As we commemorate those who lived, fought and died in World War One, author Lucinda Hawksley gives us an idea of the language and images employed by British journalists, propagandists and artists during that time.
The first time that people in Britain began to understand the true nature of warfare was in the mid-1850s. Journalists reporting from the Crimean War revealed for the first time that the fighting was bloody and terrifying, often senseless and seldom heroic. One of the most famous public reactions was Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s angry poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'.
On 8 August 1914, the British government passed the Defence of the Realm Act, known as DORA. War had been declared and the government did not want to risk a similar debacle. They wanted Rupert Brooke’s romanticised images of the war to be broadcast, not Tennyson-like criticism. DORA was intended, initially, to control only information that could have military implications, but it was soon being used to ensure that any action seen to 'jeopardise' the success of the war effort could be prosecuted. This included journalism or other writing that could be said to 'assist the enemy'. The propaganda circus had begun.
Much of Britain’s press at this time was headed by the newspaper magnate Baron Northcliffe – he wasn't always pro-government (he was instrumental in ousting Prime Minister Asquith and getting Lloyd George elected), but he was always anti-German and for that the government found him invaluable. His newspapers were filled with stories of patriotism and the need for more troops. Articles included horrifying stories of German atrocities – not all of which were true; the same was happening in reverse in Germany.
In addition to patriotic fervour in the newspapers, artists were recruited to make posters that encouraged men to enlist and women to persuade them to go. These were intended to evoke a variety of emotions, targeting every sector of society. They range from heart-tugging images of soldiers and sailors imploring their countrymen to help, to patriotic women and children adoringly waving off heroic husbands and fathers. The home was a feminine space, the posters suggested, with no place for a real man in it, not during wartime. There are images of a bullying John Bull, an angry schoolmaster figure, wanting to know why you are looking at this image instead of heading to the Front. Other images intentionally resemble one of the most popular publications of the day, the Boys’ Own adventure stories. These latter depict happy bands of men, often playing rugby or football or looking brave and happy with guns in their hands, heading out together to beat 'the Hun' – one assumes before returning home to crumpets for tea before a roaring log fire in a country cottage.
When war was declared in 1914, large numbers of men enlisted voluntarily, believing the war would be over fast and they would be home for a hero’s Christmas. By 1915, this fervour had dampened and riots and demonstrations against the war had begun. Foremost amongst the campaigners were members of the Bloomsbury Group, most of whom were conscientious objectors.
The First World War saw a vast change in British society, not least in the roles of women. Ironically, the National Archives reveal that the war was a time of improved living conditions for many and, taking aside the war casualties, life expectancy improved. The pre-war unemployment and desperate poverty came to an end as men were paid to fight and their families received a salary. Women went into the workplace en masse and their general health and fitness improved. By the time those men who had survived returned, their country was, in many ways, utterly different from the place they had left behind.
By 1918, many who had set out believing 'the old lie' – that it was sweet and honourable to die for one’s country – had returned altered forever. Old social barriers had been swallowed up by the mud of the trenches and the class system would never again be as rigid as it had been pre-1914. Art and literature had also undergone a vast change, with the gungho writings of the earliest war poets contrasting starkly with the bleak reports in radical newspapers about the realities of the conflict. Even the previously avant-garde work of the Bloomsburies and their ilk now seemed old-fashioned alongside the work of war artists such as Paul Nash and Christopher Nevinson, whose hardhitting paintings presaged the Surrealist movement. They created nightmare visions on canvas which recreated the true horrors of a 20th-century battle, complete with its angry Futurist machine guns.
A few years ago I visited Belgrade and did not know what to expect of a city that had been repeatedly at the heart of conflict in recent decades. I encountered a city viciously scarred but not broken. Instead of a population downtrodden and afraid, I met the most vibrant, alive and life-embracing people I had ever spent time with. I was caught up in the fervour of celebrating life, of making the most of every moment. It was intoxicating. I was witnessing the creativity that seems so often to arise from conflict, a refusal to give in and the need to record a life in which every day might be remarkable or terrifying. My grandmother, who grew up between the wars, often commented upon how much more exciting life had been for her generation than for mine, as people lived their lives to the full – just in case another Great War broke out tomorrow.
The propaganda of the First World War leaves us a legacy of a time in which people had been more innocent, they had believed the artists’ impressions and the Northbrook newspapers’ articles. By 1918, they were more akin with Wilfred Owen’s image of returning troops in 'The Send-off':
'A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to still village wells
Up half-known roads'.
Owen himself would never know the return, numbingly silent or otherwise, that his fellow soldiers experienced; he was killed a week before the end of the war.
You can attend Lucinda's talk on this subject in London or watch it as a live-stream (both free) tomorrow, 12 November [Editor's note, 25 November 2016: links no longer active]. Lucinda Hawksley's talk is part of the English Language Council Lecture series, held in partnership with the English-Speaking Union.
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