The last post...

So back in Blighty after four weeks plus of touring. A very humbling experience. Time to reflect and to think about what it all meant. It was rewarding to be able to bring to life my great uncle's story in World Wat One. The suffering and sacrifice in that conflict is beyond adequate description. I still have the sense that this conflict above all others was such a waste of human talent and ability. I still have the sense that World War Two was a more understandable conflict and one with more of the 'righteousnous' to it. Anyone who has stood in a concentration camp museum or been to the Museum of Jewish History in Berlin would probably agree with that.

Without the First war would be have had the Second? My personal view is probably not. The wider conditions for discontent would not have been there. The impact of World War One on Hitler himself would have been missing. Hopefully he would have remained a struggling artist with an unfortunate tendency to rant in beer halls. We should not underestimate though the long, long history of anti-semitism in Europe that would still have been in the background.

A couple of closing thoughts - I saw nothing in my historical journey that convinced me to change my mind that it is often your own government you should really be afraid of and not a foreign one. And intolerance of immigrants and minorities really can lead to to some pretty awful consequences.