It’s now a cliché of World War One history that the war was pointless and fought only for the vanity of an elite minority. Yet at the time both sides conducted propaganda campaigns to keep public support behind the war. This included praising their own supposedly noble goals, but also slandering the opposition.
Historian Richard van Emden, explains why we should give more attention to 1918 when studying the First World War. How close did Germany come to winning the war in early 1918 and how did the soldiers feel who faced their final onslaught?Listen Now
In the propaganda of Britain, France and the USA, Germans were presented, often literally, as monsters, while atrocities both real and imagined were liberally exploited.
In the post-war years anti-German sentiment remained a powerful tool for political groups like the nationalist British Empire Union.
German atrocities in Belgium played into the hands of Allied propaganda artists.
The cartoon shows a German-American expressing public support for the USA while privately toasting the Kaiser, showing that anti-German prejudice was not only directed against enemy combatants.
The British often invoked the German attack on the town of Scarborough to incite anti-German feeling.
References to nurses had particularly high propaganda value after the shocking execution of British nurse Edith Cavell.
Uncovering shocking Foreign Office communications and using fascinating footage never seen on television before, this documentary shows how British double-dealing during the First World War ignited the conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East.Watch Now
