Propaganda and censorship during the war

▪ The First World War took place between 1914

and 1918. It’s also known as the Great War. General information
▪ The war was between Germany, Austria-
Hungary and later Turkey, and the allied
forces of Russia, France, Italy, Britain and
later the USA.
▪ Britain wasn’t prepared for the terrible
destructive power of modern artillery,
machine guns and tanks, and the use of gas
and shells during the attacks.
 Life in the trenches
▪ Soldiers lived in trenches, which are long, &
narrow ditches dug into the ground. In there, Laws of war
they constantly heard noise of gun-fire, which
made many men go mad; water was
sometimes knee deep; there was always the
risk of a gas attack.
▪ There were special laws during war that
protected civilians.
 War Poets
▪ Many poets wrote about the Great War, for
example:
▪ W.B.Yeats
▪ W.Owen
▪ Rupert Brooke
▪ Isaac Rosenberg
▪ Giuseppe Ungaretti

And many others…

▪ Propaganda existed before WW1 but its role
became more important during the war
because it was used to recruit soldiers. An Propaganda
example is the sentence by British Secretary &
of State for War Kitchener: “Your Country
needs you”. Censorship
▪ Another kind of propaganda is atrocity
propaganda, in which governments highlight
atrocities committed by the opposition to
justify their own.
▪ To avoid undermining the morale of civilians,
censorship was applied. It forbade the
publication of some information, even by
spreading fake news such as reporting a
disastrous day in battle as a victory.