Content note: Nazi swastika on the cap of a puppeteer figure, and on a podium, in a wartime leaflet cartoon. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant (British leaflet to Italy)
Line-drawing leaflet under the headline 'Ave Caesar!': a giant Hitler in a swastika cap works strings that raise a small Mussolini's arm on a balcony, while rows of helmeted Italian soldiers march below a signpost reading 'Russia, Libia e morte'. The tell: the Roman gladiators' salute is turned into the caption 'Morituri te salutant', and the puppet-strings picture casts Mussolini as Hitler's instrument.
Propaganda techniques used in this leaflet
- Date
- 1942
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Political Warfare Executive (PWE), United Kingdom (attributed by the holding record; the leaflet itself names no issuer)
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Theme, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Leaflet
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Churchill Government
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Audience
- Mixed
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Theme
- War and the military
- Event
- World War II
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons (image of a British Library holding), retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- UK Crown copyright, published 1942, expired (50 years); Commons uploader's CC BY-SA 4.0 tag not relied on
Political Warfare Executive leaflet, Crown copyright (expired); British Library copy as photographed and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
Text on the object
Original (Italian) · read from the image, not independently checked
AVE CAESAR! [signpost:] RUSSIA, LIBIA E MORTE Morituri te salutant
HAIL CAESAR! [signpost:] RUSSIA, LIBYA AND DEATH Those about to die salute you
'Ave Caesar' and 'Morituri te salutant' are Latin; the signpost is Italian. Translation is a machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader.
