Ten Lies Told about World War I

By Dominic Alexander

Dominic Alexander debunks Ten Myths Used To Justify The Slaughter of the First World War

This Remembrance Day will doubtless see strenuous efforts by some to justify the fruitless bloodbath that was the First World War. Revisionist commentators have long attempted to rehabilitate the conflict as necessary and just, but the arguments do not stand up. It does no service to the memory of the dead to allow any illusions in the justice or necessity of war, particularly so when the precedents will be used to argue for the next ‘necessary’ conflict. From the causes of the war, to its prosecution and its results, here are the counter-arguments to ten common pro-war ploys.

An American soldier lies dead, tangled in barbed wire on the western front. Photograph: American Stock Archive/Getty Images

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