Mind-Munitions

Chapter 21
The First World War
The locomotive of historical change was set in full flight in 1914 for
both warfare and propaganda. The war that began with dancing in
the streets throughout Europe’s capitals ended four years later with
an armistice signed in the Compiègne Forest amid sorrow, tragedy,
and recrimination. It was a war that began with traditional volunteer
armies and ended with all the belligerents having introduced
conscription. It saw the destruction of four European empires – the
Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman – and the
creation of new, independent but insecure states – Rumania,
Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland – that were to sow the seeds
of future conflict. Untold dead and maimed, poison gas, trench
warfare, tanks, aeroplanes, blockades and starvation, mutinies,
revolution – all seemed inconceivable in that innocent summer of
1914 when the Germans unleashed their Schleiffen Plan amidst a
cultivated illusion that fostered the belief that it would all be over
by Christmas.
The very fact, of course, that Germany had invaded Belgium and
France in August 1914, and was to remain fighting on their soil for
the rest of the war, forfeited the moral high ground the German
government had hoped to secure by its pre-war propaganda. No
matter how much propaganda material the Germans poured out in
an attempt to justify their actions, ‘Poor Little Belgium’ remained a
rallying cry for their enemies throughout the war. War could no
longer be regarded as a sport fought between gentlemen playing
the game by the correct rules. Instead, it became a bloody and relentless
struggle in which sustaining morale became just as essential for
both sides as sustaining the military effort. It was not just a battle
between troops, guns, submarines, ships, and aeroplanes but a