The definitive history of World War I's forgotten front: Britain versus Germany in East Africa to secure the belly of a continent. On August 7, 1914, Britain fired its first shots of World War I not in Europe but in the German colony of Togo. The campaign to eliminate the threat at sea posed by German naval bases in Africa would soon be won, but in the land war, especially in East Africa, British troops would meet far fiercer resistance from German...

Ten-part series offers insight and analysis to provide a coherent and strategic military narrative. Places World War I in its proper global context, dispelling the conventional myth of the war as a European conflict only. The human tragedy is placed in a wider political and military context, going beyond the Western Front to encompas the entire world.

Documents the events of World War I.

August 1914, two weeks after the First World War was declared. 80,000 British troops have arrived in southern Belgium, but they have yet to engage the enemy. Amongst these professional soldiers are the 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, some of the best-trained gunners in the British Army. Lieutenant Maurice Dease and his friend, Australian Lieutenant Fred Steele, command two companies of riflemen and machine gunners who find themselves camping overnight...

"It's 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, all of whom are safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. They receive weekly dispatches from The Preshutian, their school newspaper, informing them of older classmates killed or wounded in action....

In part one of this BBC production, "Martial Races," Military Historian David Olusoga challenges our perceptions of the First World War with the stories of the millions of Indian, African, and Asian troops and ancillaries who fought and died along side white European troops on the Western front and elsewhere.

Prompted by wartime food shortages, the British Women's Land Army was founded in 1917, with the goal of mobilizing women to work on farms, driving tractors, milking livestock, and plowing fields. By the end of World War I, the British Women's Land Army had employed 23,000 women. To recruit members to a "spring offensive" against the farm, the army paraded through the streets of London. Copyright The WPA Film Library.

Spanish-American war re-enactment credited to Thomas Edison; "Advance of Kansas Volunteers at Caloocan"; staged shot of US soldiers advancing on Spanish/Cubans and exchange of gunfire with lots of smoke and dramatic "falling in death" action

Pans of NYC from top of Times Building. Copyright The WPA Film Library.