For King and Country?
In February 1933 the Oxford
Union, the University's student debating society, passed the celebrated motion 'that this house would in no circumstances fight for its King and Country'. The vote caused a storm of protest including a demand from some older members of the university that a second debate be organised to expunge the offending motion from the Union Minute Book. And subseauently certain politicians, including Winston Churchill, have argued that the debate convinced the dictators Hitler and Mussolini that Britain had no stomach for a war against them.
But is there any evidence to support such claims; and what did the young men who dreamed up and debated the motion really think it meant? Some of them now recall the events at Oxford exactly 50 years ago.
Narrator ANDREW faulds
Film editor SAXON logan
Producer Christopher COOK