SIR - Yesterday I went to see the film 1917. It is essentially about the horrors of the First World War. The message of the madness of war, the inhumanity, destruction and suffering came brilliantly and shockingly across from the cinema screen.
Between 1870 and 1945 Germany and France were on three occasions at each others' throats - and on the last two occasions we had world-wide conflict.
After 1945 statesmen in France and Germany looked for ways of preventing war in future. Hence the setting up of the European Coal and Steel Community (the forerunner of the European Union). One of its main architects, the French Foreign Minster, Robert Schuman, expressed the hope that economic integration of France, Germany and four other nations would: “make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible".
Over time the Common Market has grown into the European Union but what has been constant has been the peace dividend.
My grandfather fought in the First World War, my father in the Second. But I have not been called up to fight – and neither have my two sons.
Those who would glory at the dismemberment of the European Union do so at their – and our - peril.
John Cole, Oakroyd Terrace, Baildon
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