Michael Gove blasts 'Blackadder myths' about the First World War spread by television sit-coms and left-wing academics

Education Secretary says war is represented as a 'misbegotten shambles'

But he claims that it was in fact a 'just war' to combat German aggression

'Just war': Michael Gove says left-wing myths about the First World War peddled by Blackadder belittle Britain and clear Germany of blame

Left-wing myths about the First World War peddled by Blackadder belittle Britain and clear Germany of blame, Michael Gove says today.

The Education Secretary criticises historians and TV programmes that denigrate patriotism and courage by depicting the war as a ‘misbegotten shambles’.

As Britain prepares to commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the war, Mr Gove claims only undergraduate cynics would say the soldiers were foolish to fight.

In an article for the Daily Mail, Mr Gove says he has little time for the view of the Department for Culture and the Foreign Office that the commemorations should not lay fault at Germany’s door.

The Education Secretary says the conflict was a ‘just war’ to combat aggression by a German elite bent on domination.

‘The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war,’ he says. ‘The ruthless social Darwinism of the German elites, the pitiless approach they took to occupation, their aggressively expansionist war aims and their scorn for the international order all made resistance more than justified.’

Britain has pledged £50million in public money to mark the event, with school trips to battlefields and ceremonies planned over four years. The French government has also embraced the centenary, planning 1,500 events across the country. But there are few plans for events in Germany itself.

Mr Gove, who has rewritten the school history curriculum to give pupils a better grasp of the broad sweep of British history, reserves his greatest scorn for those who have sought to depict the soldiers as lions led by donkeys.

He says: ‘The war was, of course, an unspeakable tragedy, which robbed this nation of our bravest and best.

‘But it’s important that we don’t succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict in the last 70 or so years.

‘The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder as a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite.’

Vanessa Redgrave playing Sylvia Pankhurst, in the film Oh! What A Lovely War: Mr Gove singles out the film as propagating what he calls the myth of the First World War as a 'misbegotten shambles'

Mr Gove turns his fire on ‘Left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths by attacking Britain’s role in the conflict’.

He singles out Richard Evans, regius professor of history at Cambridge University, who has said those who enlisted in 1914 were wrong to think they were fighting to defend freedom.



Dramatisation: Paul McGann, as Percy Topliss, in the 1980s television series The Monocled Mutineer, another of the TV programmes Mr Gove targets

Mr Gove writes: ‘Richard Evans may hold a professorship, but these arguments, like the interpretations of Oh! What a Lovely War and Blackadder, are more reflective of the attitude of an undergraduate cynic playing to the gallery in a Cambridge Footlights revue rather than a sober academic contributing to a proper historical debate.’

The Education Secretary says it is time to listen to historians such as Margaret Macmillan who has ‘demonstrated how those who fought were not dupes but conscious believers in king and country, committed to defending the western liberal order’.

He also cites the work of Professor Gary Sheffield, who has reassessed the damaged reputation of British commander Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig.

Blackadder Goes Forth cast Rowan Atkinson in the title role as a captain in the trenches of Flanders during 1917.

It focused largely on his cowardly attempts to avoid certain death through going ‘over the top’ to engage the enemy.

Under the misguided leadership of a general played by Stephen Fry, and with little help from the hapless Private Baldrick (Tony Robinson) plus a twittish ex-public schoolboy played by Hugh Laurie, it chronicles his increasingly gutless efforts to dodge the action or escape the trenches.

The series was written by Four Weddings and Bridget Jones creator Richard Curtis in partnership with Left-wing comic Ben Elton.

It is still shown in schools to help children learn about the war.

Why does the Left insist on belittling true British heroes?

By MICHAEL GOVE, Education Secretary

The past has never had a better future. Because history is enjoying a renaissance in Britain. After years in which the study of history was declining in our schools, the numbers of young people showing an appetite for learning about the past, and a curiosity about our nation’s story, is growing once more.



As a Government, we’ve done everything we can to support this restoration. We’ve changed how schools are judged, and our new measure of academic success for schools and pupils, the English baccalaureate, rewards those who study history at GCSE.



And the changes we’ve made to the history curriculum have been welcomed by top academics as a way to give all children a proper rounded understanding of our country’s past and its place in the world.



Captain Coward: Tony Robinson as Private Baldrick, left, and Rowan Atkinson as Blackadder in the titular sit-com, which Education Secretary Michael Gove blames for distorting attitudes about the First World War

That understanding has never been needed more. Because the challenges we face today – great power rivalry, migrant populations on the move, rapid social upheaval, growing global economic interdependence, massive technological change and fragile confidence in political elites – are all challenges our forebears faced.



Indeed, these particular forces were especially powerful one hundred years ago – on the eve of the First World War. Which is why it is so important that we commemorate, and learn from, that conflict in the right way in the next four years.



The Government wants to give young people from every community the chance to learn about the heroism, and sacrifice, of our great-grandparents, which is why we are organising visits to the battlefields of the Western Front.



The war was, of course, an unspeakable tragedy, which robbed this nation of our bravest and best. But even as we recall that loss and commemorate the bravery of those who fought, it’s important that we don’t succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict.



Our understanding of the war has been overlaid by misunderstandings, and misrepresentations which reflect an, at best, ambiguous attitude to this country and, at worst, an unhappy compulsion on the part of some to denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage.



The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite. Even to this day there are Left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths.



Professor Sir Richard Evans, the Cambridge historian and Guardian writer, has criticised those who fought, arguing, ‘the men who enlisted in 1914 may have thought they were fighting for civilisation, for a better world, a war to end all wars, a war to defend freedom: they were wrong’.



And he has attacked the very idea of honouring their sacrifice as an exercise in ‘narrow tub-thumping jingoism’. These arguments are more reflective of the attitude of an undergraduate cynic playing to the gallery in a Cambridge Footlights revue rather than a sober academic contributing to a proper historical debate.



The First World War may have been a uniquely horrific war, but it was also plainly a just war. Nigel Biggar, regius professor of moral and pastoral theology at the University of Oxford, laid out the ethical case for our involvement in a superb essay in September’s Standpoint magazine.



The ruthless social Darwinism of the German elites, the pitiless approach they took to occupation, their aggressively expansionist war aims and their scorn for the international order all made resistance more than justified.



And the war was also seen by participants as a noble cause. Historians have skilfully demonstrated how those who fought were not dupes but conscious believers in king and country, committed to defending the western liberal order.

Other historians have gone even further in challenging some prevailing myths.



Generals who were excoriated for their bloody folly have now, after proper study, been re-assessed.



Douglas Haig, held up as a crude butcher, has been seen in a new light thanks to Professor Gary Sheffield, of Wolverhampton University, who depicts him as a patriotic leader grappling honestly with the new complexities of industrial warfare.



Even the battle of the Somme, once considered the epitome of military futility, has now been analysed in depth by the military historian William Philpott and recast as a precursor of allied victory.



Rehabilitated: Even Field Marshal Douglas Haig, popularly known as 'the butcher of the Somme', has been seen in a new light thanks to Professor Gary Sheffield, of Wolverhampton University, writes Gove

There is, of course, no unchallenged consensus. That is why it matters that we encourage an open debate on the war and its significance.



But it is important to recognise that many of the new analyses emerging challenge existing Left-wing versions of the past designed to belittle Britain and its leaders.



Instead, they help us to understand that, for all our mistakes as a nation, Britain’s role in the world has also been marked by nobility and courage.



Indeed, the more we reflect on every aspect of the war, the more cause there is for us to appreciate what we owe to our forebears and their traditions.

