It wiped out ten million people, heralded the birth of modern warfare and engendered mass destruction on a scale never before known in human history. Dubbed "the war to end all wars," it was directly responsible for the outbreak of fresh international conflict barely twenty years later. Yet in terms of intelligent contemporary examination, World War I is constantly placed second behind World War II. As the last veterans pass away, this definitive ten-part series offers insight and analysis to provide a coherent and strategic military narrative. Based on new and authoritative accounts, this stylistically innovative series from acclaimed documentary filmmaker Jonathan Lewis (Before Hindsight, Stalin, People's Century) places World War I in its proper global context and explodes conventional myths, with the human tragedy placed into a wider political and military context beyond the Western Front.

The First World War - The Complete Series. Episodes include: To Arms, Under the Eagle, Global War, Jihad, Shackled To A Corpse, Breaking the Deadlock, Blockade, Revolution, Germany's Last Gamble, War Without End. Includes actual archive footage (much of it in black-and-white) of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Emperor Franz Josef, Hermann Göring, Kaiser Wilhelm II, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, V.I. Lenin, David Lloyd George, Erich Ludendorff, Philippe Pétain, Queen Marie of Rumania, Jan Smuts, Paul von Hindenburg, Manfred von Richthofen, and Woodrow Wilson. 4 Disc Set, 503 minutes. Originally aired in the U.K. on Channel Four, released on DVD in Region 1 by Image Entertainment. SRP: $ 39.99. Release Date: August 2nd.