Britain's Great War

Name: Britain's Great War
Genre: History, War
Cast: Jeremy Paxman

TV Series20141h1 season · 4 episodes

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4Episodes, 1 season 0Member reviews 0Lists include it

History War

Opening the World War One commemoration season on the BBC and produced in partnership with the Open University, this landmark new documentary series Britain's Great War, presented by Jeremy Paxman, explores how Britain and the lives of British people were transformed by the Great War. There had never been a war like it. It was the first ‘total war' and it blew apart the certainties on which British society rested. Focusing on extraordinary personal stories to illuminate often cataclysmic events, each episode charts a different stage of the war: from initial optimism; to frustration; to the exhausted, poignant celebration of victory. It was the first war in British history in which men were conscripted to fight, civilians had their homes bombed, and every family feared a knock on the door bringing terrible news. Governments took for themselves powers they would never have imagined.

Stars: Jeremy Paxman

Where it airs

BBC OneNetwork, from TVmaze

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Episode guide

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E1War Comes to BritainJan 27, 2014 · 1h · Jeremy Paxman traces the story of the dramatic early stages of the war, from stunned disbelief to the mass recruitment of volunteer soldiers. Fear of invasion grips the country, Boy Scouts guard bridges, and spies are suspected everywhere. For the first time, British civilians are fired on by enemy ships and bombed from the air. Paxman meets a 105-year-old eyewitness to the shelling of Hartlepool, who describes how she thought the Germans had landed. Total war has come to Britain.Not rated yet

E2The War MachineFeb 3, 2014 · 1h · In the second part of his landmark series on how the First World War affected the lives of the British people, Jeremy Paxman describes the crisis facing the country as it becomes clear it is fatally unprepared to fight a modern industrial war. Now the whole population is enlisted to turn the country into a war machine: women fill the factories to make bombs and bullets, men are forced to fight at the Front, conscientious objectors are threatened with the firing squad, and striking shipbuilders with jail. Even the beer is watered down on government orders. Britain is having to learn to do as it is told.Not rated yet

E3The Darkest HourFeb 10, 2014 · 1h · Jeremy Paxman tells the story of how Britain edged close to defeat in the worst conflict it had ever known. Unearthing the wreck of a German U-boat in the Medway, he describes Germany's attempt to starve the country into submission - could the Win the War Cookbook save the day? Hoarders are put on trial as newspapers expose how the rich dine out on lobsters in Mayfair. Fear of moral corruption prompts the government to police the nation's bedrooms. A full-length documentary film of fighting in the trenches breaks all box office records - but will it push a shocked British public into demanding peace at any price?Not rated yet

E4At the Eleventh HourFeb 17, 2014 · 1h · Jeremy Paxman describes how the country came to the very brink of defeat in the last year of the war. Grieving parents held seances to contact their dead sons, surgeons battled to rebuild the faces of the wounded, and a maverick MP tried to pin the blame for the crisis on a conspiracy of sexual deviants in government. And then, dramatically, the tide of battle turned, and exhausted Britons found themselves weeping for joy as the armistice was signed. The nation began to count the cost of four years of war, revealing some surprising winners as well as losers.Not rated yet

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Jeremy PaxmanPresenter

Cast from TVmaze. People photos show only when a licensed image exists.

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Details

Premiered: January 27, 2014
Ended: February 17, 2014
Status: Ended
Network: BBC One
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Language: English
Episode runtime: 1h
Official site: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xtmnv
TVmaze ID: 2428