The Necessary War

Tommy's Christmas parcels are despatched to the Front in a fleet of trucks.

This intriguing and beautifully-shot newsreel features sea-faring heroes, feisty females and a generous lick of paint for a Mississippi steamship.

The daughter of famed actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree gets hitched to a military Captain during WWI.

The truth about the million British horses that served in World War I is even more epic than Steven Spielberg’s War Horse feature film. This documentary tells their extraordinary, moving story, begining with the mass call-up of horses from every farm and country estate in the land. Racing commentator Brough Scott tells the tale of his aristocratic grandfather General Jack Seely and his beloved horse Warrior, who would become the most famous horse of the war. The British Army hoped its illustrious cavalry regiments would win a swift victory, but it would be years before they enjoyed their moment of glory. Instead, in a new era of mechanised trench warfare, the heavy horses transporting guns, ammunition and food to the front-line troops were most important. A quarter of a million of these horses died from shrapnel wounds and disease. But the deep bond that developed between man and horse helped both survive the hell of the Somme and Passchendaele.

Filmed in the skies above France and the United States, The Lafayette Escadrille tells the story of the American volunteers who flew and fought for France in World War 1, becoming the founding squadron of American combat aviation.

The movie depicts the events from July until September of 1914 which led to the defeat of the German troops at the Marne. While Sebastian Haffner explains and comments on operations and decisions on the basis of situation maps, key scenes are depicted by actors. A main focus is thereby placed by Haffner onto the controversial mission of lieutenant-colonel Richard Hentsch who is said to have, during a war patrol to the various army high commands, contributed to the abortion of the operations significantly.

Professor Niall Ferguson argues that Britain's decision to enter the First World War was a catastrophic error that unleashed an era of totalitarianism and genocide.

The story of how Australia's 'ANZAC myth' was born and the role of General John Monash in this process as soldier and statesman both during and after WW1.

A century ago, from February to December 1916, the French and Germans provided a superhuman effort to control a few hills in eastern France, located in front of Verdun . A frontal confrontation, conducted without the help of their allies, army against army, nation against nation. Today, this battle seems absurd to us. Because it has caused almost as many casualties in each camp and its strategic utility has never really been demonstrated. But in 1916, soldiers on both sides did not consider it absurd: they agreed to fight. Why ? By reliving the rare Herculean confrontation of our ancestors, using reconstructions made in the 1920s, using a large number of animated computer-generated images that recreate the topography of the battlefield, this documentary returns, with the help of the historical adviser Paul Jankowski , on the last great victory won alone by France against Germany.