This documentary tries, but falls short of the quality of Barbara Tuchman's book. Worth watching anyway for the film footage. I am perplexed by the reviewer below who sees Ms. Tuchman as a revisionist and this film as propaganda. I do not view her that way at all. I think there is great value in history and that the original book was well researched and written. If only more world leaders would read it, the world would be a better and safer place. I remember John Kennedy said he read it and that it influenced his thinking. So, Goofy, you can bend over, kiss you little self and be glad he did because you came within a hair's breath of becoming a little puff of white ash during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
9 Reviews
Not Tuchman's book
wbk-600-1155995 August 2014
I'm surprised Barbara Tuchman didn't sue the developers of the movie for misappropriation of her title. Though it starts out as she did with Edward VII funeral, and shows the beginning of the war,it is far from her detailed explanations, and goes far beyond August, hopping with giant-steps across the major incidents until the end of the war: the sinking of the Lusitania, the arrival of the Americans, the final German push and then defeat. Great old footage and some strategy maps to help the viewer out but more an anti-German propaganda film than a documentary that might have come from her much acclaimed history. Tuchman certainly thought Germany was at the center of the war, but she showed the deep involvement of the others, as well. The producer-director, Nathan Kroll, was a musician and did other movies with musical themes. He must have self-chosen himself to do this, but inappropriately, I think. For a very good WW I documentary see the 2006 "Gallipoli" (Not the Peter Weir movie) narrated by Sam Neill and Jeremy Irons. It's very good, both filmically and historically.
Thorough backgrounder and historical look at World War I
SimonJack26 June 2023
"The Guns of August" is one of the most thorough historical accounts of World War I. The film is based on a 1962 book of the same title by American journalist, historian and author, Barbara Tuchman. The book earned her the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, and was made into this 99-minute documentary film in 1964 The book was highly popular and made the New York Times bestseller list for ten months. The documentary used news film collected from the U. S. and many European countries.
It may seem odd to many in modern times that a book and film about WW I should be so popular in the early 1960s. That time was much closer to World War II when most of the world's population had memories of the most destructive war in history. And, it was a time when the Cold War was at fever pitch, after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. But this documentary story did something more and better than any previous history of World War I had done. It delved deeply into the background and the situation of world politics, particularly in Europe, of the several years before the war.
The opening prologue in the film sets the stage. "The year 1914. Millions of peaceful and industrious people were hounded into a war by the folly of a few all-powerful leaders. The war was in no way inevitable. But the results determined the shape of the world in which we live today (1964)." And, "The innocence of the people was in the streets of Europe. The guilt was in the Cabinets."
Fritz Weaver narrates this documentary. It includes more news clips of European royalty and prominent leaders than any film I can recall ever having seen. Winston Churchill will be the most familiar to people in the 21st century. But, in their day, many others were frequently in the news headlines. The list includes prominent English, French, German, Prussian, Austrian, Belgian, and Russian aristocrats and officers. So, heir-apparent of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand is here, as well as Austrian Emperor Franz-Josef, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, German Emperor Wilhelm II, and a host of other statesmen, generals and other military commanders. Prominent females of the period are here also. Most noted among these are the assassinated and exiled Russian royalty - Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna, Romanov, Maria Romanov, and Anastasia Romanov.
History and war buffs especially should find this film very interesting.
It may seem odd to many in modern times that a book and film about WW I should be so popular in the early 1960s. That time was much closer to World War II when most of the world's population had memories of the most destructive war in history. And, it was a time when the Cold War was at fever pitch, after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. But this documentary story did something more and better than any previous history of World War I had done. It delved deeply into the background and the situation of world politics, particularly in Europe, of the several years before the war.
The opening prologue in the film sets the stage. "The year 1914. Millions of peaceful and industrious people were hounded into a war by the folly of a few all-powerful leaders. The war was in no way inevitable. But the results determined the shape of the world in which we live today (1964)." And, "The innocence of the people was in the streets of Europe. The guilt was in the Cabinets."
Fritz Weaver narrates this documentary. It includes more news clips of European royalty and prominent leaders than any film I can recall ever having seen. Winston Churchill will be the most familiar to people in the 21st century. But, in their day, many others were frequently in the news headlines. The list includes prominent English, French, German, Prussian, Austrian, Belgian, and Russian aristocrats and officers. So, heir-apparent of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand is here, as well as Austrian Emperor Franz-Josef, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, German Emperor Wilhelm II, and a host of other statesmen, generals and other military commanders. Prominent females of the period are here also. Most noted among these are the assassinated and exiled Russian royalty - Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna, Romanov, Maria Romanov, and Anastasia Romanov.
History and war buffs especially should find this film very interesting.
Awesome footage of the Great War
cherylread19 July 2003
I was impressed with all the authentic films of World War I. It's a Who's Who of historical figures, and the battle scenes are amazing. They're old and grainy, of course, but I didn't know footage like this existed. There are scenes of soliders going over the top and getting mowed down by gun fire, and a great view of the damage to the French countryside from the air.
I teach history and plan to start showing parts of this regularly in my class.
I teach history and plan to start showing parts of this regularly in my class.
the most thorough documentary on World War I.
FabFabien24 April 2008
The Guns of August is a documentary that follows the book by the same title by author, Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989), an eminent American historian. She received the first of her two Pulitzer prizes for this 1962 masterpiece on World War I. The documentary was made in 1965. Barbara Tuchman was highly respected for her ability to present complex subjects and present them with clarity. Until I read the previous review, I have never heard of anyone accusing her of hating Germany or its people or of her book being anti-German propaganda. But there are pictures of shot civilians and movies of smoldering ruins. Then again, there are people who claim the Holocaust never took place and is just anti-Nazi propaganda... Facts: On August 3 1914, Germany declared war on France. The German invasion plan for France called for an attack through Belgium, instead of through the heavily defended Franco-German border. Belgium was neutral and its neutrality was protected by treaty with Great Britain. The Germans attacked on August 3rd. The next day, August 4th, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Germany warned Belgium that they only wanted to reach France and if Belgium complied, there wouldn't be any trouble. Despite its small army, Belgium chose to protect its sovereignty and its honor and paid for it. Liège, Aarschot, Andenne, Tamines, Dinant, and Leuven, where the worst of the German depredations occurred. Just look at the ruins of the city of Leuven! 90% of the 500 years old Middle-age University town reduced to ashes, including its precious library with many priceless manuscripts. (The town hall only survived because it was the German QG.) Without any legitimate pretext, German soldiers killed nearly 6,000 non-combatants in Belgium, including women and children (the equivalent of about 230,000 Americans today), and burned some 25,000 homes and other buildings. In this instance, Germany acted more like Attila the Hun that the noble birth country of Goethe, Holbein or Bach. I am not passing judgment on a country or its people but on a time in the history of a country and its people at that time. World War I started 96 years ago and for the sake of the victims, you just cannot ignore the facts, the films and the testimonies of the survivors. For more on this subject, read Jeff Lipkes "Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914" http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4865. The documentary was released on VHS in the 80's but I am not aware of a DVD version.
Propaganda
googy6125 September 2004
This is the movie version of Tuchman's anti-German propaganda book.Tuchman was a rabid German hater and her book(and this movie)are little more than a replay of old allied propaganda from the war years.As history it is worthless.Turn the sound off and look at the old film footage.It is a shame that after all these years we still can't get an honest and objective look at these important events.Instead we are stuck with the same propaganda lies that our grandparents were fed 90 years ago.Even 70 years after historians like Harry Elmer Barnes and Sidney Fay totally demolished these faulty theories many people still believe them,probably because they have been trained since youth to unquestioningly believe any anti-German fairy tale that's trotted in front of them.WWI has been over for almost 90 years isn't it time we called off the propaganda campaign?
A fantastic documentary
gregligertwood26 April 2024
This is an awesome way to get an introduction to the causes of the First World War.
From the death of Edward VII, through the Balkan wars and morrocon crisis, to the assasination of Franz Ferdinand this film goes through them all.
The recovered footage is incredible.
The descriptions of the central players are bang on.
The bizarre idea that Barbara Tuchman hated Germans is of course ridiculous.
They did start the war. They did commit unspeakable atrocities in Belgium and France.
The facts are the facts and no other documentary explains them so well.
Also, it is available on dvd now and the best transfer is from media outlet.com.
From the death of Edward VII, through the Balkan wars and morrocon crisis, to the assasination of Franz Ferdinand this film goes through them all.
The recovered footage is incredible.
The descriptions of the central players are bang on.
The bizarre idea that Barbara Tuchman hated Germans is of course ridiculous.
They did start the war. They did commit unspeakable atrocities in Belgium and France.
The facts are the facts and no other documentary explains them so well.
Also, it is available on dvd now and the best transfer is from media outlet.com.
Excellent Newsreels, Dishonest Script Untrue to Title Book
eschetic-215 December 2009
Barbara Tuchman's excellent books, THE GUNS OF AUGUST (a deserved Pulitzer prize winner) and THE ZIMMERMAN TELEGRAM look at the start of World War I and the U.S. entry into it three years later (NOT, as this film implies in one of its many distortions, as a result of the Submarine warfare spoken of one-sidedly here, but due to a different German diplomatic blunder *surprisingly* touched on briefly in this film although it took place LONG after the end of the book THE GUNS OF AUGUST) in a valuable, even handed way. This film makes no such pretense.
With its excellent use of period newsreel footage, the Tuchman title and the fine narration skills of Fritz Weaver, one wanted this to be a definitive look at how the world stumbled into a war no one wanted which changed the way the world looked at itself and the aftermath of which we are still dealing with today. Instead, Arthur Tourtellot's highly biased and distressingly shallow screenplay and producer/director Nathan Kroll attempt to use the project as a high school level rehashing of the Allied propaganda version of the history of the World War. Not for nothing is the distributing company called "The Apologetetics Group." They have a lot to apologize for - and the esteemed Ms. Tuchman should have sued.
The worst distortions are not front loaded, and up until the death of the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, one can almost overlook the loaded, insulting descriptions of figures screenwriter Tourtellot has decided his audience thinks are "bad guys," (though his treatment of the Archduke himself and his fascinating love story is an insult to history) but at least in the build-up to war he is partially constrained by Ms. Tuchman's (and history's) construction. Once the war starts, any pretense at even-handedness or even consistency goes out the window. "German frightfulness" and the evils of their every plan are the order of the day.
Tourtellot's OWN mention of the publicly announced pre-war French battle plan is ignored when he claims the German reliance on it had no evidence to support it! No mention is allowed of the initial efforts of German submarines to follow the rules of war until Britain armed it's merchant ships and started luring submarines into surfacing to be attacked. No mention of the equally understandable Allied blockade of Germany and Austria or the suffering it resulted in. When the war bogs down into trench warfare, we hear only of German waste of life, not the identical tactics of the Allied General Staff on the Western Front and at the unmentioned Gallippoli. The two crucial Russian Revolutions are treated as if they were one and while the German role in returning Lenin to Russia is highlighted, the reluctance of Allied powers to accept fleeing Russian nobility from the second, Bolshevik Revolution - or the uniformed Allied Soldiers who fought on with the White Russians in Russia for three years after the World War itself had ended somehow is passed over despite the way all these things shaped the history we have had to live with in the rest of the 20th Century.
The list goes on and on. the War was probably too grand and complicated to be definitively explained in only 135 minutes, but when cuts had to be made, Tourtellot and Kroll only cut when the omitted material might give the impression that there was justice on the side of the cause which lost. Unlike Tuchman, every effort was made to spin information to damn the side whose heir to the throne's assassination was the spark which ignited the war, and to whitewash the side which sent the assassin.
While, on balance, one has to agree that a majority of those on the Allied side sincerely tried to do the right thing before, during and after the conflict, there's something terribly wrong when their "defenders" feel they have to twist history this badly to defend them. Such "defenses" tend to accomplish the reverse.
If there is any good news here other than the fascinating use of the newsreels themselves, it is that the film has finally, if sloppily, been put on DVD. The transfer is an incredibly cheap one however - as sloppy as Tourtellot's screenplay. The DVD starts up directly with no establishing menus or extra features - and at the end of the film, there is merely a blue screen with the letters announcing that a menu was *supposed* to be there. Dare I suspect that Mr. Tourtellot himself was involved in the transfer and exerted as much care on it as he did on his screenplay?
What a disappointment to anyone who knows and respects the history of the era (this is sub-high school level "history") - AND what a betrayal of those who have enjoyed and been prompted to learn more from from Ms. Tuchman's actual books.
With its excellent use of period newsreel footage, the Tuchman title and the fine narration skills of Fritz Weaver, one wanted this to be a definitive look at how the world stumbled into a war no one wanted which changed the way the world looked at itself and the aftermath of which we are still dealing with today. Instead, Arthur Tourtellot's highly biased and distressingly shallow screenplay and producer/director Nathan Kroll attempt to use the project as a high school level rehashing of the Allied propaganda version of the history of the World War. Not for nothing is the distributing company called "The Apologetetics Group." They have a lot to apologize for - and the esteemed Ms. Tuchman should have sued.
The worst distortions are not front loaded, and up until the death of the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, one can almost overlook the loaded, insulting descriptions of figures screenwriter Tourtellot has decided his audience thinks are "bad guys," (though his treatment of the Archduke himself and his fascinating love story is an insult to history) but at least in the build-up to war he is partially constrained by Ms. Tuchman's (and history's) construction. Once the war starts, any pretense at even-handedness or even consistency goes out the window. "German frightfulness" and the evils of their every plan are the order of the day.
Tourtellot's OWN mention of the publicly announced pre-war French battle plan is ignored when he claims the German reliance on it had no evidence to support it! No mention is allowed of the initial efforts of German submarines to follow the rules of war until Britain armed it's merchant ships and started luring submarines into surfacing to be attacked. No mention of the equally understandable Allied blockade of Germany and Austria or the suffering it resulted in. When the war bogs down into trench warfare, we hear only of German waste of life, not the identical tactics of the Allied General Staff on the Western Front and at the unmentioned Gallippoli. The two crucial Russian Revolutions are treated as if they were one and while the German role in returning Lenin to Russia is highlighted, the reluctance of Allied powers to accept fleeing Russian nobility from the second, Bolshevik Revolution - or the uniformed Allied Soldiers who fought on with the White Russians in Russia for three years after the World War itself had ended somehow is passed over despite the way all these things shaped the history we have had to live with in the rest of the 20th Century.
The list goes on and on. the War was probably too grand and complicated to be definitively explained in only 135 minutes, but when cuts had to be made, Tourtellot and Kroll only cut when the omitted material might give the impression that there was justice on the side of the cause which lost. Unlike Tuchman, every effort was made to spin information to damn the side whose heir to the throne's assassination was the spark which ignited the war, and to whitewash the side which sent the assassin.
While, on balance, one has to agree that a majority of those on the Allied side sincerely tried to do the right thing before, during and after the conflict, there's something terribly wrong when their "defenders" feel they have to twist history this badly to defend them. Such "defenses" tend to accomplish the reverse.
If there is any good news here other than the fascinating use of the newsreels themselves, it is that the film has finally, if sloppily, been put on DVD. The transfer is an incredibly cheap one however - as sloppy as Tourtellot's screenplay. The DVD starts up directly with no establishing menus or extra features - and at the end of the film, there is merely a blue screen with the letters announcing that a menu was *supposed* to be there. Dare I suspect that Mr. Tourtellot himself was involved in the transfer and exerted as much care on it as he did on his screenplay?
What a disappointment to anyone who knows and respects the history of the era (this is sub-high school level "history") - AND what a betrayal of those who have enjoyed and been prompted to learn more from from Ms. Tuchman's actual books.
Slanted.
rmax3048233 January 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Barbara Tuchman's (1912 -1989) detailed examination of the causes of World War I was a sensation when it was published in 1962. It might have been subtitled: "Starting a World War for Dummies." Everyone seemed at least to have heard of it.
On the brink, during the Cuban missile crisis of October, 1962, President Kennedy mused about how easily war could begin by accident and ignorance and thought of sending a copy to the commanders of the American ships blockading Cuba at the time -- "Not that they'd read it." They probably wouldn't have.
Tuchman gave a lecture at a well-known Midwestern university on the subject of the book. Afterward a student approached and thanked her for explaining World War I. He'd always wondered why "the other was called World War II." This documentary helps explain the war, but not as well as it should have. Tuchman's book described a horrible set of juxtaposed coincidences involving economics, twisted kinship patterns, politics, ethnic allegiances, left-over resentments, and such vague influences as national honor.
The film pins everything on the German "military machine." It's true that the Germans were belligerents, and the most martial of the lot. But that was never the point of the book. The narration by Fritz Weaver describes the Germans as "ruthless," "marauding," "invaders," and employing a scorched earth policy that left whatever land they conquered a wasteland. When Weaver reads a German proclamation out loud, he launches into a loud, pompous Hitlerian delivery. The musical score than accompanies motion pictures of the Germans is right out of "Stalag 17." The actual CAUSES of the war, which it was Tuchman's aim to describe, are skipped over lightly and incompletely. I mean, the initial, brutal conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia gets one or two sentences. And no mention of anything about the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the war in 1918 and set up the apparatus for the next one. The Germans didn't know they were surrendering. They thought they were signing a truce.
I'm not in any sense excusing the Germany of 1914 - 1918, any more than I'm excusing any of the other incompetent belligerents. The war was not only begun ineptly. It was mismanaged, with human lives used as poker chips in a geopolitical game run by aristocrats and the officer class, with everybody drifting along in a sea of sanctimonious mediocrity.
It's not true to Tuchman's book or to history. Its import seems to be that the Germans are a warlike tribe, and we should never forget it, and they deserve to have their noses rubbed in their defeats, whether in 1918 or nineteen years before the film's release.
"The Guns of August" is a lot of sound and fury, and what it signifies is misleading. If you want to see a balanced sketch of the dynamics behind the start of the war, watch the first episode of the splendid miniseries, "The First World War," narrated by Jonathan Lewis. Or read Tuchman's book, the main theme of which she made clear. "War is the unfolding of miscalculations."
On the brink, during the Cuban missile crisis of October, 1962, President Kennedy mused about how easily war could begin by accident and ignorance and thought of sending a copy to the commanders of the American ships blockading Cuba at the time -- "Not that they'd read it." They probably wouldn't have.
Tuchman gave a lecture at a well-known Midwestern university on the subject of the book. Afterward a student approached and thanked her for explaining World War I. He'd always wondered why "the other was called World War II." This documentary helps explain the war, but not as well as it should have. Tuchman's book described a horrible set of juxtaposed coincidences involving economics, twisted kinship patterns, politics, ethnic allegiances, left-over resentments, and such vague influences as national honor.
The film pins everything on the German "military machine." It's true that the Germans were belligerents, and the most martial of the lot. But that was never the point of the book. The narration by Fritz Weaver describes the Germans as "ruthless," "marauding," "invaders," and employing a scorched earth policy that left whatever land they conquered a wasteland. When Weaver reads a German proclamation out loud, he launches into a loud, pompous Hitlerian delivery. The musical score than accompanies motion pictures of the Germans is right out of "Stalag 17." The actual CAUSES of the war, which it was Tuchman's aim to describe, are skipped over lightly and incompletely. I mean, the initial, brutal conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia gets one or two sentences. And no mention of anything about the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the war in 1918 and set up the apparatus for the next one. The Germans didn't know they were surrendering. They thought they were signing a truce.
I'm not in any sense excusing the Germany of 1914 - 1918, any more than I'm excusing any of the other incompetent belligerents. The war was not only begun ineptly. It was mismanaged, with human lives used as poker chips in a geopolitical game run by aristocrats and the officer class, with everybody drifting along in a sea of sanctimonious mediocrity.
It's not true to Tuchman's book or to history. Its import seems to be that the Germans are a warlike tribe, and we should never forget it, and they deserve to have their noses rubbed in their defeats, whether in 1918 or nineteen years before the film's release.
"The Guns of August" is a lot of sound and fury, and what it signifies is misleading. If you want to see a balanced sketch of the dynamics behind the start of the war, watch the first episode of the splendid miniseries, "The First World War," narrated by Jonathan Lewis. Or read Tuchman's book, the main theme of which she made clear. "War is the unfolding of miscalculations."
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