1918 was a victory, but we won nothing

Col Collins is right about the heroic military, but the Great War should never have been fought at all

We won what? The endless debate over the legacy of the First World War, in which the Allied armies triumphed 100 years ago this coming November, continues to divide British society because the two sides are unable to agree on whether the war was “just”. At issue is not the courage or leadership of the men and their officers, most of whom did their duty with astonishing guts. At issue is whether the war was necessary. Could it have been avoided? Was it just?

In thoughtful remarks reported yesterday, Colonel Tim Collins argues that liberals (chiefly the BBC, the Left and Blackadder) have placed too much emphasis on the misery, mud and blood at the expense of celebrating a heroic victory in a just war. The entire debate pivots on the word “just” – the point being that if you call the war “unjust”, you diminish the soldiers. You are saying they fought for nothing.

Yet nobody who criticises the war is saying that. Nobody – not the war poets, not the liberals, not the BBC (not even Blackadder, if you watch closely) – has denied that most soldiers and commanders fought with great bravery in appalling circumstances. They fought for what they believed was right at the time, as sold to them by their governments. Once the war was declared, of course, it had to be won, with every fibre in our being.

But as we know, governments lie and lie to get their nations to go to war. What people believed was a “just” cause at the time is later shown to be propaganda. Iraq and Vietnam are simply the most egregious examples. The Great War is more complex, true, but by any fair definition it was unjust. None of the conditions that pertain to a “just” war were in place in 1914.

Did the aggressor nations intend the utter conquest of their enemies and thus compel us to go to war? No. Germany was willing to negotiate to avoid war well into 1914. It was as “liberal” and “democratic” as Britain – probably more so. Its “September Plan” for European conquest – which never received political assent – was put in place after hostilities began. By then, we were at war. That’s what enemies do: plan each other’s destruction. There is no evidence that Germany sought the destruction of Europe before the war began. They wanted a customs union and colonies and political recognition.

Were all means of avoiding hostilities exhausted? No. They weren’t begun. The governments of Europe rushed headlong into war without any serious effort to prevent the coming catastrophe. Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, tried meekly to mediate, to no avail.

Was the war likely to produce evils graver than the evil being fought over? Yes. The generals and politicians knew they were committing Europe to a war that would destroy the best part of a generation. They spoke in those terms. They knew they were about to throw millions of lives into the path of a storm of steel and clouds of lethal gas.

As a result, 37 million were killed or wounded, delivering immeasurable grief to millions of families. At the mother of all battles, Arras, the British lost 159,000 men, a daily average of 4,076 killed, wounded and missing, the worst daily casualty rate of any major battle. Many who survived suffered wounds of unprecedented violence, rendering them unable to walk, see, hear or make love again.

What of the political cost? The Great War condemned Europe to economic collapse, political degeneracy and totalitarian rule. The rise of Hitler was inconceivable without the devastating costs of the First World War. It was also was handmaiden to the Russian Revolution, without which Stalin, the Gulag and the Cold War would have been impossible. In short, it condemned the world to the bloodiest century in history, and is still playing havoc with our lives.

So when people speak of a “great victory in 1918”, yes, in purely military terms, it was. But they fail to define exactly what we’d won. The loss of civilisation? And they fail to ask, was there a smarter way forward?

All this begs the question, at what point would the catastrophe have not have been worth it? How many millions would have had to die, how many fascist and communist seedlings sown, before people will concede that the First World War was not worth it?

Paul Ham is author of ‘Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth’ and ‘1914: The Year the World Ended’ (Penguin Random House)