Now Boris and No 10 join forces to defend Gove over Blackadder... (WW I)

UK Daily Mail ^ | January 7, 2014 | Max Hastings

[C19fan]

David Cameron and Boris Johnson rode to Michael Gove’s defence over his call to banish the ‘left-wing myths’ of the First World War depicted on shows like Blackadder. Downing Street said the Education Secretary was right to blame German militarism for the outbreak of the war, while the London Mayor joined him in condemning the Left. But Mr Gove found himself exposed to a counter attack as Nick Clegg and a Cambridge academic he has condemned, embarked on a new round of hostilities.

[C19fan]

Looks like there is going to a Right-Left war for the rest of this year over who was guilty for starting the Great War and was Britain's involvement.

[MrB]

I loved that Black Adder show!

[Chainmail]

My favorite part of Blackadder’s WW I series was when the Brit Field Marshal is finishing his wargaming of a coming battle and just shovels the soldiers off the playing board and into the trash. Not all that far from what really happened at the Somme.

[TheRhinelander]

What a bunch of retards. Germany didn’t start the war but they certainly took advantage of it.

The treaty of 1919 did everything it could to start the next war and for that the blame lies squarely on Britain and France, as does breaking up the Ottoman Empire the way they did.

Retards all of them.

[mquinn]

My WWI-era knowledge is admittedly a bit lacking, and I haven’t seen Blackadder for years, so cannot really recall what their angle was.

What exactly is the “not the German’s fault” angle?

[Little Ray]

Since the UK didn’t enter the war until the Krauts invaded Belgium, whose security and neutrality the Brits guaranteed, the Brits don’t really have to worry about it. They’re pretty much above board.

Now the the dirty tricks they used to drag us into the war...

[katana]

Maybe the depiction in Black Adder - WWI that the British generals who sent hundreds of thousands of young men across a wasteland of artillery craters and barbed wire and into the teeth of rattling machine guns to their useless deaths were incompetent fools. IIRC the "not the German's fault" angle had no part of the series. But in post-war Treaty of Versailles terms they were blamed above the others and paid the stiffest price (with the one exception of the Ottoman Turks) for what amounted to a global political fustercluck.

[DManA]

Did I just imagine this or did every generation the Blackadder character got stupider and the Brodrick character get smarter?

[PLMerite]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH3-Gt7mgyM

Fourth Season, final episode, final scene.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

No, its the opposite. In the first series Blackadder was a buffoon and Baldrick’s ‘cunning plans’ were actually cunning. In subsequent series, the roles were reversed.

[DManA]

Ok, it’s been a while since I watched it. Pretty good series.

[Conan the Librarian]

You just imagined that.
Baldrick got stupider. Blackadder got more abrasive.

Blackadder II was the best of the series.