propaganda, World War I

The promotion of biased or misleading information was used on all sides in World War I to encourage recruitment and uphold morale among the civilian and military population. Information coming from the front had to be censored, and a constant flow of good news kept up through the newspapers and cinema. In the UK the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) of August 1914 ensured government control over information, the penalty for spreading uncensored information being imprisonment. The War Office Press Bureau was established in 1914 to control news about the war, along with the War Propaganda Bureau to produce positive posters and pamphlets. Letters home were heavily censored; eventually soldiers were provided with pre-printed postcards containing positive statements to tick and sign, allowing no indication of the terrible casualties and conditions on the Western Front.

War Office Press Bureau All news from the Western Front had to pass through the War Office Press Bureau for censorship. The ‘information’ was then given a final check by the war minister Lord Kitchener before its release to the press. This system filtered out any bad news, so that the resulting stories published in Britain's national and local newspapers became government propaganda. With the power to imprison without trial instituted under DORA, newspaper editors were forced to spread the messages that the government wanted the public to hear.

War Propaganda Bureau The UK government produced its own propaganda pamphlets, posters, and paintings using the War Propaganda Bureau. Well-known authors and artists were recruited, such as Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book (1894–95), and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the Sherlock Holmes detective series. These authors were used to instil positive feelings about the war.

Throughout the war the British government and the armed forces used propaganda techniques to produce posters for recruitment, playing on the emotions and patriotism of the nation. As early as 1914 posters showed Kitchener pointing out towards the viewer with the message ‘Join Your Country's Army’. In 1915 another image showed a woman watching her husband marching off to war under the caption ‘Women of Britain say GO!’ Men would be shamed and threatened into joining the army by poster images of their future children asking them what they did in the war. The power of persuasion based on appeal to social pressures was very strong and provided good results for the war effort. Messages of unity and the inevitability of victory made those who had doubts about the war less likely to spread their negative feelings for fear of being branded as unpatriotic and anti-British.

Censorship of correspondence To ensure that information did not get back to the British public from the soldiers at the front, their private letters were heavily censored. No information about military positions or battles could be given, for the obvious risk that this might fall into enemy hands. However, the soldiers were also banned from telling their families how bad conditions were in the trenches for fear that this would spread alarm and despondency back home. All letters were checked and any offending passages blacked out. To speed up this process, basic pre-printed postcards for soldiers to use were produced to ensure that no real information could be given. A list of statements were given on the postcard, and the soldier just had to tick those that were most appropriate. The statements were worded to guarantee that a positive message would be communicated even if the soldier were injured. Nothing personal could be written on the postcard or it would be destroyed. In this way the British government and leaders of the armed forces kept control over a possible source of information about the actual casualties and conditions of war on the Western Front.