The secret of success in a war which required the transformation of millions into cannon fodder, was to construct myths that disguised actual purpose.

So you’re saying the ANZACs were canon fodder?
[The sound of a half-hearted half-stoned lounge drummer putting his beer down long enough to throw a stick across a snare drum]

And equally, only an idiot would mistake general purposelessness with moral purposelessness. Popular cultural renditions of the Great War, such as “Oh, What a Lovely War” were about moral purposelessness, not about motivelessness.

And Wilson is no idiot. However, he does construct a straw man who does idiotically argue the above.

At the risk of needless repetition, the purpose of the Allied war effort can be found in the Secret Treaties. There was nothing moral in those purposes, but neither were they motiveless. Quite the contrary.

The secret of success in a war which required the transformation of millions into cannon fodder, was to construct myths that disguised actual purpose. The ANZAC Myth was one of the most successful and long-lived examples of this process. And let me add that the rhetoric reproduced by Sally R @ #126 is a fine early example of useful rhetoric.

The problem with associating Imperial Germany with the abnegation of liberalism is that Russia supplied well over half the manpower for the Allied cause. Imperial Russia was far less liberal and democratic than Imperial Germany.

Imperial Germany became Britain’s enemy not because Germany was anti-liberal but because Germany’s diplomacy was so inept.