Things I learned from this series

8. France was totally empty of French people in WW1. All of the fighting was between the Germans, the British, and finally the Americans who with Mac Arthur's help single handedly won WW1 by looking at a photo.

MacArthur was raw he just strut through no mans land not giving a f---

The Japanese army and Chinese army wear the same uniforms :P

10. Back in those days, people aged in dog years.

11: No civil wars were fought in the interwar period.

12. The very first time gas warfare was ever used in war, the British already had state of the art gas masks for every soldier on the battlefield, they were totally prepared for the Germans, and weren't surprised at all when someone yelled out 'gas'.

Well, right off the top of my head ...

13. The Bolsheviks overthrew the Czar in 1917;
14. The office of the Chancellor is a largely ceremonial position in the German government.
15. Hitler sent a million men to guard Calais from the Allied invasion;
16. Mac-Arthur was already a five star General before the rank was even created;
17. A British soldier could have shot an unarmed German soldier [Hitler] in WW I and prevented WWII even though Army records from both sides show the two men were not in the same place at the same time;

... and a million other ones that I have mercifully forgotten.


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Resolutely Analog In A Digital World!

All in all, this treatment of the worst 30 years of human history went by like something condensed for quick reading in Reader's Digest for people with very short attention spans. It was what colleges call a "survey course." Lots of quick hit and run factoids, with almost no substance or analysis.

That aside, my biggest complaint is about some of the actors playing those famous world figures. The real Patton was tall, but the guy playing him looks about five feet eight. Even in WWI, the real Patton was a self absorbed hard-driving Type-A take-no-prisoners individual. Heaven help anyone who got in his way. He had to be forceful and driven to convince the Army - which still had mounted cavalry units - that motorized armor was the way of the future. The young Patton we saw in Ep 2 was a frat boy.

And did the young Lt. Patton really walk up to General MacArthur and speak to him without saluting? And did the Army EVER permit anyone - even officers - to have the unshaven look that's so popular today?

The young Churchill is way TOO young. It's worth noting that the real Churchill was 40 years old when the war began in 1914, well into middle-age in those times, and he had war experience in the Boer War of 1898. He was a seasoned soldier, but the young guy who played him looked like someone fresh out of college in his first job, and who, apparently, was just then learning how to smoke cigars. And not doing it very convincingly I might add.

Then on top of that, in the 15 years between his return to politics in 1920 and the mid 1930s when he really start sounding the alarms about Hitler, Churchill appears to have aged at least 50 years and gained a hundred pounds. Wow. I must say though the guy who played the older Churchill was very good, and he even looked the part. They got it right when they hired that guy.

I think the casting agents could have done a much better job of finding actors who at least resembled the people they were pretending to be. And don't get me started on the outright mistakes in the historical facts. That's another story.

I haven't even watched the third episode yet, so I dread to see how they'll rewrite WWII.


Jesus is coming. Look busy.