Britain's major enemies for most of the 19th century had been French and Russians. We end up fighting on their side by what I would call the redwood grey and the tar baby solution. Because unless you imagine this bogeyman Germany, what do you get? You get a war for the balance of power in Europe. The Russians were a far greater threat to Britain than Germany.
For this week's Sunday Debate, we're dipping back into the archive to 2014, when we gathered a panel of expert historians to debate whether Britain was right to fight in the First World War, a tragedy that laid the foundations for decades of destructive upheaval and violence across Europe. To debate the issue, we invited leading historians Margaret MacMillan, Max Hastings, John Charmley and Dominic Sandbrook to an event hosted by journalist, columnist and national security expert, Edward Lucas.
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