Name: The Guns of August
Genre: Documentary
Released: 1964
Cast: Fritz Weaver

Cast & Crew

Film Details

Genre

Documentary

Release Date

Jan 1964

Premiere Information

New York opening: 24 Dec 1964

Production Company

Universal Pictures

Country

United States

Screenplay Information

Based on the book The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman (New York, 1962).

Synopsis

The film is a narrative of the events leading up to World War I, a study of the European royalty and statesmen involved in these events, and a chronicle of the crucial action of the war itself. The film opens with the funeral procession of England's King Edward VII on 20 May 1910 and includes portraits of many of the statesmen in attendance: Czar Nicholas of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, Emperor Franz Josef of Austria, King Albert of Belgium, and the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir apparent to the throne of Austria-Hungary. The film then deals with the gathering storm of political and royal intrigue from 1910 to the assassination of Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914; among those shown are Clemenceau, Poincaré, Marshal Joffre, Woodrow Wilson, Major General Ludendorff, Winston Churchill, and Rasputin. The war begins and there is fighting on two fronts. In the east, the crucial Battle of Tannenberg reveals the devastation visited upon the Russian Army by the Germans. Lenin and Trotsky appear. On the western front, the German Army marches through neutral Belgium against valiant but futile resistance, and then takes 10 French cities in 1 1/2 weeks, leaving much of France desolated. The French finally stop the German advance in the Battle of the Marne. Other action includes the Battle of Verdun, the Battle of the Somme, and the final offensive of 1918 under Ludendorff for control of Northern Europe and Scandinavia. The film also details the German Navy's submarine warfare, the American entry into the war, and the Armistice in 1918.