It was not pointless

The industrial carnage of the First World War created a now-familiar narrative, that of senseless sacrifice and bloodshed. To a great extent this was forged by those who took part, notably the war poets. Notions of honour and heroism were buried in the mud of Flanders. Wilfred Owen called Horace’s epigram praising the act of dying for one’s country “the old Lie”. Owen, who died in the war, and those like Sassoon who survived, established a view of the pointlessness of the Great War that has, if anything, become even more pronounced in the ensuing 100 years.

As the country prepares to mark the centenary of the end of the war later this year, there are some who think too much emphasis is placed on the undeniable misery and not enough on the fact that for the British this was a just war, fought to prevent the military takeover of Europe by Germany. Moreover, it was one in which we were victorious.

Colonel Tim Collins, a former soldier who fought in Iraq, has told the Radio Times that the BBC’S coverage of the war is “saturated in grief, horror and pity” and ignores the fact that the British, French and American armies won. “Coverage focuses almost completely on what has been called the ‘Blackadder’ version,” says Col Collins. “‘Lions led by donkeys’ is the characterisation of the British forces and is, effectively, all the current generation knows of these events. The brilliance of our leadership, and the contribution of the Dominions, has been blotted out and forgotten.”

The grief cannot be gainsaid given the prodigious death toll. But Col Collins is surely right to observe that it does the memory of those who fought and died no service by portraying their great sacrifice as pointless.