Image: Wikipedia. Public Domain.
The Creation of the War Propaganda Bureau
In August 1914, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George learned that the Germans were operating a propaganda bureau as part of their First World War operations.
Lloyd George, presumably after consulting the prime minister, H.H. Asquith, selected a fellow politician and writer named Charles Masterman to head the British propaganda effort.
Masterman was the chairman of the National Insurance Commission based at Wellington House, Buckingham Gate in London. The War Propaganda Bureau secretly worked out of the same address.
On the 2nd September 1914, Masterman covertly gathered 25 prominent British authors, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Thomas Hardy and H.G. Wells, at Wellington House so that they could consider methods to promote British interests and to communicate the government's position for the duration of the war.
The propaganda was a device to persuade neutral countries to join the allies. The primary target was the U.S.A.
The Committee on Alleged German Outrages 1915 Report (The Bryce Report)
The authors agreed to create works of propaganda; books and pamphlets were released by the leading publishing houses. Between 1914-1918, over 1100 pamphlets were produced. Photographers, filmmakers and artists were sent to the Western Front in France.
The bureau's first report was compiled by Viscount James Bryce and the Committee on Alleged German Outrages. It was published in early 1915, and it contained details of atrocities that the Germans had (allegedly) carried out against the Belgians during the early months of the war.
The committee's findings and eyewitness statements were re-enforced by emotive illustrations, and the report met with a horrified and anti-German response from people around the world. Masterman sent 41,000 copies of the report to the U.S.A., and almost every newspaper reported its contents.
The committee's assertions were later called into question because of the lack of evidence, but the report was a highly successful propaganda tool during the war while a German counter-publication made little impact.
Author John Buchan's Role at the War Propaganda Bureau
The bureau asked author-publisher John Buchan (most famous for The Thirty-Nine Steps, 1915) to write a regular magazine about the war as it progressed. His publishing firm Thomas Nelson & Sons published 24 editions of the substantial Nelson's History of the War between spring 1915 and autumn 1918. Buchan was made a 2nd Lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps. when he travelled to the Western Front in 1916.
Masterman's bureau was absorbed into the Office for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1916. Early in 1917, the Department of Information was established, and John Buchan was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was awarded a salary and Masterman reported to him.
Later that year, Sir Edward Carson, a government minister-without-portfolio was placed in overall control of the department and it was renamed the Ministry of Information.
I am no longer an artist. I am an artist who will bring back word from the men who are fighting to those who want the war to go on forever. Feeble, inarticulate will be my message, but it will have a bitter truth and may it burn their lousy souls.
— Artist Paul Nash. He produced work for the bureau-ministry.
William "Max" Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Information
In March 1918, the government appointed William "Max" Aitken, better known as Lord Beaverbrook, as the Minister of Information. He owned the Daily Express newspaper, his Fleet Street rivals Lord Northcliffe, owner of the Daily Mail and The Times and Robert Donald from the Daily Chronicle joined the operation.
Northcliffe and Donald were responsible for propaganda aimed at the Axis powers and the neutral nations respectively. Masterman was Beaverbrook's Director of Publications and Buchan was the Director of Intelligence.
The appointment of several newspapermen, especially the new minister, led to discontent in Fleet Street. Journalists felt that they were at great risk of being censored by the government. Their complaints led to the establishment of guidelines for the use of data during wartime. These rules were applied during the Second World War.
In 1920, the Ministry of Information officially closed and the Admiralty, War Office and Press Committee took over the ministry's responsibilities.
The Public Learns About the War Propaganda Bureau in 1935
Beaverbrook ceased to be Minister of Information on 4th November 1918, one week before the armistice. He was replaced by Lord Downham, who left the role in January 1919 and he wasn't replaced; Downham died less than 18 months later.
Beaverbrook's later years saw his influence soar politically and in the press world; he could keep stories out of the newspapers (e.g., Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson's relationship) and ensure that a piece of news was released at a beneficial time to the parties concerned.
Charles Masterman lost his political seat in the 1918 General Election. He secured another one in 1923, only to lose it in the 1924 election. He died in 1927.
John Buchan returned to his writing career and he pursued politics. In 1935, he was appointed the Governor-General of Canada by George V, and he became the 1st Baron Tweedsmuir. He died in Ottowa in February 1940.
Wellington House, the original home of the War Propaganda Bureau, was demolished in 1975.
In 1935, the public finally became aware of the War Propaganda Bureau's existence and who worked for it two decades before. There were claims that many politicians didn't even know that the bureau had existed until 1935.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment.