The Propaganda- Weapon
Total Victory. By Stephen King-Hall. (Faber and Faber. 75. 6d.)
• COMMANDER KING-HALL, as everyone knows, is a profound
believer in what is sometimes dignified with the name of political warfare, but more often termed summarily propaganda. While he does not claim that it can win the war single-handed he is convinced that the war cannot be won without it. In that most of us will agree with him. The constituents of victory he states in terms of units. Assuming that to units are necessary to achieve " total victory," he estimates that the Army may contribute II units, the Air Force 3, blockade al, sabotage in occupied terri- tories if. That leaves 3 to be provided by propaganda. As to what total victory is, he defines it as " the achievement of a state of affairs in which the enemy has undergone a mental process recognisable by the fact that there are solid grounds for believing that he sincerely intends to co-operate willingly in a peace-settle- ment acceptable to us," and will not seek subsequently to reverse it by force.
How is this end to be attained? As for machinery, a Minister of Political Warfare should be appointed, as a member of the War Cabinet, with a Director-General, who should be a member on equal terms- of the Chiefs of Staffs' Committee. As for procedure, Germans must be converted individually by a declaration issued in the names of the British and American Governments. Its gist is that Hitler and his New Order cannot win, and the British Government, therefore, in full agreement with the U.S.A., " calls upon the German people to demand the recall of all Reich forces from the occupied terri- tories, the Reich frontiers to be those existing immediately pre- vious to the Munich settlement?' This is to be followed by a proclamation announcing that the peace of the world will in future be maintained by an Anglo-American Peace Force, 20 per cent of whose strength may be contributed by individual enlist. ments of citizens of other countries. For the rest a reconstruct League of Nations will organise international co-operation in world from which ex hypothesi war is excluded (by the Peaa Force).
Finding, as I do, Commander King-Hall's contentions lest convincing than I should have hoped, I have thought it fairest to state them as accurately as a brief summary will permit Tset questions out of many present themselves: Would the Anglo. American proclamations reach the ears of the individual German and would they convert him if they did? Commander King Hall has no doubts in either case. He believes that broadcasting and leaflets dropped from aeroplanes would do everything necei. say in the first case, and that to be told Germany could not was would be decisive in the second. I wonder. What is the effect of Commander King-Hall or myself of Dr. Goebbels' assurances that Britain will be beaten? Our mentality, let us hope, is different from the German, but is it so totally and fundamentally different in this particular respect? It is true, no doubt, that " when sufficient number of individual German brains have been con. vetted to the service of the democratic cause, organisations of form and character adapted to the will to act of any German allies will spontaneously come into existence," but Commands King-Hall seems to over-simplify the whole process considerahl Friction between the Nazis and a people demanding peace " muss in due course lead to an explosion on the Nazi home front' Perhaps, but the possibilities of that " in due course " are dis. couragingly infinite.
The case for persistent and intelligent anti-Nazi propaganda is, of course, unanswerable, but I find it hard to share Commands King-Hall's confidence in the particular modus operandi hr expounds. Others, however, may be more readily convinced, and I hope they will read the book and form their own opinion Incidentally, in the interests of propaganda as well as of accuract, it is unwise to assert that " in 1899 Great Britain declared war upon two small republics in South Africa." She did not. Then were plenty of faults on both sides, but it was the Boers who delivered an ultimatum and fired the first shots. H. W. H.
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