World War One

I currently have two wars going on in my house. I'm watching The Civil War on the DVD player in my living room, (Ken Burns' Civil War), and World War I, (CBS's) on the VHS player in my bed room. I adore Ken Burns work but am amazed at how good CBS's 1964 classic on "The Great War" is. I think it must have influenced Burns whose work is different in many ways but which has the same emphasis on the effect of war on its participants, as opposed to "what the Kings and Generals did".

I note on Wikipedia that Burns is credited with developing "panning" as a technique to show still photographs in a way to suggest movement. WWI uses a striking technique of showing old film, where they pan and focus on one part of the image, usually when Morton Gould's striking score rises. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two is that the same musical tracts are used over and over again for WWI, keeping the tone rather constant whereas Burns changes his music and uses multiple narrators to change the mood. TCW is a potent brew but so is WWI from a generation earlier.

One of the items that placed "World War One" far and above other TV documentaries was the soundtrack composed by Morton Gould. I had already enjoyed his music, most notably his American Salute and the Pam American Suite, so I pleased with this music. Each episode opened with the introduction which to me was equal in dramatic quality to the "Song of the High Seas" from "Victory At Sea" composed by Richard Rodgers who also composed the soundtrack for "Winston Churchill: the Valiant Years". The rest of the music for the series was both dramatic, poignant, and simple. RCA records released a soundtrack album that is no longer available. If anyone has that soundtrack album please contact me.

Even after 50 years, no American-made documentary about World War One has come close to being as comprehensive or as moving as this documentary series. There have been some British made multi-volume documentaries about The Great War that are as good, in some cases even better, but this remains the definitive American documentary about that war.

With 26 episodes, each one about 25 minutes in length, plenty of time is available to present the full scope of the war. Entire episodes are devoted to the air war, the submarine war, the home front in England, the impact of the war on the US before America's entry into the conflict, the Bolshevik Revolution and even an episode dealing with the songs that were made famous by the war.

A couple of minor flaws can be easily overlooked, but to be fair, they are that the issues that brought the war on could have been a examined a little more thoroughly, as could the Eastern Front, and being an American production, perhaps the film focuses a little too much on the American experience of the war at the expense of some of the other participants.

But hours of actual film footage from the war were used, no re-enactments at all, and this is fascinating to see. Robert Ryan's narration is a highlight of the series - there is something to melancholy and tragic in his voice through the narrative that it really brings home the emotional impact of an entire generation being lost and a global way of life being destroyed forever. Having seen reruns of this series in the late 1970's while I was a boy, Robert Ryan's voice has become inseparable from World War 1 in my mind.

In the 50 years since this documentary was made, a lot of new scholarship about the war - and the opening of many old archives,- has changed some of the things we know about the war. Nevertheless, this series remains the best documentary about the war available in the US.

Perhaps now that the 100th anniversary of the war is a year away, a new documentary will be made that uses some of the information that was not available in 1964. As the grandson of a Doughboy who fought in France in 1918, I'd like to see one. Perhaps Ken Burns would be up to the task?

At the time that Newton Minnow made his famous pronouncement of television being the great wasteland, CBS decided to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the First World War with this series narrated by Robert Ryan. It was, if memory serves, shown over the course of an entire television season (roughly 26 or so episodes of thirty minutes each). The episodes began with a quick review of the international rivalries and tensions of the years 1870 to 1914, culminating in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo by the Serbians, and how this (in turn) set off the two war alliances of the Triple Alliance (Germany and Austria Hungary - Italy decided to remain neutral, for the moment), and the Triple Entente (Britain, France, and the Russian Empire). The episodes picked up on different problems and theaters of the war, and how it gradually extended to involve Japan, Italy (as an enemy of it's old alliance partners), the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, Greece, Roumania, Portugal, Norway, and finally the United States. Episodes dealt with the invasion of Belgium, the sacking of Louvain, and the beginning of the image of the German "Hun". One dealt with the war at sea, culminating in the battle at Jutland. Another dealt with the great air aces. Another dealt with the popular songs of the war (from both sides - one, by the way, was a French anti-war song that was sung during the famous French army mutinies of 1917). The Russian Revolution was the subject of an episode. So was the hopeless Italian army campaigns, mostly in the valley of the Isonzo River (12 battles!). The arrival of the U.S. and the final defeat of Germany were shown, as was the mess of the Versailles Treaty. There were many archives that were tapped, and special, rarely seen films shown (like the torpedoing and sinking of the Austrian dreadnought Sven Istvan in 1918, one of the most graphic ship sinkings ever photographed). The series was terrific, and it is good to know it is now available on video and DVD. This was one series to keep.

Produced by CBS News in honor of the 50th anniversary of the First World War, this is one of the finest documentary series to ever be presented on broadcast television. That a major network would put its resources into such a superb program is unheard of now but it was not that unusual all those years ago. I was indeed fortunate to have witnessed the original Sunday night broadcasts as a young boy fascinated by history. To say it was a moving and memorable experience is to dramatically understate the impact it had upon me. The writing is excellent, the history accurate and poetically presented with a tremendously effective score by Morton Gould and the CBS Orchestra. The narration by Robert Ryan is fantastic and absolutely perfect. This is television at its finest, proving that it is possible for it to actually educate and enlighten, to illuminate and inspire. With this series it fulfills the potential that many saw in television but which faded from view quite quickly. Hope was renewed when cable originally offered The Learning Channel, Discovery, Bravo, The History Channel, Arts and Entertainment, etc., which eventually, sickeningly collapsed into repulsive cesspools fermenting with reality trash of absolutely no value and despicable baseness. Even The History Channel was corrupted into an Ice Road Truckers and Pawn Brokers marathon of brainless flickering lights. So, let this magnificent historical series serve as a monument to what television is truly capable of, with its incredible use of imagery and the power of the spoken word always resonating with the generations who know nothing of the heroic sacrifice and resounding tragedy of World War I.