The point is that the alternatives to war are hard but they are always there. The people returning from the first world war wanted them pursued more readily, an

The point is that the alternatives to war are hard but they are always there. The people returning from the first world war wanted them pursued more readily, and had they been pursued more readily in 1914, there would perhaps not have been a war on the same scale or even at all. WW2 was the consequence of the failure to find a rational settlement after WW2. To say the first world war - or any other - was senseless, is to recognise that there was no existential threat, and there was little real attempt at diplomacy. There were alternatives that didn't involve millions of people being marched to their deaths. At the point at which we acknowledge that, we have to ask why so many died and what for. Diplomacy is the natural response of normal working people, because historically we're the ones who get mown down by machine guns at the behest of our betters - people who start wars but don't fight in them. If you feel WW1 was necessary and proportionate in the face of Europe's challenges at the time, I'd be intrigued to hear why. Can you outline the case for war?