THE distinguished 20th-Century historian, AJP Taylor, always insisted that the greatest significance of the Second World War was that it marked the end of Western Europe’s “warring adolescence.”

At my grammar school we were taught something of that centuries-long turbulence. It hinged on an endless series of shifting alliances that we were meant to learn by acronyms. The only one I remember was SHAPE – Spain, Holland, Austria, Prussia and England. Lost now from my memory, the chief adversary would certainly have been France, probably allied with Italy.

Taylor’s judgement is spot on. It’s unthinkable that the major western nations would ever again settle any difference among them by going to war. Yet, triggered by our EU referendum, we now have the prospect of war raised as a consequence of a British exit from the Union. True, there’s still the powder keg of the Balkans. But the neighbouring EU wasn’t any deterrent to war there just a few years ago. And it’s not possible to believe that bringing them into the fold would miraculously sow everlasting peace and harmony.

Of course, there is Russia, to whom the key deterrent – surely without question? – has been Nato. That remains our best bulwark, yet it faces being weakened not only by the tardiness of most members to pay their proper dues but by pressure, stemming from the EU’s target of “ever-closer political union” to create what would be a rival EU army. A German White Paper advocating that very course was published earlier this month.

Ah yes, Germany. Invoked by David Cameron, the British dead of the two world wars fell not to serve some future notion of a single European state but to save their own independent country, and its allies, from German domination. Within the EU that has come about anyway. Angela Merkel’s view on any issue seems to be the one that counts – certainly more than that of any other head of government.

It’s notable that in his pleading for Britain’s continued EU membership David Cameron always speaks of “a reformed EU”. Does anyone believe that will happen? In the run up our referendum, the EU itself is soft-pedalling. Reports say its officials have been ordered to flag up immediately any issue that could upset the EU apple cart. An intended ban on fast-boiling kettles has somehow slipped through the net.

Nor can the EU president, Jean-Claude Juncker, have greatly helped the Remain cause by confirming that the purpose of the EU is to build a superstate. He declared that national leaders should pay less attention to their own people but act like “full-time Europeans”. He singled out British prime ministers for playing to “national reflexes,” by stressing how they had defended national interests, rather than “speaking over Europe in the proper way”.

How much more evidence do you need that what is at stake is Britain’s freedom as an independent nation? Democratic, of course, since we can chuck out a government we don’t like. But David Cameron never mentions the democratic aspect. “Safer, Stronger, Better Off” is the mantra. Seemingly too weak to succeed on our own, in Mr Cameron’s eyes we would nevertheless exert strong influence “at the heart” of a “reformed EU”, no doubt swerving it from that superstate goal. Into cloud-cuckoo land, you could say.