Jeremy Paxman offers a view of the first world war that has its insights but avoids important questions that need answering
The battle to carve up the 100th anniversary of the first world war began early this month with education secretary Michael Gove accusing historians and Blackadder – he didn't appear to make much distinction between the two – of peddling leftwing myths that the conflict was "a misbegotten shambles, perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite", while arguing himself that the Germans were entirely to blame for starting it. Cue outrage from every serious historian apart from Max Hastings, with Jeremy Paxman getting in on the act by adding that he didn't think Gove's concept of a "just war" was terribly helpful. Tit-for-tat, David Cameron responded by saying he didn't rate Paxman's history books very highly and reiterating Gove's position that "the first world war was a war fought in a just cause, that our ancestors thought it would be bad to have a Prussian-dominated Europe". A hundred years on, the in-fighting shows no signs of letting up.
There has been one clear winner, though, in the race to be first off the mark with what promises to be four years of intensive programming to commemorate the war, and that is Paxman himself, whose *Britain's Great War* (BBC1) beat the centenary gun by the best part of eight months. Surprisingly, though, Paxman's version of history is one that neither Gove nor Cameron could have any objection to being used as part of the national curriculum. The causes of the war are reduced in a single sentence to, "The Kaiser wants to invade Russia and France and hasn't responded to Britain's 11pm deadline", with stiff-upper lipped British politicians sobbing openly at the inevitability and enormity of the catastrophe to come.
Paxman's desire to depoliticise and humanise the war does have its advantages. It cuts through the complexities of causality to give a feel for how the war was experienced by the ordinary men and women in Britain and turns up some nuggets that have often got overlooked in more traditional accounts. By showing both how the fear of invasion was so great that the first trenches were dug along the cliffs of Dover and how towns in the north-east were shelled with a significant loss of life by the German navy, Paxman made it plain that the conflict wasn't confined to mainland Europe. The perception that it might spread to Britain itself was very real in the early years of the war.
But it did all feel a bit disconnected, as if there was a contextual void at the centre. It wasn't that the series demanded a great historical debate on the causes of the war – though it did seem perverse that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the Balkans or European imperialism didn't get a mention – but it did require something to explain the war as more than a random series of events that happened to Britain. A week or so before the war began, there was a mass peace rally led by Keir Hardie in London: war was something few wanted and most believed should be avoided. And yet, within a week or so of the outbreak, Paxman informed us, Britain was united in a determination that this was a war that needed to be fought, without any nod to how or why the mood of the nation had undergone a U-turn.
Nor was there even a hint of an explanation as to why so many in Britain thought the war would be over by Christmas when, days earlier, the politicians had apparently been weeping at the devastation they knew was to come. Was it just that no one could conceive of a war lasting any longer or was there a collective denial? It may be there are no straight answers – easy or otherwise – but the questions do need to be asked if any sense is to be made of the war.
Though maybe the lesson of history is that you should just ride your luck. Mary Berry could be forgiven for thinking that. After been largely ignored by TV for the first 40 years of her career as a food writer and cook, she is now accorded quasi-royal status wherever she goes. As a guest on the first programme of the new series of *Food & Drink* (BBC2), she appeared almost embarrassed as Michel Roux and Kate Goodman competed with one another for her approval. "I bet your fridge doesn't have a single thing out of place," Michel fawned before declaring her fish pie the finest meal he had ever eaten. Kate tried to get her drunk on grappa. Mary became more and more regal the longer the programme went on. She didn't offer any comment on the section in which a butcher hacked up a beef carcass in a field of live cows, but I hope that's just because she was maintaining a dignified silence. Reported by guardian.co.uk 15 hours ago.
The battle to carve up the 100th anniversary of the first world war began early this month with education secretary Michael Gove accusing historians and Blackadder – he didn't appear to make much distinction between the two – of peddling leftwing myths that the conflict was "a misbegotten shambles, perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite", while arguing himself that the Germans were entirely to blame for starting it. Cue outrage from every serious historian apart from Max Hastings, with Jeremy Paxman getting in on the act by adding that he didn't think Gove's concept of a "just war" was terribly helpful. Tit-for-tat, David Cameron responded by saying he didn't rate Paxman's history books very highly and reiterating Gove's position that "the first world war was a war fought in a just cause, that our ancestors thought it would be bad to have a Prussian-dominated Europe". A hundred years on, the in-fighting shows no signs of letting up.
There has been one clear winner, though, in the race to be first off the mark with what promises to be four years of intensive programming to commemorate the war, and that is Paxman himself, whose *Britain's Great War* (BBC1) beat the centenary gun by the best part of eight months. Surprisingly, though, Paxman's version of history is one that neither Gove nor Cameron could have any objection to being used as part of the national curriculum. The causes of the war are reduced in a single sentence to, "The Kaiser wants to invade Russia and France and hasn't responded to Britain's 11pm deadline", with stiff-upper lipped British politicians sobbing openly at the inevitability and enormity of the catastrophe to come.
Paxman's desire to depoliticise and humanise the war does have its advantages. It cuts through the complexities of causality to give a feel for how the war was experienced by the ordinary men and women in Britain and turns up some nuggets that have often got overlooked in more traditional accounts. By showing both how the fear of invasion was so great that the first trenches were dug along the cliffs of Dover and how towns in the north-east were shelled with a significant loss of life by the German navy, Paxman made it plain that the conflict wasn't confined to mainland Europe. The perception that it might spread to Britain itself was very real in the early years of the war.
But it did all feel a bit disconnected, as if there was a contextual void at the centre. It wasn't that the series demanded a great historical debate on the causes of the war – though it did seem perverse that the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the Balkans or European imperialism didn't get a mention – but it did require something to explain the war as more than a random series of events that happened to Britain. A week or so before the war began, there was a mass peace rally led by Keir Hardie in London: war was something few wanted and most believed should be avoided. And yet, within a week or so of the outbreak, Paxman informed us, Britain was united in a determination that this was a war that needed to be fought, without any nod to how or why the mood of the nation had undergone a U-turn.
Nor was there even a hint of an explanation as to why so many in Britain thought the war would be over by Christmas when, days earlier, the politicians had apparently been weeping at the devastation they knew was to come. Was it just that no one could conceive of a war lasting any longer or was there a collective denial? It may be there are no straight answers – easy or otherwise – but the questions do need to be asked if any sense is to be made of the war.
Though maybe the lesson of history is that you should just ride your luck. Mary Berry could be forgiven for thinking that. After been largely ignored by TV for the first 40 years of her career as a food writer and cook, she is now accorded quasi-royal status wherever she goes. As a guest on the first programme of the new series of *Food & Drink* (BBC2), she appeared almost embarrassed as Michel Roux and Kate Goodman competed with one another for her approval. "I bet your fridge doesn't have a single thing out of place," Michel fawned before declaring her fish pie the finest meal he had ever eaten. Kate tried to get her drunk on grappa. Mary became more and more regal the longer the programme went on. She didn't offer any comment on the section in which a butcher hacked up a beef carcass in a field of live cows, but I hope that's just because she was maintaining a dignified silence. Reported by guardian.co.uk 15 hours ago.