The Great War Diaries

Storyline

Dramdocumentary based on letters and journals, many of which have never been published before, this tells the story of 1914-18 solely through the eyes of those who lived through it. Bringing together 25 broadcasters from around the world, this is television's global event for the centennial of World War I.In 1914, most people's knowledge of war comes from schoolbooks and newspapers. But when the heir to the Austrian throne is killed in Sarajevo, the system of alliances runs its inevitable course. Featuring the stories of a Scottish auxiliary nurse who accompanies the British army to Belgium as a matter of national Honor, a young Cossack girl who follows her father into battle, a German mother who endures the untimely death of her only son, a French schoolboy who witnesses his country under occupation, a German schoolgirl who is forbidden to use French words in class, and an English journalist whose age is held against him. Their diaries focus on what archive and historical analysis cannot reveal: personal tragedy, love, happiness, pain and grief. Through glorious dramatic reconstruction viewers experience the greatest war mankind had ever seen, not from the perspective of what it was, but of what it was like from within. Great War Diaries reveals the simple human experience of 1914-18, unsullied by historical interpretation.