Propaganda, 1918 Style

In September 1918, two months before the Armistice that brought World War I to its weary end, Everybody's Magazine (now defunct) published an article by a Texas-born newspaperman and novelist, Eugene P. Lyle Jr., predicting World War II. Laid in the future like one of H. G. Wells's fantasies, it was called The War of 1938. Lyle's story was a forthright piece of propaganda. His object in The War of 1038 was to discourage talk of a negotiated peace, persuade the Allies to crush Germany altogether.

The American Defense Society, Inc. immediately reprinted Lyle's piece as a pamphlet, distributed 50,000 copies. The London Daily Mail published it in Britain, sent thousands of copies to soldiers in the trenches. Then came Armistice, and in the delirium of that hour The War of 1038 was forgotten.

Last week, in a condensed version, it was revived by the editors of Youth Today, a magazine digest for adolescents. Newly titled The War That Was to Come, it was attributed by the editors to "an English writer." The interesting question that it raised by implication: Were 1918's generation suckers for succumbing to their own propaganda?

Peace. Wrote Author Lyle, before the Armistice: "Back in 1918 peace as an actual fact astounded the world hardly less than the outbreak of the war. . . . On the battlefield we were winning. . . . It was the moment that all German effort during three years had played for ...Germany kept none of her colonies. . . . In the matter of armament she proved as tractable, and for as good a reason. . . . Disarmed, she had naught to fear from democracies disarmed also. . . ."

Author Lyle foresaw "that Germany would try to become self-sufficient in order to head off the effects of a blockade in World War II. "Close scientific tab was kept on every garbage pail. War substitutes . . . were continued. . . ." Other Lyle predictions: ^ German mastery of the art of propaganda.

SOUTHERN THEATRE

Italy's portion of the Axis war on Great Britain continued last week to simmer on the back of the Mediterranean stove, evidently waiting for the Vienna chefs to season their Balkan stew (see p. 24), for cooler weather in the Egyptian desert, for the end of the rains in Ethiopia, for Germany to hamstring the British at home or join in a Southern Theatre attack. To keep the pot respectably warm, the Italian Air Force performed a few missions:

>For the umpteenth time made passes at Malta (out of which it has signally

>A Russian-German trade pact.

>Nazi scorn of democracy ("Only autocracy was fit to control the world").

>Hitler's policy of terror.

For 15 years, wrote Prophet Lyle, "these things went on with scarcely a ripple on the serene surface of world affairs. . . . Then ... in cold blood the German Government set about manufacturing provocation for the attack. . . . Suddenly the world was asked to believe that we were war-mad aggressors wantonly attacking an unprepared and peace-loving Fatherland. . . . Then--the German ultimatum! . . .

"Millions ravaged Belgium and France. Other millions obliterated Rumania. . . . Over England, night-flying air fleets . . . rained abominations from Harwich to Birmingham. Thousands of transport planes landed [the invaders] near Dover. ... As I write this, Dover is besieged. . . . The thing was decided back in 1918, with the war that failed of a decision. . . ."

Last week, in a big old house in San Diego, white-haired Eugene Lyle, now 66, sat listening to radio reports of the war he had awaited since 1918. Asked who will be Europe's master in 1960, Prophet Lyle saw too many uncertainties ahead. Of one thing only was he positive: "The combatants will still be recovering from the exhaustion, economic and spiritual, of 1940."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.