The Great War looks at the first great conflagration of world powers in the Twentieth Century from 1914 to 1918 when a complicated patchwork of royal families, alliances and treaties dragged Europe, and finally America, into World War I. The film is loaded with rare footage of all the significant events of war including movie stars selling Liberty Bonds, the sinking of the Lusitania, and the horrific slaughter in the trenches of the main battlefields, all blended expertly with stirring orchestral music and illuminating narration.