"The greatest battle the British Army has ever fought began on 1st July 1916.  Using graphics, powerful stills and remarkable archive footage, this programme presents an in depth treatment of The Somme: the strategic and tactical planning and preparation; the course of the actual battle, particularly the disastrous first day where there were almost 60,000 casualties, mercilessly mown down by the German machine guns.  Observe here the bitter experiences of the soldier on the ground".

Running time 60 mins approx.

PAL 0 - All regions

"At 7.30am on July 1st 1916 the proud and eager young men of Kitchener 's Army went "over the top" for the first time; the Battle of the Somme had begun. By the end of that first terrible day almost 60,000 of their numbers had become casualties, and one of military history's greatest disasters had unfolded before the disbelieving eyes of the Allied High Command. The Battle of the Somme has come to epitomise the horror and waste of the Great War. Featuring newsreel footage and haunting photographs, this DVD tells the tragic story of an army "two years in the making - ten minutes in the destroying". It also features atmospheric reconstructions, dramatised "eye-witness" accounts and computer-generated mapping. Narrated by Terry Molloy."

Running time 55 mins approx.

PAL 0 - All regions

"July 1st 1916 was the blackest day in the history of the British Army when a combination of bad planning and German bullets sent Kitchener 's Army to their doom. An army that had taken two years to make took only a day to destroy."

Running time 48 mins approx.

PAL 0 - All regions

"For many the pride and excitement of "doing your bit for King and country" quickly turned to fear and shock. Millions of volunteers on the Western Front in World War One seeking the adventures of battle and foreign lands, soon discovered the misery of mud-filled trenches and of witnessing death on such a mammoth scale. Life would never be the same again. Featuring archive footage and photographs, dramatised "eye-witness" accounts, detailed descriptions of life for an everyday soldier, poetry and songs. Narrated by Terry Molloy."

Running time 55 mins approx.

PAL 0 - All regions

"From the fateful shot of the assassin's gun at Sarajevo to Armistice Day 1918 when the guns finally fell silent on the nightmare of the trenches, this is the tragic story of the conflict remembered by history as the Great War. Featuring archive footage, computer-generated mapping and expert analysis to explain the origins of the war, and the ebb and flow of its crucial battles and offensives. Narrated by Michael Leighton."

Running time 55 mins approx.

PAL 0 - All regions

"At Cambrai in November 1917, a tank force of over three hundred tanks punched a hole four miles deep into the German lines in the space of a single morning, But the Germans counter-attacked and the result of the battle was a virtual draw, with the front lines shifting slightly. However the battle of Cambrai marked a major turning point in the course of the war - as the era of trench warfare was coming to an end and technology was beginning to reign supreme on the battlefields of Europe ."

Running time 48 mins approx.

PAL 0 - All regions

"The small British Expeditionary Force, moving up into Belgium on the left flank of the French 5th Army, met with the full weight of the German 1st Army advancing towards Paris under the Schlieffen Plan. A short but intense fire fight - where the British caused heavy casualties to the thick masses of enemy infantry - was followed by a British withdrawal out of the canal salient. This manoeuvre was made more urgent by news that the French Army on the right flank was in retreat ."

Running time 48 mins approx.

PAL 0 - All regions

"On 20th June 1914 the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire at Sarajevo set the stage for the global conflict diplomats and dynasties alike had said would never happen. But the holocaust that followed was all too real. Within weeks of Archduke Ferdinand's death, Europe was mobilising to fight the war to end all wars - a war that would leave nine million dead and change the face of the globe. The tinder suspicion, smouldering for decades, was fanned into violent life by German ambition: the union of 35 states forged in the 1870 Franco-Prussian war was ready to test its strength, and three decades of covert construction saw them in a position to enter the superpower stage on more than equal terms. On August 1914, the German s rampaged through neutral Belgium , but lost their momentum: in the Flanders fields, Howitzers carved out a blighted wasteland strewn with the dead of both sides. The air was in its infancy, and cavalry gave way to tanks, but this was a war fought hand-to-hand in trenches: Verdun , the Somme and Passchendaele were names that passed into the language as symbolic of the massive waste of life. Verdun survived a ten-month German bombardment the longest ever in the history of warfare- but at the cost of 700,000 lives overall, while British losses at Somme were the greatest of any wartime army to date. As soldiers faced their third winter, they bitterly recalled the promise made in 1914 that they'd be 'home by Christmas'. They were not told which one...
The slaughter on the battlefields of Europe still had far to go, as the entrenched armies of Germany and the Allies wiped out a whole generation of young men to control a few yards of mud. But the utter exhaustion of men and nations was relieved by the new theatre of conflict in the skies with air supremacy becoming a key factor in the war, and a symbol of a new era of glamorous warfare. Germany 's all-out-U-Boat offensive, America 's declaration of war and the subsequent battle of the Atlantic proved a turning point in allied fortunes as the development of the tank also helped break the impasse of arms movement back to the trenches. But although any advances caused devastating loss of life and Russia quit after their historic Revolution, gradually the allied initiatives and re-alliance brought a divided Germany to its knees. On November 11th 1918 the Great War ended, leaving nine million dead. It stands forever as a monument to the futility of war and became the starting point of another, even worse threat to world peace two decades later."

Running time 96 mins approx.

PAL 0 - All regions