BBC - The First World War - Part 5 of 10 - Shackled to a Corpse (1914-1916)

The war on the Eastern Front was racial; Slav verses Teuton. It was highly mobile, fought across brutal terrain from the Urals to the Alps. It initiated many horrors of twentieth century warfare: chemical weapons, mass expulsions of civilians, the persecution of Jews. The Italian front with Austro-Hungary was perhaps the bitterest of all. Soldiers lived and fought for years in the hardest environments, enduring avalanches and frost-bite as well as relentless enemy action. Mistrust and contempt increasingly threatened alliances. Germany shored up her ally Austria-Hungary, feeling herself "shackled to a corpse", which Austria-Hungary saw Germany as her "secret enemy".

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