Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War by Arthur Ponsonby (Allen & Unwin.)
We still speak familiarly of the War, as though it were something that only occurred the other day. It is curious to reflect that our boys of sixteen were babies in arms, and our young men now coming of age were toddling infants when red ruin was let loose on an unsuspecting world. Each year it is customary on the anniversary of the catastrophe, for the tawdry minds of Fleet Street to reassure a doubtful world that the slaughter was not in vain. Its hideous futility and long-drawn-out horror, are concealed in flatulent phrases about our National Honour, our concern for International Rights, the Sacredness of our Pledged Word, our Regard for the Rights of Small Nations, and other eyewash. Should there be any who still allow these illusions to drift about their consciousness, they might do much worse than spend half-a-crown on Mr. Ponsonby’s “Falsehood in Wartime.” August 4th this year again fell on Bank Holiday, exactly as it did sixteen years ago, and it seemed fitting to celebrate the anniversary by reading how our Christian rulers lied the people into massacre, lied them through it, and lied them back to peace and unemployment again. As Mr. Ponsonby says : “There must have been more deliberate lying in the world from 1914 to 1918 than in any other period of the world’s history.”
Those who were too young for the shambles last time, would do well to examine the bait that caught their fathers and their elder brothers. The collection is not exhaustive. It is only an exposure of a few samples, and is intended as a warning. The nation was assured that it was not committed to France in any way. It was a lie. “All preparations, down to the last detail, had been made, as shown by the prompt, secret and well-organised despatch of the Expeditionary Force.” The German invasion of Belgium was given as the cause of Great Britain’s entry into the war. It was a lie. Mr. Ponsonby gives the evidence. Germany, of course, we know was solely responsible for the war ! Mr. Asquith said so : “One Power, and one Power only, and that Power is Germany.” Lloyd George referred to it as the “most dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of nations. …” (August 4th, 1917.) Three years later the Welsh Wizard realized “that no one at the head of affairs quite meant war at that stage (August 1st, 1914) . . , and a discussion, I have no doubt, would have averted it.” Four years of the bloodiest horror the human race has experienced, “and a discussion, I have no doubt, would have averted it.” What a thought for Bank Holiday. If the twenty million dead could only read that.
And then there was the notorious lie of the passage of hordes of Russian troops through Great Britain, en route for France. In less than a month the atrocity stories commenced. There was the nurse whose breast had been mutilated, the Belgian baby whose hands had been hacked off, the Canadian who was crucified, the tale of the prisoner whose tongue had been torn out, the tattooed man, and so on. All lies, utter downright lies. Everyone remembers the German corpse factory yarn. Who believes it now? And so we go on. Lists of atrocities that never happened, photographs that were faked, official documents that were doctored ; lies by the cubic ton, lies by the square mile, lies by the great gross, and all to secure the killing of men and the starving of women and children. The British established a truth manipulating factory at Crewe House, under the appropriate leadership of Lord Northcliffe, founder of the “Daily Mail.” He’d had some experience.
Mr. Ponsonby is candid. He says in his introduction : “This is no plea that lies should not be used in war-time, but a demonstration of how lies must be used in war-time. If the truth were told from the outset, there would be no reason, and no will to war.”
He calls attention to the new and far more efficient instrument of propaganda which has appeared since the last war—the Government control of broadcasting. He concludes : “None of the heroes prepared for suffering and sacrifice, none of the common herd ready for service and obedience, will be inclined to listen to the call of their country once they discover the polluted sources from whence that call proceeds and recognise the monstrous finger of falsehood which beckons them to the battlefield.”
We agree. We were saying that ten years before the war. It is important to realise, however, that the pollution is not confined to war-time.
W. T. Hopley
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