Mr Standfast: John Buchan

Brigadier General Richard Hannay, patriotic son of Empire, is recalled from the battlefields of northern France to undertake a secret mission that will involve him posing as an opponent of the war in order to trap a high level German spy. He drops out of his sphere into an unfamiliar world of conchies and commies- some of whom he finds- to his surprise- that he rather likes. The debates about the rights and wrongs of the Great War that he finds himself getting into remind me of the debates we are having now about the rights and wrongs of the war in Ukraine...

The particular issues may differ, but the positions from which people argue remain the same. There's a pacifist platform, there's a patriotic platform, there's an imperialist platform, there's a socialist platform- and so on. Also not everyone who's taking part in the debate is doing so in good faith. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...