Stephen Harper describes World War I as a noble conflict.

It was not. It was a bloody and largely pointless war, whose roots lay in the imperial pretensions of competing European powers and whose proximate causes were hubris and miscalculation.

That Harper thinks otherwise would matter little if he were an ordinary citizen. But he is prime minister. And, as he made clear in a speech Monday, he views current conflicts through the prism of the 1914-18 Great War.

Citing wartime prime minister Robert Borden, Harper said Canadians went to battle in 1914 “for the cause of honour, to maintain solemn pledges, to uphold the principle of liberty.

“I say nothing has changed,” Harper went on, an apparent reference to his government’s rock-solid support of Israel and equally rock-solid opposition to Russia. “Canada is still today loyal to our friends, unyielding to our enemies.”

Let us hope some things have changed.

Canada went to war 100 years ago because it had no choice. When Britain declared war on Aug. 4, 1914, Canada — as a self-governing dominion within the British Empire — was officially at war as well. That’s how things worked then.

Given that the majority of Canadians in those days came from British stock, it was initially a popular war.

But it was never popular in Quebec. Nor did the idea of going to war on behalf of Britain appeal to newer central European immigrants, many of whom came from countries Canada would be fighting.

In his speech Monday, Harper said he preferred to dwell on the results of World War I, rather than its acknowledged horrors. Fine. Let’s look at the results.

First, there were the casualties. In both absolute and relative terms, this was the bloodiest war Canadians have ever fought. Far bloodier than World War II.

About 61,000 Canadian soldiers were killed between 1914 and 1918. About 172,000 more were wounded, many gravely. At home, entire communities were decimated.

Second, the war aggravated divisions within the country. War planners soon realized that not enough Canadians were volunteering for the trenches. It would be necessary to forcibly conscript troops.

But conscription, while popular in English Canada, was bitterly opposed by French Quebecers.

A 1917 general election fought on the issue of compulsory military service split the country along linguistic lines. It was a harbinger of separatist battles to come.

World War I did enhance Canada’s stature within the British Empire, thus giving Ottawa the moral authority to gradually demand more foreign policy independence. Harper is right about that.

The major British dependencies — Canada, South Africa, Australia and India — asked for and received seats at the 1919 Paris peace conference called to sort out the postwar world.

Then, as now, the Canadian government was chuffed just to be included.

But Canada’s presence at the table made little difference. As Margaret MacMillan writes in her Paris 1919, most decisions at the conference were made at informal meetings of the biggest powers — Britain, France, the U.S., Italy and sometimes Japan.

World War I also produced heroes. Wars always do. Some soldiers were extraordinarily brave. Indeed, in that war, survival was often extraordinary.

But it also produced the War Measures Act, a kind of anti-terror law of its day that gave Ottawa the right to jail without trial those it deemed dangerous to the state.

During the war itself, this law was used largely against immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian empire, particularly ethnic Ukrainians. After the war it was used against those thought to be Communists.

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Sometimes war is necessary. The world can be a dangerous place.

But sometimes, as in 1914, war is a terrible mistake. What worries me about Harper’s paean to the Great War is that he doesn’t see the difference.

Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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