World War I
Propaganda Posters

Examples of propaganda posters used during World War I to
encourage citizens to support their countries' war efforts

"Rivets are bayonets. Drive them home!"

United States, 1918

Governments of all combatant countries realized that they would need the full support of their citizens to effectively wage war, and they set out to shape popular opinion in a variety of ways. Through propaganda—the spreading of ideas about the war that were favorable to the government—and censorship—the suppression of war news that was unfavorable to the government—governments tried to control how people viewed the war and the enemy. One of the main purposes of propaganda was to persuade people to act. Governments needed men to enlist, women to take on new jobs in factories and in hospitals, anyone with extra money to purchase war bonds (guaranteed loans made to the government), and everyone to conserve food and other daily necessities.

Governments used a variety of methods to spread propaganda. Newspapers were censored. In both France and Germany the newspapers were under the direct control of the military. War departments submitted their version of how the war was going, and newspaper editors were expected to print that news exactly as it was given to them. Even British newspapers, which had prided themselves on their independence, were

forced to get most of their news from the government press bureau. They hesitated to publish news that was unfavorable to the government for fear that they would be prosecuted under the Defense of the Realm Act (DORA), which gave the government broad powers to limit free expression. The result of this direct and indirect control of the news was that people within the combatant countries rarely received accurate reports about the war. Victories were exaggerated, and defeats were downplayed. When French soldiers mutinied in the summer of 1917, news of the trouble never even reached French civilians. In the end, the lack of accurate news may have been the only thing that kept citizens in both France and Germany from rising up in revolt.

Government officials, religious groups, and civic organizations were asked to spread propaganda by word of mouth as well. Hatred of both France and Great Britain was encouraged by German officials and preached in churches. Special emphasis was placed on hating Great Britain, because Britain had blockaded German ports and was seen as the biggest obstacle to German victory. The German people were banned from speaking English; businesses and streets bearing English names received quick name changes to German. People throughout Germany sang a "Hymn of Hate" against England, which concluded "We love as one, we hate as one, we have one foe and one alone—ENGLAND," according to John Williams in The Other Battleground. The U.S. government asked youth groups like the Boy Scouts of America (see box on page 212) to spread the government-supplied "truth" about the war, urging such groups to talk with anyone who would listen.

Posters were one of the most important means of spreading propaganda during World War I. Before the age of television and radio, governments had fewer ways to communicate with the masses, so they invested heavily in the production of posters that grabbed citizens' attention. The following sampling of posters from different countries illustrates the various attempts to persuade people to support the war effort. At the beginning of the war, posters reflected optimism and enthusiasm and the expectation that victory would be quick and glorious. As the fighting continued with no end in sight, governments struggled to maintain public support. Posters shifted to desperate pleas for help, but they soon began to rely on hatred of the enemy as the central reason to support war efforts. While posters calling for men to enlist are the most familiar, others were designed specifically to encourage support on the home front. Several posters illustrated that teamwork among people on the home front and those on the battlefield would lead to victory. As the numbers of wounded rose, posters encouraged women to become nurses with the Red Cross. The general message was that everyone's work was needed.

Things to remember while reading World War I propaganda posters:

• Posters needed to persuade people who were suffering economic hardships to sacrifice even more for the war effort. Notice how the early posters are almost cheerful and the later ones are much more somber.
• Imagine yourself as a person in each country during the war. What would you do for the country's good?
• Why do you think the tone of the posters changed as the war progressed?

Enthusiastic posters from the beginning of World War I

Desperate attempts to continue support for the war

Help needed from the home front

Horror of the enemy

Women's help needed

What happened next…

Although most countries were ready to begin a conventional war in 1914, none were prepared for the extreme sacrifices that World War I demanded. Every economy struggled with the burden of the massive war effort. The ability of individual countries to increase their production of both war supplies and food made the difference between winning and losing the war, according to historian Paul Kennedy in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. Victory would ultimately go to the countries that balanced their need to build guns with their need to feed people.

As a group, combatant countries increased their munitions production from 4 percent of national income before the war to about 25 to 33 percent during the war, according to Kennedy. In the first two years of the war, Russia increased its production of both food and munitions impressively, but did not have adequate roads or railway systems to distribute the goods along its massive battlefront. Germany did not balance its productive capacity well either. It poured all its energy and resources into munitions production and neglected its farming industry. Kennedy quotes a German scholar who noted that "by concentrating lopsidedly on producing munitions, the military managers of the German economy thus brought the country to the verge of starvation by the end of 1918." The Allied powers succeeded in balancing industrial and agricultural production the best, and they received a huge boost when the United States entered the war in 1917. The United States brought impressive production power to the Allies. According to Kennedy, the United States could, by itself, produce two and a half times the industrial output of Germany; America also produced half of the world's supply of food exports at the time.

Did you know…

• Women in Germany were encouraged to save their combed-out hair for use in drive belts and insulation.
• Germans were asked to contribute their household items made of aluminum, copper, brass, nickel, and zinc to be recycled for use by the army.
• In France some skilled workers were conscripted, or forced, to return from the trenches on the battlefield to work in munitions factories.
• Women and veterans worked in the factories of every nation during the war; in Germany even children supported the war effort with their labor.

For More Information

Books

Dolan, Edward F. America in World War I. Brookfield, CT: Millbrook Press, 1996.

Heyman, Neil M. World War I. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997.

Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. New York: Random House, 1987.

Paret, Peter, Beth Irwin Lewis, and Paul Paret. Persuasive Images: Posters of War and Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.

Williams, John. The Other Battleground: The Home Fronts: Britain, France and Germany, 1914–1918. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1972.

Winter, J. M. The Experience of World War I. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Winter, Jay, and Blaine Baggett. The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century. New York: Penguin Studio, 1996.

Web sites

"The First World War: The Home Front." [Online] http://www.sackville.wsussex.sch.uk/FWWhome.htm (accessed February 2001).

"The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century." [Online] http://www.pbs.org/greatwar (accessed February 2001).

Women's Suffrage

The need for increased factory output in the combatant countries during World War I placed more women than ever in industrial jobs, which had traditionally been held by men. Women's rights groups in Great Britain and the United States supported their calls for women's suffrage by citing women's role in the war effort. The women's rights movement had come close to securing the vote for women just before the war broke out; by war's end, women's valuable war contributions on the home-front fully justified women's suffrage. Although men displaced women in farm and factory jobs after the war, the importance of women's wartime role in the labor force was recognized. In 1921 women in the United States were granted the right to vote; in 1928 Great Britain's women also achieved that right.

Suffrage: The right to vote.