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Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War is a 1928 book by Arthur Ponsonby, [1] listing and refuting pieces of propaganda used by the Allied Forces (Russia, France, Britain and the United States) against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria). [2]
After the Second World War, a new edition of the book was given the updated title Falsehood in War-Time: Propaganda Lies of the First World War.
Arthur Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, was born Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby in 1871. [3] Lord Ponsonby attended Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, after which he joined the Diplomatic Service. In 1906, Ponsonby ran as a Liberal candidate, unsuccessfully, at the general election but was elected a Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom (MP) at a by-election in 1908.
Lord Ponsonby was opposed to Britain's involvement in World War I and helped form the Union of Democratic Control (UDC). He stood as an "Independent Democrat" in the new Dunfermline Burghs constituency in the 1918 general election and was defeated, and joined the Labour Party, becoming the MP for the Brightside Division of Sheffield in the 1922 general election. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport after the 1929 general election. He was granted a peerage and became Leader of the House of Lords in 1930.
In 1940, Lord Ponsonby resigned from the Labour Party because he was opposed to its decision to join the coalition government of Winston Churchill.
Falsehood in War-time identifies the role propaganda played in World War I in general and specific terms and lists more than 20 falsehoods that were circulated during the First World War. Ponsonby regarded these falsehoods as a fundamental part of the way the war effort was created and sustained, stating that without lies there would be "no reason and no will for war". [4]
In detail, Ponsonby analyses the case of the invasion of Belgium as a cause of the war, the claim of Germany's sole responsibility, the myth of a nurse mutilated by German soldiers, the depiction of the German Emperor as a criminal, the case of a Belgian baby whose hands were cut off, the Leuven altarpiece which had allegedly been destroyed by Germans, the baby of Courbeck Loo, the crucified Canadian soldier, the German Corpse Factory, the German U-boat outrage, the case of the sinking of the Lusitania, atrocity stories reported on German Army troops which were reported killing and maiming of innocent civilians and captured soldiers, faked photographs, the doctoring of official documents, and the "hypocritical" indignation.
As to the Song of the Germans, base for the later German national anthem of the Weimar Republic (since 1922): "Deutschland über alles in der Welt" (Germany above everything in the world), Ponsonby said it was popularly accepted as meaning, "[Let] Germany [rule] over every country in the world", i.e. the German domination of the world. However, German grammar distinguishes between über Alles (i.e. more important than everything else) and über alle, meaning "on top of everybody". [5] According to Ponsonby, the latter misleading translation was chosen by the Allies during both World Wars for propaganda purposes.
Falsehood in War-Time was positively received on its release. The International Journal of Ethics calls Ponsonby's work "an interesting study of the moral degradation involved in all wars." In addition, the World Tomorrow welcomed the book as a direct way of describing propaganda in World War One and states it is, "decidedly to the good". One of Ponsonby's critics, The Times of London, mentioned Ponsonby omitted the Bryce report. However, The Times recognized that Ponsonby's writing "is a useful warning against undue credulity". The reception of the book in Germany was positive, where the German Foreign Ministry regarded it as the "best and most effective book... against war atrocity lies" and helped get it translated into French and German. [6]
Anne Morelli systematised the essential propaganda techniques of Ponsonby's work in her book Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre . Morelli explains how these principles not only worked during the First World War, but were also applied in wars into 2001. [7]
In his book The Last Great War: British Society and the First World War, Adrian Gregory criticised what he saw as methodological errors within Falsehood in War-Time. He wrote that, in some instances, Ponsonby incorrectly charged the British press as manufacturing stories that actually derived from various other sources including rumours, urban myths and German propaganda. He concluded, "material from American isolationist sources, the British pacifist press and even from Germany is taken as truth, British official pronouncements and the British press are assumed to be lying. His book is not an inquiry into propaganda; it is propaganda, of the most passionate sort: Exposure may therefore be useful, even when the struggle is over, in order to show up the fraud, hypocrisy and humbug on which all war rests". [10]
The psychological factor in war is just as important as the military factor. The morale of civilians, as well as of soldiers, must be kept up to the mark. The War Offices, Admiralties, and Air Ministries look after the military side. Departments have to be created to see to the psychological side. People must never be allowed to become despondent; so victories must be exaggerated and defeats, if not concealed, at any rate minimized, and the stimulus of indignation, horror, and hatred must be assiduously and continuously pumped into the public mind by means of "propaganda." [11]
...a Government which has decided on embarking on the hazardous and terrible enterprise of war must at the outset present a one-sided case in justification of its action, and cannot afford to admit in any particular whatever the smallest degree of right or reason on the part of the people it has made up its mind to fight. Facts must be distorted, relevant circumstances concealed and a picture presented which by its crude colouring will persuade the ignorant people that their Government is blameless, their cause is righteous, and that the indisputable wickedness of the enemy has been proved beyond question. A moment's reflection would tell any reasonable person that such obvious bias cannot possibly represent the truth. But the moment's reflection is not allowed; lies are circulated with great rapidity. The unthinking mass accept them and by their excitement sway the rest. The amount of rubbish and humbug that pass under the name of patriotism in war-time in all countries is sufficient to make decent people blush when they are subsequently disillusioned.
The "Deutschlandlied", officially titled "Das Lied der Deutschen", has been the national anthem of Germany either wholly or in part since 1922, except for a seven-year gap following World War II in West Germany. In East Germany, the national anthem was "Auferstanden aus Ruinen" between 1949 and 1990.
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in a wide variety of different contexts.
Black propaganda is a form of propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propaganda, which does not disguise its origins at all. It is typically used to vilify or embarrass the enemy through misrepresentation.
A big lie is a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the truth primarily used as a political propaganda technique. The German expression was first used by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf (1925) to describe how people could be induced to believe so colossal a lie because they would not believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously". Hitler claimed that the technique had been used by Jews to blame Germany's loss in World War I on German general Erich Ludendorff, who was a prominent nationalist political leader in the Weimar Republic.
The Angels of Mons is one of several stories of the reputed appearance of a variety of supernatural entities which protected the British Army from defeat by the invading forces of the German Empire at the beginning of World War I during the Battle of Mons in Belgium on 23 August 1914.
Arthur Augustus William Harry Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, was a British politician, writer, and social activist. He was the son of Sir Henry Ponsonby, Private Secretary to Queen Victoria, and Mary Elizabeth Bulteel, daughter of John Crocker Bulteel. He was also the great-grandson of The 3rd Earl of Bessborough, The 3rd Earl of Bathurst and The 2nd Earl Grey. The 1st Baron Sysonby was his elder brother.
The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi policies.
The Rape of Belgium was a series of systematic war crimes, especially mass murder and deportation, by German troops against Belgian civilians during the invasion and occupation of Belgium in World War I.
The Union of Democratic Control was a British pressure group formed in 1914 to press for a more responsive foreign policy. While not a pacifist organisation, it was opposed to military influence in government.
The Committee on Alleged German Outrages, often called the Bryce Report after its chair, Viscount James Bryce (1838–1922), is best known for producing the "Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages," published on 12 May 1915. The report is seen as a major propaganda form that Britain used in order to influence international public opinion regarding the behaviour of Germany, which had invaded Belgium the year before. It was the first significant publication from the War Propaganda Bureau at Wellington House.
The German Corpse Factory or Kadaververwertungsanstalt, also sometimes called the "German Corpse-Rendering Works" or "Tallow Factory" was one of the most notorious anti-German atrocity propaganda stories circulated in World War I.
Britain re-created the World War I Ministry of Information for the duration of World War II to generate propaganda to influence the population towards support for the war effort. A wide range of media was employed aimed at local and overseas audiences. Traditional forms such as newspapers and posters were joined by new media including cinema (film), newsreels and radio. A wide range of themes were addressed, fostering hostility to the enemy, support for allies, and specific pro war projects such as conserving metal and growing vegetables.
The Crucified Soldier was the widespread story of an Allied soldier serving in the Canadian Corps who may have been crucified with bayonets on a barn door or a tree, while fighting on the Western Front during World War I. Three witnesses said they saw an unidentified crucified Canadian soldier near the battlefield of Ypres, Belgium, on or around 24 April 1915, but eyewitness accounts were somewhat contradictory, no crucified body was recovered and the identity of the crucified soldier was not discovered at the time.
In the First World War, British propaganda took various forms, including pictures, literature and film. Britain also placed significant emphasis on atrocity propaganda as a way of mobilising public opinion against Imperial Germany and the Central Powers during the First World War. For the global picture see Propaganda in World War I.
Anne Morelli is a Belgian historian of Italian origins, specialized in the history of religions and minorities. She is currently assistant director of the Interdisciplinary center for study of religion and secularism of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), where she is a teacher.
Atrocity propaganda is the spreading of information about the crimes committed by an enemy, which can be factual, but often includes or features deliberate fabrications or exaggerations. This can involve photographs, videos, illustrations, interviews, and other forms of information presentation or reporting.
World War I was the first war in which mass media and propaganda played a significant role in keeping the people at home informed on what occurred at the battlefields. It was also the first war in which governments systematically produced propaganda as a way to target the public and alter their opinion.
Propaganda is a form of communication that aims to shape people's beliefs and behaviors. It is typically not impartial and used to promote a specific agenda or perspective and is often biased, misleading, or even false. Propagandists use various techniques to manipulate people's opinions, including selective presentation of facts, the omission of relevant information, and the use of emotionally charged language.
The basic principles of war propaganda (Principes élémentaires de propagande de guerre) is a monograph by Anne Morelli published in 2001. It has not been translated into English. The subtitle recommends its "usability in case of cold, hot or lukewarm war".
Accusation in a mirror (AiM) is a technique where one falsely attributes to one's adversaries the intentions that one has for oneself and/or the actions that one is in the process of enacting. It has been cited, along with dehumanization, as one of the indirect or cloaked forms of incitement to genocide, which has contributed to the commission of genocide, for example in the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. By invoking collective self-defense, accusation in a mirror is used to justify genocide, just as self-defense is a defense for individual homicide.
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