HISTORY ASSIGNMENT
GIVE EXAMPLES OF HOW GOVERNMENT USED ITS PROPAGANDA MACHINE FOR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL PURPOSES DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR.

PROPAGANDA is a form of communication aimed towards influencing the attitude of a population towards a cause or position.
During the First World War different types of propaganda were used by the government and it was a useful tool for war and it helped to enlist millions of men into the armed forces. Those types of propaganda made people supporting the war and allowed them to believe that war was worth fighting for and was beneficial when actually, it was not. Some examples include: stamps, posters, newspaper and reports convincing people to go to war, unification of the nation, conserving food, buying bonds, countries constantly used posters in some cases to show superiority against other countries and they even used music and postcards to get ideas through towards everyone, as music is universal, and also at that time was an important part of the family. Propaganda attacked the emotional parts of everyone during First World War men, women and children and it was used to stir up emotions and to influence the attitude of the population towards the war. The Bryce Report was a famous piece of propaganda during the First World War and was written as an attempt to prove the atrocities stories on the attacks against the Belgium Civilians. On the 8th August 1914, the House of Commons passed the Defence Of Realm Act (DORA). These legislation empowered the government to introduce a whole series of regulations to govern the press people’s lives.
The Bryce report was a famous written piece of propaganda, and was written as an attempt to prove the atrocities stories on the attacks against the Belgium civilians by Germans and it was published on 12 May 1915. James Bryce was seventy-seven when he wrote the Bryce report, he was a well-known respected historian a diplomatic man with lots of experience and strong beliefs. The main purpose of the Bryce report was to demonise the Germans and to persuade the Americans to join the war and to look like the British were the good people. Lord Bryce was chosen to write the report as he was neutral, independent, a liberal politician and he was seen as a very good man internationally. The reason why he was so respected it was because he was a former Ambassador in Washington and was also seen as an American sympathiser. The information written on the Bryce report was gathered from two different sources such as; from Belgium refugees (1200 witnesses in all) and from dead German soldiers diaries. The importance of the Bryce report is legitimates the accounts of attacks against the Belgium civilians and cultural sites and it contextualizes them as proving violations of the conventions governing warfare which Germany had sign up as crimes against humanity. Interviews, the argument is also that this committee did not see not meet any of the Belgium refugees and did not see any of the dead soldiers diaries as they have claimed to. Around 215,000 Belgium refugees fled from Belgium and came over to Britain, they did not want to go back so the stories they said could be unreliable, and they may have been exaggerated from how actually it was. The people who interviewed them were actually barristers and lawyers and this is interested because they are good in leading, making questions and manipulate people. No one knows how many refugees were actually interviewed but it is claimed to have been 1200. It can be argued that they have chosen the refuges that were interviewed but there is no proof that this actually happened. In the report is claimed that thirty seven diaries from dead soldiers were used but no one has never seen those diaries and there is no evidence of one diary and the argument is that they have never existed. Overall, it can be said the Bryce report is important as a formal indictment of the terror campaign of the Germans and was used for propaganda