The Great Martian War 1913 - 1917 Page #2

the Martian War Museum

and these preserved war rooms

is Alexandra Banham.

As the alien force

crossed the German border

into France,

it was right here

in front of this map

that the joint chiefs of staff

ordered the tiny British

Expeditionary Force

and the French

standing army forwards

to hold the line here

along the western banks

of the Moselle River.

Among those awaiting

the terror of the alien attack

is a young English

stretcher bearer -

William Payne.

His diary contains some of

the earliest description

from the Martian battlefront.

It is a complete,

personal account

of the entire war,

and it is undoubtedly one of

the most important artifacts

in this museum's possession.

You can see that the dat

is August the 2nd, 1913.

Dawn.

Through the mist,

towering shapes emerged

not creatures, but machines.

I whispered to God for mercy,

and in response,

our artillery exploded to life.

Within moments of this

opening Allied barrage,

the alien army responds.

We cannot hold them.

Our lines are torn to pieces.

Our guns are useless.

Hell was not beneath us

it has fallen from the sky.

We must fall back.

The soldiers give these giant

fighting machines a name

Herons.

There were two component

to these machines

that became immediately

apparent to the Allies -

Firstly, they were entirely

protected by an energy shield.

This was the first

introduction that we had

had to the many uses of

dark energy particles.

The second was a slow firing,

immensely destructive

energy cannon.

It was used to

destroy defences,

to cause chaos,

but mainly to flush men

out into open view.

Each Heron is

shrouded in a toxic cloud

Combat troops are soon

issued with gas masks,

but civilians must make d

with crude,

home-made versions.

For frontline soldiers

like Jock Donnelly,

protection came at a price.

Well, you can't see a thing.

And you can't talk to anybody -

it's just you.

You're sitting

alongside 50 other guys,

but you're alone.

There's nobody.

At the feet

of the lumbering Herons

are battalions of

smaller machines -

their attack dogs.

They rampage the battlefield

by the thousands.

Fast and merciless

killing machines,

these bring death

at close quarters.

This was their

infantry division,

and they were quickly

named the Iron Spiders.

And they were wielding

a weapon from here -

you can see it reconstructed -

that was like nothing

that had ever been seen.

These were the

"ribbons of death".

They snare us, entwine us

stab us, skewer us,

strangle us,

tear us in half still alive.

The worst were the night raids.

The Spiders would sneak across

the no man's land

and hover over us,

and the ribbons would descend.

I knew we couldn't move,

because any movement

would be certain death

when the Spiders are around.

They were ripping

the Allies to pieces,

whole cavalry battalions

were tossed aside.

The very front itself was in

a chaotic fighting retreat

right across France.

On the 19th of August,

General Sir John French

wires Downing Street,

and he tells them that the

alien force cannot be stopped,

that Paris will fall,

the continent is lost,

and the only thing

Britain can do

is prepare for

imminent invasion.

That same day,

Europe is given one last hope.

An unexpected messenger

arrives at

Allied Field Headquarters

His news may be

the saving of Paris

and perhaps the entire war.

He is a corporal in the

army believed destroyed

in the first week of the war.

His communique states,

"Though the

Fatherland has fallen,

the German Army has not,

and we are on our way".

It is signed by

Count Paul von Hindenburg

So he issues an

absolutely unprecedented

Mobilization Order directed

at every living German,

telling them that they

must make their way

as fast as possible -

"blitzartig" -

lightning fast

is the word he uses -

through Belgium,

south towards Paris,

to sweep in and reinforce

the increasingly

desperate Allied line.

Germans head for

France in huge numbers.

Among them is young

Arnold Tockelt,

who had survived Munich

and now craved revenge.

And we marched and marched

until we finally reached

the Belgium border

and we received an embrace from

there I will never forget.

They gave us flowers...

They looked after the wounded,

and fed the hungry,

and the Belgian men joined us

and became our brothers.

Over the next few days,

wave after wave of German

troops join the Allied line,

and by August 29th,

the alien army

had come to a standstill

and a communique

arrives upstairs

stating that the

attack had been halted.

The Germans had saved the day

with the now famous

"Hindenburg manoeuvre".

A plan originally

conceived years before

by Count von Schlieffen

to conquer France,

rather than save it!

It's one of the most

audacious manoeuvres

in the whole of

military history.

Now that the

alien advance is stopped

the Allies regroup and prepare

to go on the offensive.

The offensive actions

of the autumn of 1913

were aggressive,

large-scale artillery barrages,

followed by

mass infantry assaults -

what the Allies were trying to

do was outflank the alien army,

and of course press home

the advantage in numbers

There was a real belief here

that, at this point,

victory could be

achieved by Christmas.

Waves of new

recruits are arriving daily.

Among them is a minister'

daughter from South Wales

Nerys Vaughn.

Her post-war account of

life at the Martian Front

"Anthem for the Vanished,

would come to embody the

fate of a generation.

How did it

feel, heading for war?

Well, it wasn't a

single emotion -

it was the most

tantalizing cocktail -

excitement, fear, hope,

dread, longing, calm,

but together they created the

most powerful feeling of all.

For the first time,

I felt my life had meaning.

Another young volunteer

was also

disembarking in France.

He was corporal Gus Lafonde,

of the Canadian

Expeditionary Force,

a First Nations soldier proud

of his Anishinaabe heritage

and eager to serve.

Gus's war would turn boy to man.

He drew on legends from

his warrior ancestors

to try and comprehend

the unimaginable horrors he saw.

This takes him deep

into enemy territory -

uncovering dark secrets

of the Martians.

A lone voice

lost in the horror.

Yeah, exactly,

that's exactly who he was

Over two months,

hundreds of thousands

of enlisted troops arrive

hoping for victory by Christmas.

But hope soon turns to hell.

Not one of the offensive

of the autumn of

1913 was successful.

Every attack was repulsed

And the Allied casualty list

just got bigger and bigger,

along with something else -

the battlefront itself is

now of an unprecedented size.

And it was growing,

and growing, and growing.

It's about to get worse.

Out in the dark,

the Allies encounter a third

type of alien machine,

and confront the grisly mystery

of their 'vanished' comrades.

By early December,

the vast Martian Front

slices Europe in two.

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