Propaganda and Press in WW1

Question 1

What was the mood of the public at the start of the war?

Answer 1

• A mood of public patriotism
• Irish Nationalist leader John Redmond supported the war and thousands of Irish nationalists joined the war
• About and TUC conferences voted to continue the war until victory

Question 2

What positive opportunity did Emelline Pankhurst see for women with the outbreak of war?

Answer 2

• Leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union
• Called on the Gov to allow women equal status in munitions factories
• Suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett also believed the war would benefit the rights of women in the long term

Question 3

Who were Conscientious Objectors?

Answer 3

• These were people who refused military service due to conscience or religious belief
• They were assessed by tribunal
• Most were allocated non-combat work, but if they refused they were sent to the army or jailed

Question 4

Due to no opinion polls how did the Government assess the public mood?

Answer 4

Reactions expressed to MP’s in the letters to the press or in public meetings

Question 5

How did the Government censor press?

Answer 5

• They allowed newspapers to censor themselves
• Controlled direct war reporting through censors at the front
• Letters were read by the censor who removed any references to plans, battles or unit name
• Many newspapers printed casualty lists in full from summer of 1915

Question 6

What battle was made into a movie?

Answer 6

• The Battle of the Somme
• Screened in more than 2,000 cinemas
• Some of the action was staged and not ‘live’

Question 7

When did the War Office issue its own reports and what was this?

Answer 7

• September 1914 headlined ‘Eyewitness’
• Written by Colonel Ernest Swinton

Question 8

What was the issue with Swinton’s reports?

Answer 8

• They were too technical for most readers, he tried to check unjustified optimism and prevent pessimism
• Letter to the daily mail revealed that his account of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle was of more interest to the military historian than the shipbuilder on the Clyde

Question 9

Which of Swinton’s reports caused particular confusion?

Answer 9

• His report of Neuve Chapelle made it sound like an allied victory
• Later Sir John French blamed Haig for failures, confusing public opinion

Question 10

Who headed the War Propaganda Bureau and what was it?

Answer 10

• 1914 - Charles Masterman
• Set up for home consumption and establishing ‘war aims’ including social reform such as extending the franchise
• This also directed Propaganda at foreign countries and emphasised the Germans as the enemies, e.g a Children’s book revealed that German gas killed whereas British Gas made them unconscious

Question 11

What did war posters show?

Answer 11

• They were patriotic, showing women waving off soldiers and urging men to join and do their bit for the war
• Extremely anti-German and (The Times and Daily Mail) showed the vicious group of ‘Huns’ charging innocent civilians
• They also published atrocities such as rape and child-murder, and the public was outraged at the murder of nurse Edith Cavell who was allegedly shot by a German spy

Question 12

Who was forced to change their name cause of the war?

Answer 12

• Prince Louis of Battenburg resigned from the admiralty and had his name changed to Mountbatten to avoid German links
• Royal Family renamed to the House of Windsor in 1917 and was formerly Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Question 13

As people got annoyed with one-sided reports the Govt was forced to send out War Correspondents, how successful was this?

Answer 13

• Generals, e.g Haig, did not want them there
• Correspondents only allowed to tour the rear end of the front and were rushed away at any site of battle
• Despatches were sent to the censor who removed ‘sensitive’ information with a blue pencil and by telephone to the War Office
• Phillip Gibbs of the Daily Mail thought the reports had little impact on public opinion and no one believed the public anyways

Question 14

What did Correspondent Charles à Court Repington do?

Answer 14

• Military correspondent for The Times who used his War Office contacts to gain privileged access to the front in 1914-15
• His reporting of the army’s apparent shortage of artillery shells had broke the ‘shell scandal’
• Theodore Roosevelt had also wrote the British Foreign Sec Sir Edward Grey that now allowing correspondents to the front line was hurting their standing with the USA

Question 15

What was PM Lloyd George aware of in 1917?

Answer 15

• He was aware of the value of ‘good press’
• Government Propaganda machine now had a Cinema Division, Political Intelligence Division and a News Division
• Newspapers also stopped giving casualty lists as it was thought to be demoralising

Question 16

What was the development of the Department of Information?

Answer 16

• Dept of Info ran by John Buchan was upgraded to the Ministry of Information in 1918
• Daily Express Boss, Lord Beaverbrook was made the new Minister of Information

Question 17

What did Phillip Gibbs say at the end of the war?

Answer 17

• His job as a correspondent had been worth doing as the people at home knew the best part of what was happening
• This was due to emotions being volatile, e.g patriotism then moving to the Somme, ‘pals’ battalions
• Gov hoped for a better tomorrow, popular wartime song ‘Are we Downhearted’

Question 18

What was the ‘soldiers camera’?

Answer 18

• The Vest Pocket Kodak
• There was also the Box Brownie and these were small enough to carry
• Most soldiers took photos

Question 19

What photos that soldiers took particularly worried the Govt? How did Sir John French stop this?

Answer 19

• They imaged Christmas 1914 of the troops meeting in No Mans Land
• Pictures of ‘Tommy and Fritz’ did not fit the image of vicious ‘Huns’
• Sir John French ordered a ban on soldiers taking images and by March 1915 having a camera could be a reason for arrest

Question 20

What was the competition between the Daily Mirror and the Daily Sketch?

Answer 20

• Daily Mirror offered £1,000 for the best Western Front snapshot
• Daily Sketch published an ‘untouched action’ shot of the second Battle at Ypres in July 1915
• Magazine illustrations often portrayed heroic images rather than the stark realities of the trenches

Question 21

Who was the wars first official war photographer?

Answer 21

• Ernest Brooks in 1916
• This grew to 16 cameramen by the end, but their war photos were censored to only show the positive side of warfare
• Some were clear fakes, photos of artillery guns in action ‘Somewhere in France’ were revised by soldiers as Salisbury Plains training actions

Question 22

Who was the first War Artist and name some notable others?

Answer 22

• 1st was Muierhead Bone in May 1916
• Others were William Open and Paul Nash

Question 23

What was the nature of war paintings?

Answer 23

• More of a realistic portrayal of what war was like despite attempts to censor them
• Masterman had sent Bone to France and he came back with 150 paintings
• Either commissioned a ‘reproduction’ picture which was an image designed to be reproduced in pictures
• Or commissioned an ‘exhibition’ picture which was a vivid painting designed to be exhibited in galleries

Question 24

What magazine by John Buchan was popular with the people?

Answer 24

• His official war history in the form of a monthly magazine ‘Nelsons History of the War’

Question 25

What did Arthur Conan Doyle resurrect in 1917?

Answer 25

• Sherlock Holmes for a wartime adventure
• ‘His last bow’

Question 26

What form of trench humour did the soldiers on the Western Front produce?

Answer 26

• A newspaper, satirical and cheery, called ‘Wipers Times’ in 1916

Question 27

What character was created by cartoonist and soldier Bruce Bairnsfather in the soldiers ‘Wipers Times’?

Answer 27

• Produced ‘Old Bill’ who was a grumpy infantryman with a droopy moustache
• Army disapproved of him as vulgar but could not do anything due to his popularity

Question 28

What did ‘Hush’ mean in the form of trench humour?

Answer 28

• ‘Hush, here comes a Whizzbang’ - used to refer a German shell
• Showed the black humour used in the trenches to keep morale up between the soldiers

Question 29

Despite being unable to censor war poetry why was this not a big deal for the government?

Answer 29

• They were often published after the war and many Poet’s died
• Edward Thomas was killed in 1917, Rupert Brooke died in 1915 and Wilfred Owen was killed in 1918
• Robert Graves was invalidated out of the army after being wounded in 1916

Question 30

War memoirs served as a testament to the war, what were some notable ones?

Answer 30

• Graves autobiography ‘Goodbye to All’
• Vera Britain who served as a war nurse and lost her fiancé and her brother in the war, produced ‘Testament of Youth to show the impact on younger generation, published in 1933
• R.C Sherriff wounded at Passchendaele in 1917 wrote the best-known play set in the trenches, ‘Journeys End’, not staged until 1928

Question 31

What was DORA and why was this such a big deal?

Answer 31

• Defence of the Realm Act in August 1914
• Gave the govt wide ranging powers to control many aspects of daily life
• Allowed Govt ministers to seize any land or buildings they needed and take over industries which were important to the war effort
• Censorship also became normal where they could control what the public found out about the war