Imagine if someone was making a documentary for the First Civil War without even mentioning Belgium ,what kind of documentary would that be deemed? Now the producers managed to achieve no mention of Greece, whilst having the opportunity to do so for 10 episodes!And no, we are not talking about interpretations of facts (the Armenian/Pontian genocide is 'disputed' according to the authors) , we are talking about just mentioning Greece (!) despite the fact that Greece participated in the First World WarIf someone didn't know anything about the First World War ,this documentary gives the impression that Greece didn't participate at all!!That's an utter disgrace and the explanation is simple.Either the producers did that one deliberately , or they are incompetentAnd whilst the documentary is in general well produced , they managed to fail spectacularly by NOT including one of the main countries who participated in the First World War

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.

One of a small handful of great documentaries on the Great War. This series of ten episodes nicely explains the war simply and directly. It also manages to cover a variety of other subjects that most other documentaries and books on the subject don't, or example the fighting in the Italian mountains. I'm a student of the First World War and I find it hard to find good films on the subject. Most are dull affairs that rehash the same old facts and figures using a limited number of film clips. Here the filmmakers have broadened their net covering a wide variety of subjects, but also using footage of many of the locations shot today. The result is a series that makes the war very current and alive, no longer is it a far away and long ago war, but one that happened in places that still exist. Its magical. Its so good that I found that after the second episode I was rationing the episodes out since I didn't want the mere ten to run out too quickly. This is a must see not only for people wanting to know about the war but also wanting to know about how we got to today.

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.