The first scene tells you all you need to know in my opinion.

As the show starts you see British troops in cloth caps rise out of their trench in a loose line formation and advance across no mans land that appears to be torn up from years of battle. The Germans watch wearing their distinctive pointy Pickelhaube leather helmets in a well dug trench behind a line of machine guns. The date is displayed - October 16, 1914. No location is given but the focus moves to the German trenches who are now all wearing steel helmets without a pike and a title '16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment' displays on the screen.

Wait what?

Anyone with a little interest in World War One knows where this is going but they also know they've already made some errors or misled the viewer.

The scene continues - The German commander calls for a runner. A young man answers the call and is running towards him when a gas grenade goes off causing a general call for gas masks. The young message runner tries to put on his complex looking gas mask but his mustache won't allow a good seal so he climbs out of the trench and holds his breath until the attack is over. After the British retreat, the young man uses a knife to cut the ends off his mustache so his gas mask works better. He looks to the camera and we see the now famous Hitler mustache.

Here are a few facts:

• Neither side had steel helmets at the beginning of the war (Germans used leather until they realized they were useless and that the pike only gave away their position). Eventually all nations realized they were necessary and it was standard equipment in all armies by the end of 1915.

• The French used tear gas against the Germans in August 1914 which was copied by all nations but the first poison gas attack didn't occur until the Germans used it in 1915. The first gas masks in 1915 were little more than cloth wrapped around a soldier's head but as chemical warfare advanced, so did the effort to keep soldiers safe leading to the mask most of us think of for WW1 trench warfare.

• The 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment didn't see their first combat until October 29th, 1914.

• Hitler was temporarily blinded and incapacitated in a British gas attack on October 13-4, 1918 and missed the rest of the war as he recovered.

• There are pictures of Hitler that appear to have a broad mustache in 1915 but then there are later pictures in 1916 of Hitler that appear to have his more famous look before the gas attack in 1918.

I get what they were trying to do with this scene as they wanted viewers to feel empathy for the soldier only to shock them with the realization it was Adolf Hitler. I also understand that it is possible they accidentally put 1914 instead of 1918 for the date of the attack though that seems to be an inexcusable error for a production like this. Even that doesn't fit as the British had steel helmets by 1918.

The truth is in this scene and many others they molded the truth to fit their narrative. I stopped watching after the first half hour because the half truths and misleading statements were making me mad so I decided to rewind and review the first scene to follow up on my suspicions that it was wrong which is why I was able to give the details above.

I'm sure some here could write a book contrasting each scene as portrayed on TV and then explain what really happened. In my opinion, this series wasn't worthy to be shown on a channel with 'History' in its name though frankly they tarnished that title a long time ago.

Not sure it's a minor detail or not, but the documentary claimed Stalingrad was a city of "no particular strategic importance" or something very close to that.

I also recall the documentary claiming that it was when the American fleet saw the Japanese fleet on the horizon that it began it's attack at Midway, despite the fact that the two fleets were not in visual range of each other in reality.