This essay focuses on nationalism and nationalist propaganda. Mention superiority of the country (we’re better than others)
★ Mention an enemy
As you look through the examples of nationalism and nationalist propaganda in the WWI era, identify the following:
★ Direct appeal – the message is for you specifically, it’s personal
★ Mention an enemy from outside (a foreign group or nation is out to get us)
Demonize those who aren’t patriotic enough
Appeal to God or religion (God is on our side)
Location – Great Britain
British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith’s Address to Parliament, 6 August 1914
If I am asked what we are fighting for I reply in two sentences: In the first place, to fulfil a solemn international obligation, an obligation which, if it had been entered into between private persons in the ordinary concerns of life, would have been regarded as an obligation not only of law but of honour, which no self-respecting man could possibly have repudiated.
King George V speaks to the troops leaving for the front, August 12, 1914
You are leaving home to fight for the safety and honour of my Empire.
Belgium, whose country we are pledged to defend, has been attacked and France is about to be invaded by the same powerful foe.
I have implicit confidence in you my soldiers. Duty is your watchword, and I know your duty will be nobly done.
I shall follow your every movement with deepest interest and mark with eager satisfaction your daily progress, indeed your welfare will never be absent from my thoughts.
I pray God to bless you and guard you and bring you back victorious.
Message from Georges Clemenceau, the Prime Minister of France (August 5th, 1914)
And now to arms, all of us! I have seen weeping among those who cannot go first. Everyone’s turn will come. There will not be a child of our land who will not have a part in the enormous struggle. To die is nothing. We must win. And for that we need all men’s power. The weakest will have his share of glory. There come times, in the live of peoples, when there passes over them a tempest of heroic action.
President Poincare’s War Address, August 4, 1914
At the hour when the struggle is beginning, she has the right, in justice to herself, of solemnly declaring that she has made, up to the last moment, supreme efforts to avert the war now about to break out, the crushing responsibility for which the German Empire will have to bear before history. Our fine and courageous army, which France today accompanies with her maternal thought has risen eager to defend the honour of the flag and the soil of the country.