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Posters from the Great War

  • Thread starter Thread starter O.C.
  • Start date Start date
Another 3 Posters that you might find interesting, the pigeon poster was vital in the Great War as we used a lot of pigeons for messages and a good many ended up in the cooking pot
 
A page from a Newspaper The War Budget dated July 8th 1915 which on the top said
PLEASE CUT THIS PAGE OUT AND EXHIBIT IN A PROMINENT POSITION

Ad. underneath was for an insurance company which paid out on home and property against loss or damage caused by Zepplin raids or other aircraft
 
I found this poster in a book I have, great poster but I couldn't imagine
a great mass meeting in the Palace Erdington.
 
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Frothblower, Nice poster you put on which explains my post a bit better about using theatres for the "Recruitment Drive" and to make people who had not joined up feel awful

The First Photo
The Great Call
Mr Harold’s Begbie’s stirring poem which was set to music by Sir Fredric H. Cowen which the War office have requested Managers of leading Variety Theatres to include in their programme
The words below
​
Fall in
Why do they call Sonny, why do they call?
For men who are brave and strong?
Is it nought for you if your country fall,
And right is smashed by wrong?
Is it football still and the picture show,
The pub and the betting odds
When your brothers stand to the tyrants blow
And Britain’s call is Gods

How will you fare Sonny, how will you fare,
In the far off winter night
When you sit by the fire in an old mans chair
And your neighbours talk of the fight?
Will you slink away, as if from a blow?
Your old head shamed and bent?
Or say I was not with the first to go
But I went, thank God, I went?​

Second Photo
Resentment against the young men with no home responsibilities who refused to enlist during the Great War was acute in many districts, here a women hung out a petticoat with the inscription …”Serve your country or wear this”
This photo was taken in 1914 …I wonder would they have done this in 1917-18​
 
If the person who sent me an I.M. regarding the post 17th Nov 2006 (post 135) regarding the Bovril Advert and the HMHS Anglia.. sends me another IM with his E-mail Address I can send them large format pics of the Sinking of the Anglia (your message got deleted by accident )as I know a relative was drowned on the sinking of this ship ....
 
JKC said:
I didn't really know the pressure put on our young men at that time to join up......It made me feel guilty just reading the posters.....I like many others have thought how we would have reacted if we lived them days.....I think I would have join up quite quickly.....not because I am brave.....because I wouldn't want others pointing their finger at me calling me names........these posters do really bring home the intimidation our young and old men had to deal with.......shocking........I wonder what reaction we would have this day and age if the government red or blue posted a similar poster campaign.......I think most of us would tell them to f### ##f.........
Click to expand...

My late father told me he lied about his age to be able to join up with his mates as it was the 'done thing' for the youth of the time. I asked him what would have happened if he'd decided he didn't want to go off to war, he said no-one would speak to anyone who said that, and would give them white feathers to show their cowardice. He was born and lived in Brighton and when I was researching the family history I found this photograph of lads marching off to fight, not knowing many of them wouldn't return. I wondered if he was one of these or if he knew any. Compare the lad front centre with my dad in uniform.
 
It happened here, too - Birmingham is the first city on this film of Britain answering Kitchener's call.
 
Cromwell, I have sat for the past three quarters of an hour looking at your posters and your comments. I have cried.:cry: You are brilliant. I wish I'd had a history teacher who could put things over like you. My Grandfather enlisted in the First World War at 14 years of age, and did survive. He was in the Royal Flying Corps. Do you have any recruitment posters relating to the Corps that would have enticed him to join up at such a young age.
 
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