I profoundly disagree: to describe Asquith and even Bethman-Hollweg as “war criminals” is however simplistically satisfying (as with Bush and Blair) just wrong. Asquith was a hopeless war leader because he was horified by what happened in 1914, his son died in the trenches and he was removed in what was effectively a coup by the much more sanguinary and culpable Lloyd-George ; who prevented a German victory that would have created a very different and truly abominable imperial destiny for our civilisation. There is also compelling evidence that Hollweg played his impossible and inescapable hand in a brave intelligent and even morally creditable manner.

Many factors contributed to the tragic horror of WW1 among them criminal conspiracies in Serbia, sentimentalism, mass hysteria – and ignorance of history.

Thanks for the great reading, we buy Gold in a recession. I will pass this on to our Ira clients to read.

Now I agree that if people were celebrating the wisdom and courage of Asquith and Wilson, it would be appropriate to sound a contrary note, but they aren't. No one remembers the First World War as heroic, noble or worthwhile. Mostly, no one remembers it at all.

The entire fourth season is top-notch, but the last bit is epic.