The causes and the operational and geographic details of this truly catastrophic global war have faded from our national memory; nonetheless, we live in a world still shaped by World War I. Geopolitically, it spelled the end of the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany\u2019s colonial empire and Imperial Russia. It terminated European monarchies and literally and disastrously redrew the map of the Middle East. It unleashed modern, industrialized warfare \u2014 total war \u2014 and it introduced the world to the full extent of the power of modern communications, in the form of the war\u2019s propaganda.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Of course World War I, which began in 1914, was not the first in which participants sought to publicize their aims, the rightness of their cause and the perfidy of their enemies. But it was the first in which mass communication techniques were controlled and deployed by governments for a wide variety of patriotic aims: to demonize their enemies, to attract soldiers, to bolster the morale of their citizens, and to fund the staggering costs of full militarization.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Large-scale public information campaigns were conducted by all the major participant nations and aimed at their own soldiers and civilians, at the enemy forces, and at other nations not yet involved in the war, most notably the United States, which didn\u2019t enter the war until April 1917. Propaganda media included mass-circulation newspapers, advertising, photography, popular cinema, cartoons, songs, magazines and books.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The medium that had lasting impact, and became most emblematic of the war, was vivid propaganda posters. Nearly all war nations produced them, but the most artful and memorable are those of Britain and the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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