It says much that even after a full century after it began, the causes of the first World War are as disputed as say the Cold War. I am reminded of an old newspaper cartoon in which two European kings- one of them Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany and another whose name I don't quite remember. One(which one is unclear and is besides the point anyway) asks "Hey, what caused it"-the war that is"- in the first place?!" "Ach, if only one knew!" was the weary reply.

The war may have been rationally defensible in the sense that Britain had to prevent Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany from dominating the European landmass( much as Napoleon's France, the Netherlands or Philip II's Spain or Russia- Czarist or Soviet- threatened to do) and hence the sea lines(very important considerations from a sea power like Britain) but the sheer human cost of the conflict, the millions not only maimed in body and mind, the economic, moral and political dislocations- which led first to the rise of Bolshevism in Russia,(1917) Fascism in Italy (1922) and ultimately Nazism in Germany, first a second World War, and then four -plus decades of Cold War, make any attempt to "celebrate" the outbreak of World War 1 not only dubious but pretty much ghoulish to my mind.

Just as well the tone of the commemoration is sombre reflection rather than the sort of "bugle in the blood" jingoism(often uttered by politicians and pundits who have never seen military service far less wartime combat) that makes me want to gag!

Anybody else think as I do?

Terry