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88 T POPULARARTAND POSTERART
FROM GERM~
ENGLAND/
AUSTRALIA/AND FRANCE
When the soldiers marched off to war in the summer of 1914, crowds cheered,
young men rushed .~o.enlist, and politicians promised that "the boys would be
home by Christmas." Without having experienced a general war since the defeat
of Napoleon in 1815 and with little thought to the millions of casualties in the
American Civil War, Europeans saw the war as a glorious advenrure
an opportunity to fight for the flag or kaiser or queen, to wear splendid uniforms, and to
win glory in battles that would be decided by elan, spirit, and bravery. The war
they fought was nothing like the war they imagined, and the disparity between
expectations and reality was one of the many reasons why the four-year struggle
was fraught with such disillusionment
and bitterness.
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The four illustrations shown here portray the positive attitudes toward the
war that all belligerents shared at the outset and that governments sought to
perpetuate as the war dragged on. The first (page 383, left), entitled The Departure, shows a German troop train departing for the battlefront in late summer
1914. It originally appeared in the German periodical Simplicissimus in August
1914 and was the work ofB. Hennerberg, an artist originally from Sweden and a
regular contributor to the magazine. That Simplicissimus would publish such an
illustration is a monument to the nationalist emotioQs the war generated. Noted
before the war for its irreverent satire and criticism of German militarism,
Simplicissimus, as a result of a decision by its editors, abandoned its antiestablishment stance and lent its full support to the war effort.
The second illustration (page 383, right) is one of a series of cards that the
Mitchell Tobacco Company included in its .packs of Golden Dawn Cigarettes in
the early stages of the war. It shows a sergeant offering smokes to the soldiers
under his command before battle. Tobacco advertising' with military themes
reached a saturation point in England during the war years.
An Australian recruitment poster issued in 1915 serves as the third illustration
(page 384, left). Although Australia, like Canada, had assumed authority over its
own internal affairs by the time the war started, its foreign policy was still controlled by Great Britain. Hence when Great Britain went to war, so did Australia.
The Australian parliament refused to approve conscription, however, so the government had to work hard to encourage volunteers. This particular poster appeared in 1915, at a time when Australian troops were heavily involved in the
Gallipoli campaign, the allied effort to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war.
Directing its message to the many young men who were members of sports clubs,
it promised them the opportunity to enlist in a battalion made up entirely of
fellow sportsmen. Such battalions had already been formed in England.
The fourth illustration (page 384, right), a poster from France, was designed to
encourage the purchase of war bonds, which were sold by all major belligerents
to finance the war. It appeared in 1916 in the midst of the Battle of Verdun,
which lasted from February to November and resulted in more than five hundred thousand French casualties but hardly any change in the battle lines. The
French soldier shouts, "On les aura!" ("We'll get them!"), words ascribed to General Henri Philippe Petain, who was in charge of the Verdun defense until he was
promoted and given command of all French armies in the field in the summer of
1916.
QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS
1. What message about the war does each of the four illustrations
communicate?
2. In what specific ways does each example romanticize
soldier?
seek to
war and the life of a
3. What impression of combat do the English tobacco card and the French
war bond poster communicate?
4. What does Hennerberg's painting suggest about women's anticipated role
in the war?