphia, the pennsylvania state centers required them to remove these , fearing at the end anglophiles and germanic philes would start a fist fight. now it before the opening. they had to take the film out. later on the center was declared wrong. morleyonly from objection on material -- from objectionable material -- >> he has done a service. he has been sending us stuff he has been finding in the paper. >> online and on the web. >> he is a webmaster. i don't know what we would have done without him. he has done a very good -- a few very good lock spots -- very good blog spots. >> if you are interested in this era of world war i film, connect to his blog. says it film archivist is his favorite. that is hike complements. >> i have really learned the value of discourse and compromise to this program. the way i interact with people who i don't necessarily agree with has changed. high school students are turning the annual weeklong united states senate youth program where they share their thoughts about government and politics. >> now i can safely say i am sure that i am certain of what i believe. and fair chance for everybody to reach the top will equalut to be, not an result but equal chance for everybody. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. on lectures and history, providence college professor jeffrey johnson teaches a class about the 1916 bombing of a parade in san francisco that killed 10 and wounded 40. to place onto dust preparedness day organize to keep people vigilant in case the u.nt

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