History Film / TheGreatMartianWar19131917

* MomunmentalDamage: Albeit an accidental version when a single Heron breaks through the lines, crosses the English Channel and makes its way up the Thames River. While firing at an attacking aircraft, a shot misses and hits Big Ben.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Hughie Logan survived the war only to have his wife die of the Martian Flu. He was one of the soldiers who took part in Operation Trojan Horse, so he always wondered if he brought back the virus that killed her.

* An attack on shipping brings the United States into the war, creating [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania#Conspiracy_theories conspiracy theories as what really happened]].

* AnachronismStew: The war is run from a command centre fifty feet below Westminister, apparently a version of the Cabinet War Rooms in World War Two. This is despite the fact that no government would have any reason to construct an underground command centre before the bombing of cities became a serious threat.
* AppliedPhlebotinum: Victicite is the name given by the Allied scientists to the self-replicating sentient liquid metal used by the Martians.

* CassandraTruth: The Westminister Heron may not have been launching a one-man attack on London, but was trying to pass on a warning about victicite. Unfortunately the pilot died and his message was untranslated for a hundred years until the Martian Code was broken.

* FalseFlagOperation: Right when the Allied Forces are facing collapse, three US navy destroyers are sunk in the Gulf of Mexico bringing the United States into the war. Lawrence Hart points out there were no reports of Martian war machines in the Gulf, though [[ConspiracyTheorist Allied U-boats could have made the trip]].

* {{Martians}}: Since astronomers see the invasion being launched from there, it's what the public and Press call the invaders. It turns out to be a fatal misnomer, as the Martians may be mere puppets of the real culprit.

* SyntheticPlague: A captured Martian dies of glanders, an animal disease caught from the horses of its mounted police escort.

* ArmyScout: Corporal Gus Lafonde was a First Nation soldier in the Canadian army who repeatedly infiltrated the Martian lines, and would 'count coup' by salvaging alien material--what he recovers and records in his war diary becomes the key to unraveling the Martian Code.
* AssimilationPlot:

* FalseFlagOperation:

* {{Martians}}: Since astronomers see the invasion being launched from there, it's what the public and Press call the invaders. It turns out to be a fatal misnomer.

** The greatest attack in history is nothing more than a cover for Operation Trojan Horse. The Allied forces will attack, drawing the Martian forces in to beat them off, then retreat allowing the Martians to come into contact with the vast herds of glanders-infected horses corralled behind the Allied lines.

* A sinking similar to that of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania Lusitania]] brings the United States into the war, creating [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania#Conspiracy_theories conspiracy theories as what really happened]].

** The germ warfare that eventually defeats the Martian invasion causes a [[UsefulNotes/TheSpanishFlu massive pandemic that kills millions of humans.]]

** A Heron is captured after the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mines_in_the_Battle_of_Messines_(1917) detonation of a massive underground mine]] beneath the enemy lines.

* TotalPartyKill: The Big Push is launched in Spring of 1913 even though Allied Command knows the Martians have brought up massive reinforcements. ''Three million men'' are sent over the top and are never seen again, not even as wounded.

* TotalPartyKill: The Big Push is launched even though the generals know the Martians have brought up massive reinforcements. ''Three million men'' are sent over the top and are never seen again, not even as wounded.

* TotalPartyKill: ''Every soldier'' sent over the top in the 'Big Push' becomes one of The Vanished.

** The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons Angel of Mons]] is an effect created by the Martians launching their war machines which land in the ocean to attack the Allied supply routes.

* ArmyScout: Corporal Gus Lafonde was a First Nation soldier in the Canadian army who repeatedly infiltrated the Martian lines, and would 'count coup' by salvaging alien material. He's the first to get a hint of the Martians true strategy.

* NicknamingTheEnemy: 'Martian's, 'Herons', 'Iron Spiders', 'Lice'. Justified as no-one knows anything about the alien invaders.

-->''Diary of Allied soldier:''' Not one of us can sleep; not when those fiends are moving beyond the wire. The mere thought of them, of what they're doing to our dead and [[AndIMustScream wounded]], fills every living man with dread. Dawn breaks. The lice retreat like a black tide. And everything is gone! Every shell, every last shard of battle, and every one of our dead. My fallen brothers are taken. Their bodies stolen. For [[ImAHumanitarian food?]] For [[HumanResources fuel?]] We hardly dare imagine why, but this is why those devils are here. They came for us.

* NothingIsScarier: The fate of The Vanished is this for many years, as it's assumed (as per the original novel) that the Martians are harvesting them for HumanResources. Turns out there's NotEnoughToBury once the Lice have finished harvesting their actual goal.

* ArmyScout: Gus Lafonde was a First Nation soldier in the Canadian army who repeatedly infiltrated the Martian lines, and would 'count coup' by salvaging alien material. He's the first to get a hint of the Martians true strategy.

* TheSwarm: 'Lice', robotic harvesters that swarm out into No Mans Land (and presumably everywhere else the Martians have conquered) to harvest metal.

* SpiderTanks:

* An event similar to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania sinking of the Lusitania]] brings the United States into the war, creating [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania#Conspiracy_theories conspiracy theories as what really happened]].

** The Hindenburg Plan for invading France is instead used to save it, when a flanking maneuver by the remaining German forces advancing through Belgium is used to stop the Martian advance, with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce German, French and British Empire troops fraternizing once they meet up]].

->''"Hell is not beneath us. It has fallen from the sky."''

** The stalemate on the Western Front is a deliberate ploy by the Martians to encourage the Allies to commit more and more resources in mass attacks, providing the material resources that the Martians will use for their invasion.
* SpiderTank: CombatTentacles

->HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR, IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE FATHERLAND, AND THE GERMAN PEOPLE, BEG FOR THE ASSISTANCE OF HIS BROTHER NATIONS. GERMANY IS UNDER ATTACK FROM ASSAILANTS NOT OF THIS WORLD.

** An event similar to what took place in Tunguska is the first sign of the Martian invasion, with an impact in the Bohemian mountains.
** The Hindenburg Plan for invading France is instead used to save it, when a flanking maneuver by the remaining German forces advancing through Belgium is used to stop the Martian advance.

* HumanResources: Surprisingly averted; everyone assumes the robotic Lice that swarm out into No Mans Land every night are harvesting the dead. Turns out they're harvesting the metal from the shrapnel, barbed wire, unexploded shells and weaponry--all of which is reproposed for the Martian war machine. The corpses of the Vanished were disintegrated under this harvesting and the remains churned into the mud.

* ArmyScout: One character is a First Nation soldier in the Canadian army who repeatedly infiltrates the Martian lines to 'count coup' by salvaging alien material. He's the first to get a hint of the Martians true strategy.

* SchmuckBait: The stalemate on the Western Front is a deliberate ploy by the Martians to encourage the Allies to commit more and more resources in mass attacks, providing the material resources that the Martians will use for their invasion.

* TotalPartyKill:
** The forces sent into the Bohemian Forest to investigate the mysterious explosion never return.
** Likewise ''every soldier'' sent over the top in the 'Big Push'.

''The Great Martian War 1913–1917'' is a 2013 {{mockumentary}} that presents the Martian invasion of ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' InTheStyleOf a [[Creator/TheHistoryChannel History Channel]] war documentary.

->

* TheSwarm: 'Lice', robotic harvesters that swarm out into No Mans Land (and presumably everywhere else the Martians have conquered) to harvest metal.

* HumanResources: Surprisingly averted; everyone assumes the robotic Lice that swarm out into No Mans Land every night are harvesting the dead. Turns out they're harvesting the metal from the shrapnel, barbed wire, unexploded shells and weaponry--all of which is reproposed for the Martian war machine.
* {{Martians}}: Since astronomers see the invasion being launched from there, it's what the public and Press call the invaders. It turns out to be a fatal misnomer.