Soon after the war started on the 8th of August 1914 the government passed the Defence of the Realm Act this enabled the government to control industries vital for the war effort, imprison without trial and also to suppress public criticism. Also in August 1914 the government set up the War Office Press Bureau the idea of this organisation was to control the news coming from the front. Only the official reporters were allowed anywhere near the front and their reports were censored and sometimes altered to support the official government line. In fact so strict was the censorship that in January 1915 the British Foreign Secretary received a letter from the former president of the USA Roosevelt saying that the British position on news from the front was damaging Britain’s cause in America. It was decided after this to allow selected journalists access to news from the front.
After discovering that the Germans had a Propaganda Agency, David Lloyd George the then Chancellor of the Exchequer was given the task of setting up a British War Propaganda Bureau. Lloyd George appointed the writer and Liberal MP Charles Masterman to head the organisation. In September Masterman invited twenty five leading British Authors to discuss way of promoting Britain’s interests during the war. Those who attended included famous names such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and H G Wells. Some of those writers present at the meeting agreed to write stories and pamphlets which would promote the governments view of the situation.
Propaganda was not just about recruiting men to join the army it was about shaping peoples attitudes and opinions. The way the war was reported or dramatised in books or magazines could keep up peoples determination to suffer hardship and see the war through to the end. The government believed that propaganda would play a vital role in the conflict. As early as 1910 in England anti German propaganda was being published in the press and even in children’s comics. In these stories the Germans were always portrayed as the villains, and the message was, what terrible things they would do if they ever landed on British soil Some people would argue that such fantastic stories put out by propagandists on both sides were necessary in the light of the military situation, but as the casualties continued to grow and soldiers on leave told the true about the situation at the front people began to have doubts about what they were told in the press.
At the beginning of the war Lord Kitchener issued an appeal for 100,000 men, there was a mad rush to join up and within four weeks nearly half a million men had joined up, but the heavy losses experienced by British Troops at the front soon eroded men’s enthusiasm for joining the army. One of the first tasks of the WPB was to encourage recruitment. Various methods were used to encourage men to join the army, recruitment posters of the time encouraged men to join up to protect there woman and children from the horrors of war. Some posters showed pictures of woman urging their men to:
‘GO’
Others used the slogan
‘REMEMBER BELGIUM’
Perhaps the most famous poster was the one featuring Lord Kitchener pointing
his finger the caption reads:
‘JOIN YOUR COUNTRYS ARMY’
The poster seems to be pointing directly at you wherever you stand.
Some posters were aimed directly at woman they were designed with the express purpose of encouraging woman to put pressure on there husbands or sons to join up. One poster says:
‘Is your boy wearing khaki if not don’t you think he should be’
Another poster from the mothers union said:
‘My boy I don’t want you to go but don’t you think you should’.
Emily Pankhurst and some of the other suffragettes played an important role as speakers at meetings urging young men to join up, and there were a number of other organisations which sprang up around this time. The Active Service League was one in which Woman swore an oath promising to try there hardest to persuade men to join up and refusing to go out in public with men who were not in uniform. Another organisation was The Order of the White Feather in which women were encouraged to give white feathers to men who had not joined the army.
Newspapers magazines and posters of the time tried to drum up a sense of patriotism by recounting stories of German atrocities. These would be used to encourage men to join the army many of these stories were complete fabrications and others were true stories which had been exaggerated so they bore only a slight resemblance to the actual event. News editors of the time decided that if details and corroboration of a particular incident were a little thin then a bit of creative reporting was an acceptable way to get around this or put another way they wouldn’t let truth get in the way of a good story.
One such story was published in a French Newspaper Le Matin in August 1914 it stated that the Germans soldiers punished Belgium priests in Antwerp who refused to ring the church bells
“by hanging them as living clappers to the bells with their heads down”
This story proved to be a complete fabrication.
The working class periodicals were often the worst offenders their drawings tended to be sensational with lurid drawings of Germans carrying out atrocities against allied soldiers and threatening woman and children these were of course done with the intention of stirring up public opinion and encouraging enlistment. There was a negative side to the propaganda put out by the government when the papers reported on German atrocities after the war the people once again believed the papers were churning out propaganda and refused to believe that the Germans had carried out the awful acts they were charged with.
There were problems with raising an army by the volunteer system, large numbers of men left industry and agriculture to fight and this was damaging the war effort. In 1914 alone the allies lost nearly 400,000 men and in spite of the propagandists best efforts the number of men joining up dropped as the news off the horrific casualties reached England. It became impossible to replace these by volunteers alone and conscription was introduced on 25th January 1916 and by 1918 men of 50 were being called up. This was welcomed by most people as being a fairer system one group of people who didn’t welcome this was the people who refused to fight for political or religious reasons known as conscientious objectors. Some of these men were sent to prison, but some served with great bravery at the front as stretcher bearers and suffered many casualties.
As more and more men went to fight in France woman were expected to fill the gaps and take their places in industry. At first their was resistance from Trade Unions, as men felt that women who were willing to work for less money were a threat to their jobs, but this was resolved and soon women were working in industry and on the land. A large number of women worked in the munitions industry a difficult and sometimes dangerous job to cope with the demand for shells and bullets at the front. By the end of the war a large number of woman worked in jobs which were traditionally carried out by men.
The First World War changed many things, Britain’s industries were in a bad way after years of war there were large numbers of unemployed. The men returning from the war were more knowledgably and less likely to accept the status quo Many women were reluctant to give up the freedoms and higher pay they had enjoyed during the war, but they were given no choice, because of the high number of soldiers returning from the front. Women were expected to return to their pre war role and allow men to take their place.
From the Southampton Times 1919
‘Women who left domestic service to enter the factory are now required to return to their pots and pans’
Soon their were even fewer women in work then their had been before the war. It was clear however that women’s attitudes had changed in general they had more confidence and in many cases were unwilling to do menial tasks such as domestic service. Most people realised that the country could not have survived during the war without the contribution given by woman. Asquith who had been prime minister before the war and an opponent to giving women the vote said in 1917:
“Some years ago I used the expression ‘let the women work out their own salvation’. Well sir they have worked it out during the war. How could we have carried on without them?”
It was clear that most MP agreed with him and in 1917 a new bill was passed allowing woman over 30 the right to vote. Some other changes occurred after the war, educated women were able to become lawyers or architects and allowed to serve on a jury. Peoples attitudes had changed during the war, you could say the war acted as a catalyst for change.
Sources of information :
The Twentieth Century World--------N. Kelly M. Whittock
Modern World History-----------------Ben Walsh
