Review of The Collection: The Great Commanders

Introduction

Despite various nation states or tribes of humans battling each other across the centuries, there are few Commanders of armies who are thought of as truly great. There are plenty who are considered competent or who were good for a few campaigns or battles, but these people are not remembered down the years as Great Commanders. The Great Commanders capture the imagination and their legacy still remains, a lot of their tactical ideas or battles studied by potential officers or military historians.

This series, originally commissioned for Channel 4, brings together six military leaders who are considered to be Great Commanders.

Alexander - the young genius who put all of Europe to the sword and is still hailed as probably the greatest general of all time. This episode focuses on his triumph at Issus.

Julius Caesar - the Roman Emperor that subsequent Emperors tried to model themselves on, the story of his successful siege of Alesia and the defeat of Gaul leader Vercingetorix.

Napoleon - the man who single-handedly changed European history, we concentrate on his rout of the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz.

Horatio Nelson - Britain`s greatest naval hero, a flawed but incredibly popular man thanks in no part to his stunning victory from HMS Victory at Trafalgar, the battle in which he lost his life.

Ulysses S.Grant - the Union General who changed the course of US tactical strategy by pursuing his Confederate rival Robert E.Lee through the Wilderness to victory instead of the traditional retreat to lick wounds before trying again.

Zhukov - the Russian General with one hand tied behind his back by political master Josef Stalin, a man who was ordered to take Berlin in time for the May 1st celebrations back home in Russia.

Video

Picture is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio and is perfectly acceptable quality. Where this kind of thing does kind of let itself down slightly is the use of jaunty camera angles and oil paintings to provide a visual depiction of battle (with appropriate battle sounds, of course). The only episode that doesn`t suffer from this is the one on Zhukov, but then there`s plenty of archive film footage that could be used instead. To be fair though, just about any historical documentary series will suffer from this unless they have the budget to do mini-reconstructions.

The CGI depicting the order of battle is very simple and includes bright colours and solid lines for army formations. Simple and effective but I can`t help thinking it might have been better employing the same type of CGI as short-lived but brilliant tactical series Time Commanders.

Audio

Narrated superbly by Brian Cox, the soundtrack is the standard Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track for this kind of release. Again though, no subtitles. These are a must for releases like this and I really don`t understand why the producers are failing to provide them more and more. Rarely have I seen a documentary release recently that actually caters to the deaf or hard of hearing and you would think that the people behind these kinds of releases would understand that their target audience for this type DVD is quite wide.

Features

Nothing…

Conclusion

The names are familiar to most people who know a bit about either history or military history, but what do we really know about the men behind the stories and what happened to them before and after their greatest hours? This fascinating series attempts to answer that question, and does it quite well.

At the end of the day, despite the reality of battles, there is only so much information you can pass across to your viewer before you get bogged down in detail and the minutae and horror of battle. This series strikes a fine balance by only focussing on one major conflict per subject and only spending around a third to half the time on it (this is particularly true of Nelson, but hard not to seeing as how he died during his greatest battle). Instead we get to see the early lives and careers of our soldiers, the worlds they grew up in and their influences. We also get a glimpse, where possible, into their worlds once the heat of battle had cooled.

The portrayal of the battle is done in a rather dry and top-level way, the way that Generals and historians would look at the various lines of battle and that enables us as viewers to understand what was in the thinking of the men in command prior to battle commencing. As anyone with any sense knows, battle plans and the reality once the bullets start flying is completely different. The likes of Zhukov and Grant had the advantage of numerical superiority whereas Alexander, Casear, Napoleon and Nelson were outnumbered to varying degrees. Despite this, none of their battles were a foregone conclusion and were reliant on both their planning and the courage and loyalty of those under their command, from officers to the common soldier.

An interesting look at some of the pivotal men in military history down the ages…