Cossington Smith felt passionately about Australia’s involvement in World War I. Her views were informed by her parents’ British heritage and the involvement of her family and young friends in the war. In her boldly drawn series of images titled The great illusion she plays on ideas of Germany’s illusions of power in relation to the Empire. There is youthful passion in these drawings and a measure of satire quite uncharacteristic of Cossington Smith’s later work.