I've never played on the old war Islands, but my impression was it was meant as the least SMA of all islands where BM was more of a game of strategy than a RP game. Am I wrong?
Yes and no.
First of all, of course, SMA wasn't even conceived of until the War Islands were being shut down, and Dwilight opened.
More generally, though, yes, the War Islands were more military in nature, and there was a lot more focus on that aspect of the game than there was in some other places...but I remember there being a lot of roleplay there, too. Having lots of epic battles really is (at least in my experience) more conducive to telling interesting stories.
