Propaganda and Public Relations in Military Recruitment

Promoting Military Service in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Brendan Maartens, Thomas Bivins, Brendan Maartens, Thomas Bivins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000263879
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Relaciones públicas

This book represents the first international investigation of military recruitment advertising, public relations and propaganda. Comprised of eleven case studies that explore mobilisation work in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe, it covers more than a hundred years of recent history, with chapters on the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War, and the present day.

The book explores such promotion in countries both large and small, and in times of both war and peace, with readers gaining an insight into the different strategies and tactics used to motivate men, women and occasionally even children to serve and fight in many parts of the world. Readers will also learn about the crucial but little-known role of commercial advertising, public relations and media professionals in the production and distribution of recruitment promotion. This book, the first of its kind to be published, will explore that role, and in the process address two questions that are central to studies of media and conflict: how do militaries encourage civilians to join up, and are they successful in doing so?

It is a multi-disciplinary project intended for a diverse academic audience, including postgraduate students exploring aspects of war, propaganda and public opinion, and researchers working across the domains of history, communications studies, conflict studies, psychology, and philosophy.

Part I
Recruitment in an era of total war

3
Why Africans in British Empire territories joined the colours, 1914–1918

Anne Samson

Abstract

The First World War extended to four German territories in Africa: Togoland, Cameroon, South West Africa and East Africa, whilst British troops were diverted during the war years to Egypt and Somaliland for actions against the Senusi. In addition, men and women from the white settler colonies enlisted for service in Europe. Initially, each campaign had its own recruitment strategy localised to immediate demands and pre-war conditions. However, from late 1915 into 1917, recruitment for service elsewhere in Africa and for Europe saw different strategies employed, and as a complete anomaly, troops who had fought for the enemy in East and West Africa were recruited into British forces in the last years of the war. Using local newspapers and official correspondence where possible, supplemented with archival-based secondary material, this chapter compares the various recruiting strategies across the sub-Sahara African campaigns and the European recruitment drives in the years 1914–1918. The study allows attitudes towards empire and service to be discerned and emphasises the diversity of the British Empire across Africa in its achievement of a common goal.

Africa is a continent of diversity to which the varied experiences of the British Empire territories in the 1914–18 war lay testimony. Compared with literature examining British recruitment, little attention has been given to recruitment practices in Africa.¹ Moreover, where discussion of recruitment in Africa has taken place within wider campaign, regimental and force histories, it has invariably centred on conscripting carriers and labourers who did not, as a general rule, engage in actual conflict. Texts by Geoffrey Hodges, Melvin Page and Albert Grundlingh are the most well known in this regard.²

This chapter provides a comparative analysis of military recruiting practices throughout British Africa, thereby demonstrating that the African black, white, Indian and Arab experience was far more complex than hitherto believed. Initially, standing or existing military contingents, police and other para-military forces including rifle clubs and the Preventive Service in Gold Coast, were used for service, the men having enlisted voluntarily.³ There was thus no immediate need for recruits when war broke out in August 1914. However, as the captured territories of Togoland (28 August 1914), South West Africa (9 July 1915) and Cameroon (26 March 1916) fell under military occupation from their respective surrenders through to the allocation of mandates, and as the war progressed in Europe and dragged on in East Africa until late November 1918, additional manpower was needed.

While the scale of mobilisation work remained small when compared to the recruiting campaigns in Europe, North America and parts of Asia, it had profound social and economic consequences. On the African continent, while there was no immediate need to mass-recruit soldiers, the demand for labour and medical services ensured that civilians, male and female and of all ethnic backgrounds, were involved. The nature of the territory, the type and length of time under British occupation and the duration of the local campaigns contributed to how people reacted, with tailored recruitment initiatives, including conscription and commandeering,⁴ being undertaken. Internal unrest in various territories and longstanding nationalist movements in Egypt and Somaliland which flared up further impacted the limited manpower available in a continental theatre regarded by Britain as secondary.

‘A low whisper that vibrated over the empire’: recruiting at the outset of the war

Recruitment of soldiers across Africa began in earnest in 1915: February in West Africa, July in South Africa. Before that, it had generally been ‘business as usual’ in terms of men enlisting despite the demands of war and the mainstay Imperial Garrison forces having been sent back to Europe. With the existing forces thought to be sufficient, administrators having little intention to escalate tensions in Africa, there was no reason to change systems and processes.

This led initially to recruitment being discouraged in some territories as men spontaneously rushed to join the colours in fear of all being over before long. In South Africa, offers to raise white units for service in Europe were declined,⁵ as were offers by Indians and the Coloured community to serve anywhere within the empire.⁶ In Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), public meetings were held in September 1914, white men giving their names to form ‘one Rhodesian troop for service, if necessary, anywhere in the Empire’.⁷ The First Rhodesia Regiment was to serve in German South West Africa, leading the legislative council to approve a second contingent of 500 men in October 1914.⁸ A. E. Capell recalled his force enlisted ‘just because England called, not articulately, but in a low whisper that vibrated over the Empire, a fervent and trustful “S.O.S.”’.⁹ They had ‘No thought of gain, recompense, remuneration – for they joined at Imperial rates, “the noble sum of thirteen-pence per day”’.¹⁰ The regiment consisted of British South African Police who filled officer roles supplemented with men from the Southern Rhodesia Volunteers. From these, men were handpicked to form a machine gun unit and scouts. Lack of shipping meant the contingent was kept in abeyance, undertaking training and leave, until early March 1915, when it left for East Africa.¹¹ When the contingent was disbanded in July 1917 due to lack of available reinforcements, the men themselves would become reinforcements to the various Union troops overseas. Unhappy, the men sought transfer or discharge to re-enlist with other units.¹²

In British East Africa (BEA; Kenya), settlers rushed to join the colours as news of the war filtered through the country by newspaper and telegraph, visitor and trader. Despite the governor’s reluctance to involve his colony in the conflict, two settler corps were formed, many with previous military experience, while scout corps were raised from resident South African Boers, Arabs and Somalis and from ‘some of the wilder tribes’. The men were well known by their commanders, who personally recruited their forces.¹³ Men who did not enlist were asked to form local defence units. As the local protectorate and colonial forces were under command of the Colonial Office rather than the War Office, many in civil service, doctors, veterinary specialists and the transport department, were given military commissions often in addition to their civilian role and ‘organised to meet the new situation’.¹⁴

In contrast to other African territories, the legislative committee in BEA was forced by the settlers, in March 1916, to introduce conscription in the colony, whites to serve in the armed forces and blacks as labour.¹⁵ The latter was implemented first, the former only once all alternatives had been explored. While administrators were reluctant to involve too many people of colour in the war, for fear of upsetting existing social hierarchies, the increased need for white men to serve in Europe meant that eventually from late 1916, the King’s African Rifles (KAR) would be expanded and select men from West Africa brought across to fight in East Africa.

This was not the complete picture, for although recruitment in some areas was discouraged, it needed to be encouraged in others. Labour was needed to assist with military invasions in West and South Africa in 1914 and in East Africa from early 1916.

Agriculture, mining and commerce: the economics of recruitment

Recruitment, military and labour, took different forms. In common with European recruitment, local cultural and political conditions had to be considered. Where recruits were to serve and with whom determined when and to what extent certain ethnic groups were recruited and into what roles. The idea of martial races was prevalent at the time, resulting in certain groups being favoured as soldiers over others who made better labourers.¹⁶ The policy of ‘divide and rule’ was common: whilst units consisted of men from the same group or region, they were sent to serve amongst people they did not know to prevent fraternisation and to better enforce control.¹⁷ All had white officers, mostly Britons.

The struggle for resources between commerce and the military was similar in the metropole and the African territories. Men were needed on farms and in other employment to sustain and maintain the military forces, resulting in conflict between government departments over manpower. In Africa, many such as the Gold Coast Ashanti were ‘too obsessed with their cocoa farms to enlist for Military Service’,¹⁸ and payment for working on the mines was more lucrative than joining the armed forces, where the risk to life was similar. Economic demands thus put pressure on military recruitment, each territory responding according to local priorities. In contrast, the Transvaal Chamber of Mines and other employers, paid bonuses to Union employees who served in East and Central Africa and in Europe with the Overseas Expeditionary Force.¹⁹ Jobs were held open for their return.²⁰ When it became evident that men were reluctant to enlist for German South West Africa (GSWA), mine recruiting agencies were employed, which resulted in men who signed up to work on the mines providing six months’ labour service to the government’s war effort.²¹ As in Europe, white women in Cape Town offe...