WWI imperial powers treated global public opinion as strategically important as the battlefield

Evidence

In addition to their considerations as to which political ideas and structures would best suit the region, Sykes and Georges Picot had to pay close attention to how they would sell their post-Ottoman future—to the peoples of the region, and to the world. The imperial elites of the First World War saw and projected their conflict as a struggle over ideas, and they were as preoccupied with global public opinion, and its shaping, as they were with the battlefield. The post-Ottoman future had to make sense and inspire as a concept, if it was to be accepted by its populations and the West. From this perspective, the rise of the notion of self-­determination from 1917 became the dominant concern. Armed with a narrative of inherent Ottoman despotism and brutality, the Entente presented Arabs and Jews as sharing a history of national oppression, which the British and French governments claimed to be bringing to an end. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 662

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: British war propagandists discovered mass attention’s power before commerce did — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 15; Governments manufactured WWI public opinion by controlling information flow — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 167; Revolutionary change happens in public opinion before it happens on battlefields — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 353