Abstract
In September 1914, the Foreign Office and Wellington House were in complete agreement that by far the most important of neutral countries was the United States of America. The reasons for this were obvious. On the outbreak of the First World War, Britain and Germany had lost each other’s best customer in economic and commercial terms. It was essential for them both to compensate for this loss by increasing their trade with the rapidly expanding economic might of the United States or, better still, to entice the Americans into joining their cause. For the next two and a half years, British and German propagandists fought an intense and widespread propaganda campaign designed to win American sympathy and all the benefits that entailed. It was a battle only one side could win, if it could be won at all. Both sides held their advantages. The Germans had their considerable share in the American electorate through the organised and intensely patriotic bunds of German emigrés. The British shared a common language and culture and, thanks to the prompt action of the cable ship Telconia, they alone enjoyed direct cable communications with the North American continent. It might well have been the case that the British were bound to win. Wellington House was more concerned with not losing.
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Notes
J. C. Silber, The Invisible Weapons (London, 1932) p. 87, p. 139.
ppp. Willert, Washington and Other Memories (Boston, 1972) p. 72.
H. C. Peterson, Propaganda for War: The Campaign Against American Neutrality, 1914–17 (New York, 1939) p. 16; The Times History of the War (London, 1920) vol. 21.
Albert Russell Buchanan, ‘European Propaganda and American Public Opinion, 1914–17’ (Stanford University, PhD. thesis, 1935) HIWRP, Stanford, pp. 32ff and p. 331.
Winifred Johnston, Memo on the Movies: War Propaganda, 1914–39 (New York, 1939) p. 15.
Esther Sprott, ‘A Survey of British Wartime Propaganda in America Issued by Wellington House’ (Stanford University, Masters thesis, 1921) HIWRP, p. 32.
S. Kernek, ‘Distractions of Peace During War: The Lloyd George Government’s Reactions to Woodrow Wilson, December 1916—November 1918’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 65, part 2 (1975) 5–114.
Basil Thomson, The Scene Changes (New York, 1937) p. 297.
Lord Newton, Retrospection, p. 226. The documents were despatched on 29 June 1916.
Admiral Sir William James, The Code Breakers of Room 40 (New York, 1956) p. 114.
A. J. Ward, Ireland and Anglo-American Relations, 1899–1921 (London, 1969) p. 101ff.
Emmanuel Victor Voska and Will Irwin, Spy and Counter Spy (New York, 1940) p. 10 & p. 21ff.
Admiral Sir Guy Gaunt, The Yield of the Years (London, 1940) p. 167.
For a detailed account of the role of Sir William Wiseman see W. B. Fowler, British-American Relations, 1917–18: The Role of Sir William Wiseman (Princeton, 1969).
A. Willert, The Road to Safety (New York, 1953) p. 26.
F. H. Hinsley et al, British Intelligence in the Second World War (London, 1979) 1, p. 16 & note p. 20.
R. Deacon, A History of the British Secret Service (New York, 1969) p. 175; Willert, Road to Safety, p. 19.
Lt Col. Norman Thwaites, Velvet and Vinegar (London, 1932) p. 119.
Franz Von Papen, Memoirs (London, 1952) ch. 3 and 4.
B. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram (London, 1959) p. 146.
Memorandum by Pomeroy Burton, ‘War Intelligence Department or Special War News Service’, 29 January 1917, enclosed in Burton to Northcliffe, 30 January 1917, Northcliffe papers, vol. 11, Burton file, BL.
Lt Col. Arthur Murray, At Close Quarters: A Sidelight on Anglo-American Relations (London, 1946) p. 13.
Thomas E. Hachey, ‘British War Propaganda and American Catholics in 1918’, Catholic Historical Review, 61 (1975) 48–66.
W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (London, 1938); see also his novel Ashenden or The British Agent (New York, 1927).
See clippings relating to the Sisson documents, Box 322, CPI 17 D/1. National Archives, Washington. See also George Kennan, ‘The Sisson Documents’, Journal of Modem History, 28 (1956) 130–54.
For the activities of American historians in the case see George T. Blakey, Historians on the Home Front: American Propagandists for the Great War (Kentucky, 1970) p. 98ff.
George Viereck, Spreading Germs of Hate (New York, 1930) p. 26.
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© 1982 M. L. Sanders and Philip M. Taylor
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Sanders, M.L., Taylor, P.M. (1982). British Propaganda in the United States. In: British Propaganda during the First World War, 1914–18. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05544-9_6
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