AS the last handful of survivors gather for the 80th anniversary today of the start of the Battle of the Somme - in which the flower of Britain's manhood was destroyed - it is worth recalling too how Europe was then.

For as nations pitched themselves into that futile slaughter that July day in 1916, the continent was still bedevilled by rivalry between states and locked in the enduring struggle for the tenure of the balance of power.

Two bloody world wars later, it may be that the ultimate lesson and the sacrifice of the Somme has been learned in Europe being turned, if not yet into a federalised superstate, then into an entity of largely common purpose, co-operation and understanding.

That is something which the EU's detractors might ponder, especially when looking back ruefully at what was the alternative 80 years ago.

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