A more universal hardship also came as governments curtailed the rights
of their citizens in order to fight the war more effectively. On August 8, 1914,
four days after Britain had entered the conflict. Parliament passed the Defense
of the Realm Act (or DORA). Its original aim was to protect the country
against espionage, but it expanded as the war went on, and the British
population was increasingly limited in what it could say, where it could travel,
and how much restraint it could expect from its policemen. Such a suspension
of the population's civil liberties for the duration of the conflict was only one
product of DORA, which was expanded to regulate the operation of industry
and to control Britain's food supply. The need to boost ammunition production
led to unprecedented restrictions on workers. David Lloyd George, Britain's
new minister of munitions, used the Munitions of War Act (July 1915) to
discipline his labor force. Strikes were outlawed, and the right of the individual
to seek another job elsewhere was curtailed.
In both France and Germany, countries where individual liberties were
less rooted in national traditions, measures like DORA, declaring the
country in a state of siege, had much the same effect. In Germany, the entire
civil administration, including supervision of newspapers, came under
direct military control with the start of the war. For military news, the
approved sources were statements given out twice weekly at the General
Staff's Press Department meetings with editors. Civilian government officials
provided directions for the coverage of other issues. A similar system
carried the day in France. In Britain, the military role in censorship was less
in evidence. The government's Press Bureau issued official war news and
censorecK other stories on the war that newspapers proposed to print. The
incentive to submit stories for clearance was strong: the sanctions ofDORA,
including suspension of publication, could fall on any newspaper that
printed a story that was later disapproved.
Newspapers and magazines joined voluntarily in the effort to promote
the war. As J. M. Winter put it, "For the duration of the war most editors
and their staffs were willing to forgo the critical function of the press"; he
cites "the German satirical magazine Simplicissimus [which] shelved its
traditionally acerbic wit and adopted a patriotic line."2 On the other side of
the lines, British newspapers likewise became cheerleaders for the war
effort, according to Winter using euphemisms so that "a retreat was called
a rectification of the line" to soften the impact of bad news. When Lord
Lansdowne, a prominent former cabinet minister now horrified by the
human cost of the war, tried to appeal publicly for a negotiated peace, the
Times of London refused to publish his letter on the subject. But the Times
enthusiastically reported wild stories of German atrocities.
In Britain, restrictions on passing information to the press concerning
government activities preceded the war; the Official Secrets Act was passed
in 191 1 . When DORA lapsed after the end of the war, however, the government
perpetuated some of its wartime powers to restrict the flow of information
with the additional provisions of the Official Secrets Act of 1920. It was
necessary to have such a law against leaking official documents, as one
government spokesman argued in the parliamentary debate of 1920, because
"experience during the war has made it quite plain that a provision of that kind
is necessary if the work of foreign agents is to be checked.''
World History
