II. Psychological Warfare, 1914-1918
T11.
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR.
In the first World War, psychological warfare was employed chiefly by
means of political warfare and through combat propaganda which used air-
borne and artillery-fired leaflets. Radio was not available.
T12.
POLITICAL WARFARE OF THE CENTRAL POWERS AND
THE ALLIES. The Central Powers used very old-fashioned political war-
fare. They were reactionary monarchies, legitimist in outlook, and were
unable to exploit the revolutionary, democratic or autonomist sentiments
of the time. Their chief political warfare exploits consisted of inducing
Turkey to proclaim a jihad against the Allies; since the Turkish sultan was
the titular caliph of all Islam, this seemed promising but was countered by
local measures (T. E. Lawrence and the Arab revolt against Turkey, for
example) in the Middle East, and of the assistance offered to Lenin and the
Bolshevik leaders by the German General Staff. The Germans gave Lenin,
a subject of the Czar, transit from Switzerland to Finland in the expecta-
tion that Lenin would enter Russia, commit high treason against the Czar,
and take Russia out of the war. He did so, but the ensuing wave of Communist
revolution contributed to the defeat of Germany as well.
Allied psychological warfare was based preeminently on the political
warfare developed by President Woodrow Wilson. The United States entered
the war in 1917 with a clear conscience, since the Kaiser's government was
plainly the aggressor. Immediately upon participation, the U. S. government
strove for the Fourteen Points. These assured both Allies and enemies that
the United States sought no new territory as a result of war, that we stood
for open diplomacy, that we believed in a "league to enforce peace" which
would make further war impossible. They also promised democratic self-
government to the hitherto-suppressed nationalities of the Baltic and Cen-
tral Europe (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, etc.). This democratic po-
litical offensive was propagandized by official government action, but its
greatest effect was achieved when it was carried by ordinary news channels
all over the world.
British political warfare supplemented American effectively. In
special cases, the British accomplished even more striking results. Against
Turkey they rallied the Arab states, while rallying world-wide Jewish Zionist
help to their side by promising the Jews a national home in Palestine (Balfour
Declaration). India was quieted, in the face of German, Turkish, and revo-
lutionary propaganda, by the Montagu statement and Montagu-Chelmsford
reforms. Japanese political warfare during World War I was directed at her
co-Ally, China.
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