Apocalypse: World War 1 watch free online documentaries

The Allies are unable to negotiate an honorable peace agreement, and the Treaty of Versailles, 20 years later, will have disastrous consequences. Behind the scenes, uprisings are brewing, like the one that toppled the Tsar in Russia; on the front soldiers begin to mutiny as they did at Chemin des Dames in France. German submarine attacks in the Atlantic will finally pull the Americans into the war, but they arrive too late to help prevent the carnage of the Battle of Passchendaele.

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In the Atlantic, the ravages of German submarines will drag Americans into the war. In Belgium, it is the hecatomb of the battle of Passchendaele for thousands of soldiers of the British Empire. Adamson applies the term futurologist to a wide range of figures in business, science, politics, and the arts, most of whom would not have described themselves that way. We also encounter Marcus Garvey, who led a Black nationalist movement in the early 20th century, and Stewart Brand, the author of the hippie bible The Whole Earth Catalog. The assortment of visionaries is odd, but Adamson accords them all a place in his book because they expanded America’s sense of the possible, its expectations about what the future could bring. Everything Must Go takes note of these early predecessors, but Lynskey mostly focuses on books and movies produced in the U.S. and the U.K.

As a result it is by far the most impressive and complete documentary series about World War I. More unsettling, it raised the possibility that we would make ourselves obsolete. Today this fear is often expressed in terms of AI, but it first surfaced more than a century ago in the 1920 play R.U.R., by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek. Čapek invented both the word robot (adapted from a Czech word meaning “forced labor”) and the first robot uprising; at the end of the play, only one human is left on Earth, an engineer spared by the robots to help them reproduce. Isaac Asimov’s classic collection of sci-fi stories, I, Robot (1950), envisioned a more benevolent scenario, in which robots become so intelligent so quickly that they simply take over the management of the world, turning humanity into their wards—whether we like it or not. In the rear the revolts rumble, like that which overthrows the Tsar in Russia; On the front the mutinies multiplied, like that of Chemin des Dames in France.

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“A river of fire streamed forth before Him; / Thousands upon thousands served Him; / Myriads upon myriads attended Him; / The court sat and the books were opened,” Daniel says about the Day of Judgment. Colourized archival footage tells the story of the First World War, taking us to the battlefields, the strategy rooms, and the everyday lives of civilians behind the lines. I remember that TV image better than most of the things I saw in real life as a child. It was the perfect symbol of an understanding of history that Generation X couldn’t help but absorb—if not from The Twilight Zone, then from movies such as The Day After and WarGames.

On June 28th, 1914, the assassination of an obscure Austrian archduke in Sarajevo triggers the most disastrous conflict Apocalypse Officiel the world has ever known. Germany becomes an enemy to France, invades Belgium, and in September arrives at the gates of Paris.

The nuclear-arms race meant that humanity’s destruction was imminent, even though no one actually wanted it, because we were collectively too stupid and frivolous to prevent it. We were terrified of the future, like the woman in the TV show—yet we also secretly longed for the arrival of the catastrophe because only it could release us from the anxiety of waiting. Few films explain the causes of World War I  like the acclaimed French documentary series “Apocalypse World War I, directed by Isabelle Clarke and Daniel Costelle, and narrated by Mathieu Kassovitz. The series is a superb compilation of excellent narration and fascinating colorized archive footage.

In 1914, the world entered into a period of unimaginable conflict and suffering. Could the sacrifice of an entire generation have been avoided? Produced using over 500 hours of archival footage- much of it previously unseen, and now completely colourized- the series Apocalypse WWI takes a strategic and global approach to address these fundamental questions but also tells the story with compassion and empathy. The film brings us to the heart of battle, from the trenches in the North of France to the lesser-known fronts of Russia, Serbia, Turkey and Palestine, as well as to the everyday life of civilians behind the lines. The narration brings to life the memories and the experiences of these men and women, and helps us better understand and feel how yesterday’s world was driven to apocalypse. Apocalypse World War I is the best and most complete documentary series about the first World War.

Join us to receive a weekly post with inspiring interviews, extraordinary footage, and other fascinating documentary content. Expected to be short, the war became a long and horrendous “total war”. Eventually, the first world war caused an estimated total of 40 million military and civilian casualties. When in April 1917 America entered the war, it shifted the offensive in favor of the allied forces. The Italians are defeated at Caporette, and a Bolshevik Russia pulls out of the war. But the American reinforcements are decisive, and the Allies emerge victorious.

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