I just recently learned of Arthur Ponsonby, (1871-1947) thanks to a political analyst, Marianne Solberg, who writes for the Norwegian quarterly Nytid.no.
Have you ever heard of Arthur Ponsonby? I certainly had not. The long Wikipedia article I have linked to his name tells us that he was opposed to Britain’s involvement in World War I.
The article does not give a favourable account of his remarkable 1928 book: “Falsehood in War-Time: Propaganda Lies of the First World War”: “[H]e claimed that the reports in British newspapers … about widespread German atrocities during the invasion of Belgium in 1914 were all lies and the German Army had behaved in a honorable and noble fashion towards the Belgian people.” This sentence is not only false, it is probably deliberately mendacious. What Ponsonby maintained was that rumours and press about enemy cruelty are often exaggerated for various reasons, and he referred to specific articles which subsequently proved to be fictitious.
Frankly, I am not much interested in WWII or WWI. Both wars were ghastly, period, and should never have happened, should have been prevented. The start of WWI was downright frivolous. But there is something to be learnt from them, I agree. Number one: Don’t frivolously start a war.
Still, I don’t agree with Ponsonby when he writes, “Whether you are right or wrong, whether you win or lose, in no circumstances can war help you or your country”. I am not a pacifist, because I do believe that the Palestinians have no choice but to try to defend themselves against the Israelis (and the US Americans), just as the Algerians had no choice but to defend themselves against the French, and the US Americans had no choice but to defend themselves against the British, (and Amazon workers have no choice but to defend themselves against their employers).
But Ponsonby also writes: “Anyone declaring the truth: ‘Whether you are right or wrong, whether you win or lose, in no circumstances can war help you or your country,’ would find himself in gaol very quickly. In wartime, failure of a lie is negligence, the doubting of a lie a misdemeanour, the declaration of the truth a crime.“
Here I fear that Arthur Ponsonby raises a very important point. When your country decides to go to war, you’d better shut up if you disapprove. (Which is why I am writing this before NATO frivolously drags my country into a war with Russia, Iran or China to defend US global supremacy.)
I have read Ponsonby’s book, which is in the public domain and can be downloaded from this site, and I have found his descriptions of the psychological warfare of WWI spooky, in the sense that the very same methods are haunting us today. In fact, the very same methods have probably been used in every war since time immemorial, and probably always will be. They are wartime revenants.
Which is why we need fearless journalists to expose them for what they are: warmongering. Chris Hedges, for instance, was a fearless NY Times journalist for many years.. He still is a fearless journalist but he no longer works for the corporate media. You might want to hear what he has to say about the corporate media.
Meanwhile I have picked a few quotes from Arthur Ponsonby’s book. I am sure the author would be delighted, had he still been with us. For since the corporate news media have failed us so dismally, since journalists now broadcast rather than expose warmongering lies, there will be a WWIII unless we are able to expose them ourselves.
***
Falsehood is a recognized and extremely useful weapon in warfare, and every country uses it quite deliberately to deceive its own people, to attract neutrals, and to mislead the enemy.
Man, it has been said, is not “a veridical animal,” but his habit of lying is not nearly so extraordinary as his amazing readiness – to believe
The psychological factor in war is just as important as the military factor.
People must never be allowed to become despondent; so victories must be exaggerated and defeats, if not concealed, at any rate minimized.
The stimulus of indignation, horror, and hatred must be assiduously and continuously pumped into the public mind by means of “propaganda.”
… a Government which has decided on embarking on the hazardous and terrible enterprise of war must at the outset present a one-sided case in justification of its action, and cannot afford to admit in any particular whatever the smallest degree of right or reason on the part of the people it has made up its mind to fight.
… the indisputable wickedness of the enemy has been proved beyond question.
At the outset the solemn asseverations of monarchs and leading statesmen in each nation that they did not want war must be placed on a par with the declarations of men who pour paraffin about a house knowing they are continually striking matches and yet assert they do not want a conflagration.
Agents are employed by authority and encouraged in so-called propaganda work.
With eavesdroppers, letter-openers, decipherers, telephone tappers, spies, an intercept department, a forgery department, a criminal investigation department, a propaganda department, an intelligence department, a censorship department, a ministry of information, a Press bureau, etc., the various Governments were well equipped to “instruct” their peoples.
When war reaches such dimensions as to involve the whole nation, and when the people at its conclusion find they have gained nothing but only observe widespread calamity around them, they are inclined to become more sceptical and desire to investigate the foundations of the arguments which inspired their patriotism, inflamed their passions, and prepared them to offer the supreme sacrifice.
- There is the deliberate official lie, issued either to delude the people at home or to mislead the enemy abroad;
- There is the lie heard and not denied, although lacking in evidence, and then repeated or allowed to circulate.
- There is the mistranslation, occasionally originating in a genuine mistake, but more often deliberate.
- There is the general obsession, started by rumour and magnified by repetition and elaborated by hysteria, which at last gains general acceptance.
- There is the deliberate forgery
- There is the omission of passages from official document
- There is deliberate exaggeration,
- There is the concealment of truth, which has to be resorted to so as to prevent anything to the credit of the enemy reaching the public.
- There is the faked photograph
- There is the cinema
Atrocity lies were the most popular of all,
There are lies emanating from the inherent unreliability and fallibility of human testimony. No two people can relate the occurrence of a street accident so as to make the two stories tally.
There is pure romance. Letters of soldiers who whiled away the days and weeks of intolerable waiting by writing home sometimes contained thrilling descriptions of engagements and adventures which had never occurred.
There is official secrecy which must necessarily mislead public opinion.
… the assistance given in propaganda by intellectuals and literary notables. They were able to clothe the tough tissue of falsehood with phrases of literary merit and passages of eloquence better than the statesmen.
War is fought in this fog of falsehood, a great deal of it undiscovered and accepted as truth. The fog arises from fear and is fed by panic. Any attempt to doubt or deny even the most fantastic story has to be condemned at once as unpatriotic, if not traitorous.
Our prompt entry into the European War in 1914 was necessitated by our commitment to France. This commitment was not known to the people; it was not known to Parliament; it was not even known to all the members of the Cabinet. More than this, its existence was denied.
It will be remembered that the [secret] conversations which involved close consultations between [French and English] military and naval staffs began before 1906.
The revelations as to the complicity of the Serbian Government in the crime [assassination of the Archduke] did not appear till 1924, when an article was published entitled, “After Vidovdan, 1914,” by Ljuba Jovanovitch, President of the Serbian Parliament, who had been Minister of Education in the Cabinet of M. Pashitch in 1914.
- This makes it clear that the whole [Serbian] Cabinet knew of the plot some time before the murder took place; that the Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior knew in which societies it had been prepared; that the frontier guard was deeply implicated
- No official instruction was sent to Vienna to warn the Archduke.
- The Austrian Government, in its ultimatum, demanded the arrest of one Ciganovitch. He was found, but mysteriously disappeared.
- Printzip, a wild young man who was simply a tool, actually committed the murder.
- When he and the other murderers were arrested they confessed that it was through Ciganovitch that they had been introduced to Major Tankositch, supplied with weapons and given shooting lessons.
- The Pashitch Government sent Ciganovitch, as a reward for his services, to America with a false passport under the name of Danilovitch. After the war was over Ciganovitch returned, and the Government gave him some land near Uskub, where he then resided.
- That the Austrian Government should have recognized that refusal to either find Ciganovitch or permit others to look for him meant guilt on the part of the Serbian Government and therefore resorted to war is not surprising.
It came as a surprise to the Serbian Government that any excitement should have been caused by the revelation of Ljuba. They thought that Great Britain understood what had happened, and in her eagerness to fight Germany had jumped at the excuse.
The invasion of Belgium came as a godsend to the Government and the Press, and they jumped to take advantage of this pretext.
“We are going into a war that is forced upon us as the defenders of the weak [Serbia and Belgium] and the champions of the liberties of Europe”.
“Our honour and our interest must have compelled us to join France and Russia even if Germany had scrupulously respected the rights of her small neighbours, and had sought to hack her way into France through the Eastern fortresses”.
Politically the invasion of Belgium was a gross error [on the part of Germany]. Strategically it was the natural and obvious course to take. Further, we know now that had Germany not violated Belgian neutrality, France would have.
General Percin concludes: “The treaty of 1839 could not help but be violated either by the Germans or by us. It had been invented to make war impossible. The question that we have to judge upon, then, is this: Which of the two, France or Germany, wanted war the most?
The invasion of Belgium was not the cause of the war; the invasion of Belgium was not unexpected; the invasion of Belgium did not shock the moral susceptibilities of either the British or French Governments.
The accusation against the enemy of sole responsibility for the war is common form in every nation and in every war. So far as we are concerned, the Russians (in the Crimean War), the Afghans, the Arabs, the Zulus, and the Boers, were each in their turn unprovoked aggressors,
Gradually the accusation is dropped officially, when reason returns and the consolidation of peace becomes an imperative necessity for all nations.
the Peace Treaty. “Article 231. The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.”
“The more one reads memoirs and books written in the various countries of what happened before August 1, 1914, the more one realizes that no one at the head of affairs quite meant war at that stage. It was something into which they glided, or rather staggered and stumbled, perhaps through folly, and a discussion, I have no doubt, would have averted it.” (Mr. Lloyd George, December 23, 1920.)
“Is there any man or woman let me say, is there any child who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?…This was an industrial and commercial war.” (President Woodrow Wilson, September 5, 1919.)
“I do not claim that Austria or Germany in the first place had a conscious thought-out intention of provoking a general war. No existing documents give us the right to suppose that at that time they had planned anything so systematic.” M. Raymond Poincaré, 1925.
“To saddle Germany with the sole responsibility for the war is from what we already know – and more will come – an absurdity. To frame a treaty on an absurdity is an injustice. Humanly, morally, and historically the Treaty of Versailles stands condemned, quite apart from its economic monstrosities” (Austin Harrison, Editor “English Review”)
“Did vindictive nations ever do anything meaner, falser, or more cruel than when the Allies, by means of the Versailles Treaty, forced Germany to be the scapegoat to bear the guilt which belonged to all? What nation carries clean hands and a pure heart?” (Charles F. Dole.)
The Germans and Austrians were busy, not without good evidence, in accusing Russia. But the disputes and entanglements and the deplorable ineptitude of diplomacy on all sides in the last few weeks were not, any more than the murder of the Archduke, the cause of the war
Having declared the enemy the sole culprit and originator of the war, the next step is to personify the enemy.
[I]t is necessary to detach an individual on whom may be concentrated all the vials of the wrath of an innocent people who are only defending themselves from “unprovoked aggression.” The sovereign is the obvious person to choose. While the Kaiser on many occasions, by his bluster and boasting, had been a subject of ridicule and offence, nevertheless, not many years before, his portrait had appeared in the Daily Mail with “A friend in need is a friend indeed” under it. And as late as October 17, 1913, the Evening News wrote:
“We all acknowledge the Kaiser as a very gallant gentleman whose word is better than many another’s bond, a guest whom we are always glad to welcome and sorry to lose, a ruler whose ambitions for his own people are founded on as good right as our own.”
“The madman is piling up the logs of his own pyre. We can have no terror of the monster; we shall clench our teeth in determination that if we die to the last man the modern Judas and his hell-begotten brood shall be wiped out.”
The fiction having become popular and being universally accepted in the Allied countries, it became imperative for the Allied statesmen to insert a special clause in the Peace Treaty beginning:
“The Allied and Associated Powers publicly arraign William II, of Hohenzollern, formerly German Emperor, for a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties…”
Having committed themselves to the trial of the Kaiser by a clause in the Peace Treaty, the Allies were obliged to go through the formality of addressing a note to the Netherlands Government on January 16, 1920, dwelling on the Kaiser’s “immense responsibility” and asking for him to be handed over “in order that he may be sent for trial.” The refusal of the Netherlands Government on January 23rd was at once accepted and saved the Allied Governments from making hopeless fools of themselves.
His biographer, Emil Ludwig, (‘Kaiser William II’, by Emil Ludwig.) has written the most slashing indictment of William II that has appeared in any language, showing up his vanity, his megalomania, and his incompetence. But so far from accusing him of wanting or engineering the war, the author insists, time after time, on the Emperor’s pacific attitude. “In all the European developments between 1908 and 1914, the Emperor was more pacific, was even more far-sighted, than his advisers.”
Even Lord Grey says, now that it is all over: “If matters had rested with him (the Kaiser) there would have been no European War arising out of the Austro-Serbian dispute.”
Pictures of the baby without hands were very popular on the Continent, both in France and in Italy. Le Rive Rouge had a picture on September 18, 1915, and on July 26, 1916, made it still more lurid by depicting German soldiers eating the hands.
There are two things which cannot be permitted during war. Firstly, favourable comment on the enemy,… Secondly, criticism of the country to which you belong … Suppression of opinion of this kind is all very well, but the deliberate distortion of it is a peculiarly malicious form of falsehood.
War is, in itself, an atrocity. Cruelty and suffering are inherent in it. Deeds of violence and barbarity occur, as everyone knows. Mankind is goaded by authority to indulge every elemental animal passion, but the exaggeration and invention of atrocities soon becomes the main staple of propaganda.
At best, human testimony is unreliable, even in ordinary occurrences of no consequence, but where bias, sentiment, passion, and so-called patriotism disturb the emotions, a personal affirmation becomes of no value whatsoever.
It does not occur to anyone to question photograph, and faked pictures therefore have special value, as they get a much better start than any mere statement,
The faking of photographs must have amounted almost to an industry during the war. All countries were concerned, but the French were the most expert. Some of the originals have been collected and reproduced: (“How the World Madness was Engineered,” by Ferdinand Avenarius).
The ultimatum to Serbia and the infringement of Belgian neutrality led to the widespread cry that we were fighting “for the rights of small nationalities.“ … Apart from the minorities placed under alien rule by frontier delimitations drawn for strategic purposes and not according to race or nationality, Montenegro was wiped off the map by the Peace Treaties, although the restoration of Montenegro was specially mentioned by the Prime Minister on January 5, 1918 (National War Aims pamphlet No. 33), the British occupation of Egypt continues, the Syrians have been subjected to severe repression by the French (the bombing of Damascus), the attempt of the Riffs at securing independence led to their being blotted out, Nicaragua and Panama are being subjected to the political domination of the United States, and other instances might be given in which the struggle of “small nationalities” is simply regarded as a revolutionary or subversive move.
“A war to make the world safe for democracy.” The absurdity of this meaningless cry on the part of the Allies, amongst whom was Czarist Russia is obvious. Its insincerity is proved by results. There is now the most ruthless dictatorship ever established in Italy; an imitation of it in Spain; a veiled dictatorship in Poland; a series of attempted dictatorships in Greece; something which approaches near to a dictatorship in Hungary; Turkey and Persia are both dominated by individuals with almost sovereign prerogatives, and the Soviet system is a form of dictatorship. In fact, except in Great Britain, the United States, the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, parliamentary government has been in grave danger where it has not been entirely superseded.
” A war to end war” … although every schoolboy knows that war breeds war.
Since 1918 fighting has never ceased in the world. There has been war on the part of the Allies against Russia, war between Turkey and Greece, the Black and Tan exploits in Ireland, the armed occupation of the Ruhr, war of France and Spain against the Riffs, war of France against the Syrians, military action on the part of the U.S.A.
“No territory for Great Britain” … The statement that whatever we were fighting for we desired no fresh territory was frequently made. Considering that the British Empire comprised over thirteen million square miles of the earth’s surface in 1914, the statement was accepted as wise and sensible.
Now as to the facts with regard to what “fell to us” when it was all over [in terms of] Square Miles:
- Egypt, formerly under Turkish suzerainty, became part of the British Empire 350,000
- Cyprus, formerly under Turkish suzerainty, became part of the British Empire 3,584
- German South-West Africa, mandate held by the Union of South Africa 322,450
- German East Africa, mandate held by Great Britain 384,180
- Togoland and Cameroons, divided between Great Britain and France (say half) 112,415
- Samoa, mandate held by New Zealand 1,050
- German New Guinea and Island south of Equator, mandate held by Australia 90,000
- Palestine, mandate held by Great Britain 9,000
- Mesopotamia (Iraq), mandate held by Great Britain 143,250
- Total in square miles 1,415,929
All this territorial gain was of small comfort, I fear, for those who lost their lives in that ghastly war, for those who lost limbs, for those who lost a lover, a father, a brother or a son…
Quite an expensive archduke, that was.
───
