---
title: 26. Hypocritical Indignation
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/28-hypocritical-indignation/
description: 26. Hypocritical Indignation, from Falsehood in War-Time by Arthur Ponsonby.
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/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/) · Book · [Falsehood in War-Time](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/)

# 26. Hypocritical Indignation

This text

- **Work:** [Falsehood in War-Time](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/)
- **Author:** Arthur Ponsonby
- **Published:** 1928

Full details

- **Rights:** Published in the United Kingdom in 1928, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States. Ponsonby died in 1946, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years.

Chapters

1. [Preface](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/01-preface/)
2. [Introduction](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/02-introduction/)
3. [1. The Commitment to France](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/03-the-commitment-to-france/)
4. [2. Serbia and the Murder of the Archduke](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/04-serbia-and-the-murder-of-the-archduke/)
5. [3. Invasion of Belgium as Cause of War](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/05-invasion-of-belgium-as-cause-of-war/)
6. [4. Germany’s Sole Responsibility for the War](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/06-germany-s-sole-responsibility-for-the-war/)
7. [5. Passage of Russian Troops through Great Britain](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/07-passage-of-russian-troops-through-great-britain/)
8. [6. The Mutilated Nurse](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/08-the-mutilated-nurse/)
9. [7. The Criminal Kaiser](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/09-the-criminal-kaiser/)
10. [8. The Belgian Baby without Hands](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/10-the-belgian-baby-without-hands/)
11. [9. The Louvain Altar-Piece](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/11-the-louvain-altar-piece/)
12. [10. The Contemptible Little Army](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/12-the-contemptible-little-army/)
13. [11. Deutschland über Alles](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/13-deutschland-ber-alles/)
14. [12. The Baby of Courbeck Loo](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/14-the-baby-of-courbeck-loo/)
15. [13. The Crucified Canadian](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/15-the-crucified-canadian/)
16. [14. The Shooting of the Franzosling](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/16-the-shooting-of-the-franzosling/)
17. [15. Little Alf’s Stamp Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/17-little-alf-s-stamp-collection/)
18. [16. The Tattooed Man](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/18-the-tattooed-man/)
19. [17. The Corpse Factory](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/19-the-corpse-factory/)
20. [18. The Bishop of Zanzibar’s Letter](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/20-the-bishop-of-zanzibar-s-letter/)
21. [19. The German U-Boat Outrage](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/21-the-german-u-boat-outrage/)
22. [20. Constantinople](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/22-constantinople/)
23. [21. The “Lusitania”](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/23-the-lusitania/)
24. [22. Report of a Broken-up Meeting](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/24-report-of-a-broken-up-meeting/)
25. [23. Atrocity Stories](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/25-atrocity-stories/)
26. [24. Faked Photographs](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/26-faked-photographs/)
27. [25. The Doctoring of Official Papers](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/27-the-doctoring-of-official-papers/)
28. [26. Hypocritical Indignation](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/28-hypocritical-indignation/)
29. [27. Other Lies](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/29-other-lies/)
30. [28. The Manufacture of News](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/30-the-manufacture-of-news/)
31. [29. War Aims](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/31-war-aims/)
32. [30. Foreign Lies](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/32-foreign-lies/)

[← 25. The Doctoring of Official Papers](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/27-the-doctoring-of-official-papers/) [27. Other Lies →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/29-other-lies/)

**Content note:** Repeats First World War atrocity stories, including invented ones, and their wording. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

Gas warfare and submarine warfare offered instances of violent outbursts of indignation on the part of the Press, which events showed were gross hypocrisy. This is an attitude rather than an expression of falsehood.

We must expect the Germans to fight like savages who have acquired a knowledge of chemistry.

“Daily Express,” April 27, 1915.

This atrocious method of warfare . . . this diabolical contrivance. . . . The wilful and systematic attempt to choke and poison our soldiers can have but one effect upon the British peoples and upon all the non-German peoples of the earth. It will deepen our indignation and our resolution, and it will fill all races with a horror of the German name.

“ The Times,” April 29, 1915.

But it turned out that the Germans had not been the first to use poison gas. M. Turpin’s discoveries in poison explosives had been advertised in the French Press before this date, and the French War Ministry’s official instructions with regard to the use of gas hand-grenades had been issued in the autumn of 1914.

In May 191J Colonel Maude wrote in Eand and Water :

Ail shells, all fires, all mining charges, give out asphyxiating gases, and from some shells the fumes are poisonous. The use of these has been discussed for years, because the explosive that liberates the deadly gas is said to possess a quite unusual power; but the reason why many of these types were not adopted was because they were considered too dangerous for our gunners to transport and handle, not that when they burst they would have poisoned the enemy. At this time this quality of deadliness was defended on the ground of humanity, as the death inflicted would be absolutely certain and painless, and hence there would be no wounded. In any case, at the beginning of this war it was stated in all the French papers that the difficulty of handling these shells had been overcome, and that they had been employed on certain sectors of the French front with admirable results. When the time comes to defend their use, shall we really have the effrontery to claim for out shells that they poison but do not asphyxiate ? Moreover, is not poisoning also covered by the Hague Convention In spirit it undoubtedly is ; but as I have not the text at hand to refer to, it may possibly leave a loophole on this question, through which our international lawyers might escape.

Subsequently, of course, we adopted gas warfare and perfected it.

Mr. Billing : Is it not a fact . . . that we have a better gas and a better protection and that now the Huns are squealing ?

Mr. Bonar Law : I wish I were as sure of that as the Honourable Member.

House of Commons, February 25, 1918.

Their (the British and French) gas masks to-day are more efficient than the German ; their gas is better and is better used.

"Daily Mail,” February 25, 1918.

The Allies vied with one another in the production of poison gas, and the following article, by Mr. Ed. Berwick, an American, shows the extent to which it had reached before the end.

There were sixty-three different kinds of poison gas used before the war ended, and in November 1918 our chemical warfare service (established in June of that year) was engaged in sixty-five “major research problems,” including eight gases more deadly than any used up to that date. . . . One kind rendered the soil barren for seven years, and a few drops on a tree-trunk causes it to “ wither in an hour.” Our arsenal at Edgewood, Maryland, and its tributaries was turning out 8io tons weekly against 385 tons by France, 410 tons Britain, and only 210 Germany.

It was almost ready to increase its output to 3,000 tons a week. . . . Congress had appropriated 100,000,000 dollars for this chemical warfare service and allotted 48,000 men for its use. The armistice rendered needless both allotment and appropriation in such magnitude.

Foreign Affairs, JuJy 1922.

Poison gas of incredible malignity, against which only a secret mask (which the Germans could not obtain in time) was proof, would have stifled all resistance and paralysed all life on the hostile front subject to attack.

“ IF'bat \t^ar in 1919 would have Meant,” hj/ Mr. Winston Churchill, “ Nash's Pall Mall Magazine,” September 1924.

Since the war, research and experiments have continued, and Great Britain is now said to lead the way in this “ atrocious method of warfare,” “ this diabolical contrivance,” the weapon of “ savages.”

Submarine warfare produced the same effect.

Germany cannot be allowed to adopt a system of open piracy and murder.

Air. Churchill, House of Commons, February 15, 1915.

To-day for the first time in history one of the Great Powers in Europe proposes to engage in the systematic conduct of maridme war by means hitherto condemned by all nations as piradcal.

"The Times,” February 18, 1915.

It is unnecessary to multiply the instances of violent and righteous indignation on the part of the Press and individuals. But long before this event the other side of the question had been put by no less a person than Sir Percy Scott, who, writing in reply to Lord Sydenham in The Times on July 16, 1914, that is, before the outbreak of war, gave the following quotation from a letter written by a foreign naval officer, and his comment on it:

If we went to war with an insular country depending for its food supplies from overseas, it would be our business to stop that supply. On the declaration of war we should notify the enemy that she should warn those of her merchant ships coming home not to approach the island, as we were establishing a blockade of mines and submarines.

Similarly we should notify all neutrals that such a blockade had been established, and that if any of their vessels approached the island they would be liable to destruction cither by mines or submarines, and therefore would do so at their own risk.

Commentary furnished by Sir Percy Scott:

Such a proclamation would, in my opinion, be perfectly in order, and once it had been made, if any British or neutral ships disregarded it, they could not be held to be engaged in the peaceful avocations referred to by Lord Sydenham, and, if they were sunk in the attempt, it could not be described as a relapse into savagery or piracy in its blackest form. If Lord Sydenham will look up the accounts of what usually happened to the blockade-runners into Charleston during the Civil War in America, I think he will find that the blockading cruisers seldom had any scruples about firing into the vessels they were chasing or driving them ashore, and even peppering them, when stranded, with grape and shell. The mine and the submarine torpedo will be newer deterrents.

In one of his characteristically facetious letters (addressed to Admiral Tirpitz on his resignation, March 29, 1916), Lord Fisher wrote :

I don’t blame you for the submarine business. I’d have done the same myself, only out idiots in England wouldn’t believe it when I told ’em.

There was the same outburst over air-raids. We were given the impression that the Huns were the first to rain down death from the sky. But among the lantern lectures for propaganda purposes given in 1918 by the National War Service Committee, there were slides illustrating bomb-dropping on German towns. The printed synopsis of one of these slides ran :

These early raids by R.N.A.S. were the first examples of bomb-dropping attacks from the air in any war, and the pity is that we had not enough aeroplanes at the beginning of the war.

Lord Montagu said in the House of Lords in July 1917 that it was absolute humbug to talk of London being an undefended city. The Germans had a perfect right to raid London. London was defended by guns and aeroplanes, and it was the chief centre of the production of munitions. We were therefore but deluding ourselves in talking about London being an undefended city, and about the Germans in attacking it being guilty of an act unworthy of a civilized nation. That might be an unpopular thing to say at the moment, but it was the actual fact of the situation. The right line for the Government to take was to say to the civil population: “ This is a war of nations, and not alone of armies, and you must endeavour to bear the casualties you suffer in the same way as the French and Belgian civil populations are bearing the casualties incidental to this kind of warfare.

Raids on German towns such as Karlsruhe were undertaken by the Allies, and all talk of inhumanity was dropped.

Who does not remember the fierce indignation in Great Britain at the news that the Germans had sunk to such unspeakable depths as to use poisonous gases ? The British censors gladly passed the most horrifying details as to the suffering caused by this new method of torture. Soon the London censor forbade further reference of any kind to the use of gas, which meant, of course, that England was going to do a little poisoning on her own account. To-day the use of gas by the British is hailed, not only without shame, but with joyous satisfaction. Like the Allied killing of innocent women and children in German towns by their fliers, it shows again how rapidly one’s ideals go by the board in war.

“ New York Evening Post,” June 30, 1916.

[← 25. The Doctoring of Official Papers](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/27-the-doctoring-of-official-papers/) [27. Other Lies →](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/29-other-lies/)

Falsehood in War-Time, Arthur Ponsonby. Published in the United Kingdom in 1928, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States. Ponsonby died in 1946, 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/ponsonby-falsehood-in-war-time/).