Lecture 7: What We Talk About When We Talk About War

War, Propaganda and Censorship
 

Shaping Ideas of War

• In 1763, the British won control of Canada
• Only 12 years later, Americans attacked Canada during the American Revolution.
• The Montreal Gazette was started by a printer who travelled with the US forces.
• After the Americans were left, the Gazette publisher was thrown into jail for two years.
• The British controlled the press in “Canada” in the War of 1812.
• During World War I, the Canadian government, under partial control by Britain, ran the toughest press censorship in the Allied countries.
• It also was flooded with propaganda from Britain.
• During World War I, the British, using modern advertising techniques, developed brilliant propaganda techniques.
• After the war, all the major powers developed propaganda eagerly and scholars worked to refine it.

Nazi Propaganda

• Movies, made by the Party, and, after wards, by the big German studios under Goebbels
• Party Newspapers
• Songs
• Radio, which was the dominant medium of the time
• Stylish designs. Most Nazi uniforms were designed  by Hugo Boss
• Use of Logos
•  Links to History
• Assigning Blame to the “Other” – Domestic and Foreign

Propaganda On the Home Front

• Dehumanizing the Enemy
• Identifying “Fifth Columnists”
• Keeping Secrets
• Recruiting
• Shaming Shirkers and Non-Conformists
• Accepting Rationing and Discouraging Hoarding
• Encouraging War Production
• The Allies also tried to develop a catchy logo
• The British even set up a working group to create and spread believable, corrosive rumours in Europe
• Still, the public was wary of atrocity stories, including news of the Holocaust. In many ways, Holocaust victims suffered because of the cynicism people had developed about World War I propaganda
• Hollywood was a huge part of the propaganda system. Everything from movies to cartoons to newsreels were harnessed for the war effort. Canada used the CBC (radio) and National Film Board.

Propaganda  for Recruitment, Training and Fostering Killing Among Soldiers

Topics included:

• “Loose talk”
• VD  (STDs)
• Shooting to kill
• Together, these topics made up probably 80% of the propaganda films shown to soldiers.
• The rest were “know your enemy” films and lectures about the psychology and tactics of the enemy.
• Accepting and integrating replacement soldiers into units (replacement troops had a high casualty rate partly because they did not have solid bonds with members of their fighting units)
• Getting soldiers to kill. This is probably the most difficult task of military trainers.
• Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of  Learning to Kill in War and Society  (1995). Grossman Builds on Samuel Marshall’s “Men Against Fire,” published after the Second World War
• “Posturing” with firearms in the pre-rifle days.
• Huge percentage of loaded rifles found at Gettysburg
• Firing over the head – Ridgeway 1866
• Artillery vs. Infantry fatality stats in the 20^th century
• 1% of U.S. fighter pilots accounted for 30-40% of  enemy “kills” in WWII
• In Vietnam, the rifle firing rate was 90-95%.  Why? Think about “spray” firing of automatic rifles
• "Killing is the worst thing that one man can do to another. It’s the last thing that should happen anywhere.” –Israeli lieutenant
• “I reproached myself as a destroyer. An indescribable uneasiness came over me. I felt almost like a criminal.” --British soldier, Napoleonic Wars
• “I went down and looked at a German I knew I had shot…he looked old enough to have a family and I felt very sorry- British soldier, WWI
• Robert Engen, Canadians Under Fire: Infantry Effectiveness in the Second World War (2009) claims Canadian soldiers were more  enthusiastic killers. Engen says Grossman and Marsall over-state reluctance to kill.
• Propaganda was directed at Canadian soldiers by the enemy: Leaflets,  Radio (Axis Annie, Tokyo Rose),  Loudspeakers on battlefields

Domestic Press Censorship in World War II

• The system was voluntary for the media, but if censors approved your work, you could not be charged for accidently spilling an important secret
• It relied on self-censorship.
• Respected Respected journalists ran the system. Wilfrid Eggleston became Canada’s chief press censor. After the war, he co-founded Carleton University’s journalism school. (The head of the Wartime Information Board, the chief propaganda agency, Davidson Dunton, went on to create the CBC television network  and was president of Carleton University).
• Eggleston believed people needed as much information as possible. He worried that people would become complacent if they were given a false picture of the war situation.
• Eggleston believed the censors’ job was to keep real military secrets under wraps.
• Here are some of those secrets:
• The capture of Nazi spies who were forced to become double agents
• Submarine attacks off the coasts and in the St. Lawrence River
• Production in Canada war factories and shipyards.
• Troop movements overseas. German U-boat captains tried very hard to sink big ocean liners carrying soldiers overseas.
• Japanese balloon bomb attacks
• Anything to do with the German POWs in Canada
• Dissent over conscription (drafting soldiers), especially when Montreal’s mayor was jailed for speaking against it.
•  Guidelines were issued every few months

• As for the future, the ability of Canadian governments to censor and spread propaganda depends on their ability and willingness to directly control reporting on the Internet, or throttle the Internet itself.

For Next Class:

• How is war “framed” in our society now?
• Why does the government commemorate the War of 1812?
• We used to think of ourselves as a nation of peacekeepers. Do we think that way now?
• In religion, we have ideas of martyrdom and, in Christianity, redemption through death.
• Has the state – the government and maybe society via the media – taken that idea of redemption through death and created “Heroes”?

For further reading: What We Talk About When We Talk About War

By Noah Richler
Goose Lane Editions
370 pp; $24.95