--- title: Demoralizing the Enemy url: https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/07-demoralizing-the-enemy/ description: Demoralizing the Enemy, from Propaganda Technique in the World War by Harold D. Lasswell. 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/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/) · Book · [Propaganda Technique in the World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/) # Demoralizing the Enemy This text - **Work:** [Propaganda Technique in the World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/) - **Author:** Harold D. Lasswell - **Published:** 1927 Full details - **Rights:** Published in London and New York in 1927, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States (works published in 1930 or earlier). Lasswell died in 1978, so the text may still be protected in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years; readers outside the United States should check their own law. Chapters 1. [The Matter in Hand](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/01-the-matter-in-hand/) 2. [Propaganda Organization](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/02-propaganda-organization/) 3. [War Guilt and War Aims](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/03-war-guilt-and-war-aims/) 4. [Satanism](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/04-satanism/) 5. [The Illusion of Victory](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/05-the-illusion-of-victory/) 6. [Preserving Friendship](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/06-preserving-friendship/) 7. [Demoralizing the Enemy](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/07-demoralizing-the-enemy/) 8. [Conditions and Methods of Propaganda: A Summary](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/08-conditions-and-methods-of-propaganda-a-summary/) 9. [The Results of Propaganda](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/09-the-results-of-propaganda/) 10. [Note on Bibliography](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/10-note-on-bibliography/) [← Preserving Friendship](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/06-preserving-friendship/) [Conditions and Methods of Propaganda: A Summary →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/08-conditions-and-methods-of-propaganda-a-summary/) **Content note:** Quotes First World War atrocity stories and abusive wartime language about the enemy, including "Hun", and period terms for racial groups, as examples of propaganda. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) It is possible to employ propaganda as a weapon of direct attack against the moral of the enemy by seeking to break up or divert the hatred of the enemy from a belligerent. To a certain degree this can be accomplished by a campaign of simple counter-stimulation. The Gazette des Ardennes was published by the Germans for the consumption of the Frenchman who lived within the occupied area, and the various themes capable of employment in demoralizing the enemy were used at one time or another within its columns. The Gazette was exhaustively examined by Professor Marchand during the War for the purpose of establishing, if possible, a direct parallel between its attitudes and those of the Bonnet Rouge of Paris. His report, which was part of the evidence against the latter journal in the famous trial of 1917, has since been published as U offensive des Allemands, en France, pendant la guerre. It is made up of assorted extracts from the two papers in question, and represents by far the best systematic study of one phase of War propaganda yet made. The references in this section will be to this compilation, supplemented by other material. In most cases the citations have been checked against the original. The Gazette denied outright that Germany had ever plotted to attack France, and deplored the propaganda of misrepresentation against Germany. M. L^on Daudet and M. Clemenceau have the " spionnitis,” when they imagine that Germany had sown France with a vast army of secret agents before or since the War.‘ The Gazette defended its Kaiser and military men from the alleged calumny of the Allies. William jthe Second has always been recognized as a powerful influence for peace. It was he who saved Europe from war over Morocco. His pacific spirit has repeatedly been acknowledged by such men as J. Holland Rose, the eminent English historian, by Marcel Sembat, the Frenchman of letters and Socialist-patriot, and by right-thinking people everywhere. He is conscientious, peace-loving, kindly, gentle in his family relations, able in his leadership, and altogether generous in his impulses.* AU the stories about German barbarities are poisonous lies. The German soldiers in the army of occupation in northern France are kind to children. A picture in the Gazette for December ist, 1915, shows a German soldier in the act of feeding a little French child who is perched affectionately on his knee. • The children cherish fond memories of “ I’oncle Fritz.” * Letters from Frenchmen in the occupied territory and from French prisoners in the hands of the Germans, were published to prove the kindly and considerate character of the German forces of occupation.' The irrepressible German ^ Gazette, July 2, 1917, citing an item from the Frankfurter Zeitung Marchand, p. 97. • Gazette, 17 November, 1917. Marchand, p. 143. » Reproduced opposite page 145 in Hansi and Tonnelet, A Travers les Lignes Ennemies. ^ love of music, religion and morality has manifested itself wherever German soldiers are found. > * Gazette, 13 August, 1916. Marchand, p. 25. > ® Gazette, Same. The tales of wholesale atrocity and wUful destruction are malicious generalizations from a few regrettable individual instances, which happen in every army, but less often in the disciplined German army than elsewhere. The necessities of war, as everyone knows, may require acts which are not essential in the quiet times of peace, but it is absurd to distort the facts into a wholesale denunciation of an entire nation.* Many of the churches which the Germans are supposed to have destroyed were never destroyed, and many of them were illegitimately used by the enemy. The examples which have been cited so far illustrate defence by denial. Another form of defence, that of admission accompanied by justification, is illustrated by the handling of the U-Boat question. The Gazette explained over and over again that the submarine was nothing more nor less than a reply to the infamous and illegal British blockade. While no form of stimulation should be neglected, and the apphcation of counter-suggestion has a certain effect, its efficacy is by no means comparable to the influence of a skilful propaganda of diversion. To undermine the active hatred of the enemy for its present antagonist, his anger must be distracted to a new and independent object, beside which his present antagonist ceases to matter. This is a very difficult operation, and it is always advisable to carry through a work of preparation for the purpose of undermining some of the varieties of resistance which hamper the success of such a manoeuvre. > ^ Gazette, 7 June, 1916. Mar^hand, p. igo. Patriotism is a powerful prop to belligerent ardour, and anti-patriotic propaganda has some chance to succeed with those elements in the nation who begin to recover their peace time ideology after the war has worn on awhile. The Gazette published certain items which deplored the tendency of patriotism to lead a country into needless slaughter. ^ Patriotism which preaches hate is immoral, and the poisoning of men's minds is nothing less than criminal.® The war spirit should be avoided, since there is no doubt of its irreligious and unethical character.® Another sustaining force against which sapping operations must be directed is the confidence of the people in their government's honesty. If a suspicion can be engendered against the propaganda of the government and the war party, a potent weapon of disintegration is created. The Germans complained that they were the victims of systematic vilification by ignorant pedagogues, irresponsible politicians, and lying newsmongers. But the keynote in the preliminary spade work is the tmceasing refrain : Your cause is hopeless. Your blood is spilt in vain. Now the heads of the French propaganda very properly criticised the early English propaganda for boasting of the size of the Allied armies during the early stages of the War, when the Germans occupied Belgium and northern France. It was only when things settled down to a stalemate or worse, and when disappointment was general, that such propaganda became effective. When the British took the offensive in 1918, in a military sense, they simultaneously sowed the German trenches with maps upon which their gains were plainly marked. They recalled the false hopes which the German leaders had held out to the people and the army. They circulated an alleged statement in a German newspaper which lamented that > ^ 23 September, 1916. Marchand, p. 85. > * Gazette, 9 January, 1916. Marchand, p. 15. > ® Gazette, 3 July, 1917- Marchand, p. 27. A few weeks ago it appeared as if our armies were very near their goal, the defeat of the enemy force, and peace. But what a change ! Forebodings were disseminated. A card was spread over the German trenches with the legend : To-day we are in retreat. Next year we shall be destroyed. When the German generals gave public evidence of their alarm at the incursions of Allied propaganda in 1918, the /Allied pamphleteers interpreted this to the Germans as a sign that their leaders wanted to keep the truth from them. A rumour that the German Government was at last disposed to make peace was circulated as another evidence of weakness. The Americans, who entered the field of direct propaganda against Germany, and especially the German army, spent most of their energy advertising the news of America's strength. Little leaflets with a row of soldiers, whose size varied with the monthly increase in the number of American soldiers, were distributed over the German lines. 1,900,000 Americans are now in France, said the card, and more than ten times as many stand ready in America. The extent of German casualties and tonnage losses was emphasized. That they were short of food and raw materijils was insinuated by such means as circulating the report that another smuggler had been arrested in a German city. Tracts with such questions as these were distributed far and wide : Will you ever again be as strong as you were in July, 1918 ? Will your opponents grow daily stronger or weaker ? Have your grievous losses suffered in 1918 brought you the victorious peace which your leaders promised you ? Have you still a final hope of victory ? Do you want to give up your life in a hopeless cause ?* Another theme of first-rate importance when it is in juxtaposition to the foregoing is the privations to which the soldier and his family at home are subjected. Stories of want and misery at home were featured in a special French propaganda sheet, which was prepared for use among German ’ soldiers, the Briefe aus Deutschland. In the brilliant attack upon Italian moral, which preceded the disaster of Caporetto in 1917, the Italian soldiers were sent appeals, ostensibly from home, beseeching them to lay down their arms and return to their families. The joys of home were subtly suggested by the French editors of Die Feldpost (another sheet for the German troops). They celebrated the Christmas season of 1915 by rec^ng all the simple pleasures of Christmas at home with the family in peace.* The amusements of civilian life were J featured in the propaganda literature for the sake of intensifying war weariness. ^ Heber Blankenhom describes the American campaign in My Adven^ .tures in Propaganda. " ^-Qansi and Tonnelet,^ Figure 4, opposite p. 24. Another means of stressing want and privation is to circulate, as the Americans did, something which suggests the relative affluence and luxury of the enemy. A card, which was an exact reproduction of the official German field postal card, said : Write the address of your family upon this card, and if you are captured by the Americans, give it to the first officer who questions you. He will make it his business to forward it in order that your family may be reassured concerning your situation. (On the reverse) : Do not worry about me. The war is over for me. I have good food. The American Army gives its prisoners the same food as its own soldiers : Beef, white bread, potatoes, beans, prunes, coffee, butter, tobacco, etc.% This was no new wrinkle in propaganda technique, for it is recorded that handbills were circulated among the British troops on Bunker Hill, offering them seven dollars a month, fresh provisions in plenty, health, freedom, ease, affluence, and a good farm, should they desert and join the American Army.® All the preparatory or auxiliary themes outlined so far are supposed to facilitate the task of substituting new hates for old. The next step is to concentrate upon the particular object of animosity about which it is hoped to polarize the sentiment of the enemy. One of the possible alternatives is to transfer suspicion and hatred to an ally. The German propaganda did what it could to disinter the ancient animosity of the French for the English. France, they said, is the cat’s-paw of the Enghsh. The English have been exceedingly backward in their war . preparations, as Winston Churchill has recently acknowledged.* Their game is to let France bleed for them. Indeed, they are taking pains to establish themselves in permanent buildings at Calais, and any student of history knows how long it took to dislodge England the last time she had her clutches on Calais. > ^ Reproduced in Blankenhom, p. 78. > * C. K. Bolton, The Private Soldier under Washington, p. 90. Cited by Salmon, The Newspaper and the Historian, 340. The truth, declared the Germans, is that, far from threatening you, we are willing to join you in a common crusade against England, who has conspired with some of your meanest politicians to use your blood to crush our trade competition. We will gladly free you from the machinations of England, and help you to expand your colonial domain at the British expense. Between us we can dominate Europe, and to dominate Europe is to dominate the world. At the same time, we can emancipate you from Russia, whose Tsar is using France to enable him to grab Constantinople.* The Allies, in their turn, strained every muscle to drive a wedge between Austria-Hungary and Germany. Rumours that the Dual Monarchy was negotiating a separate peace, were circulated among the German soldiers on the Western Front, for the purpose of stirring up hatred against Austria, and of demonstrating the hopelessness of the cause for which they had suffered so much. The report that the Austrians and Hungarians had plenty of food provoked considerable, animosity in Germany, where the food restrictions were ^'^Gazette, 7 September, 1916. Marchand, p, 49. ^^Gazette, 26 April, 1917. Marchand, p. 47. severe. The Austrians, for their part, were taunted as the slaves of Prussia, and wheedled by the possibility of territorial compensations at the expense of Germany, should they change sides. An ally is not the only possible object of diversion. The government and the governing caste may serve just as well. If the ruling person, clique or class can be made sufficiently obnoxious, Revolution comes, and in Revolution there is little remaining capacity for active hatred of the external enemy. During the last war every belligerent took a hand in the perilous business of fomenting dissension and revolution abroad, reckless of the possible repercussions of a successful revolt. There is reason to believe that, as early as 1915, the Germans were attempting to foster the collapse of Russia, by placing revolutionary reading matter in the hands of those Russian prisoners who might eventually return to Russia through exchange or release.* The famous episode of the sealed car, which contained Lenin and forty men, happened in 1917. The Allies set about quite consciously to uproot the Kaiser and the Imperial system in Germany. One of the leaflets which the French scattered over Germany contained a picture of the Kaiser and his husky sons, unscathed by war : on the opposite side stood many rows of wooden crosses, to mark the final resting places of his loyal German subjects.* Another leaflet showed the Kaiser and his general staff, sitting about a table, conversing genially and drinking beer ; the reverse pictures an explosion in a front-line trench, where many bodies are being ripped to pieces.* > ^ A Russian who was permitted to visit some of these prison camps through the Red Cross arrangements made this the subject of a complaint . > * Reproduced in Hansi and Tonnelet, p. 136. ^ German Republicans who lived abroad were drafted or volunteered to discuss the responsibility of the Kaiser for the War. After the collapse of the great offensive in the spring of 1918 the Wilsonian^ propaganda in Germany I reached its apex. His speeches were^strewn far and wide,» and they were successful in creating the impression that a Republican Germany would receive a soft peace from the western democracies. Care was taken to print all the passages of Wilson’s speeches which had been suppressed in Germany in red ink.* The British tried to suggest the imminence of revolutionary disturbances in Germany by means of news items, which told about secret precautions recently taken in Berlin, where a G.H.Q. order had just directed certain measures to be taken for the suppression of strikes. Every Socialist meeting which was suppressed received considerable publicity on the Western Front. The following item is a particularly subtle effort to carry the idea of revolution. It is in the form of a despatch from Stockholm : The German Minister in Stockholm has requested the Swedish Foreign Office to seize the copy of the New York Herald Magazine of the War of the 14th of July because it publishes on the front page a photograph of the German Emperor, underneath which are the words : — " What shall we do with the Kaiser after the War ? ” The Minister of Justice is said to have ordered the copies in question to be seized.* > * Reproduced in Hansi and Tonnelet, p. 160. > • See Hansi and Tonnelet, p. 152. Although the Germans were finally bested in the game, they tried strenuously to demoralize the Allies through Revolution. Through the Gazette and every other channel open to them they endeavoured to hang the responsibility of the War upon Poincare and his clique. This was the group, they said, whose insane lust for revenge led them to carry on illicit negotiations with military and diplomatic circles in Belgium, to finance strategic railways in Russia, when they ought to have been providing for social welfare at home, to refuse to thwart the propaganda for Pan-Slavism, and to violate Belgian neutrality before Germany entered the War. The Germans came into possession of a crushing reply to the professions of international idealism with which the Allies filled the air. They gave as much publicity as their limited resources would permit to the secret treaties which the Allied powers had made. The idealistic Allies had carved up the world among themselves. Russia was promised Constantinople. Great Britain got the neutral zone north of its sphere of influence in Persia. The Italians got the Trentino and Trieste, plus the Slavic territories of Gorizi, Gradisca, Istria, Dalmatia and Valona. They were promised 200,000 Germans who lived in the Brenner Pass region and who had been Austrian subjects since the fourteenth century. The important ports of the Adriatic (except Fiume) fell into their hands outright, or were neutralized. They secured the Greek Dodekanese Islands, some provinces in Asia Minor, and promises of colonies in Africa. Rumania was given territories inhabited by Serbs, Hungarians^ Ruthenians and other Slavic nationalities. France gave Russia a free hand in Poland in return for a free hand on the western front in reference to Alsace-Lorraine, the Saar, and the left bank of the Rhine. Besides all this, the Turkish Empire and the colonies of Germany were sliced up and ; parcelled out. > ^ This and similar examples are given in Campbell, Secrets of Crewe House. t The revelation of these treaties not only created inter- Allied troubles, because the secret treaties revealed that the Allies had made contradictory promises to some of the weaker powers, but it had an immediate influence on the moral of Labour. The revelation of Allied duplicity produced the repercussions which have been referred to before.^ The Germans carried their attack upon national unity very far. They sought to arouse the wives at home by calling attention to the alarming extent to which prostitution was practised at the front. Dr. Graux records that, as early as July 1915, anonymous pamphlets were distributed in France, elaborating this theme.* No effort was spared to arouse the soldiers at the front against the supposed excesses of politicians, profiteers and officers behind the lines. The Gazette for November 5th, 1916, alluded to the wives of soldiers left at home who find duty too burdensome to bear. The French Government was known to be responsible for importing the black inhabitants of Morocco into the War, and the Gazette took occasion to publish a letter which contained the remark that > ^ Page 62. > ® Graux, Les Fausses Nouvelles, II : 15 1. Those dirty Moroccans have left offsprings right and left, like the Annamite.* The French reproduced and circulated a cartoon from Simplicissimus, in which a German schoolmaster asked an emaciated pupil why anyone is called a poor sinner, who is condemned to severe punishment. The reply was : “ Because a rich sinner is never punished severely.”® The authorities encouraged fraternization between the Austrian and the Italian troops before the Caporetto affair, carefully using for that purpose some Austrian Communists, who had been infected by Communism or Socialism on the Russian front. Sometimes German pacifists were permitted to travel abroad, although the most rigorous hmitations were placed on their agitation at home. The Germans appealed to every possible cleavage in the French nation, seeking to instigate party versus party, farmers versus urbanites, provincials versus Parisians, workers versus employers, the army versus the nation, the army versus the government, and the legislature versus the executive.® We have spoken of anti-Ally and anti-Govemment propaganda, but some attention must be given to a third important possibility, anti-State propaganda. The late War proved how effective the instigation of secession may be, when the belligerent is a heterogeneous State. The Allies began to talk about self-determination early in the War. The Tsar announced that he proposed to grant autonomy to a united Poland on the i6th of August, 1914. By the spring of 1916 the astronomer-aviator, Stefanik, offered to drop Czech proclamations by Masaryk over the lines of the Austrian Army, opposite the Italians.* > ^ Gazette, April 29, 1917. ^ See Hansi and Tonnelet, p. 28. > 3 Marchand, Section II. The Russians had dropped some gold coins with the Czechish national castle minted on one side inside the lines by aeroplane, but it was not until after the Declaration of Corfu in July, 1917, that the propaganda offensive against the Dual Monarchy began to inflict its greatest damage. According to this declaration, Pashitch and Trumbitch, " the authorized representatives of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes,” recognized the desire of our people " to constitute itself in an independent national state ” ; adopted as its name " the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ” ; provided for the unification of its flag and Crown, but also for the free use of special Serb, Croat and Slovene flags and emblems ; for the freedom of the Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Mussulman creed ; declared that the Adriatic must be " a free and open sea,” and that ” the Kingdom will include all territory compactly inhabited by our people and cannot be mutilated without attaint to the vital interests of the community.” The policy of partitioning Austria-Hungary was opposed, even at this comparatively late date, by numerous elements among the Allies. The New Europe, which was launched in October 19th, 1916, by Seton-Watson, Masaryk, Steed and certain others, tried to overcome the reluctance of the ^ Steed, Thrpugh Thirty Years, II : 102. British Government to come out boldly for the policy of partition. The Allied governments were embarrassed by the' deal into which they had entered to bring Italy into the War in 1915, at which time the aspirations of the Southern Slavs were not definitely formulated. The Italians had been offered guarantees which were utterly incompatible with the unity of the Southern Slavs, and the Italians were disposed to hang fast to the advantages of the treaties. They preferred annexations to the problematical friendship of an aggrandized Serbia, and they feared that a dismembered Austria would join Germany. Wickham Steed, of the London Times, an active member of the pro-Serbian propaganda group, credits the Jewish financial houses with wishing to maintain the German-Jewish financial system, which had formed the economic framework of Pan-Germanism, and with wishing to strengthen every element of opposition to the break-up of Austria-Hungary. The Roman Catholic hierarchy was likewise against the total submergence of the largest remaining Roman policy in Europe. British society cherished a soft spot for the Austrians because their homes were so well kept, their shooting so good, and their urbanity so unruffled.* Indeed, it was not until after the disaster of Caporetto in October, 1917, that the Slavs and the Italians were able to agree, and to enable the Allied propaganda to assume its final proportions. Even then, it was not until the “ I^ct» of Rome ” of March, 1918, that the way was entirely cleared for one of the greatest propaganda feats of the War, the Congress of Oppressed Hapsburg Nationalities, which met at * steed, II : 129. Rome in April. On 'October 26th, 1918, there was a convention in Philadelpix»a of twelve nationalities, who \ ' For an account of the proceedings, see the agitation journals. The Cgecho-Slovak Review for Jfovember, 1918, summarizes it briefly. Austria is making great efforts to create a national movement among the Ukrainians. Surely you know that there is a society for the Liberation of the Ukraine in Vienna ? It publishes pamphlets and maps in Switzerland. I get them, and they certainly reveal very intense propaganda activity.^ Germany tried to stir up the Irish against the English and to precipitate trouble in Northern Africa, Egypt and India. They tried to split Belgium by encouraging the Walloon movement/' but to little avail. Several movements which were, in effect, a reductio ad absurdum of the principle of self-determination were begun during the War. One of them grew in the fertile brain of a member of the Austrian Press service. He chanced to be in occupied Italian territory and overheard a conversation which he could not quite make out. He discovered that it was a local speech known as Friul, spoken in a few villages in Udine Province. He wrote an article demanding self-determination for the users of Friul, and precipitated quite an angry Press campaign in Italy. A large element in propaganda against the enemy is the invention of ways and means for the transmission of suggestions to the enemy. It is proposed to deal with some of the more specialized appliances which were used for this purpose in the last War rather than to touch upon them in the section which is devoted to the general consideration of tactical matters. > ^ Palaeologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs, I : 327. Efforts were first made by the belligerents to penetrate behind the lines of their opponents by means of insertions in the neutral Press. Newspapers were purchased in Switzerland and other neutral countries for this purpose. Almost simultaneously the belligerents began to invent ways and means of direct transmission. The French began to publish a regular periodical in October, 1915, for dissemination among the soldiers of their opponents. The periodical was variously known as Die Feldpost, Kriegsbldtter fur das deutsche Volk, and Das freie deutsche Wort. Books and occasional pamphlets were copiously employed. A tiny edition of J’accuse was sent far and wide, for the purpose of preaching German responsibility for the War. By the same method various books were published from the pens of Dr. Herman Fernau, Dr. Muehlen, Prince Lichnowsky and others. Several fervent brochures, prepared by Dr. Hermann Rosemeier, who until his flight in September, 1914, had edited the Morgenpost of Berlin, were distributed.* Die Kriegsfackel was put out occasionally for the sole purpose of discussing the question of war guilt.* Brief e aus Deutschland and Griisse an die Heimat were also pubhshed irregularly. The former was devoted to letters and news items upon internal conditions in Germany, and the latter was made up of letters from German prisoners who testified about their excellent treatment in France. The French forged a number of the Strassburger Post, a famous organ of Germanization, on the 29th of August, 1916, and on the i6th October, 1917. This was principally intended to encourage the pro-French elements inside Alsace and Lorraine, and was full of sparkling satire upon German administration. The famous yarn about the British intention to occupy Calais was dealt with as follows : > * Die Vorgeschichte des Krieges; Deutsches Volk.wach’ aufi See Hansi and Tonnelet, opposite p. 56. > • See Hansi and Tonnejet, opposite p. 38. We are able to confirm this almost incredible news (that the French have leased Calais to the English for 99 years). Our correspondent has interviewed a French officer of high rank (adjutant) in Switzerland, originally from the vicinity of Beaucaire, who, in tears, and with every mark of dejection, confessed that he had himself seen the city of Calais and the English government conclude the contract. The rental was fixed at 255,000 pounds sterling per month ; it is payable in advance on the first of each month. Upon receiving this amount, the Mayor of Calais divides it among the inhabitants of the city. All expenses for light and street cleaning, together with an obligation to sprinkle sand on the sidewalks in case of a freeze are assumed by the renter ; the owner pays for repairs. Either party may terminate the contract at will upon nine months' notice. — Behold the depths to which France has fallen in humiliating herself before the perfidious Albion 1 If the citizens of Calais imagine that the intrepid German Michel intends to deliver them from the clutches of the English, that nation of shopkeepers, they are deluding themselves. . . . We have already tried it once, and we will most assuredly not undertake it again. ^ The French also forged a number of the Frankfurter Zeitung in July, 1917. They copied and parodied the leaflets which were used for war loan propaganda in Germany. Republican propaganda which was written by Siegfried Balder and a troupe of others was sent over the lines. Hansi and Tonnelet, p. 6o. Special pamphlets were devoted to justifying the French claim to Alsace and Lorraine. In addition to these efforts, the French published La Voix du Pays for distribution among the occupants of the invaded territories and of Alsace and Lorraine. Special appeals were addressed to the Bavarians in the hope of stirring up the South against the North. The French tried to send as much of their propaganda as possible through the Swiss postal service into Germany. They used a Swiss publishing house to prepare material which the}^ smuggled over the * border. One clever agent sold preserves to Germany and stuffed the cartons with Allied propaganda stuff. In igi6 the British War Office* created a branch of the Directorate of Military Intelligence known as M.I.y.b., the new staff establishing Le Courrier de V Air for the purpose of reassuring the inhabitants of the invaded territory that the cause was not lost. Copies of the paper even reached the interior of Germany, where they aroused the fury of the German authorities. This paper was published uninterruptedly from April 6th, 1917, until January 25th, 1918. Its publication was suspended for a time, as a result of an order issued by the German military command to try the occupants of any aeroplane which carried “ seditious literature ” by court-martial, and to inflict severe penalties upon them. This threat was followed by an example of its execution, and the Courrier was suspended until a new mode of dissemination could be perfected. Publication was resumed March 7th, 1918. > * Major C. J. C. Street, " Propaganda Bohiil4 the Lines," Cornhill MagOr tine, 3rd Series, 47 (1919) : 488-499. The development of better methods of distribution is traced by Major Street in these pages : There is no intrinsic difficulty in scattering pieces of paper any more than there is in scattering pieces of steel, but the desired destination of the two forms of missile varies, as does the effect they are intended to produce. A shell, to secure its maximum effect, should burst in the centre of a group of men ; propaganda leaflets, on the contrary, should be dispersed as widely as possible, and then should avoid the highly disciplined group, and should arrive within the grasp of the lonely sentry, free from the influence of his compatriots, and with nothing else to divert his thoughts. The group would probably treat a leaflet as a joke, the isolated man would read it through sheer boredom, and would possibly be induced to believe that there was something in its argument. And once propaganda has secured even the vaguest mistrust of the doctrines that it combats, its task is more than half accomplished. Both the Allied Powers and the Central Empires experimented with propaganda projectiles, using the trench mortar as their means of projection. The idea was, in most cases, to construct a bomb with a small bursting charge, which should, upon its arrival over the opposing lines, release a shower of pamphlets upon the heads of an astonished enemy. But the system had its obvious drawbacks. A trench mortar has always been an unpopular weapon, credited with the effect of incurring retaliation more than outweighing the damage it may possibly produce. Further, the most susceptible might well be expected to resent a shower of words hurled at him by so direct a method or, if not to resent it, at all events to ridicule it as rather too obvious a ruse de guerre. There is something inconsistent about an army that makes life unbearable with '' flying pigs one moment, and the next sends out, through the mouths of the very same weapons, a flood of literature proclaiming that all men are brothers, or some other pacific doctrine. It was not long before the trench mortar, as a projector of propaganda, was abandoned in favour of the aeroplane. This later weapon seemed at first to have every qualification for the purpose. It could scatter innumerable leaflets from any convenient height, and, owing to the length of time taken by them in falling, their arrival had no visible connection with its flight. Far more effect would naturally be produced by a leaflet blowing into a trench from nowhere in particular than from one obviously hutled by a lethal engine. Further, the aeroplane had a far greater penetration, could scatter its propaganda over rest-billets and railheads as well as over the trenches themselves. The advantages of this were twofold : the leaflets could be found and picked up over a far greater area, and men some way back from the line had more leisure and inclination to ponder their contents. But, on the other hand there were many other calls upon the aeroplanes available. It was argued with a considerable show of reason that if a plane could be sent upon a flight over hostile territory it would be better employed dropping bombs than propaganda. Some went so far as to say that the best propaganda that could be dropped over the enemy were bombs and plenty of them, a contention that was correct as regards the Rhine towns and incorrect as regards London. At all events, it was felt that the aeroplane was too valuable a fighting machine proper to be employed as a disseminator of leaflets. The next idea was the, employment of observation balloons, which were to carry a supply of pamphlets to be thrown overboard when the wind was blowing towards the enemy lines. Apart from the fact that the occupants of the balloon were usually too busy with their proper function of observation to worry much about casting packets of paper into space, the observation balloon had many disadvantages. A more ingenious and elaborate development of the observation balloon scheme was a revival of the manlifting kite. When the wind was favourable, the kite was flown from some suitable spot, and a follower,*' carrying a bundle of leaflets, caused to travel up the taut string of the kite. The follower " was fitted with an automatic release, which functioned at a predetermined height, allowed the leaflets to fly away, and the follower ” to fall to the ground again ready for recharging. When the contrivance did not jamb, it was a very entertaining toy to play with. It was not until late in 1916 that the free balloon was seriously considered as a vehicle of propaganda. The idea had always been obviouT ; load a balloon with the leaflets it was intended to distribute, send it up with a favourable wind, and there you were. The difficulty lay in predicting within a thousand miles or so where the balloon would come down. It was not until the science of meteorology, urgently impelled by the needs of the Artillery, made its marvellous war-time developments, that balloons could be used scientifically. '' Meteor,*' in the shape of the various meteorological experts attached to the forces, eventually became able to gauge the velocity and direction of the wind at practically any height in any given locality. The rest was simple, so soon as a simple and reliable release had been evolved. You took your balloon to a given spot, say, ten miles behind the lines, you knew your balloon would rise to, say, six thousand feet, and travel at that height until its burden was released. Meteor '* gave the velocity of the wind at twenty miles an hour, south-west, at that height and place. Forty miles from the balloon position, and bearing north-east, was an enemy concentration camp. Load your balloon with the required type of propaganda leaflet, set your release to act in rather less than two hours, to allow of drift of the leaflets when falling, and there you were. . . . The balloons were made of paper, doped " with a preparation to render them hydrogen tight. As equipped for service in France, a propaganda balloon section consisted of a couple of three-ton lorries for the conveyance of the hydrogen cylinders, balloons, and leaflets, with the necessary personnel of officer and a few men. Certain stations were selected, such that some desirable target could be reached with any direction of wind from north round by west to south. , . . The means of attachment was the solution of the whole problem of the use of balloons, and was as simple as it was ingenious. A length of the orange-coloured woven tinder, sold at every tobacconist's for use in pipe-lighters, was . taken, and one end of it fixed to the balloon. The sheaves of leaflets were strung on cotton tags, as used for binding papers in Government offices. The end of each tag was driven through the length of tinder at calculated distances N from the free end. The rate of burning of the tinder was ascertained by experiment, and found to be, say, one inch in five minutes. If the target were twenty miles an hour, the balloon would be over the target in forty minutes. The tags would then be inserted at close intervals from six to ten inches from the end of the tinder. Just as the balloon was released, the end of the tinder was held against a lighted cigarette, and commenced to burn. ^The Allies had the wind at their backs during most of the summer and autumn of 1918, when their propaganda . attained its greatest proportions, and material was distributed over a zone, 150 miles deep, behind the German lines. By August they had achieved a distribution of 100,000 leaflets a day, which meant that between four and five million leaflets were sent over monthly. The AUies solved the problem of distribution much better than the Germans were able to do. One of the finest strokes of German propaganda was the publication of the captured list in the Gazette des Ardennes. This made it possible for the people in the occupied territory to have a valid excuse to read a paper which was obviously pro-German. A clandestine Press service was built up to supply the Belgians with news of the Entente world, and was an important influence alike in the stimulation of their own moral, and in permeating the nearest German populations.* This review of the problem of demoralizing the enemy seems to show that the principal theme is the impossibility of victory, and that a discouraged nation may turn against an aUy, or its own governing class, and lose by the secession of minority nationalities. > 1 See, for the story of La libre Belgique, Jean Massart, The Secret Press (^Belgium. [← Preserving Friendship](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/06-preserving-friendship/) [Conditions and Methods of Propaganda: A Summary →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/08-conditions-and-methods-of-propaganda-a-summary/) Propaganda Technique in the World War, Harold D. Lasswell. Published in London and New York in 1927, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States (works published in 1930 or earlier). Lasswell died in 1978, so the text may still be protected in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years; readers outside the United States should check their own law. [Provenance and rights](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lasswell-propaganda-technique-1927/).