Max Hastings BBC2 First World War.

[Hangarshuffle]

Hour long TV programme. I didn't think he made a good case for it being a justifiable war, from the British and Empire point of view. Still looks unnecessary and utterly disgraceful from the damp English county from where I am sat .

[ExAscoteer]

I disagree entirely.

Try reading his recent book 'Catastrophe'.

[NutLoose]

Is any war necessary? Ideally you have armed services to prevent it ever getting that far. Strength in defence and all that.

[Hangarshuffle]

After 1915.

The war continuing after 1915? After the stalemate was fully developed? Blackadder was right and the dozens and dozens of memorial stones less than ten miles where I'm sat speak far more eloquently than I ever will.

[500N]

War justified ?

Not sure it is the right word.

Preferable to have no war and solve by other means but if it comes down to it with an aggressor like Germany, it needs to be done.

[cuefaye]

Short and succinct, 500

[racedo]

I've read some of the What Ifs of WW2 but not of WW1

WW1 no British involvement then no Lenin / Stalin, no Great depression / Inflation in Europe, No Hitler and No WW2 and Cold War........

Course there would have been a war with Germany eventually but interested if there is a What If on WW1 book.

[Load Toad]

What really is shocking is its 2014 and that war never ended...its just been rolling around the globe...bursting up bigger every so often but mostly just smoldering away with its dirty little small wars that we hardly blink at on the TV every night....nor bother too much about the cost in money and lives.
I suppose you could say it was the 1919 Treaty that is to blame for that. Maybe.

[Tankertrashnav]

So Load Toad - wars started in 1914?

How about - the Napoleonic Wars, The Opium Wars, Afghanistan (several times) the Franco-Prussian War, the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War etc? All major conflicts which took place in the 100 years or so before 1919.

Nothing new about wars, we just keep inventing more and more efficient ways of killing each other

[ShotOne]

It's a fascinating question. But in weighing up whether it was worth it we have to place the appalling cost of BOTH world wars in the balance against the alternative of a continent, ...er, dominated by Germany.

[Hangarshuffle]

The Necessary War.

The Necessary War, BBC Two, review - Telegraph


Link to the review of the programme. Hastings won the TV battle anyway according to this hack.


I find it hard to be dispassionate about it. I'm just off to see my new house, its only six miles away but I pass at least 3 Great War memorials, covered in hundreds of names of boys and men from the little mining villages and small towns. There was nothing in it for them, except their deaths.


I'll just have to agree to disagree with other pruners, as ever. Switzerland has the right idea.

[Basil]

I think that war with a powerful, ambitious, militaristic newly-emerged Prussian-dominated Germany was inevitable. Perhaps the Austrians and Serbs couldn't wait to get at each other but Germany was the big threat.
What if Britain had left Germany to win and consolidate her European position?

As for WW2 we have gone around blaming 'The NAZI Party' as if they were a bunch of mind-altering space invaders who suddenly arrived in the 1930s. That was just to let Germany off the hook and keep them onside against the USSR brand of Communism. Thank Heaven for Hitler and the NAZIs because, without them, the 'vons' would have eventually kicked off again and made a better job of it than did the National Socialists.

[racedo]

Thank Heaven for Hitler and the NAZIs because, without them, the 'vons' would have eventually kicked off again and made a better job of it than did the National Socialists.

I remain unconvinced that they would have. Jewish businessmen provided funding and support for Germany during WW1. There was no reason for slaughtering thos supporting you.

It was the post WW1 economic collapse and seeking scapegoats the Nazis were able to latch on to and use.

A war would have occurred BUT it may have not been for 10-20 years after.

The key point made by someone else is that WW1 has never really ended............its affects led directly onto WW2 and the Cold War and even what is happening in Ukraine today.

[Heathrow Harry]

think you are right Basil - we'd have had to fight Germany sometime and better to do it with the Russians and french onside

[langleybaston]

QUOTE:

What if Britain had left Germany to win and consolidate her European position?

This, if applied to the Great War, is a very good question indeed. From it arises two others:
1. What made the cabinet believe that Germany would win the war on two fronts if left unchallenged by GB?
2. What, in a war of many Army corps, did the cabinet think four [soon six] piddling infantry divisions and four cavalry brigades could achieve?
Hindsight tells us that the BEF made a huge difference in 1914, again in 1916 [the Somme took the pressure off Verdun] and in 1918, the Advance to Victory, but who'd a thort it?

[Simplythebeast]

Here we are one hundred years later and in the Ukraine we have a strongly nationalistic, strategically significant eastern European country deciding its fate, while three empires stand waiting in the wings, rattling their sabres. Familiar?

[Martin the Martian]

I think the EU are more in the way of wobbling their letter opener than rattling their sabre.

[Courtney Mil]

I think the military pacifists here may have missed Max Hasting's point. Yes, better to have no war, but the Great War that Britain couldn't prevent - we simply lacked the military might to do so - would have had disatrous concequences had we not stopped the man with the spiky hat and his troop of butchers.

As for the programme, I thought is was well researched and well argued. Cetainly spurred me on to learn more about that period of history.

[EyesFront]

On the assumption that anyone sufficiently interested in the subject to post publically is keen to read/watch/listen to as much background as possible, I recommend the recent TV 2-parter called something like 'Royal Cousins at War'. I thought I knew a lot about the period but this superb series brought new insight to Kaiser Wilhelm, Tsar Nicholas and the British Royals. Kaiser Bill was a 'loose cannon' to say the least, but I'd be interested to know more about his generals and ministers to conclude exactly where the desire/acceptability of war as an instrument of foreign policy lay. Another must-listen recommendation is 'The Great War of Words' - a radio 4 2-parter which makes a decent fist of distinguishing between propaganda and fact. It was noteworthy that most of the stories of German atrocities at the start of the war were not allied propaganda as some now seem to think, but the reporting of actual events. Especially interesting was the systematic rewriting of history by the losers following the Versailles treaty ... who says that history is always written by the victors?

[racedo]

I think the military pacifists here may have missed Max Hasting's point. Yes, better to have no war, but the Great War that Britain couldn't prevent - we simply lacked the military might to do so - would have had disatrous concequences had we not stopped the man with the spiky hat and his troop of butchers.

Ultimately he did not seek war either, rather the supporting of the Austo-Hungarians ended up it occuring.

Princip probably killed someone who was way ahead of his time in seeking to change life in the empire so had he lived Archduke Ferdinand may have altered the make up of Europe significantly.