The Independent.

Professor Gary Sheffield of the University of Wolverhampton, who was praised by Mr Gove for his recent study of Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force whose Western Front offensives cost nearly one million British lives, said it was not a question of ideology.

"Mr Gove's politics and mine are pretty different but the view he has put forward is right. What he was wrong about however is that there is a left-right split – there isn't," he said.

"The publicity that has been kicking off around the centenary has reflected the Black Adder point of view although he (Mr Gove) is wrong to single it out – it is satire not documentary."

Professor Sheffield said mainstream historians had been revising their opinions of the conflict over the past three decades overturning the "bad war" theory which had taken hold in the 1930s.

"The war was fought for defensive reasons and Europe would have been a very dark place if Germany had not been defeated. Imperial Germany wasn't as bad as Nazi Germany but it was bad enough," he said. "We don't want this year to be a jingoistic carnival of celebration but rather a sober understanding that what Britain was fighting for was important. It was a war against aggression," he added.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cambridge-history-professor-hits-back-at-michael-goves-ignorant-attack-9037502.htm