Harry

=Propaganda in the Great War=

How did this poster affect the British?[[image:http://media.hoover.org/images/field_of_honour.jpg align="left"]]
This is a poster used in Britain to encourage men to join the army. The idea behind this poster is that it affects the national sense of pride and "honor". In the early 20th century the imperialistic attitude still existed in Britain meaning that, compared to now, men were much more eager to fight for their country. This poster gives the idea that the Germans have insulted the British and consequently it affects an early 20th century British man's pride. If the Germans have insulted you, then you fell like you have to fight back, its like you always have to have the last say in an argument. This way the government avoids the public feeling that they are being forced into the army. The battlefield is referred to as the field of honor, "field and "honor" in bigger letters as they are the most important words, which encourage young men to sign up for the glory they deserve. It is such beliefs of British men that words like "field of honor" are almost guaranteed to increase the number of young men signing up. Lots of certainties are used in this poster; by this I mean in this poster there are no possibilities only definites. For instance: "you were", "give them" and "play the" are all imperatives which leave no room for a man not to join the army. Also "we knew you'd come" leaves no option of an honorable man not to come and makes those who don't choose to come feel guilty. It is little things like this that lead to many naive young men sign up; the government and the military, in my opinion, really exploited this national feeling of maintaining the British honor.

How did this poster affect the Germans?
This poster from Germany had the aim of bringing new confident recruits into the army. The German from this poster translates as “We will teach them to run”. The men running represent countries and you can clearly see France, Britain and Japan. Where as, the British tried to affect their men into believing that joining the army was the right and just thing to do the Germans tried to make their recruits fell confident. Confidence in the army leads people to feel more comfortable joining the army. Also being confident in the army generally leads to better morale. As the important words in the British poster were bigger so are the German troops here, this simply makes German men feel bigger about their army. It is interesting how both countries start by making their public feel as if they are choosing to join the army, which effectively they are, but really they are being manipulated by these posters. As we know Germany ended out with heavy conscription. Propaganda is not necessarily articles, songs or films encouraging people to join the army; propaganda is advertisement of something so propaganda of the war may not even be encouraging people to join the army. There is also German propaganda encouraging women to help the economy of Germany, like the posters of women working in factories of England.

How did this poster affect the French
This is a poster of famous Rugby players of France wearing their respective city colours i.e. [|Joffre] (Perpignan, and team captain...), [|Foch] (Tarbes), [|de Castelnau] (Stade Toulousain), [|Boué de Lapeyrère] (Auch) and [|Gallieni] (St Gaudens) but with the Kaisers head. Presumably this poster is meant to evoke the Frenchmen’s desire for French competition in sport. This poster most likely shocked those men in France, the idea of their sports players being German (the Kaiser in particular would emphasis this) would influence men who cared about sport to join the army. The percentage of people who cared about sport was obviously large enough to be relied upon for recruitment. Also in this poster you can see a picture of the Kaiser as a bomb heading towards the field but being deflected by a player, this is perhaps trying to show that effort needs to be made to remove the German presence. It might also make people feel that they are like their great rugby players if they join the army. I think that this is quite amusing in comparison to the propaganda used for recruitment in Germany and England. These other countries try to rely on the person’s belief in their own countries welfare, where as, France does something completely different. France just focuses on the public’s entertainment; which I think is a good idea. Making the person angry with the enemy is never a bad thing but looking back at France’s success in the war, perhaps, this was not the best approach to recruitment but equally arguable recruitment had nothing to do with France’s defeat.

Conclusion:
As a kind of conclusion i would just like to point out the techniques used in these posters in order to bolster the ranks with public opinion on side, or with out worsening it. The British go for the predictable call of "honor". The British man is required to go because that was natural. A very good example of this is shown in the British link. Look for the poster "what did you do in the war daddy". The Germans try to encourage their soldiers into the army by making it seem safe and powerful. The German army was not weak but i think that the posters used exagerated a little, this one certainly did. This German poster does not call on anything from an individual, there is nothing urging him to go but if he chose to this poster would make him feel more comfortanle about it. The French poster and point to it are entertaining. The French wanted people to join the army and so they made it seem as though the German were taking their great sports players. This, i suppose, would make the common Frenchmen angry at the Germans and want to fight. I personally think oout of the three this is the best way of encouraging your country to fight. I think that even now if a poster of sports players with another persons head (opposition's leader) was published then people would be angry and probably want to fight.

Three Useful Weblinks

 * [|www.firstworldwar.com/posters/uk]. This is a website with a few British posters used in ww1. It is a site full of information about ww1, I recomend looking at it.
 * [|www.firstworldwar.com/posters/france] This is the same website which is really intresting but about French propaganda.
 * [|www.firstworldwar.com/posters/germany] The same exstensive site full of information on German propaganda.