Blood and Oil: The Middle East in World War I
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Marty CallaghanBrand: INECOM ENTERTAINMENT CO
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown)
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.77:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-12-05
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Inecom Entertainment Company
Movie Reviews of Blood and Oil: The Middle East in World War I
Movie Review: A mixed bag
Summary: 3 Stars
The short description and generally enthusiastic reviews of this DVD are a bit misleading. I thought that this DVD was about the political machinations of the Western powers after WWI as the Middle East was broken up into its present form. The first few minutes of the DVD describe the run-up to the second Gulf War (2003), and the impression that the viewer initially has is that this documentary will provide one with the historical context that led to the invasion of Iraq. Sadly only the last 20-30 minutes of the DVD touch on this issue, the first 2/3s-3/4s of the video is a fairly standard military history of the fighting in the Middle East during WWI from the British perspective. It is fair to characterize this documentary as a huge disappointment. The first hour and a half or so of this DVD contains a description of the fighting in the Caucasus, in Iraq, at Gallipoli, and in Palestine between the Turks, Russians, English, and French. We learn about the campaigns from a top level perspective, a few experts pine about the brilliance of Winston Churchill and the underrated fighting qualities of the Turkish soldiers, and the inevitability of British victory. The depth of the material covered in this part of the documentary is less than what you could find in Wikipedia and for anyone who already knows anything about these campaigns is probably not worth the time to watch. There is some nice footage of the battles though, particularly from the Turkish side. About 2/3s of the way in though, the story changes dramatically as the war is won and the Great Powers decide to chop up the Middle East to their advantage. We learn about the Sykes-Picot agreement, the rise to power of Kemal Ataturk, the Balfour declaration and the mass immigration of tens of thousands of European Jews to Palestine, and get a glimpse into the creation of some of the demographic problems (like Armenian and Kurdish states) that exist to this day. If only the documentary had spent all of its nearly two hours on this fascinating topic, it could have been an all time classic. As it is, only about 20-30 minutes of this DVD are worth watching in my opinion, and so little time is devoted to the key issues that the narrator has little opportunity to do more than throw a few buzz words around. It is my firm belief that to understand the Gulf War in the mess we are now in in Iraq, we must understand how we got there. Middle Eastern history didn't start in 1990 with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. I rented this DVD in the hopes of learning more about the events leading up to the present sorry state of affairs. I agree with many of the other reviewers that the West's handling of Middle Eastern affairs is largely a disgrace with the US and Great Britain generally playing one group off against another for their own ends. If you really want to learn about Middle Eastern history and the role that the West has played there since WWI, you aren't going to learn much from this DVD. You're much better off reading Fromkin's book ('A Peace to End all Peace'), Kinzer's book about Iran (`All the Shah's Men'), or the role of oil in geopolitics (Engdahl's book `A Century of War') among many others. If you want a quick overview of the military campaigns of the Great War in the ME, this isn't a bad documentary. Don't be mislead by some of the other glowing reviews, for a serious student, this DVD is nothing more than a snack.
Summary of Blood and Oil: The Middle East in World War I
"Blood and Oil - The Middle East in World War I" examines the devastating conflict and Western political intrigue that laid the foundation for wars, coups, revolts and military interventions in the Middle East. After the end of World War I, most of the Ottoman Empire was carved up into "spheres of influence," controlled mostly by the British and French. The remaining territories became the modern state of Turkey in 1923 - after a five-year struggle by Turkish nationalists against Western domination. Written and produced by Marty Callaghan ("Archives of War," "Remember Pearl Harbor: America Taken by Surprise"), this feature-length documentary film follows conflict from the Ottoman Empire's entry into the Great War in October 1914 to the Allied victory and declaration of the new Turkish Republic in 1923, and the hostilities that have plagued the region since. The 112-minute DVD also features extended expert commentary.Documentary DVD Video
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