Great Commanders 1

While the technology of war has changed over the centuries, the art of war - how a military commander commands - has remained the same since a bunch of hairy guys first picked up some pointed sticks. A great military commander understands the capabilities of their own forces as well as their enemy, but also recognises that there are diplomatic, social and economic elements in play. Over the course of human history, all the great commanders have shared the same qualities. With a genius for strategy and imbued with great courage, they were also totally ruthlessness, and driven by a consuming ambition. Produced in 1993 by Channel 4, Britain, The Great Commanders is a series that examines six of the most significant such military commanders and the most famous battles that they fought.

“Read and re-read the deeds of the Great Commanders; it is the only way to learn the art of war." – Napoleon

Each episode in the series focuses on a particular battle from a particular distinguished career; beginning with an introduction into the military career of a particular commander, the events that lead up to the battle, and their political motivation for fighting it. An in depth examination of the battle itself is then undertaken, exploring the opposing forces, the lie of the land, the tactics employed by both sides, and the decisions made by our great commander. Each episode concludes with an overview of the consequences of the battle; the political outcomes and the effect it had on the continuing military and political career of the commander.

Volume one in a set of two presents the first three episodes in the series:

Julius Caesar: Battle of Alesia
Commanding his Roman legions as a means to political ends, in 52BC Julius Caesar undertook the conquest of the hitherto undefeated Gauls - the most populous and powerful of the ancient Celts - that remained to the Empire’s north. The battle of Alesia, fought on what is now the soil of modern France, secured Caesar’s conquest of Gaul and permitted him to return to Rome with force enough to install himself as dictator. Beseiging an enemy that outnumbered him nearly four to one, Caesar’s victory at Alesia is a perfect example of Roman fortitude and the successful waging of war from a prepared defensive position.

Napoleon Bonaparte: Battle of Austerlitz
The most venerated commander in modern military history, Napoleon was given his opportunity for greatness by the removal of the incumbent French officer corp by the French Revolution. Quickly rising to become the Supreme Consol of France, his rewriting of the art of war rendered him a ruthless and almost invincible force that dominated Europe for over 20 years. In 1805, facing a British, Austrian and Russian alliance against him, Napoleon fought the most celebrated battle of his career near the German town of Austerlitz. With his ragged and exhausted French army of 50,000 facing a combined Russian and Austrian force of some 85,000, this master of geography managed to draw his enemy into a simple but effective trap and annihilate them.

Ulysses S. Grant: Battle of the Wilderness
Working in a hardware store when the American Civil War broke out, Ulysses S. Grant quickly displayed his military prowess, and in 1862 President Abraham Lincoln named him commanding general of all the Union armies. Relying on brute force – an attribute that would characterise American military operations to this day - Grant's approach to the war was simple; pursue the Confederate armies until they had been totally destroyed. The Battle of the Wilderness, fought in dense forest to the south of Washington DC, was the first in which soldiers endured the horrors of modern warfare, with hastily constructed trenches, utter confusion, and hand to hand skirmishes. While it ended in stalemate, the battle marked a turning point in the conduct of the war and Grant was soon able to defeat the Confederates and his fierce rival General Robert E. Lee.

While the series is interesting, I did have trouble following it at times. Although the material is delivered in what is a fairly common documentary style, it certainly does come across a little dry and analytical. Produced on an obviously low budget, the information has not been made more accessible through re-enactment or other dramatic means and in the absense of other footage, the producers often resort to simple images of the villages that now surround the scene of battle. There are certainly sparks of brilliance, with flyovers of 3D-rendered battlefields being created, but these sequences are far too short and the episodes soon revert to text-book approaches to the progression of the battle. Those with a keen interest in the material will surely overlook these criticisms, but I was not able to pick up much of the detail in each episode until the second viewing.

Produced by Magna Pacific, the three episodes that make up this first volume of The Great Commanders are presented on a single-sided, single layer disc whose MPEG transfer is certainly not perfect. While the full-frame (obviously non-anamorphic) image is watchable, it contains a significant amount of grain that has played havoc with the MPEG compression and has lead to some annoying shimmering. Whilst blacks are variable, colours are generally muted. Sharpness is adequate, adding a little aliasing but nothing distracting and, in general, detail - both in shadows and in brightly-lit scenes - is reduced by the grain. All in all a pretty average transfer, but serviceable given the content.

Produced for television on a limited budget, the audio presentation for The Great Commanders is reasonable yet uninspiring, composed almost entirely of narration, and dotted here and there with snippets of interviews. On occasion this is also overlaid with a rudimentary score. Consequently, heard through your Prologic decoder, the English two-channel Dolby Digital mix dominates the centre speaker; and spreads to the front channels only when carrying the score. As you can imagine, there is no surround or subwoofer activity, and with the decoder turned off the soundstage is certainly a little fuller. With no lip sync issues, this is an audio track that is in keeping with the documentary style of the production and whilst it serves its purpose is unremarkable.

In terms of extras, volume one of The Great Commanders provides teaser previews of the three other episodes comprising volume two. Presented in full-frame and with video transfers equivalent to the rest of the disc, they run for around one minute each.

Informative, if a little dry, The Great Commanders will appeal to those armchair generals among us. So too, if you are currently undertaking plans for world domination, and I guess you military history buffs may even be a little interested! Although let down a little by a poor video transfer, the episodes presented here are still more than watchable and, in the end, if the military interests you, you might well want to give this one a look.