37 Days: The Road to World War One
Aug 17, 2014
(162 min)
Free screening in honor of the WWI Centenary, August 2014!
This three-part BBC political thriller follows the catastrophic chain of events which led from the assassination of the archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914, to the declaration of war between Britain and Germany on the 4th of August.
Screened in honor of the 2014 centenary of World War One, this tense and gripping mini series, set amongst the corridors of power in Whitehall and Berlin, tracks the unfolding crisis through the eyes of leading politicians and civil servants struggling to prevent the world’s first global war.
Can British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey keep the peace, despite misinformation and the secret machinations of German Chief of Staff Helmuth von Motlke? Will Kaiser Wilhelm II allow a small Balkan war to trigger a continental disaster? Should Winston Churchill follow his pacifist cabinet colleagues, or his gut instinct, to protect France from invasion? And will British Prime Minister Asquith keep his government together and the British Empire out of the war?
37 Days explores the tragedy of how Europe’s old conventions of secret diplomacy fell apart. With stunning performances and a fresh angle on an iconic story, this fascinating and provocative factual drama unlocks the mystery of the War’s origins, overturning common assumptions about its inevitability and demonstrating that World War One did not happen by chance (nor was it a foregone conclusion)—it took considerable effort and staggering bad luck.