Early November is the time when “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (the saying described by Wilfred Owen as “the old lie”) is brought home to us with added force. Nearly everyone on television suddenly starts wearing a red poppy and we are bombarded with programmes about war. This year, because it is 90 years since the Armistice was signed to end the so-called Great War, TV channels have given us plenty of features on the subject, although they contained mixed messages.

The tenor of many programmes is that we should be proud and grateful to those who died on behalf of Britain. On the other hand, numerous descriptions and pictures of the futile brutality of the First World War suggest that dying and killing in wars is not necessarily glorious or even a cause for gratitude. What was it all for?

Words of War (ITV1) described the First World War as “four years of unprecedented slaughter”. Letters, diaries, poems and newspaper reports (illustrated by contemporary film and photos) were read by a variety of people somehow involved: a war widow, soldiers, combatants’ relatives – including Wilfred Owen’s nephew. The programme traced the gradual change in awareness from Captain Julian Grenfell's “I adore war: it’s like a big picnic” to the words (actually read by a serving soldier): “I was filled with an intense loathing of man-made war.” The ironical humour that emerged to counterbalance these horrors was illustrated by Ian Hislop reading from The Wipers Times, a newspaper written by front-line troops.

Hislop also investigated The Men Who Wouldn't Fight (Channel 4), starting with a visit to the memorial to conscientious objectors in London's Tavistock Square. Ian described how, when conscription was introduced in 1916, 16,000 people applied for exemption and had to face tribunals which subjected them to hard questioning. COs lost the right to vote and often found it hard to get a job. Were they cowards? Hislop concluded that they were not: they were courageous men who deserve to be remembered.

Vera Brittain’s experiences in the First World War made her a campaigning pacifist, although this was only mentioned briefly in A Woman in Love and War (BBC1). Jo Brand traced the transformation in Vera's attitudes from being thrilled at the outbreak of war to being heartbroken by the deaths (from war wounds) of her brother, her fiancé and two other good friends. Jo Brand visited Uppingham School, where the cadet force trained Vera’s brother and his friends to fire rifles. The headmaster said: “Every boy learnt how to shoot before he could take part in the rest of the extra-curricular activities.”

Vera Brittain cut short her university career at Somerville College to volunteer as a nurse. What she saw in France – nursing both British and German soldiers (“One forgets they are the enemy”) – confirmed her pacifism.

World War II: Behind Closed Doors (BBC2) started a series about the compromises that Hitler, Churchill and Roosevelt made with Stalin during the Second World War. The first programme described how Stalin and Hitler agreed to divide up Austria between them. The Nazis had always hated the Soviet Union as involved in “a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy” but they became “allies in all but name” – at least, for a while. In fact, Hitler and Stalin employed remarkably similar tactics: using secret police, eliminating enemies and committing violent atrocities. A state of war not only creates atrocities: it makes them more likely, as it provides a cover for whatever dictators wish to do.

Inside the Saudi Kingdom (BBC2) gave us hints of some repressive tendencies occurring today. Saudi Arabia is “an autocratic monarchy”, with each province ruled by one of 20 royal princes. The film-maker seemed overjoyed at gaining "unique access" to one of these princes, although the interviews were fairly bland. We still got an image of a country hidebound by tradition and oppressed by Sharia law, religious police and censorship, with women still treated as second-class citizens.