Why Britain Had to Fight: Revisiting WWI's Complex Causes and Consequences

[Music] on the 5th of October 195 my great uncle leftenant auy Hastings of the sth East s

regiment was killed in France blown to pieces in his trench during the Battle of

loose I grew up with his story reading the unhappy letters that he wrote amid the poppies of the battlefield along

with those of a grandfather and another great uncle who survived but this is the first time I've

visited the cemetery at fuka lathun where aubre is buried one of some 900,000 British Empire dead of the first

world war almost everyone in this country shares such links with that catastrophe

for our forefathers and for Europe it's a funny business looking down at the last resting place of one of

my own family whom I never met who died in a struggle that I've spent decades reading about it horror is not in doubt

but where I part company from what we might call the black add take on history is to believe that it was all so futile

that it didn't matter which side won in the 21st century the British people are deeply wedded to the idea

that the second world war was our good War the first or bad won but what if we stayed out what if Germany had

won in my opinion the deaths of Aubrey Hastings and hundreds of thousands of his comrades were assuredly a great

tragedy but they were not for nothing many British people honor the men who fought and died with a mixture

of sorrow and a sense of waste a belief that no cause could have Justified so horrendous a

sacrifice but 100 years after the outbreak it seems time to revisit the reasons we went to war in

1914 I want to argue that far from Britain having plunged into a blood bath we could have stayed out of our part in

the First World War was tragically necessary [Music]

any exploration of why Britain had to go to war in 1914 must start on the continent of

Europe the spark was ignited in the Balkans on the 28th of June when gabrillo prip a Bosnian Serb shot dead

Arch Duke France Ferdinand a to the Austrian Throne the Empire's rulers immediately

determined to exploit the outrage to justify invading neighboring Serbia where the murder weapons had come

from but the Russians were Serbia's close allies and they made it plain they would fight to protect their fellow

slaves through July 1914 the great Continental powers waded ever deeper into

crisis but from the outset the key player was [Music]

Germany on the 6th of July its rulers pledged the austrians their unconditional support to smash Serbia

promising to deal with Russia and its own Ally France if they intervened day by day it became plainer

that none of the big players would back down and thus began the countdown to the first world

[Music] war some historians have argued that once it became clear that Austria and

Germany were going to war with France and Russia we the British should simply have left them to get on n with it

stayed out that all that would have come out of a German victory was a fast forwarded version of today's European

Union I don't buy that the people who are running Germany cared nothing for democracy or other people's freedoms

once the shooting started it became plain that their War aims were a little different from those of Hitler 35 years

later excepting only the Jewish genocide the causes of the war are hugely complicated with the death of the arch

dukee only setting in motion existing forces no one nation deserves all the blame but there's an over riding case

that German recklessness contributed more than anything else to make a conflict intended to settle a local

score escalate into a European war and once the fighting and dying St Ed it became cruy apparent that a German

Victory would be a disaster for [Music] Europe in 1914 Germany was by far the

most powerful State on the continent the most advanced Society in [Music]

Europe industrially it was racing ahead of its rivals in every field from Pharmaceuticals to automob

design socially it pioneered a welfare state by creating unemployment insurance and old AG

pensions German culture was revered across the world but it became Europe's historic

tragedy that the German system of government lag Generations behind everything else in the

country the Empire's elected par had the largest Socialist Party in Europe but while the rag dominated

domestic affairs it was the Kaiser the so-called all highest vilhelm II who still made every key appointment on

controlled decisions about War and Peace philh Helm was a weak man who was sought to masquerade as a strong one

chronically unstable and prone to Violent mood swings he wasn't at heart a warmonger as of course Hitler was but he

loved to play at soldiers he offered threats and blandishments to other powers which he always got in the wrong

order professor John R has spent a lifetime studying and writing about the Kaiser how personally influential was

Kaiser willhelm in the decision for War uh kazer wilham took over the Reigns from uh his father in 1888 and inherited

bism Mark's immense power himself when he threw bismar out but not content with that he then went back to an almost 18th

century notion of monarchy in other words he insisted on ruling personally uh with the result he appointed all

ministers all the chancellors all the generals all the Admirals himself personally according to his likes and

dislikes he was an extremely assertive bully well it was just extraordinary situation that you had a socialist

majority violently anti-militarist majority in the r duck and yet exercising no influence at all really

over um this regime and foreign policy yeah uh one of the reasons I believe uh behind the German General's decision to

go to war around about 1914 was the rising tide of democracy at home the the thinking was well if we leave it too

long we will not be able to get our way and do what we really need to do to make Germany great so we to go uh before that

time comes the most powerful institution in vilhelms Empire and indeed in all

Continental Europe was the German [Music] Army the Kaiser was also eager to extend

his power across the seas and personally promoted the creation of a big gun Navy this thoroughly alarmed the BR

British who feared Germany's Fleet as a threat to their global trade routs and Empire as Queen Victoria's grandson

vilhelm retained some respect for her people but he was determined that neither he nor his Empire should defer

to them it's almost as if he feels obliged to be more military and more masculine

than any other Monarch perhaps because there's always the whiff of englishness about him his mother being English he

was always very keen to say no no I'm not English I'm Prussian I'm I'm extremely Prussian so there's this

autocratic uh side to him there's extreme militarism but some of it does come from

England for example the love of the Navy the idea that he has a mission to become the superpower in Europe in place of

Britain he feels he has a right as leader of this new energized Germany after unification

fear of Germany's might and of its aspirations to dominate Europe prompted Russia and France to forge a close

military Alliance although Britain's government made no firm written commitment it

posted an option on supporting them in the event of War many British people recoiled from

the idea of joining an alliance with Zar Nicholas II whose people had been Britain's enemies through the 19th

century but the fears of Europe's rulers that a general War would result from their

rivalries caused Every Nation to huddle close to its friends the Germans to the austrians the

Russians to the French with the British as cous Mayes Germany's Warlords were haunted by

fears of Russia's growing might some of them were convinced that challenging the Zars armies sooner rather than later

offered Germany the best chance of Victory this is one of many German memorials to prussia's 19th century

military triumphs instead of perceiving big Wars as we do today as universal tragedies

the Kaiser generals and sometimes vilhelm himself believed that trial by battle was an acceptable instrument of

[Music] policy all Germany's leaders were in cure even paranoid about threats at home

from the Socialists abroad from Russia and France probably backed in a showdown by Britain in those days not many people

thought seriously about economics the Kaiser and his generals counted soldiers they failed to realize that their

country was achieving dominance of Europe without firing a shot through its industrial

Power by 1914 so many Germans had come to believe that a European clash in arms was inevitable that their fatalism

contributed mightily to bringing this about the Kaiser who was almost certainly clinically unstable was one of

three men in Germany who took the key decisions which resulted in war to this day historians argue fiercely about

which pulled the levers to precipitate disaster the others were the chancellor Theobald Von bethman holg appointed by

vilhelm and general helmet Von Mula head of the army the Kaiser and the chancellor were

the ones who on the 6th of July promised Austria Germany's support against Serbia bethman halve knowing that Russia

was committed to protect the serbs pressed the austrians to hurry their Invasion to preempt the

Zar this has become known as Berlin's blank check Keystone of the argument that Germany

was most blameworthy for the horrors that followed Professor Sirus stra has been

studying and chronicling the war for over 30 years he agrees that Berlin took a huge

gamble the Germans actively encouraged the austrians not merely to invade Serbia but to get on and do it even more

quickly than they were ready to do it yes partly because I think if they do it quickly you'll get away with it you'll

be able to crush Serbia there'll be a Balkan war that is over so quick that nobody will have time to intervene so

the the presumption here is speed and what Berlin is doing is constantly taking best case advice you know will

Russia stay out of this war because they're worried there'll be a Revolution in Russia the best answer is that yes

they will because there has been a Revolution in Russia in 1905 and there might be again so they work with that

assumption where it's in fact of course the Zar is going to be put under tremendous pressure to back Z slaves in

Serbia but throughout July the one nation surely that had the power to stop this process if the Germans had

said to the austrians stop do not invade Serbia there would have not been a general European War would there that's

right I think they have the power to say no I mean after all the blank check is Central and and the blank check is

issued by Germany and Germany then seems to show remarkable insuance as to how that check will be used you know austri

Hungary still has to cash it it's Austria Hungary that has to initiate War but absolutely the balance then shifts

to Berlin and if any power has the capacity to stop it its Berlin particularly at the very end of the

crisis Army Chief of Staff helmet Bon Mula who answered only to the Kaiser also played a pivotal

role on the 28th of July vilhelm and bethman HG experienced a brief panic attack the looming War now looked far

bigger and Graver than they' bargained [Music] for but mka on his own initiative

telegraphed the austrians and urged them to hasten their attack the chief of staff had long

argued that if Germany must face a European Showdown it was better to have it before the Russians big armaments

expansion program was complete at an imperial council meeting in December 1912 he's reliably reported

as saying War and the sooner the better anakah mow is a German scholar

who has written a biography of the chief of staff which emphasizes his role in the July

crisis where did mka fit into the decision for war well muli very much Advocates War he thinks that war is

inevitable in the long run uh he thinks that eventually Russia will become too strong too militarily powerful for

Germany to defeat her and therefore he uh creates an atmosphere in which war seems a good solution out of a perceived

problems one thing that seemed extraordinary to us about how dysfunctional the German government was

in July 1914 is that here you've got mker who's supposed to be just the head of the army and at a critical moment

July the 28th he sends a telegram to Vienna to the austrians telling them to get on with invading Serbia and it does

an extraordinary reflection of both how Reckless MCO could be and of how powerful he wash MH well you're right he

he does send that Telegram and in Vienna they end up saying well who actually who rules in Berlin who rules in Berlin Mal

got a bitman or was it in fact the kaer um so yes you're completely right he exceeds his authority if you like by

sending this telegram Germany's leadership in July 1914 was extraordinarily reckless in

accepting the risk that by promoting a small Balkan War they would trigger a huge European

one when it became plain that the Russians would fight rather than see Serbia go under the Germans refused to

take the one step that could have prevented a general European catastrophe telling the austrians to pull back

instead they themselves prepared to mobilize against Russia and that's why I believe they deserve most blame for all

that follow on the 28th of July Austria declared war on Serbia and 2 Days Later

the Zar ordered his army to mobilize Germany then issued two ultimatums one to Russia and another to

France its Ally neither was expected to accept and few of the Kaiser's generals wished them to Berlin then set in motion

its hugely ambitious War plan designed to crush France before turning on [Music]

Russia created almost a decade earlier by mka's predecessor count Alfred Von schen the plan required an invasion of

France by way of its back door through neutral Belgium it was the German commitment to

overrun Belgium which suddenly propelled Britain hitherto a spectator of the Continental drama to the Forefront of

the stage under a treaty signed in 1839 this country was among the

guarantors of Belgian neutrality I'm one of those who still wonder whether Britain really would have

come in if it hadn't been for the invasion of Belgium Mala got this dead wrong he did he did he was in an

impossible situation militarily speaking or strategically speaking because Germany is in a sense in circle

by France in the west and Russia in the East and the only way he thinks he can win this war is by implementing the

so-call schen plan and that plan can only work if France is defeated quickly and that means invading Belgium but

interestingly in France the chief of staff similarly thinks our best chance would be to advance through Belgium but

the politicians that the the diplomats tell him we can't do that because of Britain the British told France on no

account exactly exactly and so had Germany also respected Belgian neutrality there would

have been all sorts of possibilities right at the end of July and early in August perhaps to come to a different

[Music] outcome thus in the first days of August 1914 Germany prepared to invade and

Crush France in a campaign of 40 days before turning on Russia Europe had a War but must the British be in it would

they [Music] fight basking in the barmy summer of

1914 and preoccupied by industrial turmoil and threatened Irish Civil War the British people had scant appetite

for a continental conflict but liberal PR Minister Herbert aswith and several key cabinet

colleagues were appalled by the prospect of Germany achieving dominance of Europe they doubted that Britain could merely

remain a bystander while this happened one such was the foreign secretary sir Edward gray who played a

critical [Music] role sir Edward gray is tradition ially

seen as a reticent English gentleman whose Grand passions were fly fishing and bird watching both of which he wrote

good books above but more recently he's become a focus of fierce controversy some historians claim that

gray made rash secret commitments to the French which dragged us unnecessarily into

war for centuries it had been a British Article of Faith that a balance of power which denied absolute dominance to any

one nation must be maintained on the continent between 1908 and 1914 when gray was not casting a fly on bright

Waters he held secret talks with the French about British support in the event of a German

attack the foreign secretary was less clever and less of a Statesman than his admirers

thought but the claim that he should be damned for dragging Britain into an unnecessary War doesn't stand

up I suggest that gray was a realist about the difficulty indeed impossibility Britain simply standing by

doing nothing while Germany conquered Europe if the French and Russians had been beaten as they almost certainly

would have been if Britain hadn't come in who can imagine a Victorious Germany allowing Britain to continue ruling the

waves and the world Financial system any more than Hitler would have done if Churchill had tried to strike a deal

with him in 1940 nothing gray said beforehand could have deterred the Germans because they

had weighed Britain's military power and discounted it the little British Army seemed incapable of influencing a huge

Clash of Continental [Music] hosts the Royal Navy was thought

irrelevant because in the Kaiser scor ful words dread norts have no wheels the foreign secretary secret and

Unwritten assurances to France seem to me to have reflected not warmongering but prudent and essential

precaution in July 1914 by proposing an immediate European conference gray did all that he could to avert

War s Michael Howard is 's most distinguished living historian he and I have spent many hours

discussing the vast puzzle of 1914 and crucially whether Britain could have done more to avert disaster Gray's

proposal which they rejected out of hand to address the confrontation between austr Hungary and Serbia by having a

peace conference it wasn't a contemptible proposal was it if they wanted a I mean it was absolutely

typical typical gray thing to do a typical sort of liberal solution ution uh and uh the Germans rejected it flatly

the Germans rejected it flatly because this would have meant letting down the austrians and they were not going to let

down the austrians there was this sense throughout all classes in Austria it is time to finish with the serbs if we

don't finish with the serbs they will nibble us to death this is the moment of strike the Germans knowing knowing this

was a case were not going to bring in the austrians to debate about what their future was going to be uh So to that

extent also would say that the the Germans were responsible for not not letting their be a peaceful

settlement on the 2nd of August the Germans issued an ultimatum to King Albert of Belgium demanding passage for

their armies he flatly refused and appealed to Britain as a guarantor of his country's

neutrality thus it fell to Sir Edward Gray to convince a still reluctant British Parliament of the necessity for

Britain to join the war on the continent on the afternoon of the 3rd of August gray delivered the most important

speech of his life to the House of Commons by now most of the cabinet believed that Britain must fight in the

name of Belgium's rights could this country gray demanded Stand By and Watch the darest crime that ever stained human

history and thus become participators in the Sin he added we should I believe sacrifice our

respect and good name before the world and should not escape the most serious and Grave

consequences this was one of those extraordinary parliamentary occasions That Changed History it persuaded much

of the Liberal Party hither to bitterly hostile to intervention now to support it as to conservative opposition already

did thus on the 4th of August 1914 after Berlin rejected an ultimatum demanding its withdrawal from Belgium Britain

declared war on Germany was Belgium the real reason that Britain went to war in 1914 or as some

historians nowadays try to argue oh it was just a pretext that the British government really wanted to fight anyway

yeah well I would tend to say it's both and it's it there there are two there are

two arguments here one is the security of Belgium and the absence of a dominant power on the mainland of Europe is seen

as Central to Britain's strategic position they can't be the equivalent of Napoleon facing Britain across the

channel and dominating Britain's roots to the rest of the world the second issue is does it matter that Germany

disregards its International obligations enters Belgium which is a neutral State um and fails to reflect both

international law and the rights of of of of small Nations and the answer is it does matter and it it matters because

for Britain international law and what we might now see as morality also matters but it's more fundamental than

that because Britain is is an economic uh Power a trading power a power that depends on its shipping actually

international law is more than just a sense of of of of legal and moral obligation it's also a matter of

economic necessity you need to respect international law to make sure that Britain can continue to exercise the

degree of Leverage it does as a neutral itself well some people say no oh it was incredibly silly for Britain to get

involved in this horrific experience the first world war just because the German Army marched into Belgium but actually

it seems to me it was a pretty good reason for going to war it was an excellent reason going war and it did

something which at the beginning of the July crisis seemed unimaginable to many United the British people United the

British people he United the cabinet and he United the people as Britain mobilized its little

Army in that first week of August Germany's vast host was already surging into Belgium

within days the first reports appeared in the world's newspapers describing the extraordinarily brutal conduct of German

troops towards the Belgian people they were not merely carelessly destroying homes and Villages all

invading armies do that they were seizing and killing civilian hostages in scores and

hundreds even before 1914 the Kaiser's Army had earned a reputation for exceptional

brutality between 1904 and 7 when the Herrero and Nama tribes rebelled against German colonial rule in Southwest Africa

the Kaiser soldiers killed or deliberately starved to death almost 100,000 native

people vilhelm applauded and decorated the officer responsible even by the Imperial

standards of the day this action was worse than any British [Music]

excess but the Herrero genocide had been far away in Africa in August 1914 World opinion was stunned by German savagery

towards fellow Europeans in Flanders the destruction of the medieval University Town of loua

today rebuilt from Ash became a symbol of the excesses of the Kaiser soldiers endorsed by

Berlin professor John Horn has exhaustively researched and cataloged the German Army's actions in Berlin and

France during [Music] 1914 John we're here in the University

Library at louvar what happened here well on the 25th of um August there was the sound of fighting German soldiers

shooting at what they claimed was a civilian Insurrection round about 11:00 in the evening this beautiful University

liary was broken into by the German soldiers and deliberately set fire one young Jesuit father dupio uh had written

in his notebook that he thought the Germans in burning down the library had done something as barbaric as the

destruction of the Library of Alexandria in Antiquity this was seized by German soldiers and he was summarily executed

and by the the 29th or the 30th you have to imagine loua um as an almost empty town the population that hadn't been

deported gradually straggled back in to find between 1500 and 2,000 buildings destroyed and well over 240 of their own

Town's people had been killed all armies in all wars can behave very badly what seems different about what happened in

Belgium in 1914 was that it wasn't just a question of of the odd soldiers um brutally murdering a few civilians they

were systematically shooting them in scores and sometimes in hundreds as hostages you're quite right but what

we've just described in lva was a terrible incident and it immediately grabbed the international headlines but

it was typical of something that happened across the whole Invasion front in Belgium and also in eastern France

and it wasn't the worst case in terms of the death rate din was destroyed as a town and 674 of its inhabitants executed

two days before In Cold Blood in C in In Cold Blood [Music]

in the first weeks of the war nearly 6 and a half thousand civilians were executed by German troops in Belgium and

France Berlin claimed that they were merely exacting legitimate reprisals for resistance by civilians so-called

FR but John Horn rejects this you found no evidence at all of frer activity did you have guilla activity against the J

no it was uh apart from the odd very isolated incident but nothing which Justified the German accusations which

was that there had been what they called a folks Creek a people's War a mass Uprising and the Kaiser already by the

9th of um August only a week into the war is accusing the king of the belgians of fermenting such an uprising it it it

didn't happen was the institutional response of the German generals and right up to the Kaiser that seem

striking and it does seem to say something about the character of the regime that's right because um very

quickly um what starts out as as as panics and localized responses by German soldiers is immediately um endorsed by

the whole German command structure and then what swings into play is a series of very brutal reprisals which are

justified in terms of German military Doctrine as to what you do when you're faced with civilian

Uprising for years apologists for Germany claimed that the Belgian atrocity were figments of Allied

propaganda some of the stories that made headlines in 1914 for instance claims that thousands of babies were maimed by

German soldiers were indeed Fabrications but a big truth persists the German Army behaved with systemic

barbarity during its Advance across Belgium and France its actions persuaded many

hitherto doubting British people that they had chosen the right side in the ghastly conflict that was

unfolding some historians today claim that the British government's decision to go to war in defense of Belgium's

neutrality was simply a fig Leaf a pretense when really it was all simply about supporting the French against the

Germans i' put it a bit differently yes it's true that some key ministers wanted to fight anyway but Belgium provided a

Tipping Point all sorts of British people who cared nothing for Serbia or Russia could easily get their minds

around the notion that it was outrageous that the most powerful Army in Europe proposed to crush beneath its boots a

small state simply to serve the convenience of the schen plan and wasn't that indeed a decent and

honorable reason for Britain to go to war had Germany been Victorious on the continent Britain would have found

itself in a desperate and lonely predicament the Germans had won and now I

hypothesize there would have been an Anglo German war within a matter of years the fear in Britain was that a

power which unified the continent would then be in a position to challenge Britain's command of the sea if she

commanded challenged and successfully overturned Britain's command of the sea Not only would we no longer have an

Empire we will be at the mercy of whoever commanded the whole of Europe that was what the British feared that

was what they were right to fear it and they were right to fear it because there was a substantial element in Germany led

by the Kaiser whose one objective was to challenge Britain as a world power to build a great Navy which could then

defeat the British and Germany would then become a world power at the expense of the British so if the Germans had won

the war I see no way in which they would not have used their dominance of Europe to bring the British down so we would

not have avoided a war we would only have postponed one by early September the German Army

had swept through Belgium and into France with Berlin believing that its victory was imminent Chancellor bethan

HG Drew up a list of his country's demands at the peace talks they included seizing large suedes

of land from both France and Russia annexing Lux Berg making Belgium and Holland vassel

States the September plan as it became known was designed to secure Germany's absolute political and economic control

of Europe but in the second week of September the French army achieved a

historic victory in the battle of the man driving back the Germans from the gates of

Paris What followed in the Autumn of 1914 finally wrecked Germany's dream of Swift

Victory it also witnessed the first big and seriously bloody Battle of the war for the

British in October the British expeditionary Force marched towards the old Belgian cloth town of e wipers as

millions of British soldiers came to know it they arrived there just in time to CL

flash head on with a massive enemy offensive the last great German effort to win the war by

Christmas what took place in the five weeks of battle around e set the pattern for the vision of the first world war

which has been etched into our national culture ever [Music]

since former Soldier Clive Harris today guides visitors to the battlefields of the first first world war and especially

those around e but you can see sh he's brought me to polygon wood one of the most famous or notorious landmarks of

the desperate struggle in 1914 it's right at the edge of the men road which runs back towards e which is

about five six kmers behind us now it sits right at the center of the battlefield as well so from the moment

the Germans attack us on the 18th of October right through to the last knockins of first Eeps on the 11th of

November this this wood here and the two Woods just to the rear of us were key as part of the battle this is where the

Germans made their last huge push of 1914 to try and win the war Before Christmas they did yeah they now

realized that they needed to knock us out of the war and by doing so they needed to capture the channel ports and

therefore they moved away from the V life and plan to degree and the capture of Eeps this is the last thing other

side of Eeps there is no defenses it was our last chance there is nothing behind us but the channel ports and there were

battles all over the shop small battles all over the wood here they were yeah we tend to think that the British line

would be a continual line when in fact it was more a series of outposts and quite often units found themselves

isolated and having to make small unit charges into Germans as opposed to a larger cohesive

defense here in Western Belgium the war of maneuver ranging across thousands of square miles that have been waged

through the late summer of 1914 gave way to a stalemate Across the Western Front [Music]

the technology of defense and destruction artillery and machine guns had achieved a dominance which

confounded the generals of both [Music] sides at e cavalrymen saw their horses

almost for the last time before being obliged to join a death grapple on foot well we're here this is the uh site

of the horse guards Memorial and it marks um an area where the horse guards fight his infantry pretty much on this

spot we're just on the so they came charging up dismounted yeah initially by this actual spot is where one of the

machine gun positions because it a great Arc of Fire over advancing enemy but what seems important here Clive it

wasn't just that the British threw back the German Army it was also that the whole character of the war changed for

all the armies that here was where they first came to terms with what everybody now understands was the full horror of

the Great War wasn't it y trench warfare and this is the end of that war of movement that starts in the August all

the way down to the man all the way back again and it's here that we start to dig dig dig so yeah we're on the spot where

it changes and when it started to rain yeah they weren't in the earth they were in the mud yeah then you have to learn

uh to cope with things such as trench F and how to get around that and reinforce your trenches to withstand bombardments

we're no longer going to see artillery now in front of the Infantry firing as field guns they're going to be behind

the lines or certainly in in sunken lanes and that sort of thing and nobody dares show his head above the parit no

this is we go Subterranean from now on that's right um any Movement by day would have been suicidal

yeah but the British paid a devastating price for their narrow victory at e 56,000 British soldiers were killed or

wounded in a month the old professional British Army was largely

destroyed thereafter it would be civilian volunteers and later conscripts who accounted for the overwhelming

majority of the 6 million British soldiers who eventually served but however terrible the

sacrifice it seems mistaken to imagine the that there was ever an easy means by which the war could have been

ended gentlemen our long wait is nearly at an end tomorrow morning General Insanity mchit invites you to a Mass

Slaughter we're going over the top well h on har the hugely successful black add series epitomizes the enduring popular

view of the first world war but the British army fell victim to idiot commanders devoid of brains or courage

well best of luck to you all sorry I can't be with you but obviously there's no place at the front for an old General

with a Dicky heart and a wooden bladder well chu chu then see you all in Berlin for coffee and

cake most of the war's commanders really were pretty unlovable and unimaginative men but once the most powerful

industrial States in Europe were locked in Strife it seems wrong to imagine that even a Wellington or Napoleon could have

found an easy road to Victory George orell wrote a generation later that the only way to end a war quickly is to lose

it he was right the trench stalemate on the Western Front posed intractable problems

which no Commander proved able to solve generals needed to be able to control their forces by telephone and

could only do so from behind the front rather than at the head of their troops as on history's

battlefields but the price of longdistance command was to create a divide between the top brass in their

shadows and their men C deep in mud which has made an enduring and bitter impact on posterity's view of the

war in the summer of 1918 Allied Forces finally broke the stalemate on the Western Front and pushed east across

France with the British army taking more prisoners than all their Allied Partners put

together the Germans exhausted and demoralized fell back in growing disarray until an Armistice was signed

on the 11th of [Music] November around 10 million combatants

900,000 of them from the British Empire had lost their lives two months after the shooting

stopped the Victorious allies convened a peace conference at the palace of versailes outside

Paris their task was enormous their purposes the most ambitious in history the Versa Summit has often since been

branded a failure which condemned Europe to a further generation of strife prime minister Lloyd George

French Premier George clono and American President woodro Wilson led the negotiations involving delegations from

many other interested Nations which lasted for 6 months between January and June 1919

their intention was to produce a treaty that would not only reshape Europe but also ensure that there could never again

be a great War by disarming the Germans and making them pay the costs of the conflict historian Margaret McMillan is

the author of the most compelling and Vivid modern Narrative of what happened at

versailes what was at stake for the Allied powers at Versailles I think they had two things

they had to think about they were deeply concerned about the state of Europe and indeed their own countries included

there was real fear of Revolution and they were worried that the situation might deteriorate what was also at stake

of course is they were democracies and they had to think of their publics and the public had been led to believe and

had been kept going in the war by the promise that it was going to make a much better world and so what they had to try

and do is create a better world to incredbly ambitious objectives it was it very ambitious but then of course the

first world war is so unusual compared to earlier Wars because it was so exhausting that you couldn't just say at

the end of it well that's it done we'll make a few border changes and we'll go back to normal you couldn't go back to

normal I seem to remember that the Germans eventually paid less than they had made the French pay after they beat

the French in 1871 what the Allies couldn't say to their own people was look there's no way Germany can pay what

really we need to rebuild because they their own people had suffered so much and so they had to put a bill in but

what they did was they fudged it they divided the total reparations Bill up so the Germans only paid a fraction

once they paid the fraction they'd pay the rest which of course the Germans never wanted to do the Allies really

failed afterwards to convince their own peoples that their cause have been just didn't they well I suppose the problem

with the first world war is that the expectations are so high the promises are so great and all sorts of promises

as we know made during the war to try and keep people in the war but there's no way that all those promises can be

cashed in after the war is over abuse fell upon the Versa treaty almost before ink was dry on the

signatures the economist John Maynard KES one of the British treasury delegation published a scathing

broadside entitled The Economic Consequences of the Peace a strong German sympathizer KES

made a case that the terms imposed upon Germany were both morally unjust and economically

foolish how influential was Maynard K's and his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace which absolutely damned

Versa it was very influential I mean he wrote it very quickly it became a bestseller immediately it's been in

print ever since and it's a brilliant pmic it's not fair he paints this picture of these greedy selfish

hard-hearted cynical men dividing up Europe punishing Germany and they're just making a complete mess of it I

think there also he represents a whole generation of younger people who had supported the war believing that the

world was going to be a better place place and when they saw it wasn't going to be they reacted and blamed the people

who were trying to make peace for everything I thought one of the huge unfairnesses of kan's book is that he

never set it in the context of saying all right even if the Allies have made a fumbled bungle piece if the Germans had

won and if the Germans had been making the peace it would have been a vastly cruler and worse one for Europe well I

think there's plenty of evidence that what the German High command and they were basically in control of Germany by

this point by 1918 you had a military dictatorship in Germany and what they were planning were pretty extensive

annexations of other people's lands in the west and in the East they were planning to extend their influence they

in the Treaty of BR Lov they had forced the Bolsheviks who were desperate to give over whatever gold they had left

they'd set up an independent Ukraine I mean the evidence is unless they'd had a complete change of heart it would have

been a very harsh piece today an awful lot of people have come to feel a real guilt about the Treaty of Versa oh it

was an unfair treaty to Germany that it contributed to the rise of Hitler got it wrong was it the harsh vindictive treaty

they claim the trouble with the treaty I think is that it appeared to be harsher than it actually was and of course it

was all about implementation and in the end most of those Clauses which limited German power and forced Germany to pay

reparations were were not really implemented fully and so I think there's there's a perception of the treaty is

very harsh my question always is is what would you have done otherwise how would you have treated Germany if you felt it

had caused the War and caused this catastrophe for Europe what would you have done wouldn't you have tried to

limit its power because Vera failed to deliver a lasting peace it has become unjustly

blamed for the fact that a second world war had to be fought in truth so many violent forces

and crises shook Europe between 1919 and 1939 that it seems absurd to blame the peacemakers for having failed in their

grand purposes in the decade following Versa all Europe groaned under the burden of paying the

bills for the past conflict Britain was almost bankrupt on the moral and political regeneration

which prime minister Lloyd George had repeatedly promised failed to happen many men came back from the Army

to find their old jobs taken by civilians often women whereas in 1945 veterans returned

to a country run by a labor government committed to creating a welfare state after 1918 the old gang remained in

charge of an unreformed British Society those who had fought felt that they had been sold a false bill of

goods my own grandfather a writer who won a military cross as a gunner officer in France became one of those who within

a few years of the Armistice asked himself what it had all been for here's an essay my grandfather wrote

for a literary magazine in 1923 after meeting a group of fellow veterans who' served with him in France

they now felt he said that they had gone not as Heroes but on a Fool's errand to fight in a war that was not worth

fighting they'd endured the unsightly dirty life of the battlefields with a cheery and modest sense of Merit with a

belief that they were making some contribution to a good cause but now it

transpired this had been a stupid Article of Faith which was exploded my grandfather and His Kind

felt themselves Strangers In a Strange Land divided by the horrendous trench experience from those at home who knew

almost nothing about [Music] it the Poets of the Western Front such

men as Wilfred Owen Robert grave SE fre suon vividly described its Horrors on the sense of military futility in a

fashion that later generations have found [Music]

irresistible here was the world's worst wound and here with pride then name liveth forever more the Gateway

claims was ever an imulation so bellied as these intolerably nameless names well might the Dead who struggled

in the Slime rise and deride this Seiler of [Music]

crime but suon and His Kind never addressed the huge question of how on Earth Britain could have escaped from

the war except by conceding defeat it's a weird British thing that while we're hugely proud that our

forefathers fought Hitler we seem almost ashamed that they fought the Kaiser how has the overwhelming

perception developed in Britain over the last 100 years that there was nothing worth fighting about in the first world

war well well the interesting point is not so much that after the war opinion changed or opinion there to the point

when you said that was a bad War it was badly conducted it was a waste of time a waste of blood and it should never have

happened nobody thought that in 1918 I think nobody thought that for another 10 years until about 1928 The

Poets did The Poets did the interesting thing is whether people would have been interested and affected by what the

poets wrote they became expressive of a public opinion in 1928 they went expressive in in 1918 by the end of the

1920s there's this worldwide slump total catastrophic unemployment everywhere especially in Germany the

situation seemed to be far worse in 1928 than it had been in 19 194 and by 1933 or so it has become generally accepted

that the war was an unnecessary war that had have been bungled etc etc so I think that what was very very important was

not so much the fact that the war had been terribly expensive and bloody and the losses were awful it was that

nothing seemed to have come out of it of any good Europe's descent into the turmoil

and privations of the the 1930s caused many people to view the Great War as bungled the peace

shambolic some perversely blamed the victors for the rise of Hitler and [Music]

Nazism while many people today still think of the first world war as a bad War the second has come to be seen by

contrast as a virtuous Crusade against the Nazi architects of [Music]

genocide nobody went to war in 1939 to stop the Germans massacring the Jews I mean sad that maybe you say that partly

because of course the serious massacres hadn't yet begun uh but principally because Germany might be doing awful

things Nazi Germany domestically but in those days nobody saw that uh as an obligation to go to war in the way in

which we would today um so in some respects both Wars break out for similar reasons great power rivalries and the

concerns of of the balance of power within Europe and what is happening within Eastern Europe they're remarkably

similar in their causation and it is perverse that we have closed the second world war is the good War and the first

world war is the bad War uh and and of course we have not remained sufficiently I'm talking we as British now have not

remained sufficiently independent-minded or sufficiently historically aware uh to put these things in in our own and a

proper context [Music] no sane person believes that Britain

wanted a war in 1914 all the great Powers bear some responsibility for the Carnage but the

Germans seem to deserve most because they refused to use their almost indisputable ability to prevent

it they failed to see that nothing they HED to get out of the war could justify its horrendous prospective risk on

actual cost Britain emerged from the first world war with little to show save a few worthless

colonies and a host of public memorials but the right questions to ask about the conflict and the nation's

sacrifice today are whether we could justly or sensibly have stayed out of it and what would have befallen Europe

if the Kaisers Germany had won I'm imagining what whiteall as it was on the 4th of August jam with

expectant people about to be swept away by the most Dreadful cataclysm in European

history nobody in their right mind would suggest making the stiner of 1914 an occasion for

celebration but we should have the courage to tell our children and grandchildren that the wartime

generation did not fight and die for nothing that if their enemies had prevailed Europe would have paid an even

more terrible forfeit to explore further the story of how the world went to war in 1914 go to

bbc.co.uk WW1