---
title: Will you fight now or wait for this (Australian recruiting poster, Norman Lindsay)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/will-you-fight-now-or-wait-for-this-1918/
description: German soldiers in spiked helmets level rifles at a man pinned against a corrugated-iron water tank, an old man kneels pleading and another lies on the…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![Will you fight now or wait for this (Australian recruiting poster, Norman Lindsay)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/will-you-fight-now-or-wait-for-this-1918.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/will-you-fight-now-or-wait-for-this-1918.jpg)

# Will you fight now or wait for this (Australian recruiting poster, Norman Lindsay)

German soldiers in spiked helmets level rifles at a man pinned against a corrugated-iron water tank, an old man kneels pleading and another lies on the ground beside a burning building. The question 'Will you fight now or wait for this' stages an invasion of Australian soil as the alternative to enlisting, offering enlistment as the only way to prevent it (fear-appeal).

- **Date:** 1918
- **Period:** [First World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwi)
- **Made by:** Government of the Commonwealth of Australia (1918 recruiting campaign); artist Norman Lindsay; printed by W. E. Smith Ltd, Sydney
- **Region:** [Oceania](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=oceania)
- **Country:** [Australia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=australia)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [State](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=state)
- **Regime:** [Hughes Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=hughes-government)
- **Leader:** [William Morris Hughes](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=william-morris-hughes)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Recruit](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=recruit)
- **Themes:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military), [Home front](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=home-front)
- **Event:** [World War I](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-i)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Australian War Memorial](https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/ARTV00079), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (AWM: copyright expired; published 1918, before 1931) Government of the Commonwealth of Australia; W. E. Smith Ltd, Sydney. 1918. Australian War Memorial, ARTV00079.

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
Will you fight now or wait for This

ISSUED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA.
W. E. SMITH LTD., SYDNEY.
```

The image as supplied by the holding institution carries a white strip below the sheet reading 'AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL' and 'ARTV00079', added by the museum and not part of the poster.

[← Was England will! (What England Wants!)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/was-england-will-1918/) [Za naši samostatnost! Hrr na vraha! Za demokracii! Československá armáda (For our independence! Charge at the murderer! For democracy! Czechoslovak Army) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/za-nasi-samostatnost-1918/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)