The Great War: Our Greatest Mistake

Peter Hitchens writes:

The First World War was the most important event of modern history, rightly compared to the fall of the Roman Empire in its significance.

And this country’s entry into that war was the biggest mistake ever made by British politicians, which is saying something. Of course, all serious historians know that Germany started it, but the really puzzling question is, why did we join in?

It was absurd to think we could stop Germany dominating Europe. In an effort to obstruct the inevitable, we sent our best young men to die, squandered our wealth and foreign investments, and lost both our naval supremacy and our empire.

If Germany had won quickly in 1914, there would have been no Hitler, no Bolshevik Revolution, no Lenin, no Stalin, no Mussolini.

As it happens, the ‘September Programme’ for a united Europe, drawn up by Berlin when they thought they had won in autumn 1914, looks suspiciously like the modern European Union. Except that the September Programme did not envisage Britain as a subject province, whereas we are one now.

So, after two immense wars and incredible amounts of death and destruction, we are worse off than we would have been in September 1914, had we stayed out. No doubt we would have had to adapt to a German-dominated continent, but with our navy and empire intact, we would in my view have kept far more independence than we have now.

The only things that remain the same, after 100 years, are the pitiful calibre of our politicians and their crazed enthusiasm for foreign wars whose ends they cannot know, and do not seem to care about.