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Dec 09, 2015bobbles1 rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Another BBC gem with familiar leaders played by unfamiliar but brilliant actors. You get the real feel of the time and the various cultures examined, the militaristic and aggressive Prussians still smarting from the result of the Franco-Prussian war a half century earlier, the decadent Austrians and emperor Franz Joseph the bureaucrat in the last throes of empire; the Germans under Kaiser Wilhelm with a powerful army they want to use and in incipient rebellion against the decadence of the Austrians, the French totally mismanaging their border defences with Germany and dependent on the British for their coastal defences, the Belgians relying on treaties for their defence, a weak and unreliable army and the key to the Germans getting around the French Maginot Line, the Russians under Tsar Nicholas itching for a fight but whose finances have been squandered buying Chanel and Faberge eggs for the Empress, leaving them with a primitive and vastly inferior army, and the Brits trying to balance all this off and preserve their own empire. Hugely engaging and fast-paced, sometimes we had to reverse to get the meaning of conversations, hugely entertaining and a bore cure.