Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

drosett This IS a very well done documentary. In fact, it is so well done that it leaves me speechless that the credits are so poor, both in the original 10 episodes and at IMDb.com. Who, for example, actually wrote the series? At the closing of each episode, the series is credited as being "based on a book by Hew Strachan." Does this mean he actually wrote the script? If not, who did? Was it Jonathan Lewis, who was credited as the series narrator? Even more irritating is that NONE of the actors who read from diaries and other primary source material are credited at all. The IMDb site credits the actual historical figures, as if they were still alive to read out loud material that is now almost 100 years old! Very weird at best, and unnecessarily dodgy at worst.

davidm923 Given my love of history, the cataclysmic, foolhardy nightmare that this represents was something I wanted to investigate further. Video could add a dimension that even a brilliant book could not illustrate.Lucky me, and fortunate viewer, who took the time to watch this dazzling miniseries! I rented this a few days after the UK's last veteran, and world's oldest man, passed away. He had been in many ways a guardian, helping others comprehend the nightmare, and was so forgiving as to insist on adding German pallbearers at his funeral, age 114.The miniseries is expansive (as others have mentioned), fascinating, and most importantly, brings the horror to life (and death). A great compliment - it had me racing back to read more about the conflict, especially the myriad ideas on WHY it began.There are so many memorable scenes! The use of personal memoirs, and the film footage, then and now, are wonderful.Most highly recommended!

Mark Adams Episode six 'Breaking the Deadlock' claims that technical innovations were created to bring a speedy end to the war, but instead they were quickly countered. That war then dragged on into a war of attrition. The middle of the segment shows that the soldiers from both sides didn't always try to kill each other and had to be encouraged to do so. The episode makes an effort to refute the saying about British soldiers being 'Lions lead by Donkeys' by quoting how many German, French and British generals died during the war and how the generals had to face the reality of trench warfare. The soldiers could see that it didn't make much sense to stop machine gun bullets with your chest. The British High command was still believing in the superiority of horse cavalry. The horses didn't do well against bullets either.This episode is a smoke screen for the military incompetence of the British High Command, particularly General Haig. Haig's premature application of the first few tanks lead to the German Army development of anti-tank gun crews which were able to decimate many tanks when they were used in strength and did have a breakthrough at Cabrai. Haig and his staff ignored intelligence reports of the Germans massing reinforcements for a counter-offensive that took back the five miles of ground gained by the breakthrough. The show neglects to mention that Haig's headquarters was far behind the front lines.Also neglected is Sir John French's headquarters was 35 miles behind the lines at the battle of Le Cateau in August 1914 when he would have lost the whole British Expeditionary Force if the commander of 2nd Corps, General Smith-Dorrien, had not disregarded an order to retreat. Smith-Dorrien was congratulated by the King for saving the B.F.E. but General French had him relieved nine months later.

Robert J. Maxwell I guess I'll simply echo UnionMan's sentiments. It's a well-balanced presentation of what used to be called The Great War before we learned to number them.It covers all aspects of the war and pulls no punches.There is footage here that you are guaranteed not to have seen before. A distant column of cavalrymen ride their horses along a dirt road. A huge explosion covers the center of the column with a cloud of dust. The last part of the column rides around the smoke. When, finally, the dust clears we see the column has halted and is looking back at the debris, which includes a couple of smudgy black figures flat on the ground, one of them a thrashing horse.Personalities are explored and politics brought in just enough to illuminate the battles that form the centerpiece of the film. Enough for us to see the seeds of the next war being sown.The images are finely defined in crisp black and white. The motion is smoothed out and takes place in real time, adjusted for the change in camera speed since the early days of cinema.What a bitter thing war is. The film prompts one to wonder why we rush to embrace another one every twenty years or so.There will probably not be another documentary dealing with World War I that will be the equal of this one.