As Churchill said about the Great War, and he said this in about 1924, that it was the first war in which man realized that he could obliterate himself completely. If you consider the way the whole world was impacted, 18 million people worldwide died, and that is taking into account military and civilian deaths: 18 million people. And it was the whole world, if you will. You know, many of those trenches were dug by Chinese. There are photographs of Chinese looking like they just came from China, with their hats and so on, digging the trenches, right from the beginning.
Jacqueline WinspearWhat does anyone really know about the impetus to go to war? And so much is uncovered in hindsight. And there are aspects of even past wars that are only coming out now. Historians discover letters here, notes there, and look very carefully at different aspects of not only any conflict but any great historical event.
Jacqueline WinspearBut to some extent, the whole aspect of Fascism was a real hot potato. Because so many of the aristocracy were enamored of the tenets of not only fascism but also of Adolf Hitler himself. And you know, that was treading on a lot of toes.
Jacqueline Winspear