In the last months of 1942, only a few yards of bitterly contested ground stood between Hitler and the prize which he valued above all others - Stalingrad. The fighting for Stalingrad was intense, protracted and took place under the worst imaginable conditions, including the iron grip of a Russian Winter. After the battle the wretched survivors of a beaten German army surrendered to the Red Army. They had once been 350,000 strong but only 90,000 of these frost bitten, starving scarecrows remained to make the painful forced march into Russian captivity. In the weeks to come 85,000 of these pathetic prisoners would die from disease, starvation, brutality, neglect and despair. Only 5000 survivors from the doomed 6th Army endured the long years of captivity in slave labor camps and lived to see Germany again. This is their story.
There are more than ten thousand monuments across the country that honour the war dead . But what of the bloody battles fought on our home soil, in our longest-running war that established the Australian nation?
Michael Portillo embark on an extraordinary voyage of self-discovery, exploring the dramatic mountain range that straddles the border between France and Spain, the Pyrenees. The four-part series is a real adventure for Michael as he walks a stretch of the 270 mile trail through the Pyrenees, from the Bay of Biscay on the Atlantic coast in the West to the shores of the Mediterranean in the East.
On June 28, 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated in Sarajevo. This attack caused a series of events that led the world to a global war fought by land, sea and air, resulting in the destruction of four empires and more than fifteen million deaths.
Attacks that provoked tensions and affected the course of world history, including the assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and President John F. Kennedy.