Wartime Propaganda - Germans, Turks and Austrians as seen by the Auckland Weekly News
This year Auckland Libraries remembers
it is 100 years since New Zealand’s first major baptism of fire during the First
World War when our troops landed at Gallipoli on 25 April
1915. To commemorate that event Sir George Grey Special Collections staff are
working to make the Auckland
Weekly News Supplement photographs from 1915 more searchable for
researchers, librarians and readers who look at the Heritage Images
in our Digital
Library. These photographs feature events and people from all major war
fronts but also include New Zealand personalities and scenes.
How our attitudes to the people who were
then our enemies have changed during the past 100 years! But back then Auckland
Weekly News caption-writers jingoistically stirred up public hatred for the
Germans, contempt of the Turks and mockery of the Austrians.
The depths of German depravity were
unfathomable as this propaganda cartoon of German troops massacring Belgian
citizens in Louvain shows.
The next two photographs
feature the aftermath of a German bombing raid on the innocent civilians of
Colchester in England:
Germany’s
ambitions for world domination knew no bounds, but of course that madman Kaiser
Wilhelm would finally come a cropper with his motley crew of Turkish and
Austrian allies.
And
of course one couldn’t do much with reluctant allies like the Turks.
There
were no limits to German ingenuity and downright deviousness. They just didn't have a sense of fair play. Here they
have created a false forest where they could skulk, instead of coming out to be
shot down like brave Brits.
But
of course when the chips were down Germans were, in the final analysis, a
nation of cowards, lacking British backbone.
Here regular German soldiers are encouraging wary reserve troops to
advance.
The
Austrians were no better. Their artillerymen could not even stand a good
bombardment. The next photograph shows
Austrian ‘funk-holes’ in the fortifications around Przemysl in Galicia (now in
Poland).
Finally,
back to the Germans. Here are two of them revealing their human frailties (in
this case lazily riding donkeys instead of marching). Note the sting in the
caption’s tail; the true German might be a buffoon, but he’s still a thieving
one!
For
more images from the Auckland Weekly News, follow our Twitter
account which posts an image each day from the corresponding issue 100 years ago.
Author: Chris Paxton
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