Customer Reviews

The Great War

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Why the other reviewer gave this 1 star (even though he wants it) is beyond me. There is nothing else like this DVD collection: the most comporehensive collection of WWI footage anywhere, anytime. Get it through Amazon uk and get a region free DVD player! It is worth the investment.

I viewed this series back to back over a couple of days because it was so good. The video quality is amazingly well preserved...not sped up like most WWI archive films seem to be...this stuff is in real motion time and it has very rare footage of Kaiser Wilhelm II and very rare footage of actual battles taking place...not reenactments. Just a wonderful series that should be converted into Region 1 for Americans but if you have a multiple region player or one that can be switched between regions like I have ...it works great.

For any serious student of military history this ancient BBC series is a MUST. It tells the epic story of the internecine tribal conflict in the Balkans and the efforts of the failing Austrian-Hungarian Empire's attempts to quell a rebellion there within its territories. A horrified Europe watching this conflict erupt into a full-scale war on a scale unprecedented in its suffering ever known in human history. The story is told using movie footage shot at the time alongside eyewitness statements and commentaries. A series on this subject of this nature could not be made today simply because nearly all the participants of this terrible event are no longer with us. We do not share their naive innocence with our benefit of hind site. Here there is no cynicism or propaganda; just the personal experiences of our witnesses. The is no need to slant the series into a kind of anti-war statement, each individual factual episode points out the futility of war without really meaning to. This unfolding simple story of unflinching bravery and sacrifice for a noble cause -viewed from both sides, would surely baffle the modern viewer. Here is depicted industrialised slaughter on an incomprehensible scale. Does anyone care to know that that the British army suffered more casualties on the first day Battle of The Somme than the Americans suffered throughout their entire war in Vietnam? But the scale of losses does not begin nor end here. For year after bloody year a total war of attrition was slugged out between the Allies and The Central Powers, leaving The British Empire - alongside a growing American military presence - and Imperial Germany as the principal antagonists. The end, when it came was sudden by the scale of previous campaigns and disappointments. A combination of failure of political nerve and general war-weariness on the allied side, and exhaustion, starvation and revolution in Germany - and its allies, Austria/Hungary and Turkey, suffering likewise, brought about an armistice. While ending the war it allowed Germany to escape from total defeat, paving the way for an even bloodier war a generation later. The rest as they say, is history.

This DVD set is available on Amazon's UK site. It is for Region 2, PAL/SECAM televisions. When will this definitive documentary be released for Region 1, NTSC televisions? Please advise.