User reviews

1) They compressed 30 years of history into 4 and a half hours. Things will get left out doing so.

2) This was never intended to be a doctorate-level course in European and American History.

3) It was entertainment! GOOD entertainment. Churchill's speech in Part II actually made me sit up a little straighter and sent chills down my spine.

4) Yes, there were equipment and armament inaccuracies. They also had a little thing called a BUDGET, keep that in mind that it wasn't an infinite one.

5) If you sat down to watch this with a checklist of every single event of World War I and II, you are missing the point. It painted the broad strokes very well. If it can get even ONE person interested in learning more about that era, then the producers did their job as far as I am concerned.

The History Channel presents a miniseries of six hours on three nights as an overview of the concept that the beginnings of WW I and the events that occurred in that first World War were played out by the same set of characters and in doing so the series presents the backgrounds of each of the major world players in a manner that allows us to see them as individuals rather than historical tropes. Until Amazon makes this available this review is pictured by another series made two years ago with a bit of a different approach. But for those who may be deciding whether or not to catch the current series, hopefully this brief overview will assist.

As the description for the series state, 'The World Wars tells the story of three decades of war told through the eyes of various men who were its key players: Roosevelt, Hitler, Patton, Mussolini, Churchill, Tojo, DeGaulle and MacArthur. The series examines the two wars as one contiguous time line starting in 1914 and concluding in 1945 with these unique individuals coming of age in World War I before ultimately calling the shots in World War II.

Narrated by Jeremy Renner and with comments throughout the series from Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta, John McCain, John Major, Mario Monti and many historians and correspondents form the US and Britain, the series is a collage of battle scenes (some repetitive, but war is repetitive), but adding the young and old versions of Stalin (Jacopo Rampini /not listed), Mussolini (Nabil Vinas/Jonathan Hartman), MacArthur (Prescott Hathaway/not listed), DeGaulle (Michael Perrie. Jr./Don Meehan), Churchill (Tom Vickers/Ian Beyts), Hitler (Maximillian Klas/not listed ), Lenin (C Conrad Cady), Patton (Matt Dearman/Don Hartman), FDR (Kevin McKillip/not listed), and Tojo (not listed).

The series is directed by John Ealer and written by Chelsea Coates, Zachary Hartmann, Claire Lawton, Alec Michod, Jordan Rosenblum, and David White. No, it isn't all the information about he wars but it is a psychological study of the men who were at the helm of each country involved. It is disturbing but the series does provide insights we should appreciate. Grady Harp, May 14

Do not watch this series expecting a comprehensive study of both World Wars a la Ken Burns's Civil War. It's not. However, it presents a cause-and-effect survey of how connected the two wars were.

First the negative: This program focuses on a few key figures yet totally omits any mention whatsoever of Eisenhower. How do you cover D-day without at least mentioning the name Eisenhower? Eisenhower was the ONLY 5 star general, yet two others in this program erroneously wore 5 star insignia.

Positive: Jeremy Renner did a great job narrating. The series is educational and worth watching. Although it's imperfect, I learned a few things from this series. I like how it treats both World Wars as one conflict because it was. The Treaty of Versailles wasn't a peace treaty at all and set the stage for resumption of fighting.

This series will leave you hungering for more, in depth programs that once were offered by The History Channel before they chose to waste our time on such nonsense as Pawn Wars.

It was bad enough that Chamberlain is shown flying to Germany in a Lancaster bomber, a plane that did not exist at the time, but the true problem was the fact that they showed just Chamberlain and Hitler discussing the fate of the Sudetenland, nobody from France, nobody from Italy.

The statement was made at one point that French and English troops were stationed in the Rhineland when, in 1936, Hitler sent troops in to that area. The British and French troops left in 1930.

The Japanese did not go to war in the 1930's because they had been snubbed at Versailles, they got all of the German possessions in the Pacific at Versailles. That is hardly a snub.

The US did not enter WWI because of the Zimmerman telegram, but because Germany announced unrestricted submarine warfare would resume.

There is plenty more but I could not stand to watch all of it. I turned it off about halfway through.

First off, I'm going to just state that I know very little of WWI. Although the coverage of WWII was abysmal in my high school, there were ample documentaries/films regarding this major conflict for me to absorb compared to WWI. I knew of Churchill, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt, etc during this time, but nothing of how WWI shaped these people and the actions that caused WWII. For me, this documentary (part 1) wasn't necessarily about the battles, but about the leaders that the First World War created. The documentary wasn't overly sensational, nations weren't vilified or god-like, which is often a problem with TV productions. My love and interest in military history grew even more when I watched this documentary so I'm going to give it a high rating.

So, if you're really into WWI and you want the focus to be on the men fighting rather than the politics this documentary might not be for you. However, if you like seeing connections and seeing the threads that are interwoven between WWI and WWII (and beyond), I would definitely suggest giving this a go.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first season on Prime, 1 year into the covid-19 pandemic - and I mention that because in the last year of lockdowns and quarantines, I've watched an awful lot of World War Two documentaries. The creators have indeed paid only passing attention to many details, deliberately and overtly focusing on only a handful of the major players to keep the timeline moving without getting bogged down in details of which gun/plane/tank was invented when, nor when exactly Patton got his last star. The show doesn't make a big deal of mentioning that so-and-so would have flown in a Lancaster not a Mosquito, it just depicts an image of a plane for a few seconds. Nitpicking accuracy has it's place, but at 80 years after the fact I couldn't give a toss that the plane depicted is a Sopwith Camel and they weren't invented until two years *after* the Battle of Minutae. I note that no-one has complained that there is little to no mention of the usual German chorus line, Goering, Goebbels, Rommel, Heydrich... nor does this or most World War documentaries mention that Nikita Kruschev was at Stalingrad. I enjoyed it for what is was, it's not often I've seen a documentary that looks and sounds different from the endless reels of the same old footage of familiar battles.

Overall, I think these first three 90 minute episodes do give a good overall summary of not only WW2, but how WW1 and the conditions in Europe after that Great War, particularly in Germany, created a fertile ground for nationalists that ultimately led to the Second World War. Don't expect the Wehrmacht's buttons to be authentic period and you won't be too crushed.

The best World war documentary I have seen so far, great characters, detailed information and made very interesting.

The Documentary is absolutely fantastic. I saw it in 2016 in Hindi language. It taught me everything in 3 hours that I couldn't have learnt in years. The acting was great and it really seem to bring out the past. I am trying to get the Hindi version but It isn't available anywhere on the internet.

The Germans made continental war because they had not fleet. They had not fleet because the treaty of Vesailles did't allow it. Tanks and Airplaine could be built in secrecy in Hangars, which is much more difficult with ships. The negotiations after world war One were still held form a colonial perspective, which led to all the following problems. Borders and Lands were traded by the winning Nations like pieces of cake on a market. Italy and Japan, in World War One on the side of the Alliance were cheated, which led to the following conflicts. The War between Japan and the USA was the first war about Oil. All in all, cheesy acting, but good history telling.

This series is one of the worst "histories" of either World War I have ever seen. The inaccuracies abound, the omissions are rampant, and the anachronisms are too numerous to mention. I was actually surprised that Ancient Aliens weren't brought up, as this seems to be the History Channel's strength. History is not.

Apparently, this was a MacArthur and Churchill love fest, as these two were presented in a very positive light, with their very real historical inadequacies glossed over or completely omitted. While Churchill's World War I failure at Gallipoli is noted, it is shown as something that resulted in Churchill becoming a more capable grand strategist, rather than the reality - haunted by Gallipoli, and trying to prove that he was right all along, he attempted several times during World War II to make the same mistake again - in Italy, in Greece, and in the Balkans. If not for Roosevelt and Eisenhower, Churchill could have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory had he gotten his way.

MacArthur, over time, has been shown to be a petty despot, who had very little regard for his fellow officers or his troops - his treatment of General Wainwright is a prime example; Dugout Doug is awarded the Medal of Honor for political reasons, yet fights against Wainwright's nomination for petty personal reasons - even though Wainwright was ushered into captivity because of MacArthur's strategic mistakes in the Philippines, endured the Bataan Death March, and suffered as a POW for years.

North Africa is completely ignored, as is most of the Pacific campaign. The Naval war everywhere is simply left out, with the exception of a minor tip of the hat to Midway, where the documentary notes that Roosevelt ordered the carriers to Midway - when in reality Roosevelt and the Washington bureaucracy wanted the carriers to remain in Hawaiian waters, to defend Hawaii or the west coast; Nimitz took the initiative, and the chance, of waiting for the Japanese at Midway.

No Market-Garden, no Dragoon, No Husky. They jump, in 1 minute, from the Battle of the Bulge to the Russian siege of Berlin - nothing on the Rhine crossings. Yet they spend 5 minutes on Patton's slapping of a combat-fatigued soldier.

The anachronisms also detract. It may come as a surprise to the producers that the Germans did not attack London with B-17's, although these are shown. Nor did they use B-17's at Stalingrad - again, this is shown. And I was surprised to see the Imperial Japanese Navy being equipped with Aegis guided missile frigates. And neither MacArthur nor Marshall (who is NEVER mentioned by name, nor is Nimitz) were 5-star rank in December 1941, though both are shown with this rank at that time. Neither was promoted to that rank until December 1944.

If you are looking for an accurate history of the World Wars, this is NOT it. Avoid this debacle like the plague. It is simply bad.

I was flipping channels and came across this dreck a little less than 1/2 way through. I started to watch and within seconds found myself saying, "How did that...?" " When did....?" "That's not right." "I'm not genius or expert, but WHAT THE....?" and so forth.

VERY few of the actors looked much like their characters as if the casting director simply said, "If they're white and male, feh, it works. Oh, but put a pair of glasses on that guy."

As other reviews have mentioned, poetic license is to be expected to some degree and honestly, with that much of a timespan to cover and all that material, one has to be realistic enough to know that you can't include every detail or you'd end up with a movie almost as long as the war itself. It's just not going to happen. But with that in mind, isn't it in everyone's best interest to get what you ARE covering more than a LITTLE right?

The History Channel has become a joke. What was once one of the most fascinating and informative channels for us history buffs has become a hodgepodge of reality crap shows. It's heartbreaking, but my anti-TV executive rants are common in my reviews, so, here's more evidence to back up my beliefs. When they DO an actual history show, I guess we shouldn't expect much more from them than this.

And this stinker is now 4 years old. Sheesh, now I'm starting to cry.

I really enjoyed the majority of this three part series. There was quite a bit of new information that I did not know about (such as the fact that Hitler was almost killed on the Western Front during WWI by a British soldier who decided not to shoot him). However, some of the glaring historical errors kind of ruined it for me. The most glaring error that I saw was the wrong uniforms used for US personnel during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1942. They were not wearing the old style WWI helmets that were still in use at the very beginning of the US entry into the war. All in all, a good effort, but some of the glaring errors made you wonder just what else was erroneous!

First, I'm not sure how you cover WWI without more coverage of France, but I'm willing to overlook this since the intended audience is primarily American.

That said, it's difficult to believe there was no mention The Somme or Paschendale, two of the deadliest battles in world history. The first day of the Battle of the Somme was the bloodiest day in British military history. There were over 1 million casualties. How that does not deserve at least a mention to give the viewer the scale of the battles is beyond me. Nor is there much of a mention of just how awful trench warfare was. The air war in WWI should have at least garnered a mention as it was the first air to air combat in human history.

The inter-war period was decent. It covered the major points so I can't complain much about this segment.

The WWII segment was perhaps the worst documentary on WWII I have ever seen. No mention of Adm. Nimitz. No mention of General Marshal. No mention of Eisenhower or Bradley. No mention of the air war or the US/British bombing campaign over Europe. No mention of the allied invasion of North Africa. No mention of the Battle of the Atlantic the problems that the German U-boats caused Britain. No mention of the internment of Japanese Americans.

The show made it seem that the US/Britain only allied themselves with the Soviet Union in 1943 at the Tehran conference, when the reality was that Britain and the USSR were allied as soon as Germany invaded. The US provided both Britain and the USSR supplies throughout the war. They made it seem like it was in 1943 that the USSR first pressed for a second front, when Stalin had been pressing the US/Britain for a second front since 1942. The invasion of France ( D-Day ) was made to seem as an idea first thought up at the Tehran conference, when the truth is that the allies had planned an invasion of France since day 1. The difficulty was in assembling the equipment and soldiers necessary for a successful invasion. The show made it seem as though it was FDR that decided to sideline Patton and later re-instate him to active duty. When in fact it was Eisenhower ( as Supreme Allied Commander). There was no mention of the 101st Airborne at Bastonge, only that Patton attacked Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. The whole reason Patton attacked so aggressively during that battle was to rescue the 101st.

Finally, there was scant mention of the brutality of the Japanese during WWII. No mention of the rape of Nanking. No mention of the Bataan death march or the treatment of Allied POWs. Apparently, only the Nazis committed crimes against humanity. The last straw for me is the lack of mention of Iwo Jima. One of the most iconic images of WWII was the Marines raising the flag over Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. Yet apparently, this wasn't important enough for the makers of this "documentary."

I don't expect a show of this length to cover every aspect of WWII, but I do expect it to at least mention the major points. It fails to do so. What makes this such a travesty is that in today's world, WWII is distant history. Thousands of WWII veterans are dying every day and it is incumbent upon us to remember what they did. There will be kids that will watch this and this pile of crap will be their basis for information on WWII. That is a slap in the face to "The Greatest Generation." They deserve that WE remember what they did in far more detail than this pile of crap provides. The makers of this "documentary" and the History Channel should be ashamed of themselves.

In hopes that the History Channel would start making shows about history and not more pointless reality pap, I really wanted to see this show succeed. I was willing to forgive:

• that the opening shows a full scale night attack by the British (some wearing shorts and puttees for some reason) even though full scale attacks where not done at night.

• that the WWI french are shown driving 1941 M3 Stuart tanks.

• that Patton is seen on a 1941 Sherman tank in WWI.

• that the German had fully constructed and prepared trenches in Oct 16 1914; a time when the German high command was still in denial about the Marne and continued to force offensive maneuvers.

• that if the date is actually Oct. 16 1914, it would be the Germans attacking at Yser, not the Brits at Ypres which started three days later.

• that many of the German infantry was wearing Stahlhelm (iconic German helmets), had Gas masks and used Potato Masher grenades none of which were not issued in 1914.

• that tear gas doesn't dissipate so fast you can hold your breath through the incident.

• that Hitler wore a Kaiser Handlebar mustache until 1919.

All of those errors where in the opening scene. In other episodes you're treated to Nimitz class super-carriers, a long pan of a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser, a C130 Hercules with German paratroopers, and other modern weaponry are placed in 1941. I chalked it up to budgetary constraints and a general disrespect the producer, Stephen David, has of his audience. But what I was not willing to forgive:

• The dramatizations added almost nothing to the story, rather was imaginary and somewhat deceptive; for example Hitler was a charismatic and compelling speaker - the actor, not so much.

• There was a consistent bizarre insistence that the USA, specifically Patten and MacArthur where the ones who won WWI.

• The nationalistic bend that if the USA wasn't directly involved, the event was not important.

• Extensive time line inaccuracies such as the Battle of Britain occurring after the Blitz, Pearl Harbor and the loss of the German 6th Army happened at the same time and many more.

• The insistence that Dugout MacArthur was a "hero" in the Philippine campaign and not a panicked paralyzed incompetent failure who only obeyed one order: abandon post. Literally, he was directly ordered to attack Lushan and not only ignored the order, but countermanded his air commander, Major General Brereton, to do just that. Then later in the show it credits MacArthur with the success of pacific campaign when he was just a costly distraction insisting on objectives that didn't further the goal of the island-hopping campaign.

• North Africa campaign never happened, the USA went straight to Sicily which Patton took single-handedly.

• Implies Italy was a quick and easy campaign and the USA (and only the USA) fought Italians not Germans.

• Apparently neither the British nor the Americans bombed Germany.

• The talking head interviews with disgraced incompetent twits like Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney are there to use highly edited examples and sound bites to whitewash and spin their own failings in Iraq and Afghanistan into a more favorable light.

This was a reworking of history with an agenda of glorifying eight "heroes"; to the detriment of everyone else involved in the struggle. It assigns blame and praise to these "heroes" for events they where neither responsible for nor, at times, involved in. It's jingoistic, nationalist and heavily skewed towards the USA's contributions. It's inaccurate to the extreme skipping whole campaigns and even years as well as utterly failing to describe causal relationships or even get chronology remotely correct. Any historian involved in this production will not be listing it on their CV. .

This series smells worse than a two week old cat box. I agree with a previous review that the writers, producers and directors associated with this fiasco should be fired. There are numerous errors such as having the Germans using British rifles, World War 2 tanks in World War 1, Patton using a M1917 Browning Machine gun in 1914, etc, etc, etc. Critical campaigns such as North Africa, Italy, the North Atlantic, the South and Central Pacific are left out. The writers and directors are enamored with Patton and Dug Out Doug MacArthur. What about Eisenhower and Bradley? Unfortunately some in the audience watching this garbage will think that this is gospel. It is no wonder that American citizens knowledge of history sucks since a lot of people get their information from the boob tube and dribble like this.

From the Americans marching into WWI under a flag with 50 stars, to Aegis Guided missile frigates and modern aircraft carriers plying the waters of the Pacific during WWII, to five star flag officers in 1941, to weapons and aircraft in the hands of whoever happened to be in the narrator's script the was pure garbage and unworthy of being called a documentary. At one point they claim that no one knows why Hitler declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor when it's well understood he expected Japan to declare war on the USSR and take some of the pressure off his army. The Battle of Britain starts with London being bombed. No mention was made that this elated the British as it allowed the over strained RAF a chance yo recover. If Germany had continued to attack the air fields they could have worn the RAF down.

In the Pacific, there's scant mention of naval engagements, the island hopping campaign, and none at all of the Japanese atrocities in China or in their treatment of POWs.

Do not squander the electrons needed to watch this.

Aside form the historical inaccuracies with regards to the weapons, uniforms and even facts this has to be one of the worst 'documentaries' I have seen on this subject. I am fully aware that the show was made for American audiences to be shown on memorial day but other perspectives of this monumental WORLD conflict would do it justice.

The first episode which focuses on WWI completely forgets to mention France who sacrificed nearly 2,000,000 people to this conflict along with the insurmountable damage caused to the north-west region of the country and merely mentions France as the country where the fighting took place.

The end of the first episode also makes it seem as though Patton and MacArthur won the war on the Western Front alone and that Patton was the only military leader who embraced tanks on the battlefield when it was the British who successfully invented and then used tanks in battle a year earlier.

All in all I was hopeful that the History Channel would live up to its name and was willing to cast aside c**p like Ax Men and their ilk to make a factual documentary film but was once again let down with one sided views which almost amounted to propaganda at points, if you would like to find out any real facts about the wars and the ramifications they caused then I would seriously recommend watching the Century of Warfare as this shows many different perspectives and the lasting consequences which are still being felt to this day.

Both inaccurate and ethnocentric as it skews multiple historical facts out of sheer laziness and to make it seem as though the US singlehandedly won both wars. It was offensive to see European allies reduced to bystanders and their suffering minimized to a side effect. It also wrongly represented complex historical processes as the outcome of personal grudges rather than as the product of long standing ideological and sociocultural factors.

As have others, I wish I could give it a 0. This so-called series is a colossal waste of resources. One wonders what participants were thinking, especially the poor actors and the academics who invested their talents and prestige in this crap. And to have talking heads like Cheney, who has never fought and who cynically lied the nation into an unnecessary and illegal war, spouting forth praise for soldiers is obscene.

What a joke this supposed documentary was. It made so many mistakes from making historically inaccurate statements, like Roosevelt tried to prevent war by embargoing Japan from receiving any oil from the U.S., to making MacArthur a 5 star general in the 1930s or having Patton ride Stuart tanks in WWI when they were a WWII light tank! The oil embargo was one of the main reasons that Japan ended up attacking the U.S. as the U.S. was the main source of not only oil but also scrap metal and cooper for Japan's industry. The embargo was put in place to pressure Japan to cease it's war with China. It's shameful that such a travesty could be passed off on the History Channel for fact, when it was so poorly researched and produced.