Also known as the Great War, World War I introduced a new definition as well as new levels of propaganda to warfare. The war was fought by two evenly matched alliances: the Entente Powers, or Allies (chiefly Great Britain, France, Italy [after 1915], Russia [until 1917], and the United States [as an "Associated Power" thereafter]) versus the Central Powers (chiefly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Ottoman Turkey). This was the first war in history where both the ideology and practical resources existed for governments to mobilize entire industrial societies for warfare. Propaganda was an essential part of this war effort, developing in all countries as the war progressed. Propaganda was directed toward the home population to support the war, toward neutral countries as a means of influence, and toward the enemy as a weapon.
The entry for “Propaganda” in the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was based on its original religious meaning. As a direct consequence of World War I, in 1921 the German writer Edgar Stern-Rubarth redefined propaganda as a political activity used by states at war, which remains the dominant usage. Since World War I organized propaganda has been regarded as an essential part of any war effort, increasing in importance throughout the twentieth century.
The rival alliances that began the war expected a violent but short war. Instead, the approximate equality of the opposing forces produced a stalemate and resulted in a protracted war. In 1915 the British introduced the concept of the “Home Front,” based on government intervention on a massive scale in order to restructure the country’s economy and society for war, with corresponding sacrifices from the civilian population. The French equivalent was known as the Union Sacre (sacred union), an alliance between government, industry, and civilians. The German version, introduced in late 1916, was called the Hindenburg Program, after General Paul von Hindenburg (18471934). Both control of the mass media and propaganda were seen as essential in maintaining national support. Until almost the end of the war, civilians in the most developed and cohesive societies—Great Britain, France, and Germany—generally supported their respective countries’ war efforts virtually independent of propaganda. Most armies also were inclined to treat enemy propaganda as a joke unless they were facing imminent defeat.
At the start of the war most countries had only embryonic propaganda organizations. Institutions developed piecemeal, beginning as local initiatives that were later centralized as the war progressed. Propaganda in the form of poster campaigns and slogans became commonplace. The most successful of the war’s propagandists were the British, who forged an alliance between newspaper owners, civilian intellectuals, and the government; their system became a model for others. British propaganda was initially aimed chiefly at political and social elites, only developing populist traits by 1916 through the use of such popular mass media as film. British propaganda development met resistance from the military and naval authorities, who took more than a year to be convinced of the need for war reporters—and then only under the strictest controls. Resistance also came from established ministries, and a centralized propaganda organization, the Ministry of Information, was not created until early 1918. The basic British approach, known as “the propaganda of facts,” was for official propaganda to present events as accurately as possible, but with an interpretation favorable to British policy. Only on rare occasions were stories of horrific enemy behavior released, usually over the objections of professional propagandists. Famous atrocity stories of the war, such as the “crucified Canadian,” were frequently spontaneous or private initiatives. Upon entering the war in April 1917, the United States copied this British policy stressing facts by establishing its own Committee on Public Information (CPI), popularly known as the Creel Committee.
By comparison, the German approach to propaganda, which was largely controlled by the army, was unsophisticated and much less successful. German policy often played into the hands of Entente propagandists, as with their treatment of occupied Belgium, the bombing and shelling of British and French cities, and the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare. Important propaganda work by the French and the Italians has been obscured by publicity given to British successes after the war. Austria-Hungary and Russia made little use of organized propaganda, in contrast to the Bolsheviks after 1917, who regarded it as an essential part of their war effort.
The chief neutral target of Entente propaganda was the United States until its entry into the war. The primarily British campaign was almost invisible, deliberately targeting American elite opinion, in contrast to the strident and public German campaign. The British were able to exploit their common language and their control of the transatlantic telegraph, having cut the German submarine cables at the war’s start. The British campaign played a significant part in the decision by the United States to enter the war. Its scope and success caused a scandal among American isolationists when revealed after the war.
Preparedness Day Parade in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1916, featuring a 300-foot-long American flag. Note the rigidly-segregated bystanders: whites on the left; blacks on the right.
All sides targeted both enemy armies and civilian populations with propaganda. After the war, the British claimed considerable success in using propaganda against the German and Austro-Hungarian home fronts. This fitted in with the postwar German claim that its armies had not been defeated but “stabbed in the back.” The belief in propaganda as a weapon of war heavily influenced Adolf Hitler. Subsequent research has shown that no major British propaganda campaign was mounted in either country (although Italian-led propaganda helped defeat Austria- Hungary), whereas Allied propaganda leaflet campaigns did play a part in the collapse of the German and Austro-Hungarian armies at war’s end.
This war was the first to target systematically produced government propaganda at the general public. It paved the way for developments in advertising and other aspects of twentieth-century mass society. The war also marked an important advance in film through newsreels, documentaries, and fictional films in Britain, France, and above all in the United States, laying the foundations for Hollywood’s rise to respectability in the 1920s. Finally, the scale and success of mass propaganda led to intellectual disquiet about the consequences in terms of the relationship between government and society.
