Into the Furnace: The Battle of Verdun

They called Verdun the Meat Grinder. The Furnace. Hell. When the fighting died down, almost a year after it began, French and German armies were back where they started -- minus close to one million men. The Battle of Verdun came to symbolize the senseless slaughter of the First World War, but for the French, who won the war at enormous cost, it left a deeper and more personal mark. The soul of France was ripped out in the muddy trenches of Verdun. Produced and Written by Sharon Wood.

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Marshal Petain's Fall from Grace

In 1916, 60-year old General Henri Philippe Pétain, who'd been passed by for promotion most of his life, took charge of a horrific World War I battle that would mark France for generations. The Battle of Verdun, called the Meatgrinder, was the first in modern history where one army's goal was just to kill maximum numbers of the enemy. Amidst this death and destruction, Pétain came to life. Thirty years later, Pétain would go on trail, accused of treason at age 89. He had saved France once, on a First World War battlefield. But when his countrymen turned to him to save them again, as head of government during World War II, he failed spectacularly. Produced and Written by Sharon Wood.

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Flirting with Danger: The Fantasy of Mata Hari

A palpable tension held its grip on Paris in 1917. It was the third disastrous year of World War I. France was losing badly -- and looking for someone to blame. In mid-February, word spread through the city that one of the most famous women in Europe had been arrested and accused of spying for Germany -- France's enemy in the war. Her name was Mata Hari. Produced and Written by Jennifer Petrucelli.

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Reading the Enemy's Mind: Espionage in World War I

Over the course of the 20th century, the secretive government agencies and the spies who ran them would complete the transformation of espionage from an amateur activity to a full-time profession. Nations have come to rely on spies for protection from terrorists, other spies, and attacks by enemies. Secrecy keeps their activities out of sight until a rogue agent is caught using espionage for treasonous or greedy ends, or when their efforts to protect us fail. But as spy-tools grow more and more sophisticated, one thing is certain: espionage is here to stay. Produced and Written by Mark Page.

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