The BBC plans to mark the First World War Centenary with the biggest and most ambitious pan-BBC season ever undertaken.

Featuring four years of programming and events spanning 2014-2018 – echoing the timeframe of the war – the World War One Centenary on the BBC will be unique in scale and breadth on BBC TV, Radio and Online and across international, national and local services.

The season will begin in early 2014 with Britain’s Great War (BBC One), presented by Jeremy Paxman. This four-part documentary series will explore how Britain and the lives of British people were changed by the conflict.

Highlights include:

Two one-off programmes for BBC Two – The Necessary War presented by Sir Max Hastings, and Niall Ferguson’s The Pity Of War – will argue what the First World War meant from very different perspectives

Gallipoli will present a fresh look at the British Empire’s most humiliating episode of the First World War, featuring an exclusive interview with Rupert Murdoch about his father’s role as the whistle-blower who told the world the truth about the botched campaign

In Long Shadow, historian David Reynolds will explore the conflict’s impact on politics, identity and national memory, building a new and powerful argument about the shadow cast by the Great War.