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What YOU MUST know that YOU do NOT…


I sniffed at this idea prior to watching it, for me the PBS “Great War (narrated by Salome Jens)” was the best … I now say WOW!!! This is awesome – the eye rolling details are so compelling you will watch EVERY hour – clearly presented, old Black & White footage matched with modern clear photography enhance a GRIPPING narrative – for me, watch this and PAY attention and then you can call yourself a scholar of WWI!!!

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This series was totally unknown to me until I ran across the DVD set at the local library. It is truly terrific, presenting a narrative of World War I that is unusual and informative--and that's an understatement. So many aspects and certain events are presented in the 10 episodes that I had never seen or read about before.

I admit that I have found much to be lacking in histories of World War I--many of them tend to concentrate on certain narrower aspects, either causative or geographical. But this series demonstrates clearly the global nature of The Great War. If you're looking for a lot of trench battle footage or to be dragged through the muck and mire of Paschendale, look elsewhere.

One bit of trivia I had not come across in other places: the Germans actually shelled Paris using the largest gun in the world from some 120 kilometers away.

Another thing I hadn't before seen discussed so clearly--the dramatic lack of raw materials in Germany that led to extraordinarily desperate measures that drained the will of the German people to continue the war (such as digging up lead pipes from beneath city streets in order to melt them down for bullets).

And demonstrating that history repeats itself, there is an episode titled 'Jihad', and the activities of Lawrence leading to the Arab revolt.

And there was the matter of Mexico being encouraged, by Germany, to invade the United States, a situation that contributed to the U.S. finally joining the war effort.

It struck me that the conditions that surrounded World War I--the motivations and alliances--have perhaps more relevance to events in today's world than does World War II.

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You made some points I hadn't especially noticed:
mainly this...
"
So many aspects and certain events are presented in the 10 episodes that I had never seen or read about before.
"
yes I thought I had read all 'the good stuff' and now i'm digging up old books...

"
It struck me that the conditions that surrounded World War I--the motivations and alliances--have perhaps more relevance to events in today's world than does World War II.
"
you bet!

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I maintain that WWI is the key event in the 20th Century.

1. It started in the Balkans, and in reality that situation never has been solved.

2. The events in the Mideast is still being felt as well. The Balfour Declaration that began to repopulate Palestine with Jews, and some of those postwar boundaries are still in existance.

3. The war was a direct cause of the Russian Revolution and causing the Soviet Union, and thus the Cold War following WWII.

4. The Treaty of Versailles had provisions that basically set up the situations that set up WWII.

6. Japan, who was an Allied Nation in WWI, captured German territories in the Pacific and were given Leage of Nation Mandates over those areas following the war. Those were the very same islands that cost many American deaths in expelling them in 1942-45 in places like Kawaljalein, Tarawa, Guadalcanal, Eniweitok, etc. Japan was also able to consolodate itself as a legitimate power following WWI.

7. The Treat of Brest-Litovsk, ending the German-Russian part of the war following the Russian Revolution led to all of Eastern Europe to form new nations, which caused a fair amount of tension between the existing sates and those new states.

8. The war in Africa did end Germany's presence in Cameroon, Togo, Namibia and Tanzania (using today's placenames) and those were turned over to the British, French, and South Africa (Namibia) which effects are still in those places today.

9. The end of Britian's effective rule of the world ended on 1 July 1916 on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Britain has never been the same.

10. Use of armour and air power begins and the submarine becomes an important tool of war..

11. Genocide. Armenia and the use of poison gas.

12. Emergence of the United States a world power.

13. Australia, South Africa, Canada, and New Zealand gain a feeing of nationhood by their participation in the Great War.

14. Due to the huge casualties of the Western Front, dircetly caused the avoidance of properly preparing and defending against any future situation such as Munich in 1938. Another words, wimped out many European Nations in standing up to dictators trying to acquire new territories. (Hitler in Czechoslovakia, Il Duce in Ethiopia, etc).

15. The League of Nations. Granted the League was failure, but the concept was revivied in the UN in 1945 and continues today with albeit, mixed results.

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Yes: the events of WW I continue to reverberate today, as this documentary makes abundantly clear. (It also shows what is meant by WORLD war.) As concerns the Middle East, especially, the West has blood-drenched hands, which is why it walks around with its hands in its pockets, and its lips buttoned about its superior civilization.

Which is why it is a must-see; and required for high school students. Except that it might inform their understanding and cause them to become pacifists.

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Obviously WWI was the key event in the 20th century.

I can make things more simple than you:
1) It was World War I
2) It caused World War II.

That alone is all it takes.

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"And there was the matter of Mexico being encouraged, by Germany, to invade the United states, a situation that contributed to the U.S. finally joining the war effort."

Personally, I think this was simply the pretext, not the reason. My guess is that Wilson was intent on war from the start.

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Your guess is wrong. Wilson wanted to stay out of the war. Alas, our close connections to Europe made that impossible.

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It's a very good documentary, however being British produced, it also follows a narrative favorable to the British, and French Allies. I mean, it goes into very good detail about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip, and uses this as the starting 'domino' of events that lead to full scale world war.

What the series does not attempt to do, is to explain to the viewer that it wasn't about the 'aggressor' Central Powers that used the assassination as an excuse to create war, but there were Pacts, Treaties, and Alliances (including a secret British pact with France that Germany wasn't aware of) with all the nations involved in 1914, that if followed, lead inevitably to what we ended up with. World War. There was no other outcome. Austria-Hungary wanted justice, that's all that needed to happen for the War to become a reality, because of the pacts. It wasn't Austria's demands in their letter to Serbia. It wasn't an aggressive Kaiser in Germany, it was all pacts, like dominoes that fall in order.

Of course being a British documentary, they can't very well make the Germans/Austrians out to be anything other than suicidal, maniacal warmongers hellbent on revenge, or whatever comic-book super-villainy narrative they can come up with to alleviate blame from themselves.

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Did you actually watch the documentary? It outright stated in the first episode that the Germans weren't looking to fight and that the British had the luxury of staying out of the war if it really didn't want to get involved. It stated that Russia's being convinced that Germany's warmongering was a major factor in what led to war, a conclusion they made upon seeing how harsh Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia was. Moreover, it made the point that every side in the war felt as if they were fighting a defensive war.

In the blockade episode, it emphasized the suffering the British blockade of Germany put the German people through and in a sympathetic manner showed, even justified, why the Germans felt so compelled to engage in unrestricted submarine warfare. In the last episode, it was sympathetic to the reasons that led the Germans to be bitter and resent the peace terms, particularly with the war guilt which is pretty explicitly stated that Germany alone wasn't to blame but that the Allies made it that way so as to pin the war bill on Germany.

The documentary does a rather good job at being even-handed with both sides. While you can certainly spot some British biases here and there (particularly with that heavily exaggerated American accent), it more or less follows the general consensus among modern World War I histories that neither side is wholly to blame for the outbreak of the war and that neither side was any better than the other.

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May I ask what nationality you are? If this had been a German production, would you be saying the opposite? Would you be saying "Of course being a German documentary, they can't very well make the British out to be anything other than suicidal, maniacal warmongers hellbent on revenge, or whatever comic-book super-villainy narrative they can come up with to alleviate blame from themselves."

I've found this series to be less biased than you're giving it credit for. Are you sure you've watched it, or are you just making comments for comments' sakes?

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