Propaganda

Whether or not he conceived this address primarily as propaganda, its propagandist effect was immediate. Nowhere was it greater than in Austria-Hungary and Germany.

Propaganda Against the Enemy.

Shortly afterwards, the British Government decided to establish a special department for propaganda against the enemy. The late Lord Northcliffe was persuaded to take charge of it ; and, acting under expert advice, he made it a condition that the statements to be disseminated by his department should correspond strictly to the policy which the Government was determined to follow. The condition having been accepted, his department drew up an outline of policy which was submitted for official sanction. Then the first inter-Allied propaganda conference was summoned to coordinate means of action on the basis of this policy. Its main postulate was that the Allied Governments should promise freedom and independ ence to the subject races in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and to the Poles of Prussia and Russia. To this postulate the British Government at first demurred. Not until after the great German offensive of March 21, 1918, did it assent. Then, under stress of circumstances, the postulate was admitted; and, in proclamations sanctioned by the congress of the oppressed Austro-Hungarian peoples held in Rome at the beginning of April 1918, the non German and non-Magyar troops of Austria-Hungary on the Italian front, and their peoples in the interior, were assured of the Allies' determination to liberate them.

The effect exceeded expectations. The Austro-Hungarian front quickly showed signs of disintegration, and the Habsburg Mon archy itself began to totter. Austro-Hungarian soldiers belonging to the subject races came over into the Allied lines in Italy bring ing valuable information. The efficacy of propaganda as an instru ment of sound policy was proved ; for the policy itself corre sponded to the underlying facts of a situation which the Allied Governments had been reluctant to recognise. The result was not achieved merely by the propagandist method of passing resolu tions at the Rome Congress of the oppressed Habsburg peoples or by that of disseminating paper manifestos among the Austro Hungarian troops on the Italian front. The adoption of the policy which those resolutions and manifestos proclaimed was itself a sequel to steady propagandist work which had been carried on in Western Europe and in the United States by representatives of the subject Habsburg peoples, notably by Czechoslovaks like Professor Masaryk and Dr. Beneg ; by refugees from the Southern Slav provinces of Austria-Hungary like M. Supilo and Dr. Trum

bitch; and by prominent Poles like MM. de Paderewski and Dmowski. They had gradually educated public opinion in Allied countries to an understanding of the conditions indispensable to a lasting peace in Central Europe. From the outset their propa ganda had been conceived in terms of policy, and their policy framed in accordance with historical and contemporary fact. In order to make fact more convincing, Professor Masaryk had gone to Russia in May 1917 where he had succeeded in raising a force, or legion, of nearly 5o,000 men from the Czech and Slovak soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army who had surrendered to the Russians; and, after the Bolshevist Revolution in Russia, he had decided that his legion should march from the Black Sea through Siberia to Vladivostok on its way to join the Allied forces in Western Europe. In the United States and in Europe the propagandist effect of this march was overwhelming. It was "propaganda by deed" on the largest scale.

Allied policy in regard to one enemy country, Austria-Hungary, having been settled—if only as a basis for propaganda, in the first instance—it remained to work out and to apply a policy for propaganda against Germany and the German army. Obviously this policy was bound to reflect the military and political situa tions ; and not until these situations began to turn in favour of the Allies could it be effectively framed or pursued. Once again, in accurate or merely "propagandist" statements were eschewed. It was recognised that, in the long run, truth alone is persuasive, and that declarations of intention must swiftly be substantiated by events. Therefore the leaflets, which were distributed by millions over the German lines in France and Flanders in the summer of 1918, bore, on one side, an accurate map of the front, indicating gains and losses of ground in recent fighting; and, on the other side, comments upon the situation in Germany taken from Ger man newspapers which were not allowed to reach the troops at the front. In a short time the German rank and file, which knew how much ground they had gained or lost, were convinced that these leaflets were truthful; while the extracts from the German press gave them, for the first time, an inkling of the state of affairs on their "home front." In conjunction with the successes of the Allied armies, these leaflets demoralised the German forces to such an extent as seriously to perturb the German commanders.