all quiet on the western front

What was your impression of the events commemorating the declaration of war a hundred years ago?



BBC News - 'Lights Out' ends day of WW1 centenary commemorations

The BBC has had an impressive range of media on the First World War - although other broadcasters have provided some excellent material:
Jay Doubleyou: the first world war on the bbc

The Guardian has some interesting film-footage and commentary:
- with British, German, French and Russian historians...
- start with 'Origins': click on the arrow next to 'domino effect'; then on 1 to listen, then click on 'interactive' and 'Empire' as an example
- then try 'Empire: click on 'interactive' to see which country had what bit of the world; then click on 3 to listen to a general picture; then click on 'interactive' again 'to hear about the experiences of soldiers from the colonies'
Jay Doubleyou: a global guide to the first world war - interactive documentary

There were fears beforehand about how the war would be remembered:
Jay Doubleyou: the first world war: triumph and pride ... or ... tragedy and sorrow?

To put things in the picture:

A classic British film of the war in the Middle East - which very much points to today's problems:


Lawrence Of Arabia - Official® Trailer [HD] - YouTube

The film is regarded as a masterpiece of world cinema and is ranked highly on many lists of the best films ever made. The American Film Institute ranked the film 5th in its original and 7th in its updated list of the greatest films and first in its list of the greatest films of the "epic" genre.

Lawrence of Arabia (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



The Mideast is Unravelling and There's Not Much the U.S. Can Do | New Republic



British-Controlled Monarch in Iraq
Middle Eastern theatre of World War I - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sykes–Picot Agreement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And:
Gallipoli - Trailer - YouTube

This is also a classic:



ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT 1930 Trailer - YouTube

All Quiet on the Western Front is considered a realistic and harrowing account of warfare in World War I, and was named #54 on the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies. In June 2008 ... AFI announced its 10 Top 10 — the ten best films in each of ten "classic" American film genres; All Quiet on the Western Frontwas ranked the seventh-best film in the epic genre.
Due to its anti-war and perceived anti-German messages, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party banned the film from Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s. During its brief run in German cinemas in the early 1930s, the Nazis led by Joseph Goebbels disrupted the viewings by setting off stink bombs and releasing white mice in the theaters.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque emerged as an eloquent spokesperson for a generation that had been, in his own words, "destroyed by war, even though it might have escaped its shells." Remarque's harshest critics, in turn, were his countrymen, many of whom felt the book denigrated the German war effort, and that Remarque had exaggerated the horrors of war to further his pacifist agenda. The strongest voices against Remarque came from the emerging National Socialist (Nazi) Party, an ultranationalist group in Germany led by the future Führer, Adolf Hitler. In 1933, when the Nazis rose to power, All Quiet on the Western Frontbecame one of the first "degenerate" books to be publicly burnt.^[4]

All Quiet on the Western Front - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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