Simon Jenkins is so, so right (Germany, I'm sorry. This is the British at their worst, 31 January). Comparing Michael Gove to Vladimir Putin in the misuse of history is a masterstroke. The only thing Jenkins fails to do is answer his own question: "Can we really not do history without war?" So long as modern prime ministers and their cabinets see preparations for, and the engagement in, warlike actions as necessary policies for their own survival – even at the expense of other people's lives – so they must glorify what they see as national victories, and the heroic sacrifices of our ancestors, in previous wars.
In 2014, David Cameron has other motives for recalling the politicians' war of 1914, as Gove so brilliantly exposed. If it is counted as the moment when the UK was at its best, commemorating it can be utilised both in a political campaign to defeat the Scottish Nationalists in their referendum and the Labour party in the run-up to a general election in 2015. Brand all opponents as lefties and anti-British and you win hands down. As Jenkins so admirably demonstrates, there is a vast weight of public sentiment already primed through the mass media and school syllabuses to take the view that we won and they lost because we were the goodies and they were the baddies.
*Paul Anderton*
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire
• Niall Ferguson (Report, 30 January) would objectively probably be quite correct in saying that strategically Britain may well have done better to stay out of the conflict until it was more ready to intervene on the basis of finance and naval power. However, the government at that time was facing a number of extremely difficult issues at home. Throughout 1913 and 1914, there had been a massive wave of national strikes in key industries, which looked set to resume, the windows were still crashing everywhere from the women's suffrage campaign, and civil war in Ireland was threatening with Carson on the march in Ulster to prevent the Irish Home Rule Act from coming into force.
Asquith's government must have been relieved to be able to declare war on Germany in order to put the country into a state of national emergency, to stop the strikes by recruiting the workers into the army to shoot the German workers; to persuade the women to leave their demands until after the war; to put the Home Rule Act into abeyance and to call on the ultra-patriotic Ulstermen to do their duty and defend the King. I think the government jumped at the chance of war with very little idea about how a continental conflict against Germany would actually be fought.
*Rinaldo Frezzato*
London
• The flaw in Niall Ferguson's argument that Britain should have kept out of the first world war is that whereas Napoleon and Hitler were brought down by their defeats in Russia, Germany actually defeated Russia in the first world war. It is difficult to see how Britain could have dealt with a victorious Germany at a later stage without the help of a large continental ally like Russia – all Britain's successful military interventions in continental Europe have been achieved with the help of grand coalitions. It is also not clear how Britain could have built up the tough professional army required to defeat Germany without actually participating in the war.
Incidentally, the peace treaty imposed on Russia by Germany at Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 gives a flavour of what a German-dominated Europe would have been like – large swaths of eastern Europe would have been handed over to Germany or German-controlled vassal states, had it won on the western front, to create Lebensraum for the Greater German Reich, a policy very similar to Hitler's in the second world war.
*Hugh Wellesley-Smith*
Leeds
• I agree with Niall Ferguson that the first world war should never have happened. But his reasoning is faulty. The war was fought not because of German expansionism, but because all the major European empires were in conflict with one another. The rapid process of colonisation that began with the scramble for Africa and ended in 1914 was the cause of greater imperial rivalry than anything seen before. Germany had less access to colonies in Africa and elsewhere than France or Britain, or to the far eastern ports that the Russian empire controlled. At stake was who would control not just Europe but large parts of the world. Britain's increased spending on its navy before 1914 was to protect the empire. It succeeded temporarily, but at terrible human cost.
*Lindsey German*
Convenor, Stop the War Coalition
• Like Simon Jenkins, I have been concerned that only one side of the first world war will be discussed. That is why I have started a petition to have Edith Cavell on a £2 coin as a counterbalance to the Kitchener coin. Hers was a small voice of reason who saw duty as being to all soldiers. A woman of principle.
*Sioned-Mair Richards*
Sheffield
• Simon Jenkins might like to append the French to his apology to the Germans for our aggrandisement of military victory. Next year it will be 200 years since Waterloo, and 600 since Agincourt. C'est formidable, non?
*Dan Adler*
Farnham, Surrey
• This year offers anniversaries other than that of the first world war. February marks 40 years since Tory premier Ted Heath called a general election on the back of a miners' strike. He asked the electorate "who governs Britain?" and they decided, narrowly, that the answer was Labour and the trade unions. The miners won a 30% pay rise. Those kind of days are worth remembering.
*Keith Flett*
London Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 hours ago.
In 2014, David Cameron has other motives for recalling the politicians' war of 1914, as Gove so brilliantly exposed. If it is counted as the moment when the UK was at its best, commemorating it can be utilised both in a political campaign to defeat the Scottish Nationalists in their referendum and the Labour party in the run-up to a general election in 2015. Brand all opponents as lefties and anti-British and you win hands down. As Jenkins so admirably demonstrates, there is a vast weight of public sentiment already primed through the mass media and school syllabuses to take the view that we won and they lost because we were the goodies and they were the baddies.
*Paul Anderton*
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire
• Niall Ferguson (Report, 30 January) would objectively probably be quite correct in saying that strategically Britain may well have done better to stay out of the conflict until it was more ready to intervene on the basis of finance and naval power. However, the government at that time was facing a number of extremely difficult issues at home. Throughout 1913 and 1914, there had been a massive wave of national strikes in key industries, which looked set to resume, the windows were still crashing everywhere from the women's suffrage campaign, and civil war in Ireland was threatening with Carson on the march in Ulster to prevent the Irish Home Rule Act from coming into force.
Asquith's government must have been relieved to be able to declare war on Germany in order to put the country into a state of national emergency, to stop the strikes by recruiting the workers into the army to shoot the German workers; to persuade the women to leave their demands until after the war; to put the Home Rule Act into abeyance and to call on the ultra-patriotic Ulstermen to do their duty and defend the King. I think the government jumped at the chance of war with very little idea about how a continental conflict against Germany would actually be fought.
*Rinaldo Frezzato*
London
• The flaw in Niall Ferguson's argument that Britain should have kept out of the first world war is that whereas Napoleon and Hitler were brought down by their defeats in Russia, Germany actually defeated Russia in the first world war. It is difficult to see how Britain could have dealt with a victorious Germany at a later stage without the help of a large continental ally like Russia – all Britain's successful military interventions in continental Europe have been achieved with the help of grand coalitions. It is also not clear how Britain could have built up the tough professional army required to defeat Germany without actually participating in the war.
Incidentally, the peace treaty imposed on Russia by Germany at Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 gives a flavour of what a German-dominated Europe would have been like – large swaths of eastern Europe would have been handed over to Germany or German-controlled vassal states, had it won on the western front, to create Lebensraum for the Greater German Reich, a policy very similar to Hitler's in the second world war.
*Hugh Wellesley-Smith*
Leeds
• I agree with Niall Ferguson that the first world war should never have happened. But his reasoning is faulty. The war was fought not because of German expansionism, but because all the major European empires were in conflict with one another. The rapid process of colonisation that began with the scramble for Africa and ended in 1914 was the cause of greater imperial rivalry than anything seen before. Germany had less access to colonies in Africa and elsewhere than France or Britain, or to the far eastern ports that the Russian empire controlled. At stake was who would control not just Europe but large parts of the world. Britain's increased spending on its navy before 1914 was to protect the empire. It succeeded temporarily, but at terrible human cost.
*Lindsey German*
Convenor, Stop the War Coalition
• Like Simon Jenkins, I have been concerned that only one side of the first world war will be discussed. That is why I have started a petition to have Edith Cavell on a £2 coin as a counterbalance to the Kitchener coin. Hers was a small voice of reason who saw duty as being to all soldiers. A woman of principle.
*Sioned-Mair Richards*
Sheffield
• Simon Jenkins might like to append the French to his apology to the Germans for our aggrandisement of military victory. Next year it will be 200 years since Waterloo, and 600 since Agincourt. C'est formidable, non?
*Dan Adler*
Farnham, Surrey
• This year offers anniversaries other than that of the first world war. February marks 40 years since Tory premier Ted Heath called a general election on the back of a miners' strike. He asked the electorate "who governs Britain?" and they decided, narrowly, that the answer was Labour and the trade unions. The miners won a 30% pay rise. Those kind of days are worth remembering.
*Keith Flett*
London Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 hours ago.