The Great Martian War 1913 - 1917

these fields

were the bloody arena

for the most terrible

conflict in human history

In 1913, an alien

invasion shook the world

and hurled it into an

unimaginable future.

The next four years

of ferocious combat

has forever marked this ground

as the land of the vanished.

We were fighting monsters.

There was life

beyond our planet.

It went completely

against everything

I'd been raised to believe.

I'm standing feet away

from this huge dome,

the cockpit sticking out of the

earth like a half-closed eye.

No one had fought a war

remotely like this one before.

An entire

generation of young men,

all of them vanished.

I'll never stop hating

them for what they did.

2013 is the hundredth

anniversary of the outbreak

of the Great Martian War -

a conflict unequalled

in devastation

and often mired in controversy.

But the lost legacy

of a forgotten hero,

unearthed only last year

might just ignite the

biggest controversy of all.

My great grandfather,

he died about nine years

before I was even born.

He was Anishinaabe man,

traditional man,

and he kept to himself,

so I never really knew

much about him at all.

Lafonde's great grandfather Gus

was a First Nations

Canadian soldier.

His youth was spent fighting

on the Martian front line.

His final years were spent

in this remote cabin.

The things that

are inside of that cabin

have been there for years

It changes everything -

everything we know

about the war,

and everything that we

know about the enemy.

What Kim found in

her great grandfather's cabin

may shed light on a dark warning

from our alien invaders.

And for this man,

it's both a blessing

and a curse.

Historian Lawrence Hart

has spent his entire career

attempting to decipher

the alien texts

recovered after the war

the so called 'Martian code'.

He believes Gus Lafonde'

obsessive study

has cracked the code

and finally given a voice

to the alien invaders.

I have been intrigued

by the mysteries of this

impenetrable alien text.

And though a lot of

people have tried,

no one has been able to break

what they call the Martian code.

For Hart,

the revelations hidden

within the Martian texts

cast the invasion in

a shocking new light.

They confirm a threat

he has long suspected.

On its 100th anniversary

we expose the truth behind

the Great Martian War.

We finished it.

We killed the bastards..

But I don't know.

When I close my eyes...

I don't feel it's all over.

Here is where it all began -

London's Herne Hill observatory.

Through this telescope,

on the night of the

24th of June 1913,

astronomers observe a

mysterious speck of light

close to the planet

Mars and moving fast...

towards earth.

Two days later,

the world would change forever.

An enormous shockwave,

emanating from a

single blast point,

is felt all across Europe

War historian and broadcaster

Duncan Mitchell Myers

takes up the story.

It soon became apparent

where the shock had been

most strongly felt...

in the Bohemian Forest.

This forest at

the centre of the blast

is deep within

the German Empire.

Relations between Germany

and its European neighbours

have been tense for many years,

and with the observations from

Herne Hill going unreported,

everyone jumps to a very

dangerous conclusion.

This looks like the beginning

of the rush to war

that everybody's been expecting.

The Kaiser angrily

denies German responsibility.

He orders his troops

into the Bohemian Forest

to uncover the truth.

The men enter the

area on July the 3rd.

They never return.

No one in Europe

knew what happened

to the expeditionary party,

and no one knew that

in the heart of Europe,

this was created -

an eight mile wide

impact crater.

No one knew until the

morning of July the 9th,

when a telegram was received

in all the capital

cities of the world,

and it was from Berlin.

His Majesty the Emperor,

in the name of God,

the Fatherland,

and the German people,

begs the assistance of

his brother nations.

Germany is under attack by

assailants not of this earth.

A ten year old,

to find out that

monsters are for real,

that they come from

somewhere up there,

or somewhere in the dark...

You don't feel safe ever again.

Most of all was the fear

that more would come for us,

and do here what

they did in Germany.

We woke up with that

thought everyday.

Within days,

there is carnage across Germany.

It was totally unstoppable.

With frightening ease,

one by one the

great cities fell.

The name that most

endures is Munich,

which was the first to be hit.

Munich was home to

14 year old Arnold Tckelt.

He and his brother Bernie were

among the first civilians

to endure the full horror

of an alien attack.

Daylight came,

I got out of the rubble,

and there was no dead bodies,

nothing to see.

And my brother was nowhere.

Vanished.

Within four days,

civil society in Germany

has essentially collapsed

The alien invasion shows no

sign at all of slowing down,

and people in other

European countries

realized that they have to act,

and fast.

With Germany ravaged,

and her entire army missing -

presumed dead -

Britain helps forge

a grand alliance

between the surviving

nations of Europe.

On July the 20th,

speaking for all the Allies,

King George the Fifth

declares the world is at war,

and calls for all able-bodied

men of planet Earth to enlist.

The call is answered -

Britain and its

colonies lead the way.

Among the recruits from afar

is bombardier Hughie Logan,

of Calgary, Canada.

For Hughie,

going to war will mean

parting from his new bride,

Clara.

We started going together

when we were 15.

We got married at 18 -

the same year they came.

And I shipped out for Europe.

The troops shipped from Halifax.

I made her two promises

before I left.

First promise -

two girls, one boy.

That's what we were gonna have.

And the second promise wa

I'd write to her as

often as I could.

So that's what I did.

For Hughie and the thousands

of volunteers like him,

there is hope and determination.

But for those left behind

it's a different story.

He was my dad,

and I didn't want him to go.

I was hanging onto

his leg 'cause I knew,

I absolutely knew,

that the monster would

come for him, too.

They had to pull me

off him in the end,

one finger at a time.

And now I can't even

remember his face.

It's a month since impact

and humanity is mobilizing.

Little is known of the origins

of the alien invaders,

but as the speck of light

that signalled their approach

was first seen beside

the red planet,

the enemy gets a name...

The Great War against th

"Martians" has begun.

It is four weeks since

impact in the Bohemian Forest.

An alien invasion force has

annihilated much of Germany

and is pushing across Europe.

Halting the Martian advance

is the Allies' immediate goal.

In London,

50 feet below the

Palace of Westminster,

a command centre is established

and plans swiftly laid.

The chief curator of

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