Germany was in many ways the most advanced society in Europe, but it was cursed by this extraordinarily dysfunctional system of government. The welfare reforms that were passed in Germany in the first part of the 20th century were a model to societies all over the world. A very interesting question was if they hadn't invaded Belgium, will we still be right to fight? I think it would have been very difficult to persuade the British people certainly half the cabinet and much of the liberal party considered that Serbia and Russia deserved absolutely no sympathy at all. One quick point I'd make generally about this warmonger business, to take a few random quotes of things said by key Germans in the years before the war.
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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