Antagonism between X Factor contestants has turned the house they live in into a war zone, claim insiders.
And the in-fighting has become so bad that neighbours in the posh London suburb of Mill Hill have complained about it.
"They've become Balkanized in there," said a programme insider.
"Matt and Kate are at daggers-drawn, and Matt also wants to have a go at Wagner. The Belle Amie girls have allied themselves with Matt, because they are worried about Wagner.
"This obviously puts them in the opposite camp to Kate, who will now sign a mutual protection treaty, or a detente, with Kate.
"As One Direction are at loggerheads with Belle Amie, they are in Kate's side.
"Other contestants are getting sucked in on one side or the other, and if you remember your GCSE history, you'll know that such a network of alliances can lead to major European conflagration - a world conflict even."
But a leading academic has rubbished these claims as over-imaginative.
Prof Ken Lucid, Head of Modern History at the University of Thames Valley East and book reviewer says: "That's a very fanciful version of the situation.
"The alliance network could indeed be seen as dangerous, just as in 1914. But there is no history of a major arms race in the house - Matt and Kate have not been trying to out-do eachother by building fleets of Dreadnoughts, have they?
"Also, there isn't an Eastern Question to throw in to the mix - no Ottoman Empire falling apart - and as far as I know there isn't a history of colonial rivalry between the contestants in the far east and Africa.
"However, it would be a good idea to keep a weather eye on the situation. After all if an arms race should develop and if the neighbours, for example, were to start crumbling from inside, like the Ottoman Empire, then we could see the situation start to deteriorate."
