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Propaganda at Home (Great Britain and Ireland)

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Propaganda at Home (Great Britain and Ireland) Propaganda at Home (Great Britain and Ireland) By David Monger British and Irish domestic propaganda evolved patchily throughout the war. It underwent several stages of development, was delivered by many official and unofficial bodies, including critics, and featured multiple methods and topics. It did not depend entirely upon atrocity stories, recruitment and poster campaigns. Effective propaganda demonstrated successful cooperation between central and local organisers, and collaboration with press and publishers. While themes and topics ranged widely, propaganda revolved around ideas of the individual’s place within a community and the need for sacrifice. While relatively successful in Britain, it was effectively challenged by counter-propaganda and the force of events in Ireland. Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 Organising propaganda 2.1 Initial Groups 2.2 Expansion, Diversification and Reorganisation 3 Methods 3.1 Published Propaganda 3.2 Film Propaganda 3.3 Public Propaganda 4 Propaganda Content: Themes and Foci 4.1 Recruitment and Advocacy 4.2 Morale and Motivation 4.3 Dissenting Propaganda 5 Conclusion Notes Selected Bibliography Citation Introduction Official home propaganda developed piecemeal throughout the war in Britain and Ireland. By March 1918, fourteen ministries and government-related agencies conducted domestic "publicity", yet a body specifically dedicated to domestic morale had not emerged until mid-1917. British propaganda’s organisation was sufficiently confusing and misunderstood that 1930s officials seeking to resurrect the Ministry of Information appeared only dimly aware that the National War Aims Committee (NWAC) "seems to have done at home the kind of work done by [the Ministry] abroad."[1] Despite this incoherence, civilians were regularly addressed by official and unofficial propaganda, ranging from recruitment to military or civilian occupations, official or charitable calls for donations and demands for modified behaviour, to critical propaganda from dissenting voices such as the Union of Democratic Control (UDC) or Irish advanced nationalists. Organising propaganda The British government did not have a ready-made propaganda apparatus available at the outbreak of war. While some measures, such as press controls, were established quickly, official domestic propaganda organisations emerged more slowly.[2] However, campaigns such as the Liberals’ pre-war promotion of national insurance, headed by Charles Masterman (1873-1927), and land reform gave party organisers experience of national publicity promotions. The 1914 land campaign involved around 230 speakers and 3 million publications, and its Secretary later took important roles in the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (PRC) and NWAC.[3] Party and interest group activists and speakers provided experienced staff at all levels to fill wartime roles. Initial Groups The first domestic propaganda priority was military recruitment. The PRC was formed at the end of August 1914 to call for volunteers, led by the heads of the major British parties, excluding the Irish Nationalists. Though the Nationalist leader, John Redmond (1856-1918), rapidly committed his party and the Irish Volunteers to a military contribution, he discouraged PRC operations in Ireland. Instead, Irish MPs (with varying enthusiasm) and nobles called for enlistment.[4] To September 1915, the PRC issued 22,227,000 publications, including 8,750,000 leaflets, 5,727,000 posters and 5.5 million pamphlets.[5] By then, over 2 million volunteers had enlisted. In Ireland, individual recruiting was augmented in 1915 by a Central Council for the Organisation of Recruiting in Ireland, and later the Department for Recruiting in Ireland (DRI). David Fitzpatrick estimates around 206,000 Irishmen served in Britain’s wartime armed forces – while this represented a lower proportion of available men than British volunteers, John Ellis suggests this remained "impressive", given the more complex situation in Ireland.[6] While recruitment took priority (and remained the focus of official Irish propaganda), the British authorities established other organisations which served propaganda purposes. The War Propaganda Bureau (better known as Wellington House), directed by Masterman, was established within the Foreign Office in September 1914. While focused on neutrals and the Dominions, it also affected domestic propaganda. Masterman’s determination to conduct propaganda "based on accurate information and measured argument" influenced the wider conduct of official propaganda. Little of this was "black" (i.e. outright disinformation or lies), much was "white" (messages from a clearly stated source, whether fact-based or an appeal) and most of the rest was "grey" (as Masterman’s materials were, since they did not state the Bureau’s involvement),[7] making it easier to allow Wellington House material’s dissemination within Britain. Many unofficial propagandists added to the clamour. Existing groups such as the Victoria League (VL) continued promoting imperial unity, aided partly by a substantial female membership which meant fewer League organisers were lost to war work. The VL addressed issues raised by the war, but also other topics, making them an antidote to wartime attitudes increasingly intolerant of "frivolous", non-war-related discussion.[8] New groups also formed, such as the Central Committee for National Patriotic Organizations (CCNPO) which organised public events and acted as a conduit for Wellington House publications. Two other groups – advertisers and journalists – also felt that they had much to contribute.H edley Le Bas (1868-1926), an influential figure in advertising, played a substantial part in enlivening recruiting propaganda, overcoming the "dignified" conservatism of the War Office and PRC, before shifting his attention to Irish recruiting, apparently with considerable success, in 1915.[9] Despite controls exerted by the Press Bureau and, from 1916, by the War Office’s MI7 (which both censored and produced press content), many newspapers maintained a steady stream of their own propaganda, sometimes complementing and sometimes interfering with official efforts. Newspaper proprietors such as Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe (1865-1922) and Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook (1879-1964) increasingly demanded greater involvement in official propaganda, as did the corrupt, demagogic proprietor of John Bull, Horatio Bottomley (1860-1933), who, consistently denied an official role, contented himself with belittling official efforts while conducting his own patriotic events at a profit.[10] Expansion, Diversification and Reorganisation Le Bas’s propaganda career highlights the growing scale of official propaganda. In August 1915, Le Bas joined a new Cinema Committee attached to Wellington House, which produced the film Britain Prepared and succeeded in "converting many who had hitherto been sceptical" to film propaganda’s potential.[11] This led to extensive subsequent use of film propaganda including, most famously, The Battle of the Somme, filmed and released during the 1916 campaign. Le Bas, however, moved on to the newly created National Organising Committee for War Savings (later the National War Savings Committee – NWSC), which began work with a campaign condemning waste and extravagance.[12] By the time David Lloyd George (1863-1945) replaced Herbert Henry Asquith (1852-1928) as Prime Minister, in December 1916, official propaganda was conducted by several organisations tied to multiple Ministries and Departments, including: Foreign Office Wellington House News Department Home Office Press Bureau War Office MI7 War Office Cinematograph Committee Treasury NWSC Directorate of National Service Ministry of Munitions These organic developments produced competing, inefficient work, despite attempted rationalisation in 1916. One of Lloyd George’s first acts as Prime Minister was to instigate a propaganda enquiry, organised by Robert Donald (1860-1933), editor of the Daily Chronicle. This led to a Department of Information (DI) in early 1917, intended to act as an umbrella organisation. Led by the novelist John Buchan (1875-1940), it theoretically answered solely to Lloyd George, but really "functioned as an annex of the Foreign Office",[13] neglecting domestic propaganda. Thus, in July 1917 the NWAC was established as a Parliamentary, all-party (except Irish Nationalists) domestic propaganda organisation.[14] Rather than promoting specific behaviour – war savings, national service and food control propaganda, for example – the NWAC focused on perceived war- weariness and "remobilising" the public. Treasury subsidy (from November 1917), alongside its organisation of counter-meetings to those of "pacifist" organisations sometimes featuring dissenting MPs, caused Parliamentary controversy, amid allegations that public money was used to boost government prestige.[15] A final reorganisation in early 1918 saw the DI superseded by a Ministry of Information (MI) directed by Beaverbrook. Once again, this reorganisation aimed to unify propaganda, but the NWAC and several Departments and Ministries resisted amalgamation, so that domestic propaganda in 1918 still emanated from several venues, including: MI NWAC NWSC Boards of: Agriculture Trade Home Office War Office Admiralty Ministries of: Food National Service Labour Munitions Reconstruction Pensions.[16] Sometimes this activity traversed the British Isles, as with war savings; in other cases, separate groups were established. An Irish
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