---
title: Breaking through the Enemy Censorship
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/27-breaking-through-the-enemy-censorship/
description: Breaking through the Enemy Censorship, from How We Advertised America by George Creel.
section: FRAME
---

![Illustration: an interwar radio-and-newsreel intelligence collage with a 1930s map of Europe and propaganda poster proofs.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-interwar.jpg)

[Library](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/) · Book · [How We Advertised America](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/)

# Breaking through the Enemy Censorship

This text

- **Work:** [How We Advertised America](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/)
- **Author:** George Creel
- **Published:** 1920

Full details

- **Rights:** Published in the United States in 1920, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States; the Internet Archive lists the scan as not in copyright. Creel died in 1953, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years.

Chapters

1. [Dedicatory](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/01-dedicatory/)
2. [Foreword](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/02-foreword/)
3. Part I: The Domestic Section
4. [The “Second Lines”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/03-the-second-lines/)
5. [The “Censorship” Bugbear](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/04-the-censorship-bugbear/)
6. [The “Fourth of July Fake”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/05-the-fourth-of-july-fake/)
7. [The Committee’s “Aircraft Lies”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/06-the-committee-s-aircraft-lies/)
8. [Relations with Congress](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/07-relations-with-congress/)
9. [The Division of News](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/08-the-division-of-news/)
10. [The Four Minute Men](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/09-the-four-minute-men/)
11. [The Fight for the Mind of Mankind](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/10-the-fight-for-the-mind-of-mankind/)
12. [The Battle of the Films](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/11-the-battle-of-the-films/)
13. [The “Battle of the Fences”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/12-the-battle-of-the-fences/)
14. [The War Expositions](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/13-the-war-expositions/)
15. [The Speaking Division](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/14-the-speaking-division/)
16. [The Advertising Division](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/15-the-advertising-division/)
17. [The “Americanizers”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/16-the-americanizers/)
18. [Work among the Foreign-Born](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/17-work-among-the-foreign-born/)
19. [A Wonderful Fourth of July](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/18-a-wonderful-fourth-of-july/)
20. [The “Official Bulletin”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/19-the-official-bulletin/)
21. [Division of Women’s War-Work](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/20-division-of-women-s-war-work/)
22. [Other Divisions](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/21-other-divisions/)
23. [Showing America to the Foreign Press](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/22-showing-america-to-the-foreign-press/)
24. Part II: The Foreign Section
25. [The Fight in Foreign Countries](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/23-the-fight-in-foreign-countries/)
26. [America’s World News Service](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/24-america-s-world-news-service/)
27. [The Foreign Mail Service](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/25-the-foreign-mail-service/)
28. [Fighting with Films](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/26-fighting-with-films/)
29. [Breaking through the Enemy Censorship](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/27-breaking-through-the-enemy-censorship/)
30. [France, England, and Italy](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/28-france-england-and-italy/)
31. [The Work in Mexico](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/29-the-work-in-mexico/)
32. [The Work in Switzerland](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/30-the-work-in-switzerland/)
33. [The Work in Holland](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/31-the-work-in-holland/)
34. [The Work in Spain](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/32-the-work-in-spain/)
35. [The Work in Scandinavia](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/33-the-work-in-scandinavia/)
36. [The Work in the Orient](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/34-the-work-in-the-orient/)
37. [The Work in South America](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/35-the-work-in-south-america/)
38. [The Russian Campaign](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/36-the-russian-campaign/)
39. Part III: Demobilization
40. [After the Armistice](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/37-after-the-armistice/)
41. [“Americanizing” Mittel Europa](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/38-americanizing-mittel-europa/)
42. [Confusion and Neglect](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/39-confusion-and-neglect/)
43. Appendix
44. [The American Newspaper Publishers’ Association](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/40-the-american-newspaper-publishers-association/)
45. [“Savagery” vs. Sanity](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/41-savagery-vs-sanity/)
46. [Publications of the Committee on Public Information in the United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/42-publications-of-the-committee-on-public-informat/)

[← Fighting with Films](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/26-fighting-with-films/) [France, England, and Italy →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/28-france-england-and-italy/)

**Content note:** Quotes wartime anti-German language, including "Hun", and period terms for racial and national groups. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

fTlHE Germans were not whipped by man-power alone. JL No grain of credit is to be taken away from the courage of the Allies or the heroic, decisive charges of the Americans at Chateau-Thierry, St. Mihiel, and -Belleau Wood, but there are certain facts that prove the importance of other compulsions than major force.

On the day that the Germans signed the armistice, accepting defeat as overwhelming as their ambitions had been colossal they had two million men under arms on the western front alone. This army was well equipped with supplies and munitions, and behind it still stretched line after line almost impregnable by reason of natural strength and military science. Not one inch of German territory knew the feet of an invading force, and to the east there were the armies of Mackensen and von Sanders. Nothing is more apparent than that a defensive warfare could have been waged for months, taking a tremendous toll in Allied and American lives. In 1870, even after Sedan, without an army, food, or munitions, the French fought on, Paris standing a siege of six months.

What happened to the Germans was an utter spiritual collapse, a disintegration of morale both on the firing-line and among the civilian population. Slowly at first, but always more swiftly, the truth made its way into Germany, sapping a foundation of lies laid carefully through long years. People and fighting-men alike commenced to feel the loathing of the world, came to understand the might arrayed against them, the inevitability of defeat, and when French, English, Italians, Serbians, and Americans began to deal the sledge-hammer blows directed by Foch, apprehension turned to certainty, fear became panic, and the whole rotten structure went tumbling into ruins.

Getting the truth into Germany and Austria-Hungary was as hard a battle as any fought in France. A censorship cunningly conceived and rigidly enforced not only guarded the frontiers, but crushed every internal attempt to speak or write honestly. Soldiers and civilians were drugged with lies about "Germany's defensive war," the "cruel purposes" of the enemy, the collapse of the Allies, the utter inability of America to train or transport troops, and the near approach of a tremendous victory that would mean world mastery.

These lies had all the force of divisions and it was as necessary to destroy them as though each had been a machine-gun nest. The Committee fought the German censorship on every front, attacking from France, Italy, Greece, Russia, and from such border nations as Switzerland, Holland, and Denmark. From the very first, the Paris office of the Committee worked in close co-operation with the French department of enemy propaganda. Mr. Kerney, our commissioner, was assisted by Lieut. Harry A. Franck of the Intelligence Section of the A. E. F., an officer with intimate knowledge of the German language and the German people.

As the importance of the work came to be recognized many efforts were made to bring about a single command so that resources might be pooled and confusion avoided. The Committee was at all times eager for co-operation and designated Mr. James Keeley, editor of The Chicago Herald, as our representative in the various conferences called by Lord Northcliffe and participated in by all the Allied Powers. Aside from a very valuable exchange of ideas, nothing ever came of these efforts and the Committee continued to go its own way, working hand in hand with the Intelligence Section of the A. E. F. An office was opened in Padua for an attack upon the morale of Austria, and from France and Italy we managed to maintain a reasonable flow of American facts into the Central Powers. German and Austrian newspapers were carefully studied and their misrepresentations met with leaflets.

As the American Expeditionary Force grew in size and power it became increasingly apparent that American propaganda was the best wedge to drive it to the German censorship. The French bureau was reorganized and Commandant Chaix, a thoroughgoing business man, placed at its head with full power to work intimately with the Paris office of the Committee. A most efficient equipment was assembled, and documents were given a genuine German appearance as to paper, type, typesetting, and the fine points of German diction. The printers were German prisoners chosen for this particular task. For the troops, special matter was prepared according to nationalities. The military authorities, as soon as they noted the presence in certain trenches of Jugoslav, Polish, or other elements, or of German troops from disaffected districts, at once conveyed the information to the end that material specially designed to appeal to these respective forces might be despatched.

While it was easy enough to write and print the "shrapnel," it was always difficult to determine the most effective way to fire it. The most obvious method of distribution was by airplanes, of course, and over firing-lines, towns, and cities the sky rained single sheets that told the truth in short, sharp sentences. But the demand was so great for 'planes for the more imperative purposes of war that they could not be obtained in sufficient numbers for propaganda use and other and additional means of distribution had to be found.

The French introduced a rifle grenade that carried leaflets about six hundred feet in a favoring wind, and a 75-shell that carried four or five miles. The British developed a six-inch gun that carried ten or twelve miles and scattered several thousand leaflets from each shell. The Italians used rockets for close work on the front, each rocket carrying forty or fifty leaflets. The obvious smash at German morale was through America's aims and swift war progress, and for this reason the Allies used the President's speeches and our military facts freely and sometimes even exclusively.

To reach farther behind the lines, all fronts used paper balloons filled with coal-gas. They would remain in the air a minimum of twenty hours, so as to make a trip of six hundred miles in a thirty-mile wind. On a Belgian fete-day such balloons carried four hundred thousand greetings into Belgium, and some flew clear across Belgium. Fabric balloons, carrying seventeen or eighteen pounds of leaflets, were also employed, but with all the balloons the uncertainty of the wind made the work haphazard. A paper balloon, with propaganda intended for Alsace, came down in Kent, and a French balloon intended to reach the Rhine towns came down in Geneva.

The attempt was made to fly kites over the trenches and drop leaflets from traveling containers that were run up the kite wire, but this method could be used only on fronts where airplanes were not active, because the wires were a menace to the 'planes. The paper used in the leaflets was chemically treated so that they would not spoil if they lay out in the rain.

An American invention that gave promise of supplanting all others was a balloon that carried a tin container holding about ten thousand sheets. The Committee on Public Information carried the inventor and his idea to the War Department, and provided the money for tests and experimentation that proved encouragingly successful, but the armistice prevented full firing-line use. A clock attachment governed the climb of the balloon, it had a sailing range of from six to eight hundred miles, and the mechanism could be set in such a manner as to have the pamphlets dropped in a bunch or one at a time at regular intervals, the whole business blowing up conclusively with the descent of the last printed "bullet."

At the end of June and during early July, when some of the German newspapers began to wake up to the fact that there really was more than a million American troops in France and that they were fighters, there appeared articles, indicating war-weariness and hints that all might not be going so well on the western front. This material was quickly reproduced in Paris and spread among the German troops. It was along in July that the first genuine effects of the enemy propaganda were felt. On July 18, 1918, a conference of heads of the British, French, Belgian, and American services was held in the Paris office of the Committee on Public Information. It was the frank consensus of opinion that the place for concentrated effective work was in front of the American lines, then shortly to be very greatly extended. General Nolan, Major James, and Capt. Mark Watson of the Intelligence Section, A. E. F., attended the conference, and soon thereafter a special group of experts, under the immediate direction of Major James, took over the American end of the work.

All this was on the western front. In the East, up to the Brest-Litovsk treaty, the problem was merely one of printing and distribution, and with due appreciation of the Bolshevik surrender that was on the way, we strove mightily during the days of opportunity. Edgar G. Sisson and Arthur Bullard, in charge of the Committee's educational work in Russia, put the speeches of President Wilson into German and into Magyar (the latter for Hungarians) and secured distribution from Russia across the line into the enemy's country by the hundreds of thousands. Even when the Germans advanced into Russia they found the walls of the towns freshly plastered with the President's Fourteen Points speech, printed in German for the information of the German soldiers.

The preparation of the material, no matter what the front, followed a set plan. At first all time and space was devoted to the causes that drove the United States to war — the brutal purposes of Germany, her plots and intrigues, her record of bloody cruelty — the absolute disinterestedness of America, and the great truth that the free world we fought for was a victory in which the wretched victims of the Prussian military machine would be permitted to share. The second step was to preach the doctrine of American achievement; the selective service law, the miracle of cantonments and training-schools, the building of ships and 'planes, the rush of men across the sea, the mighty resources of America, and the inevitability of German defeat and of Allied victory.

And always the speeches of President Wilson! They were our most effective weapons and it was easy to mark their progress through the enemy country by the trail of ferment and disaffection that each one left. Never at any time did the German censorship dare to kill a Wilson speech outright, but the first addresses were invariably cut in such manner as to distort and misrepresent the meaning. What we did was to have the entire speech printed in German, playing up all deleted words and passages, and then, with the varied devices, begin to pound in upon the German people the new deceits practised upon them by their government. It was this backfire that compelled the Germans eventually to publish the President's addresses in their entirety.

The first proof of effectiveness was an order issued by the German General Staff establishing death as a penalty for all those seen picking up our matter or found with it in their possession. And even before this Austria-Hungary had given orders to shoot or imprison all soldiers or citizens guilty of the abominable crime of reading "printed lies" against the government.

Accounts of trials and cruel sentences contained in Austrian papers proved conclusively that there was no "bluff" about it as far as the Dual Monarchy was concerned; but it is very questionable whether the Germans went very far in enforcement of the orders. Eight prisoners out of every ten captured by the Americans had our "stuff" in their pockets, and reports united in declaring the literature "well thumbed."

A medium of attack wider in effect, even if less direct, was through the press of Switzerland, Denmark, and Holland. Through methods that will be described later, the public opinion of these countries was won for America, and our material was given daily place in the newspapers. It was under this strain that the German censorship began to crack, breaking at last with a loud report, and letting in daylight with a rush.

[← Fighting with Films](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/26-fighting-with-films/) [France, England, and Italy →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/28-france-england-and-italy/)

How We Advertised America, George Creel. Published in the United States in 1920, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States; the Internet Archive lists the scan as not in copyright. Creel died in 1953, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years. [Provenance and rights](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/creel-how-we-advertised-america-1920/).