Being cynical about the First World War is easy. Given the war’s dubious outcome, especially its tremendous cost in lives and treasure, and adding in, of course, the sundering of European civilization, there is very little to trumpet. London’s Cenotaph commemorates “The Glorious Dead,” which is a curious epigram—a whole generation was destroyed by the war, and glory was its first casualty.

National leaders unleashed the First World War. Let’s be clear on this point because too often the war’s outbreak is portrayed as a kind of force of nature, a wholly unforeseen, unwilled calamity. Lenin said that the war was the natural outgrowth of capitalism and that its result would be the emergence of worldwide proletarian revolution. Well, the Bolshevik got it partly right, at least the revolution part. More objectively it may be stated that political factors—the system of alliances, the balance of power, and the nature of Europe’s regimes—were decisive in letting slip the dogs of war, but even this is only partially correct. Although the latter interpretation captures Europe’s atmosphere in 1914 rather well it fails to do justice to the rational (or irrational) decision making element of the equation. Human agency is often the last admitted because of its companion: culpability. In fact, Europe’s leaders sought war both to ensure the continuance of their way of life and because it appeared, at least initially, as the surest road to safety. National survival was paramount in these leaders’ minds.

These facts make President Obama’s remarks, on 26 March 2014, at Flanders Field Cemetery all the more unbelievable. The president stated that “the soldiers who manned the trenches were united by…a willingness to fight, and die, for the freedom that we enjoy as their heirs.” Willingly or unwillingly—most were conscripts, after all—millions of men did fight and die, but it was not for an altruistic conception of freedom. More often justification arose from poetic devices similar to “Deutschland muss leben, und wenn wir sterben müssen” (Germany must live, even when we must die). Nationalism, not Americanism, was the altar upon which millions were sacrificed and to claim otherwise is a disservice to the victims.

Whenever leaders invoke history without preserving its proper context humanity suffers. Whether solemn or self-adulatory, this species of rhetoric is often accompanied by references to historical lessons or, in the worst case, mystical “progress.” These intellectual shibboleths of the political class (though not exclusive to it) are shorthand for contrived exposition. So remember and honor “The Glorious Dead” but do not become so conceited as to believe they died for us, rather: “To children ardent for some desperate glory, / The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est / Pro patria mori.”

Canadian soldiers going “over the top.”