The documentary is in six parts, spread over 2 DVDs in the commercial product. 1. The Call to Arms 2. The Battle of the Somme 3. Saving the Wounded 4. Horror in the Mud 5. The Home Front 6. The Boys of 1918
The British suffered terrible losses during WWI, so much so that practically a generation of young men was lost. This documentary goes through WWI from the British point of view pretty much chronologically. It does this with what actual newsreel footage and photographs that survive, with some reenactment - nothing dramatic, just modern footage reenacting life in the trenches, marching across no man's land, etc. One person on "the world's largest website" actually complained about the reenactment portion, calling it distracting, but in my opinion, it helps with visualizing the story. Of course, the vital component are the actual soldiers who survived the named battles AND lived to be one hundred to tell us about it!.
The documentary doesn't say exactly how old the survivors were when they were interviewed, but I would imagine they were in their 80s and 90s. In each case their recall of the details was remarkable. This documentary was released on the 90th anniversary of the armistice in 2008.
The film does a good job of telling how this war was so different from any that came before it. It was the first one in which the British were involved in which tanks, poison gas, and aircraft were used. It was not glory on the battlefield but sitting in a stalemate in trenches, sometimes flooded with water and vermin and always with lice, waiting to be hit by the shrapnel of the German big guns. The recruits, enthusiastic to do their country proud, whose empire encompassed a quarter of the globe in 1914, were largely either dead, physically disabled, or shell shocked (early name for PTSD) by the war's end.
Highly recommended. I, an American, now understand the strong anti-war sentiment that cropped up in the 20s and 30s and delayed everybody from taking Hitler seriously until they absolutely had to do so, when it was almost too late.
The British suffered terrible losses during WWI, so much so that practically a generation of young men was lost. This documentary goes through WWI from the British point of view pretty much chronologically. It does this with what actual newsreel footage and photographs that survive, with some reenactment - nothing dramatic, just modern footage reenacting life in the trenches, marching across no man's land, etc. One person on "the world's largest website" actually complained about the reenactment portion, calling it distracting, but in my opinion, it helps with visualizing the story. Of course, the vital component are the actual soldiers who survived the named battles AND lived to be one hundred to tell us about it!.
The documentary doesn't say exactly how old the survivors were when they were interviewed, but I would imagine they were in their 80s and 90s. In each case their recall of the details was remarkable. This documentary was released on the 90th anniversary of the armistice in 2008.
The film does a good job of telling how this war was so different from any that came before it. It was the first one in which the British were involved in which tanks, poison gas, and aircraft were used. It was not glory on the battlefield but sitting in a stalemate in trenches, sometimes flooded with water and vermin and always with lice, waiting to be hit by the shrapnel of the German big guns. The recruits, enthusiastic to do their country proud, whose empire encompassed a quarter of the globe in 1914, were largely either dead, physically disabled, or shell shocked (early name for PTSD) by the war's end.
Highly recommended. I, an American, now understand the strong anti-war sentiment that cropped up in the 20s and 30s and delayed everybody from taking Hitler seriously until they absolutely had to do so, when it was almost too late.
