Plot Synopsis

Using expert analysis, eyewitness testimony, CGI animation, archival footage, and dramatic re-creations, this four-part, four-hour series chronicles the game-changing weapons that were introduced during World War I, a transitional time in war history. When ancient war tactics like set ground battles with troops bunkered down in massive trenches became overwhelmed by powerful new weapons like tanks, air attacks, weapons of mass destruction and submarines, a pivotal game-changing moment in history occurred. These new weapons would end up defining modern warfare, accelerating scientific and technical development for killing devices and protective equipment for military purposes. Each 60-minute episode focuses on a different type of weapon, including: tanks, championed by Head of the British Admiralty Winston Churchill and adapted from an American tractor with caterpillar tracks, which were designed in secrecy to break through the heavily fortified trenches and offer protection for troops that were being mowed down by heavy artillery; giant airships, designed by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, which delivered bombs and measured their flights in hundreds of miles when pioneering aviators measured their success in hundreds of yards; chemical weapons, starting with chlorine, which was first weaponized by Germany, who ignored international treaties they signed, escalating the development and use of poison gas and effective counter measures by both sides; and submarines, which the Germans used to dominate the British Navy, sinking 5,200 ships by war's end, but also provoking the United States to enter The Great War after the Germans sank the US passenger liner Lusitania, killing nearly 2,000 on board. Featured experts include: historian Libby H. O'Connell, PhD; Robert J. Dalessandro, Director, U.S. Army Center of Military History; historian Mitch Yockelson; military historian David Silbey; historian Christopher Capozzola; Max Brooks, author of "The Harlem Hellfighters"; Yohuru Williams, Professor of History at Fairfield University; and more. Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I -- when Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914 -- History aired all four episodes of WWI: THE FIRST MODERN WAR from 8pm-Midnight on Saturday, July 26, 2014.