Un Long Voyage Vers la Guerre

First, the Balkan relations are complicated and I don't want to go into it since it's obviously a sensitive matter. I mention it though since the negative reviews are mostly about that but that's just not my knowledge in this review.

However.. I have read quite a lot about WW1 and what led up to it and watching this it's quite obvious that the "shots at Sarajevo" was pretty insignificant for the outbreak of WW1.

It would have happened anyway and I am actually quite surprised it didn't happen sooner.

I will forever be stunned though that so many leaders (who were quite aware of the terrible consequences) led their countries into a complete disaster and to a conflict that would set the tone for the whole 20th century. Different times but still..

WW2 is much easier to understand.. Germany wanted revenge and it was the perfect circumstances for a complete lunatic to seize power. Even more terrible but but some bizarre logic in there.

WW1 is just the stupidest war ever considering the reasons and the consequences.

Relatively interesting examination of the long series of events leading up to the First World War, taken from a particularly Balkan point of view. It still retains balance, with no party coming out particularly well (which is probably true). What is fascinating is how many opportunities there were to avoid this slide into catastrophe, and that ultimately when the worst indeed came to the worst all the protagonists were mortified.

The 1 or 10 out of 10 reviews are complete nonsense - from an outsiders perspective this looks like a reasonably subjective view of events.

At school we have long been taught that it was the 'shots in Sarajevo' and assassination of arch duke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was the start of The Great War.

But however, I suspect that some of the motives of this documentary is not only to enlighten, but at the same time promote this idea of the 'south slavs' of countries like Serbia and Bosnia is done by the movie creators to support an idea of unification of Serbia and Bosnia and several other countries (such as perhaps Monte Negro). The movie is funded by Serbia on different levels and we are told many times that Bosnia and Serbia consists of primarily the same people.

So it is a very well performed documentary going into depth into the decades before the war and thouroghly describes the advesaries and their different conflicts and interests.

At the same time, I am not sure which parts of the documentary is a documentary and which parts are more motivational talk by Serbia to try to argument for Serbia's reunification of Bosnia and perhaps Yugoslavian grandure.. I feel I have to be a historian to pick apart the documentary part from propaganda or 'wishful thinking' fra Beograd..

It was good to see something not overwhelmingly focussed on Britain and the west but where the long tail of war actually happened.

A bit of Serbian propaganda which should be taken with A pinch of salt but otherwise very interesting and informative.

Being born in a land that was itself surrounded and oppressed by larger empires throughout history, this documentary hit especially hard.

It does not only make you realize that man will never learn from mistakes, but also that history has repeated itself and will sadly continue to repeat itself going forward.

What impressed me the most was that they brought input of historians from different countries (that succeeded the beligerents of this war).

What was fascinating, on the other side, was that the plan/idea for the war was actually in place long before I would have thought.

Absolutely worth the watch to understand why that is the case, 10/10.