Channel 5 - World War I in Colour (2003) Part 5 Mayhem on the Eastern Front

World War I in Colour is a Channel 5 documentary series made with the cooperation of the Imperial War Museum, featuring all aspects of the land, sea and air war covered in separate programmes. Up until now, World War 1 had always been seen as a war that happened in black & white, but that was not the reality. It was the first war to see the development of the fighter plane, the introduction of poison gas, the inventions of the tank and the flame thrower and the wide use of machine guns and heavy artillery, which caused such mass destruction. On July 28, 1914 First World War broke out. It was a war that would reap millions of victims, changing the map and fundamentally influence the political power factor. Several of the global world powers were involved in this military conflict that took place between 1914 and 1918. On one side were Germany and Austria-Hungary (the Central Powers), and later Turkey and Bulgaria and on the other hand, France, Russia and Britain (the Triple Entente), together with Serbia, and later Japan, Italy, Romania and the 1917 United States and further a number of other countries. Over 70 million people participated in the War harvested more than 15 million victims, making it one of history's deadliest conflicts. The background was a series of events and increased military activity escalated tensions between the two major blocs of allies. The shots in Sarajevo June 28, 1914 is a single event that is strongly associated with the outbreak of WWI. This documentary provides an historical overview and all materials are carefully processed and converted to color. Using rare archive footage from sources around the World, including Britain's own Imperial War Museum, this 6 part series has been painstakingly colourised using the latest computer-aided technology to bring the first world war to colour, as experienced by those who fought and endured it. Narrated by Kenneth Branagh, this landmark series brings a unique perspective to the events of 1914-1918 which saw 65 million men take arms against one another and a world thrown into chaos.

Part 5 Mayhem on the Eastern Front

“Between the trenches are any amount of dead and decomposing bodies of our own men and Turks lying on the heather. The smell is awful.” CAPTAIN GUY NIGHTINGALE THE WAR ON THE EASTERN FRONT WOULD RESHAPE THE MAP OF EUROPE FOREVER The second great battlefront of World War I was on Germany's eastern border. There the armies of three great empires - Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary - clashed in a series of titanic struggles which were to change the face of Europe forever. It was a war of movement, with sweeping offensives, involving millions of men, ebbing and flowing around isolated fortresses. Despite massive bloodshed, the huge Russian army held out until a popular uprising deposed Nicholas Il, and the Germans and Austrians finally achieved victory. Against the Germans, 50,000 Russians were killed or wounded at the battle of Tannenberg. German Generals Hindenberg and Erich von Ludendorff, spurred on by their easy victories against the Russians, dreamed of an extended German empire to the East. Lenin sets the October Revolution in motion. Russia collapsed into turmoil, but the end of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires followed soon afterwards.

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