The Foreign Office and British Propaganda during the First World War

1980 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 875-898 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip M. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The Creation ◽  
First World ◽  
New Phase

In July 1918 it was the considered opinion of Lord Northcliffe that propaganda and diplomacy were incompatible. When, only five months earlier, Northcliffe had accepted Lloyd George's invitation to take charge of the newly created department of enemy propaganda, his appointment, coupled with that of Lord Beaverbrook as Britain's first minister of information, had held out the promise of a new phase in the efficiency and co-ordination of Britain's conduct of official propaganda in foreign countries. It was then, in February 1918, that the Foreign Office had finally been forced to relinquish its control over such work. However, the creation of the two new departments had produced an intolerable situation. After three years of inter-departmental rivalry and squabbling over the conduct of propaganda overseas, Whitehall closed ranks on Beaverbrook and Northcliffe and united behind the Foreign Office in opposition to any further transference of related duties into their hands. Now, after five months of continued obstruction, Northcliffe expressed the view that:As a people we do not understand propaganda ways…Propaganda is advertising and diplomacy is no more likely to understand advertising than advertising is likely to understand diplomacy.

scholarly journals Canada’s Participation in the Imperial Military Bodies in the First World War

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-132
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Simonenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Military Organizations ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
Narrative Methods ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Commonwealth Of Nations ◽  
First World

Introduction. The paper is devoted to the participation of Canada in the creation and activities of the Imperial War Cabinet and two Imperial War Conferences of 1917 and 1918 to explain the evolution of the foreign and political status of Canada as a part of the British Empire after the end of the War. Methods and materials. The paper is based on the British and Canadian Parliamentary Debates, Reports, Minutes of Proceedings and Meetings of the Imperial War Conferences 1917/1918 and the Imperial War Cabinet. To study them, it uses the method of historical criticism of sources. The author also uses the historical-genetic, comparative and the narrative methods to investigate the causes, the process of creating and activities of imperial military bodies for the unified management of the war. Analysis. The paper analyzes the reasons for the creation of imperial military organizations in the British Empire during the war. It reveals the organizational and functional differences between the two imperial military bodies: Cabinet and Conference. The author studies the activities of imperial military bodies during the war in detail, determines the role of the Canadian delegation in this process. The article analyzes the decisions of the imperial military bodies, reveals their domestic and foreign policy consequences for Dominion of Canada. Results. Canada’s active participation in the creation and activities of the imperial military bodies during the First World War was one of the factors in the transformation of the Empire into the Commonwealth of Nations, the formation of its own national identity, political and foreign independence within the Empire.

The Career of Sir Eyre Crowe: A Reassessment

1972 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 193-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Cosgrove
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
First World War ◽  
Evil Spirit ◽  
Prime Mover ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Policy ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
First World

Among the myths of the origins of World War I is that of the ability of obscure bureaucrats to influence the foreign policy of their country through intrigue and deceit. The foremost example in the volumious literature involved the unlimited capacity for evil attributed to Friedrich von Holstein of the German Foreign Office. One of his contemporaries left the. following portrait: “His life was devoted to poisoning human and international relationships. Holstein's diplomacy by intrigue, his vicious disloyalties, and the way he placed his own revengeful purposes before his country's good contributed largely towards the outbreak of the First World War.” Labeled the Grey Eminence of the Wilhelmstrasse in the aftermath of defeat, Holstein became the scapegoat for the disasters of German diplomacy in 1914.Other bureaucrats of the pre-war era whose careers followed a similar pattern have received like treatment. On the British side, it was asserted, there operated a civil servant whose anti-German animus steered Britain into conflict with Germany. Allegedly possessing a fatal fascination for Sir Edward Grey, Sir Eyre Crowe was credited by historians with enormous surreptitious influence. The hostility toward Germany manifested by Great Britain in the decade prior to 1914, the argument runs, reflected Crowe's personal hatred and suspicion of German power. “The vast influence exercised by Sir Eyre Crowe upon British policy between 1908 and 1914,” wrote the distinguished Austrian historian A. F. Pribram in 1951, “only became generally known outside the Foreign Office, and especially abroad, in recent years.” Apologists for Germany cited Crowe as the prime mover of British policy, and one German historian termed him the ‘böse Geist’ [evil spirit] of the British Foreign Office.

scholarly journals Taqlid and Ijtihad

1991 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-142
Author(s):  
Taha J. Al 'Alwani
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
World War ◽  
Conceptual Thinking ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Creation ◽  
First World

The Polemics of IjtihadFrom the second hijri century until the present day, the reality, the essence,the rules, the conditions, the premises, the means, and the scope of ijtihadhave remained a source of debate engaging some of the Islamic world's greatesttheologians, scholars of al usul, and fuqaha': This debate has also been enrichedby proponents of the view that the door of ijtihad was closed and that thefiqh left by the Four Imams obviated the need for any further ijtihad, aswell as by those who claimed that this door was still open and that the existingfiqh was not sufficient to guide the contemporary Muslim world.In our own times, attention is now focused on the suitability of the Shari'ahas an order and a way of life. This new topic of debate, before unknownamong Muslims, emerged after the crushmg defeats experienced by the Muslimummah after the First World War, such as the dismantling of the khihfahand the creation of artificial states ruled from Europe. Many Muslims blamedIslam and its institutions for their defeat, and soon began to emulate theirconquerors. Others, however, had a quite different view: the Muslim ummahexperienced these disasters because it had become alienated from the eternaltruths of Islam. Thus, what was required was a return to the true Islam andnot its wholesale rejection in favor of alien institutions and ideologies. Onefundamental part of this return would have to be the use of ijtihad, for howelse could Muslims incorporate Islamic principles into situations with whichthey had never had to deal?Muslims who hold the latter view are aware of the fact that they mustmeet their opponents in the realm of ideas, for it is here that the future courseof the ummah will be decided. To be successful, much energy must beexpended in scholarship and conceptual thinking, in seeking to understandhumanity's place in the divine scheme of existence and what is expected ofit, and how this knowledge might be applied by Muslims as they struggle ...

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