---
title: Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/your-courage-your-cheerfulness-1939/
description: The first mass poster of the Ministry of Information, put up across Britain from September 1939.
section: Collection
---

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

[![Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/your-courage-your-cheerfulness-1939.png)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/your-courage-your-cheerfulness-1939.png)

# Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory

The first mass poster of the Ministry of Information, put up across Britain from September 1939. It names three virtues and promises victory but gives no instruction and no fact, under the royal crown. Mass-Observation reported a largely negative response: the line was thought too long, and some read the underlined 'your' against 'us' as the public's sacrifice winning victory for the government and the upper classes. The rest of the campaign was dropped in October 1939.

- **Date:** 1939
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** UK Ministry of Information (Home Publicity series)
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [United Kingdom](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-kingdom)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [State](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=state)
- **Regime:** [Chamberlain Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=chamberlain-government)
- **Leader:** [Neville Chamberlain](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=neville-chamberlain)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Reassure](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=reassure)
- **Themes:** [Home front](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=home-front), [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Glittering generalities](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/glittering-generalities/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons (vector redrawing of a UK Government poster)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Your_Courage,_Your_Cheerfulness,_Your_Resolution_Will_Bring_Us_Victory.svg), retrieved September 27, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (UK Crown copyright expired; PD-UKGov) Original: Government of the United Kingdom (Ministry of Information), 1939. Vector redrawing: Ericmetro, Wikimedia Commons.

## Text on the object

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

```
YOUR COURAGE
YOUR CHEERFULNESS
YOUR RESOLUTION
WILL BRING
US VICTORY
```

The crown at the top is a graphic device, not text. 'Your' at the start of each of the first three lines is underlined in the original design.

[← Suomen armeijan sotilaat! (Soldiers of the Finnish Army!): Soviet leaflet signed by named Finnish prisoners](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/soviet-leaflet-suomen-armeijan-sotilaat-1939/) [銃後の總親和 第二回總選挙 (Total Harmony on the Home Front: Second General Election), Taiwan →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/jugo-no-soshinwa-taiwan-election-1939/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Gold solidus of Constantine I, reverse RESTITVTORI LIBERTATIS](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/solidus-constantine-i-restitutori-libertatis-0313/) (0313 · Glittering generalities)
- [Gold solidus of Justinian I, reverse VICTORIA AVGGG with Victory holding a Christogram staff](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/solidus-justinian-i-victoria-avggg-0538/) (0538 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Frontispiece to Eikon Basilike, The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings (Hollar, 1649)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/eikon-basilike-frontispiece-hollar-1649/) (1649 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Trois Tetes sous l'meme bonnet (three heads under the same cap)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/trois-tetes-sous-le-meme-bonnet-1789/) (1789 · Plain folks, Glittering generalities)
- [Proclamation by the Queen in Council, to the Princes, Chiefs, and People of India (printed sheet, Allahabad, 1 November 1858)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/queens-proclamation-to-the-people-of-india-1858/) (Nov 1, 1858 · Glittering generalities, Scapegoating)
- [The Great Battle of Ansong Ford: The Valor of Captain Matsuzaki](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ansong-ford-toshikata-1894/) (1894 · Glittering generalities)
- ['The Congress Cross or "Swastik"' (Pickings from the Hindi Punch, Bombay, February 1896)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hindi-punch-congress-swastik-1896/) (Feb 1896 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)
- [Un combate en el río Zapote (A Fight on the Zapote River), Blanco y Negro](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/un-combate-en-el-rio-zapote-1898/) (Jul 9, 1898 · Transfer, Glittering generalities)