There were two programmes on the First World War this week presented by men with very different styles.

Max Hastings presented The Necessary War (Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm) in the manner of a benevolent buffer having a chat over a single malt at his club; Niall Ferguson presented The Pity Of War (ast night, BBC Two, 9pm) in the manner of a dictator announcing the dawn of a new regime from his secret bunker.

And what a terrifying regime it would be.

Ferguson arrived in the TV studio to the sound of drums and glowered at the audience from beneath his quiff of doom.

At one point, a picture of someone being tortured on a medieval rack was projected over his head, presumably as a reminder of the fate that awaited anyone who disagreed with him.

He then went on to deliver his ­message: that Britain should have stayed out of the First World War and allowed Germany to take over Europe.

Had they done so, said Ferguson, a benign, EU-style community would have sprung up on the continent and everything would have been just fine.

Was it worth Britain fighting to prevent German domination of Europe, he asked, when that is precisely what we have today?

Good question.

Ferguson also argued that allowing the Germans to win would have averted the Second World War and led to a prolonged peace for most of the 20th century.

What was slightly odd was he delivered this message of peace from a TV studio that looked like Emperor Ming's front room.

He also did it in that faintly aggressive style of his that combines the swagger of a boy brought up in Glasgow with the arrogance of a man educated at Oxford.

Even so, his general argument was superficially convincing (until the other experts got their teeth into it) and Ferguson, despite his cockiness, was rather suited to the message of harmony even if it did leave him in the curious role of retrospective peacemaker trying to separate Germany and Britain like a drunken woman on the street at closing time.

"Just leave it Britain! Germany's not worth it!"

Hastings had an entirely ­different take on the matter and, in a reassuringly creased suit, argued Britain had no option but to enter the war.

A victory for Germany, he said, would have been a disaster for Europe because Germany was a dictatorship controlled by a man, the Kaiser, who believed his nation was destined to become the world's greatest superpower.

Britain had to stop him, said ­Hastings, and had we not done so there would have been a war between us and the Germans before long anyway.

In other words, we would not have avoided a war by taking the Niall ­Ferguson option of staying out, we would have merely postponed one.

Which led Hastings to the most important conundrum at the centre of his programme - indeed at the centre of almost every argument you will hear in this First World War centenary year: why are we so proud we fought Hitler but so ashamed we fought the Kaiser? Good question.