A glance at two articles about the First World War Centenary that have appeared in the British media in February 2018.
The BBC and other broadcasters should note that this year’s Armistice Centenary also marks the 100th anniversary of Allied victory in 1918, says Colonel Tim Collins, a former British Army commander.
Writing in the listings magazine Radio Times, he criticised the BBC’s coverage of the Battle of Passchendaele commemorations in 2017 as ‘saturated in grief’, and looking ahead, he calls for balance.
The BBC says it’s aimed ‘to reflect every aspect of the war….and this will continue in 2018 with programmes charting the spectacular turnaround in 1918 as the Allies turned potential defeat into victory.”
Colonel Tim Collins is best known for an inspirational address to his troops on the eve of the Iraq War in 2003. His comments in Radio Times were reported in several UK national newspapers, among them The Daily Mail.
In The Daily Telegraph, historian Paul Ham discusses the legacy of the First World War and whether or not it was just.
Arguing that governments could have prevented the conflict, he says they instead ‘rushed headlong’ into a war that ‘condemned the world to the bloodiest century in history.’
“None of the conditions that pertain to a ‘just’ war were in place in 1914,” Ham says – but that’s not to deny the courage or leadership of those who won the military victory.
The full article is in The Telegraph.
Images: Centenary News