War propaganda

Women of Lancashire. British recruitment poster, First World War, 1915.

 Source: Imperial War Museums, Image: IWM (Art.IWM PST 6061).

Since there has been war, there has been war propaganda, for war must be justified by those who choose to fight. Justifying war has especially become important, when wars were no longer fought by professional soldiers and mercenaries but by armies of conscripts, and since the rise of the mass media. The introduction of the conscript army by Napoleon made that basically the whole male population of a country could be called up for military service. The rise of mass media made that now everybody could know what was going on in the world and what their soldiers had to fight for and to die for. This made that in order to start and continue a war the consent of the public opinion was required.
The first major war in which mass media were used for war propaganda was the First World War (WW1; 1914-1918). Propaganda became part of the war policy of all fighting countries. It was especially important in the United Kingdom. Not only was not everybody there convinced of the necessity of the war, but moreover, when WW1 began, the country had not yet a conscript army (this was introduced only in 1916), so in order to get enough soldiers, young men had to be convinced that it was their patriotic duty to enlist.
It was no surprise then that, once WW1 had ended, just a British war critic, Arthur Ponsonby, wrote a book in which he analysed war propaganda and unravelled the lies conceived and spread to convince people of the necessity of the war, not only in the UK but in all major warring countries then. This book, Falsehood in Wartime, inspired the Belgian political scientist Anne Morelli to summarise the mechanism of war propaganda described by Ponsonby in ten basic principles in her book Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre (Elementary principles of war propaganda). For propaganda was not only a major characteristic of WW1, but since then its use has spread more and more; during the Second World War, the Vietnam War, the war in former Yugoslavia, the Gulf Wars, till the present wars between Russia and Ukraine and in Gaza. Therefore, it is still worth taking note of the basics of war propaganda, since they are still applied, when political leaders try to convince us of the need to start a war or to participate in it.
What then are the principles of war propaganda?

1. We do not want war but “they” want it. A reason to go to war that accuses the enemy is often invented, or relevant facts for the war are omitted.
2. Our adversary is solely responsible for the war. It is our adversary who harms our rights, values, territory, etc.; ignoring, for instance, that we, too were already preparing for war.
3. The enemy’s leader is evil and resembles the devil. You cannot hate a whole group or country, so it’s better to direct the hatred to the leader of the enemy country.
4. We are defending a noble cause and not our personal interests. We have higher values than our enemy and must defend them, for example. Or, we defend human rights, not the access to the oil in the enemy country.
5. The enemy deliberately commits atrocities; our mistakes, are not intentional. Not only is it so that the enemy is said to commit atrocities; even if civilian victims are the consequence of mistakes, they are still seen as deliberate atrocities, while if we commit them, we call them “collateral damage”.
6. The enemy uses illegal weapons, like weapons that are “unnecessarily” cruel or forbidden by international law. If we use them, it’s only because they use them.
7. We suffer very few losses; the enemy’s losses are enormous. If our losses are bigger than those of the enemy, it is better not to say so and to hide our real losses, because telling the truth is not good for our morals.
8. Artists and intellectuals support our cause. If such smart people do, why not you?
9. Our cause is sacred. We fight for God, for higher values, for humanity...
10. Everyone who questions our propaganda is a traitor and helps the enemy. There are good guys and there are bad guys. Who isn’t for us is against us. People who ask critical questions – even if they are clearly “on our side” – are considered to undermine “our cause”, also when their questions are justified and should be asked. Criticism is not allowed and it is punished, also in democratic societies.

The aim of war propaganda actually is, so Morelli, “creating a state of shared hypnosis, where we are all in the virtuous camp of the deeply offended ‘Good’ ”, and this apparently is a pathological need. Moreover, it is also possible that the war makers themselves construct this propaganda not purposefully but really believe it. However, this doesn’t make it true. Nevertheless, it is possible that some or even all of the propagandistic statements are true. For instance, maybe our adversary really is solely responsible for the war. As Morelli writes, “It is possible that only one of the two camps is lying and that only one of the two camps has really been attacked, without really wanting a war. In short, the question of who the aggressor is and who is the victim remains particularly delicate.”
Since what is pure propaganda and what is true often is difficult to say and often becomes clear only afterwards, the only thing one can do is being critical. Is it true what the political leaders say, when they want to start a war? Do they hide facts? Are the “facts” invented in order to have a cause of war? Such questions are important, but they are not without risk. Finding the truth can take time, and a being hypercritical and extremely cautious can paralyse any action, even when action is urgent. Nonetheless, systematic doubt is the only thing we can do to avoid falling in the propaganda trap; not only in case of a war or a threatening war. As Morelli writes: “It seems to me that systematic doubt is a good antidote to the daily attempts of the media to persuade us during international wars, ideological conflicts and social conflicts.” Not only then, I think.

Sources: The links in the text plus Wikipedia.