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37 Days
Three episodes of a docudrama that present the background to the First World War, since the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the declarations of war of various contenders. That means the thirty seven days elapsed between 28 June and 4 August 1914. The scenarios are the Foreign Office, the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whose secretary was Sir Edward Grey series, and the German Chancellery in Berlin, so that the action is narrated by two young clerks who, after thirty-seven days, enlist in the armed forces . The miniseries is a mixture of drama and documentary, its tone is somewhat aseptically dry in which many details are simplified, but it highlights some aspects in order to answer the question that the viewer makes constantly: how we go from peace to war in just over a month? Though the series lop sides at a very British viewpoint and can't help to look at characters often caricatured, as Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, the indecisive elderly Franz Joseph I, and the French Foreign Affairs Minister, Paul Cambon, it also balances a sense of levity avoiding to endorse the British character. Winston Churchill , First Lord of the Admiralty, the prime minister Herbert Asquith and David Lloyd George, Chancellor of the Exchequer or Treasury Minister, are not complimented. The series shows the struggle between pacifists and warmongers in the British Cabinet, as well as the growing opposition among military, led by Helmuth von Moltke, generalissimo of the German armies and civilian politicians, with Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg to the head.
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Season 1 Episode Guide See All
Episode 1
One Month in Summer
52 mins
June 28, 1914:- Young Foreign Office clerk Alec recounts his delivering a telegram to his German-born boss, assistant under secretary Eyre Crowe, informing that the Austrian archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife have been murdered in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip, a member of the Black Hand gang who resent Austrian influence in Serbia. In Berlin another young civil servant Jens takes up the story, reflecting on the German Kaiser Wilhelm's friendship with the dead man. Wilhelm hates the Serbians and sees the slaying as an act of aggression by the nation. He sends ambassador Lichnowsky to London to sound out Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey as to what would happen if Britain and Russia championed their ally Serba but Grey is more concerned with problems over Ireland and, of his cabinet, only Winston Churchill foresees any great danger looming. Grey wants to instigate peace talks among the nations involved but in Berlin Wilhelm and his chief of staff Von Moltke are bent on revenge. Europe is now only thirteen days away from war.
Awards
- 2014 - RTS Craft & Design Award - Best Music, Original Titles - nominated