Daddy, What Did YOU Do in the Great War?

World War One was full of propaganda. There were posters for any war-related cause known to man at the time. Propaganda posters drove people to support the war, whether it was from their homes or from the front lines. People were motivated by propaganda. Propaganda used different styles of persuasion in order to promote different causes. Some propaganda threatened with pictures of the enemy, others encouraged victory gardens with bright pictures of home gardens. The makers of propaganda posters knew who to target, what context their poster should placed in, and what content the poster needed to have in order to make an impact on its audience. One poster I found particularly interesting is one focused toward fathers and their reputations. This poster speaks to the sensitive areas of men’s lives in its content, the context in which it was placed, and by the poster’s targeted audience.

            The poster I chose to analyze was originally published in Britain in 1915 during the First World War. The poster pictures a father and his two children in post-war times. The man’s son is playing with toy soldiers on the floor. The man’s daughter is reading about the war and asks him, “Daddy, what did you do in the Great War?” The man is painted looking out at the audience with a sad, deep, and blank stare; he has no answers. This poster is filled with hidden meanings and implied messages. 

The first thing that stands out to the reader is the charge contained in the poster: a charge to men.  The poster depicts a scenario where a father has been passive in his enlisting. He has not volunteered to fight in the war. He chose instead to stay in his comfortable home with his family and hide from the war in a sense. The man in the poster is depicted with a sense of shame and cowardice. These are not manly characteristics. The poster challenges British fathers to protect their families and their country in the manliest way possible: by going to war. The poster makes men see the embarrassment they would be facing if they were to passively wait for the war to end. It makes the option of staying home instead of enlisting very unattractive. It not only demotes the idea of staying home, it promotes the war in an active manner. It shows the audience the chance to be a hero. It gives men the chance to truly be manly. It gives average men, whose life could probably be summed up in a single poster, the opportunity to be heroes and serve their country with dignity.

            Not only does the poster speak to a man’s courage and boldness, it also speaks heavily towards his reputation. Reputation is very important for men, and especially for fathers. Most men want to be known as good fathers who raise their children with good moral standards. This poster directly threatens the audience’s reputation. It implies that men who did not go to war will have a bad reputation; they will not be as liked as those who did help in the war effort; and, they will be bad role models for their children. The girl asking the hard questions while sitting in the father’s lap represents the father’s reputation with his kids, and his effect on them as their role model. The father obviously has not told his children about the “Great War” since his daughter is discovering it in a book. The father has tried to hide his shameful passiveness from his children by refraining to tell them about the war, but now his daughter is beginning to discover the truth about her father. She asks him about his time in the war, but he can provide no answer. He can only stare blankly at the audience. The poster almost threatens fathers, or those who plan to be fathers, with this moment. It attempts to frighten men with the thought of having no answers when asked the same questions by their own children.

The boy in the poster who is playing with toy soldiers represents the future generations of the father’s family tree. He is what the father will pass down to the next generation. The boy loves playing with toy soldiers because he thinks that his father is a great and brave warrior. He believes that his father is capable of anything (as does any young boy). The father, however, is none of the things that his son imagines him to be. He has been a disappointment and his son is about to find out the truth about his father because of the hard questions the daughter is asking. Fathers are role models for their children. He inspires his child with everything he does. His child looks up to him and will remember him for what he has done in his life. The father does not have anything great to be remembered for. He passed up on his opportunity to be a hero. All that he can be remembered for now is his sitting in a comfortable arm chair in a comfortable home. He has passed up on his opportunity to be a great role model for his child. This scene is sad and scary to men; therefore, it drives them to enlist in order to be a good example and role model for their children.

Another thing that stands out in this poster is the use of colors. There are several vivid colors in the poster. This represents wealth, comfort, and luxury. This wealth accompanies the father’s cowardice and passiveness perfectly. The family’s wealth gives the audience a glimpse of the father’s thought process as he was deciding whether or not to enlist in the war. We see, by the vivid colors, that he chose comfort and wealth instead of discomfort and honor. The colors seem to show that wealth and luxury make men soft. It challenges the audience with rhetorical questions like, “Are you soft?”, or, “Are you able to stop being a coward and protect your family?” The look on the father’s face accompanies these challenges by showing his lack of enjoyment of the wealth that he has. His choices are forever branded into his conscience and he will have to live with them for the rest of his life. The wealth that he ran to in order to escape the war now has no meaning to him. This shows the audience that what really matters in life are the big decisions; mere personal belongings are not enough to sustain you. It begs men to seize the opportunity to serve their country, not only for the country’s sake, but also for their own sake. 

The primary audience of this poster’s message is British men during World War One.  The poster depicts a middle-aged British man who has two children, lives in a comfortable home, and most likely leads a quiet, comfortable life. This man has most likely not seen much commotion, or crime in his life. All he knows is his daily routine. The primary audience is very appropriate because the main character depicted in the poster is a  British father who has made the passive decision to stay home. This  poster speaks directly to the kind of men that mirror this man’s lifestyle. It is a call to arms directed at ordinary men who spend all morning drinking tea and eating crumpets. It offers an opportunity for them to prove their courage and bravery to the world. It is a direct warning to avoid the situation that father on the poster has found himself in. I believe that this poster is very effective in its plea to take up arms. It speaks to the somewhat selfish, and prideful  nature of men. It challenges their future reputation, what they will be remembered for, and how they will set the example. These can all be enough to drive a man to serve his country. However, the poster speaks directly to the most convicting manly characteristic: responsibility. 

Every man is responsible for his own family. It is in his hands to make sure that they have food, shelter, clothing, and most of all, safety. The responsibility that a man has to his family is one that will move him to do whatever is in his power in order to keep them safe from harm. The father in the picture did not heed the call to arms from the war. He passively hid from the danger. He did not ensure by his own power that his loved ones were going to be safe. This poster speaks, very effectively I might add, to the very characteristic of men that will make them forget about danger and fear, and protect the ones that they love.

The secondary audience of this poster is women and children during World War One. This speaks to women and children in a different way than it speaks to men. The poster shows the father lost and without answers. It shows him without his vigor and strength. Women, when they saw this poster, were disgusted by it. They undoubtedly wanted nothing to do with a man who was not able and willing to protect them. This, the artist hoped, would drive them to urge their husbands to go to war. The same is true about children. Children need someone to look up to. They need a role model and a hero. They need to know that their father loves them and will do anything to protect them from harm. When children began to learn about the “Great War” and how England sent soldiers to protect their country, the first thing they wondered was, as depicted in the poster, what role did their father play in this war. That is just the nature of children. If a father were to stay home from the war at first, this poster indirectly urges children, and women to convince their father and husband go to protect them from danger.

This propaganda poster appeared originally in the context of World War One. It was painted by Savile Lumley, who actively served in the British military from 1910-1950. It was, like all other propaganda posters, posted all over England in places where people would see it. The poster speaks in different ways to all audiences, so it was important that as many people as possible had a chance to see its message. It was originally published in Britain in 1915. This was after the start of World War One. The British lost a great amount of soldiers during the war, as did all countries involved. The British Parliamentary Recruiting Committee knew that in order to stand a chance, England would have to send all its resources and men into the battle. This poster urged men who were not enlisted at the beginning of the war, to enlist and join the fray. The context in which it was placed was very suitable for the message within the piece of art. Men at home who heard about the war would hopefully be convicted and would go into battle with his comrades.

In conclusion, this particular piece of British World War One propaganda is an effective means of recruitment for the war, in its use of colors and emotions to persuade, its diverse audience, and the context in which it is placed. All three factors played an important role in the recruitment of British men during the early 19th century.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

“The Homefront During the First World War.” BBC News. BBC, n.d. Web. 02 Dec. 2013.