The Great Martian War 1913 - 1917 Page #4

The aim was to stretch

the alien army's resource

past breaking point,

and then to decisively penetrate

and then overrun

the enemy defences.

With this great push,

looming aerial reconnaissance

units and French spotters

deliver disturbing

news to their masters -

legions of Martian

reinforcements

are moving towards France

The success of an

all out offensive

is now in grave doubt.

The Allied command

is in a difficult situation,

but to do nothing,

and just let the alien

reinforcements arrive,

well, that would

have been madness.

They had to make a decision

- they had to act quickly.

A controversia decision is made

to bring forward the

push by one month.

The war at sea

had already compromised

their ability to move troops,

and equipment they

deemed necessary.

And now they wanted to move

the attack from June to May -

Total, utter folly.

And so the

push is launched early -

I believe you were on

the front line itself

that first day?

Yes, with the 4th

Newfoundland Regiment.

We were expecting casualties,

of course,

but that day,

endless waves of men

went out over the top.

I've never been so

frightened in my life.

My heart just jumped

right out of my body.

These were horrible,

horrible, horrible things

And you were scared

to death to think

that they were going to get you

and tear you to ribbons.

They had no rules at all

We saw almost nothing,

but we could hear it

all while we waited -

the guns, the shells,

the deafening machines.

But through all that noise,

we could still hear the screams,

and we just stood there,

waiting.

But nobody came back.

Not a single wounded man

for me to help.

Did you know that

on that first day,

over 850,000 men went out

into those fields,

and at the end of

the day they were all gone?

After three weeks,

the High Command calls

the push to a halt.

In that time

3 million men had vanished.

They had no

idea how their actions

were actually aiding and

abetting the aliens.

They had no perception

of what Corporal

Lafonde had realized.

They had no clue.

The terrible news of the push

reached Gus in hospital.

As the scale of the

disaster became clear,

the normally analytical

pages of his notebooks

are scrawled with sketches

of an all-consuming monster.

The creature he drew is from

Anishinaabe mythology -

a wendigo.

This is a wendigo,

and its sole purpose is to

take as much as it can -

and it will stop at nothing.

For the wendigo,

the bigger it gets,

the more it wants to eat

Lawrence Hart believes

that Gus's wendigo

sketches are further proof

he had deduced the

central Martian tactic -

that they were relying

on Allied command

to make mass attacks,

with the lice deployed to

harvest and directly fee

the alien war machine.

What if the formation

of this enormous Front

was part of their grand scheme?

What if it was the surest way

to get exactly what they wanted?

The abject failure of the push,

and the relentless consumption

of men and resources,

had cast doubts upon

the Allies' leadership.

The government back in

Britain is finished.

They were in an

impossible situation.

No one had ever fought a war

remotely like this one before.

Something had to change.

The catastroph of spring 1915

forces a change of

government back in Britain.

Younger, more progressive

minds demand a fresh approach.

To address the technological

imbalance between the two sides,

a new goal emerged -

to lay hands on

alien technology,

and then to harness it

and to turn it back

against the enemy.

But that was easier

said than done.

Capture a Heron.

That was the plan.

At St. Jans Cappell,

on the French-Belgian border,

tunnels are dug in secret all

the way under the Martian line.

Crammed with

tons of explosives,

the blast is

designed to take down

one of the Martians'

ultimate killing machines.

This mission impossible would

hinge on an elite force

of 3,000 men racing in to

salvage the downed Heron

before Spiders arrive.

Hughie Logan was

one of those men.

Oh, it was an honour

to be selected.

No doubt about that,

a great honour -

And it was absolutely

terrifying.

We were scared to death.

They hope to destroy

a 5-mile section of the alien

line in a single blast.

On the 1st of July 1916,

at exactly 7:
00 AM,

the dawn silence is shattered.

The blast just knocked

the wind right out of you

They said they could fee

it all the way in London

At least one Heron is down.

But could it be

successfully retrieved?

3,000 men will have to

go tearing across 400 yards

of blasted,

shattered fields of mud.

I pulled myself up,

grabbed the sides

of the ladder,

climbed up and

over the parapet.

Where the ridge had been

there was this

enormous cloud of dust

expanding across no man's land,

and a single mass of men was

running straight into it.

And when the two came together,

the men were gone, engulfed.

We're moving forward,

and then a shape appeared

and then another one.

And up ahead,

there's guys' voices shouting,

"We got two of them!

We got two in the blast.

I can't believe it.

I can't believe what we've done.

I'm standing feet away

from this huge dome,

the cockpit sticking out of the

earth like a half-closed eye,

but then I see something moving,

something moving

fast towards us,

coming straight at us.

Spiders.

There are two of them,

and then there was four,

and then three more came

and seven of them, right

And then I'm thinking,

"Jeeze. It's all over."

With the Herons down,

the Spiders have

lost their masters.

And the war takes

an unexpected turn.

There was no attack -

then one of them

starts moving slowly,

and the ribbon starts

moving and spiraling up.

All of them are doing

the exact same thing.

And they just stayed

that way the whole time.

Then we realize it's

a gesture of surrender.

They've surrendered.

I looked and I saw coming

out of the dust cloud

the two Heron cockpits carried

by those seven machines.

The surrendered

Spiders are helping the Allies.

They are carrying

the Heron cockpits

back to the Allied line.

Dear Clara,

remember that race

I wrote you about?

Well, I got the gold Bluebell -

in fact we all did.

We won more than we

ever hoped to.

News of the

triumph quickly spreads.

And when the captured

Heron cockpit is opened,

at last the people of Earth

know the face of their enemy.

Those stupid newspapers...

they said that we

should be less scared

now we know they're

no bigger than us.

Well I think they're wrong!

Almost disregarded alongside

the creature in the

Heron cockpit

are the first of

many alien texts.

They are sent to

the code breakers,

as all attention turns

to the unopened Spiders.

Transported to Roundway Down

Experimental Station in Britain,

scientists and soldiers prepare

for their first encounter

with a live alien.

Of course there

was no encounter -

For the soldiers positioned

here directly underneath,

they were the first

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