Series Review: Our World War (2014)

Settling down this Sunday to watch the three episodes of the BBC First World War combat drama 'Our World War' I had mixed feelings. This was because in my experience most World War One programs and documentaries - especially those produced by government-controlled media outlets such as the BBC - are panegyrics to an extremely partisan official history that attempts to mythologize history in favour of Western Allies. This mythologized history is then turned into propaganda advocating the relative perfectibility of the current political state of affairs. (1)

This is better known in the case of the Second World War where the two dimensional one-sided narrative and analysis is both more overt and significantly more widespread. It does however exist within the domain of World War One and in no place is it more concentrated than in Great Britain. (2)

Therefore how good and balanced the 'Our World War' series was was distinctly pleasurable. It focused on the stories of historical soldiers fighting on the ground (not from behind a desk) and simply dramatized them. It also roughly split up the First World War into its three generally recognized stages with one episode for each epoch: the intoxicating jingoism of 1914-1915, the massacre of the 'Pals Battalions' of 1916-1917 and the nihilistic brutality of total war of 1918.

I liked the modern touches which 'Our World War' introduced that in my view lent perspective to the viewer about what precisely was going on as well as what the men on the ground could actually see. Naturally there were snotty reviews regarding how it was 'like a spoof' and 'wouldn't age well because of the addition of modern cinematic touches' in British newspapers when it first aired back in 2014. (3)

However this criticism is really just film/television critics channelling Lord Snooty rather than saying anything substantive. The reality is that any television or film looks dated a decade or so after it was produced. Look at the famous and star-studded series 'I Claudius' and tell me that the make up, costumes and special effects don't look pathetically dated and unrealistic compared to say those of 'Rome' or 'Spartacus'.

If anything I think 'Our World War' will weather the years better than traditionally-minded type television productions for the simple reason that its technologically-based touches are simple and not easily superseded. One wonders how you 'supersede' top down infra-red footage (as the Telegraph suggested would happen in one-two years), but anyway.

What I especially liked was how apolitical 'Our World War' was. It didn't touch on the politics or the still hotly debated origins of/responsibility for the war, but rather just focused on the stories of the soldiers on the ground. The most political it got was the execution by firing squad of an alleged British deserter in the second episode of the series. Even then this insertion was just generic pacifism as one would expect from a broadly left wing outlet like the BBC and nothing much was specifically made of it by the writers and producers.

Quite frankly it was nice and the reason it may well have been so is that its writers, directors and producers (with the possible exception of Ben Chanan) weren't jewish and therefore didn't inject any of their so-called 'balance' into the series.

References
(1) A good antidote to this is John Mosier, 2001, 'The Myth of the Great War: A New Military History of World War One', 1st Edition, Profile: London
(2) For some useful reading on this mythos and a revisionist take on the origins of World War One see Nicholas Kollerstrom's article: http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2011/volume_3/number_4/on_the_avoidability_of_world_war_one.php. On the jewish role in bringing about World War One see Thomas Dalton's pioneering analysis: http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2013/volume_5/number_2/the_jewish_hand_in_the_world_wars.php and http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2014/volume_6/number_2/the_jewish_hand_in_the_world_wars_part_2.php
(3) http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/one-world-war-tv-review-jarring-modern-touches-mean-great-war-story-badly-misfires-9655501.html ; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11018605/Our-World-War-BBC-Three-review-a-whiff-of-spoof.html