Download propaganda - International School of Toulouse, France

Kathryn Goodall
HOW EFFECTIVE WAS
GOVERNMENT
PROPAGANDA DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR?
To answer the question:
- Identify the tactics used
- Investigate how different governments used propaganda
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the propaganda
In what types of media was propaganda used?
•Newspapers
•Leaflets
•Picture postcards
•Beer mugs
Mainly Visual:
•French Board Games
posters, caricatures,
•Teachers
visual art
•Clergymen
•Entertainers
Why was propaganda needed?
The war lasted 50 months: (longer than expected)
- Keep up mass warfare
- Keep up war effort
- Keep up morale
- Encourage inscription
- Encourage patriotism
- Maintain morale and national pride
Shifting aims in propaganda as the war went on:
•1914-1916: Defensive nature
•1917: War aims: looking forward to post-world war •Justification •War policy
Messages:
- Sacred images. i.e. Religion: France: Catholics: “war brings believers closer”. Holy
War
- The women’s role and encouragement
- Bravery
- Vengeance
- Stereotype the enemy
- Caricatures (also done by soldiers)
- Patriotism
- It is your Duty!
- Don’t be left out!
- Casualty Lists in Germany, which proved
demoralising
Different countries:
- Governments everywhere used the same tactics,
Methods and messages
Kathryn Goodall
Great Britain Propaganda Icon: Charlie Chaplin
Examples of films: Twenty minutes of love _ 1914; The Face on the Bar Room Floor
He represents bravery: badges on soldiers’ uniforms: “the little guy
who overcame so much”.
Used to jog war veterans’ memories.
Supported Liberty Bonds
- A way to raise funds for the army
8 April 1918 30 000 people with 2 other stars_ save a life – a mother’s son!
Cinema:
- Distraction
- Escapist themes
- Generate public morale and consent
- Comedy and romanticism
i.e. German Cinema:
•1913: 2 000 cinemas
200 in Berlin
•Images from the front
•Political and industrial elite
•Coal and electricity for cinema 1917 –18 most
essential during shortages
•Army cinema: 900 field cinemas in 1917
•Other messages in German
propaganda:
•We’re invincible!
•Sustained forces
Another Historian’s point of view: JH WINTER
Propaganda:
•Coincided with popular feeling
•Generated outside government
•Prolonged Independent effort
•Was a Mobilization of the mind
•Did not shorten the war
Possible Conclusion / answers to the question:
•Propaganda is only successful if it reflects public sentiment and it only sticks if people
already believe it?
•National pride and loyalty already there?
•Propaganda is only one part of indoctrination. Also Censorship, Coercion and Consent.
(WW2)
•JH Winter: “Its fundamental effects were cultural not political”
Bibliography:
•“Modern European History” A. Farmer. 2000 Hodder and Stoughton
•“The Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War” Editor: Hew Strachan. Oxford.
New York. Oxford University Press 1998
•“The First World War 1914-18” Vyuyen Brendon. Access to History in depth. Hodder
and Stoughton. 2000
- www.worldwarone.com