Amazon Review
If someone less distinguished than Jesus College, Oxford, fellow Niall Ferguson had written The Pity of War, you could be forgiven for thinking the book was out for a few cheap headlines by contradicting almost every accepted orthodoxy about the First World War. Ferguson argues that Britain was as much to blame for the start of the war as Germany, and that, had Britain sacrificed Belgium to Germany, the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution would never have happened. Germany, he continues, would have created a united European state, and Britain could have remained a superpower. He also contends that there was little enthusiasm for the war in Britain in 1914; on the other hand, he claims the war was prolonged not by clever manipulation of the media, but by British soldiers’ taking pleasure in combat.
Not the soldiers taking pleasure from combat, but perhaps a few rear echelon generals...
I think Germany winning WW 1 would have avoided WW 2. The Kaiser was far less imperialistic & evil than the Nazi’s. Had Germany not been financially decimated in the 20’s. Hitler would have never rose to power.
It left a permanent scar on the British psyche: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQm3qfjhGB4