The BBC series on the subject identified four underlying causes of WW 1, as follows:

    ""Nationalism - the belief that your country is better than others. This made nations assertive and aggressive.
    Imperialism - the desire to conquer colonies, especially in Africa. This brought the powers into conflict - Germany wanted an empire. France and Britain already had empires.
    Militarism (Arms Race) - the attempt to build up a strong army and navy gave nations the means and will to make war.
    Alliances - in 1882, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy formed the Triple Alliance. This alarmed, France, Britain and Russia. By 1907, they had all joined the Triple Entente. Europe was divided into two armed camps, to help each other if there was a war.""

Then of course, the spark that set off the kindling, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, often mistakenly quoted as the reason.

As to whether those who died knew why, of course many of the better educated did, but there were hundreds of thousands of young men who joined up in an enthusiastic desire for adventure, travel and glory, whose knowledge of the reasons was minimal at best.

In an era when news travelled slowly, many men had never been more than a few miles from the place of their birth, and recruiters didn't care to inform, how was a young farm lad to know about international politics?

If asked why they were there, many would say simply "Somebody's got to give the Hun a bloody good kicking". It was what they were told! It was exactly the same on the other side too.

So Eric wasn't, I think, patronising too many people. If he had written the same about WW 2, that would have been patronising.

However, aware or not, they deserve our respect and they deserve our continuing remembrance. Whichever war they died in, they did it for us.

Don T.