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1010 Documents Considering the Evidence:

Ideologies of the Axis Powers E ven more than the Great War of 1914–1918, the Second World War was a conﬂict of ideas and ideologies as well as a struggle of nations and armies.

Much of the world was immensely grateful that the defeat of Italy, Germany, and Japan discredited the ideas that underlay those regimes. Yet students of history need to examine these ideas, however repellant they may be, to under- stand the circumstances in which they arose and to assess their consequences.

Described variously as fascist, authoritarian, right-wing, or radically nationalist, the ideologies of the Axis powers differed in tone and emphasis. But they shared a repudiation of mainstream Western liberalism, born of the Enlightenment, as well as an intense hatred of Marxist communism.The three documents that follow provide an opportunity to deﬁne their common features and to distin- guish among them. Document 21.1 Mussolini on Fascism In 1932, after ten years in power, the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini wrote a short article for an Italian encyclopedia outlining the political and social ideas that informed the regime that he headed. It was an effort to pro- vide some philosophical coherence for the various measures and policies that had characterized the ﬁrst decade of his rule. (See pp.988–90for background on Italian fascism.) ■ To what ideas and historical circumstances is Mussolini reacting in this document? ■ What is his criticism of paciﬁsm, socialism, democracy, and liberalism? ■ How does Mussolini understand the state? What is its relationship to individual citizens? ■ Why might these ideas have been attractive to many in Italy in the 1920s and 1930s? 1011 considering the evidence/ documents: ideologies of the axis powers Benito Mussolini The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism 1933 A bove all, Fascism...believes neither in the pos- sibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Paciﬁsm — born of a re- nunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacriﬁce. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it....This anti-Paciﬁst spirit is carried by Fascism even into the life of the individual;...it is the education to combat, the acceptation of the risks which combat implies, and a new way of life for Italy.Thus the Fascist...conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and full, lived for oneself, but above all for others — those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after....

Fascism repudiates any universal embrace, and in order to live worthily in the community of civ- ilized peoples watches its contemporaries with vig- ilant eyes....

Such a conception of Life makes Fascism the complete opposite of . . . Marxian Socialism, the ma- terialist conception of history; according to which the history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conﬂict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and develop- ment in the means and instruments of production....

Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions inﬂuenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect....It follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class war is also denied....And above all Fascism de- nies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....Fascism repudi- ates the conception of “economic” happiness, to be realized by Socialism....Fascism denies the valid- ity of the equation, well-being happiness, whichwould reduce men to the level of animals, caring for one thing only — to be fat and well-fed and would thus degrade humanity to a purely physical existence.

After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole com- plex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it....Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it afﬁrms the immut- able, beneﬁcial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage. The democratic regime may be deﬁned as from time to time giving the people the illusion of sovereignty, while the real effective sov- ereignty lies in the hands of other concealed and irresponsible forces....

The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State....

[T]he Fascist State is itself conscious, and has itself a will and a personality....For us Fascists, the State is not merely a guardian, preoccupied solely with the duty of assuring the personal safety of the citizens; nor is it an organization with purely material aims, such as to guarantee a certain level of well-being and peaceful conditions of life....The State, as conceived of and as created by Fascism, is a spiritual and moral fact in itself....The State is the guarantor of secu- rity, both internal and external, but it is also the cus- todian and transmitter of the spirit of the people, as it has grown up through the centuries in language, in customs and in faith....[I]t represents the im- manent spirit of the nation....It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission, and welds them into unity....It leads men from primitive tribal life to that highest expression of human power which is Empire. Source: Benito Mussolini,The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism, translated by Jane Soames (London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press,1933). 1012 chapter21/ the collapse and recovery of europe, 1914–1970s [T]he Fascist State. . . is not reactionary, but rev- olutionary, in that it anticipates the solution of the universal political problems which elsewhere have to be settled in the political ﬁeld by the rivalry of par- ties, the excessive power of the Parliamentary regime and the irresponsibility of political assemblies; while it meets the problems of the economic ﬁeld by a system of syndicalism°. . . and in the moral ﬁeld en- forces order, discipline, and obedience to that which is the determined moral code of the country. Fas- cism desires the State to be a strong and organic body, at the same time reposing upon broad and popular support....The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufﬁcient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harm- ful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone.The Fascist State is not indifferent to the fact of religion in general, or to that particularand positive faith which is Italian Catholicism. The State professes no theology, but a morality, and in the Fascist State religion is considered as one of the deep- est manifestations of the spirit of man, thus it is not only respected but defended and protected.

For Fascism the growth of Empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifes- tation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of deca- dence. Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; any renunciation is a sign of decay and of death.

Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the aspirations of a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude. But Empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacriﬁce:

this fact explains...the necessarily severe measures which must be taken against those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement of Italy in the twentieth century. . . for never before has the nation stood more in need of authority, of direction, and of order. ° syndicalism:federations of trade unions under state direction. Document 21.2 Hitler on Nazism Unlike Mussolini, Adolph Hitler published his political views well before he came to power. Born in Austria, Hitler absorbed a radical form of German nationalism, which he retained as a profoundly disillusioned veteran of World War I. In 1919, he joined a very small extremist group called the German Work- ers Party, where he rose quickly to a dominant role based on his powerful ora- torical abilities. Inspired by Mussolini’s recent victory in Italy, Hitler launched in 1923an unsuccessful armed uprising in Munich for which he was arrested and imprisoned. During his brief stay in prison (less than a year), he wrote Mein Kampf(My Struggle), part autobiography and part an exposition of his political and social philosophy. Armed with these ideas, Hitler assumed the leadership of Germany in 1933(see pp.990–93).

■ What larger patterns in European thinking does Hitler’s book reﬂect and what elements of European thought does he reject? Consider in particular his use of social Darwinism, then an idea with wide popularity in Europe. 1013 considering the evidence/ documents: ideologies of the axis powers ■ How does Hitler distinguish between Aryans and Jews? How does he understand the role of race in human affairs? ■ What kind of political system does Hitler advocate? ■ What goals for Germany — both domestic and foreign — did Hitler set forth in Mein Kampf? ■ What aspects of Hitler’s thinking might have had wide appeal in Germany during the 1930s? ■ How do you think Mussolini and Hitler might have responded to each other’s ideas? Adolph Hitler Mein Kampf (My Struggle) 1925‒1926 Nation and Race There are some truths which are so obvious that for this very reason they are not seen or at least not rec- ognized by ordinary people....Every animal mates only with a member of the same species....Any crossing of two beings not at exactly the same level produces a medium between the level of the two parents....Such mating is contrary to the will of Na- ture for a higher breeding of all life....The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacriﬁcing his own greatness. Only the born weak- ling can view this as cruel...,for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of or- ganic living beings would be unthinkable.

In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the female grants the right or opportunity to propagate only to the health- iest....No more than Nature desires the mating of weaker with stronger individuals, even less does she desire the blending of a higher with a lower race, since, if she did, her whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be ruined with one blow....All great cultures of thepast perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.

Those who want to live, let them ﬁght, and those who do not want to ﬁght in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live....

All the human culture, all the results of art, sci- ence, and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan....[H]e alone was the founder of all higher humanity, therefore representing the prototype of all that we understand by the word “man.” He is the Prometheus of mankind from whose bright forehead the divine spark of genius has sprung at all times....

Exclude him, and perhaps after a few thousand years darkness will again descend on the earth, human culture will pass, and the world turn to a desert.

All who are not of good race in this world are chaff.

The mightiest counterpart to the Aryan is rep- resented by the Jew....Since the Jew...was never in possession of a culture of his own, the foundations of his intellectual work were always provided by oth- ers. His intellect at all times developed through the cultural world surrounding him....

He lacks completely the most essential require- ment for a cultured people, the idealistic attitude.

In the Jewish people the will to self-sacriﬁce does not go beyond the individual’s naked instinct of Source: Adolph Hitler,Mein Kampf(originally published 1925–26). 1014 chapter21/ the collapse and recovery of europe, 1914–1970s self-preservation.Their apparently great sense of soli- darity is based on the very primitive herd instinct that is seen in many other living creatures in this world....[T]he Jew is led by nothing but the naked egoism of the individual.

With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he deﬁles with his blood, thus stealing her from her people. With every means he tries to de- stroy the racial foundations of the people he has set out to subjugate....And so he tries systematically to lower the racial level by a continuous poisoning of individuals. And in politics he begins to replace the idea of democracy by the dictatorship of the prole- tariat. In the organized mass of Marxism he has found the weapon which lets him...subjugate and govern the peoples with a dictatorial and brutal ﬁst.

In economics he undermines the states until the social enterprises which have become unproﬁtable are taken from the state and subjected to his ﬁnancial control.

In the political ﬁeld he refuses the state the means for its self-preservation, destroys the founda- tions of all national self-maintenance and defense, destroys faith in the leadership, scoffs at its history and past, and drags everything that is truly great into the gutter.

Culturally he contaminates art, literature, the the- ater, makes a mockery of natural feeling, overthrows all concepts of beauty and sublimity, of the noble and the good, and instead drags men down into the sphere of his own base nature. Religion is ridiculed, ethics and morality represented as outmoded, until the last props of a nation in its struggle for existence in this world have fallen.

If we pass all the causes of the German collapse [defeat in World War I] in review, the ultimate and most decisive remains the failure to recognize the racial problem and especially the Jewish menace....

The lost purity of the blood alone destroys inner happiness forever, plunges man into the abyss for all time, and the consequences can never more be elim- inated from body and spirit....All really signiﬁcant symptoms of decay of the pre-War period can in the last analysis be reduced to racial causes.The State The State is only a means to an end....Above all, it must preserve the existence of the race....We, as Aryans, can consider the State only as the living organism of a people, an organism which does not merely maintain the existence of a people, but func- tions in such a way as to lead its people to a position of supreme liberty by the progressive development of the intellectual and cultural faculties.

We National Socialists know that in holding these views we take up a revolutionary stand in the world of today and that we are branded as revolutionaries....

As a State the German Reich shall include all Germans. Its task is not only to gather in and fos- ter the most valuable sections of our people but to lead them slowly and surely to a dominant position in the world....It will be the task of the People’s State to make the race the centre of the life of the community. It must make sure that the purity of the racial strain will be preserved....Those who are phys- ically and mentally unhealthy and unﬁt must not per- petuate their own suffering in the bodies of their children....

One thing is certain: our world is facing a great revolution. The only question is whether the out- come will be propitious for the Aryan portion of mankind or whether the everlasting Jew will proﬁt by it. By educating the young generation along the right lines, the People’s State will have to see to it that a generation of mankind is formed which will be adequate to this supreme combat that will decide the destinies of the world....

[T]he People’s State must mercilessly expurgate . . .

the parliamentarian principle, according to which decisive power through the majority vote is invested in the multitude. Personal responsibility must be sub- stituted in its stead....The best constitution and the best form of government is that which makes it quite natural for the best brains to reach a position of dom- inant importance and inﬂuence in the community....

Genius of an extraordinary stamp is not to be judged by normal standards whereby we judge other men.

There are no decisions made by the majority vote, but only by responsible persons. And the word “council” is once more restored to its original mean- 1015 considering the evidence/ documents: ideologies of the axis powers ing. Every man in a position of responsibility will have councilors at his side, but the decision is made by that individual person alone....

[T]he principle of parliamentarian democracy, whereby decisions are enacted through the major- ity vote, has not always ruled the world. On the con- trary, we ﬁnd it prevalent only during short periods of history, and those have always been periods of decline in nations and States....

Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy [W]e National Socialists must hold unﬂinchingly to our aim in foreign policy, namely, to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth....If we speak of soil in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states....

The National Socialist movement must strive to eliminate the disproportion between our populationand our area — viewing this latter as a source of food as well as a basis for power politics — between our historical past and the hopelessness of our present impotence. And in this it must remain aware that we, as guardians of the highest humanity on this earth, are bound by the highest obligation, and the more it strives to bring the German people to racial awareness...,the more it will be able to meet this obligation....

State boundaries are made by man and changed by man....And in this case, right lies in this strength alone....Just as our ancestors did not receive the soil on which we live today as a gift from Heaven, but had to ﬁght for it at the risk of their lives, in the future no folkish grace will win soil for us...but only the might of a victorious sword....

Never forget that the most sacred right on this earth is a man’s right to have earth to till with his own hands, and the most sacred sacriﬁce the blood that a man sheds for this earth. Document 21.3 The Japanese Way In the Japanese language the word kokutaiis an evocative term that refers to the national essence or the fundamental character of the Japanese nation and people. Drawing both on long-established understandings and on recently developed nationalist ideas, the Ministry of Education in 1937published a small volume, widely distributed in schools and homes throughout the coun- try, entitled the Kokutai No Hongi(Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan). That text, excerpted in Document 21.3, deﬁned the uniqueness of Japan and articulated the philosophical foundation of its authoritarian regime.

(See pp.993–96for the background to this document.) When the Americans occupied a defeated and devastated Japan in 1945, they forbade the further dis- tribution of the book.

■ According to Cardinal Principles, what was kokutai? How did the document deﬁne the national essence of Japan? How did its authors compare Japan to the West? ■ What was the ideal role of the individual in Japanese society? ■ What were the major tasks confronting Japan in the 1930s, according to the document? 1016 chapter21/ the collapse and recovery of europe, 1914–1970s ■ How might this document have been used to justify Japan’s military and territorial expansion? ■ Why do you think the American occupation authorities banned the document? ■ What aspects of this document might Hitler have viewed with sympathy, and what parts of it might he have found distasteful or offensive? Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan 1937 T he various ideological and social evils of present- day Japan are the result of ignoring the funda- mental and running after the trivial, of lack of judgment, and a failure to digest things thoroughly; and this is due to the fact that since the days of Meiji so many aspects of European and American culture, systems, and learning, have been imported, and that, too rapidly. As a matter of fact, the foreign ideologies imported into our country are in the main ideol- ogies of the [European] Enlightenment that have come down from the eighteenth century, or exten- sions of them. The views of the world and of life that form the basis of these ideologies...lay the high- est value on, and assert the liberty and equality of, individuals....

We have already witnessed the boundless Im- perial virtues.Wherever this Imperial virtue of com- passion radiates, the Way for the subjects naturally becomes clear.The Way of the subjects exists where the entire nation serves the Emperor united in mind....That is, we by nature serve the Emperor and walk the Way of the Empire....

We subjects are intrinsically quite different from the so-called citizens of the Occidental countries....

When citizens who are conglomerations of sep- arate individuals independent of each other give sup- port to a ruler,...there exists no deep foundation between ruler and citizen to unite them. However, the relationship between the Emperor and his sub-jects arises from the same fountainhead, and has pros- pered ever since the founding of the nation as one in essence....

Our country is established with the Emperor....

For this reason, to serve the Emperor and to receive the Emperor’s great august Will as one’s own is the rationale of making our historical “life” live in the present....

Loyalty means to reverence the Emperor as [our] pivot and to follow him implicitly....Hence, offer- ing our lives for the sake of the Emperor does not mean so-called self-sacriﬁce, but the casting aside of our little selves to live under his august grace and the enhancing of the genuine life of the people of a State....An individual is an existence belonging to the State and her history, which forms the basis of his origin, and is fundamentally one body with it....

We must sweep aside the corruption of the spirit and the clouding of knowledge that arises from set- ting up one’s “self ” and from being taken up with one’s “self ” and return to a pure and clear state of mind that belongs intrinsically to us as subjects, and thereby fathom the great principle loyalty....

Indeed, loyalty is our fundamental Way as subject, and is the basis of our national morality. Through loyalty are we become Japanese subjects; in loyalty do we obtain life and herein do we ﬁnd the source of all morality....

In our country ﬁlial piety is a Way of the highest importance. Filial piety originates with one’s family as its basis, and in its larger sense has the nation for its foundation....

Our country is a great family nation, and the Imperial Household is the head family of the sub- Source: J. O. Gauntlett, trans., and R. K. Hall, ed., Kokutai No Hongi(Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949),53–183. 1017 considering the evidence/ documents: ideologies of the axis powers jects and the nucleus of national life. The subjects revere the Imperial Household, which is the head family, with the tender esteem they have for their ancestors; and the Emperor loves his subjects as his very own....

When we trace the marks of the facts of the founding of our country and the progress of our history, what we always find there is the spirit of harmony....The spirit of harmony is built upon the concord of all things. When people determinedly count themselves as masters and assert their egos, there is nothing but contradictions and the setting of one against the other; and harmony is not begotten....That is, a society of individualism is one of the clashes between [masses of ] people . . .

and all history may be looked upon as one of class wars....

And this, this harmony is clearly seen in our nation’s martial spirit. Our nation is one that holds bushido° in high regard, and there are shrines deify- ing warlike spirits....Bushido may be cited as show- ing an outstanding characteristic of our national morality....That is to say, though a sense of obliga- tion binds master and servant, this has developed in a spirit of self-effacement and meeting death with a perfect calmness. In this, it was not that death was made light of so much as that many tempered him- self to death and in a true sense regarded it with esteem. In effect, man tried to fulﬁll true life by the way of death....To put it in a nutshell, while the strong points of Occidental learning and concepts lie in their ana- lytical and intellectual qualities, the characteristics of Oriental learning and concepts lie in their intuitive and aesthetic qualities.These are natural tendencies that arise through racial and historical differences; and when we compare them with our national spir- its, concepts, or mode of living, we cannot help rec- ognizing further great and fundamental differences.

Our nation has in the past imported, assimilated, and sublimated Chinese and Indian ideologies, and has therewith supported the Imperial Way, making pos- sible the establishment of an original culture based on her national polity....

Since the Meijirestoration our nation has adapted the good elements of the advanced education seen among European and American nations, and has ex- erted efforts to set up an educational system and ma- terials for teaching. The nation has also assimilated on a wide scale the scholarship of the West, not only in the ﬁelds of natural science, but of the mental sci- ences, and has thus striven to see progress made in our scholastic pursuits and to make education more popular....

However, at the same time, through the inﬁltra- tion of individualistic concepts, both scholastic pur- suits and education have tended to be taken up with a world in which the intellect alone mattered....

In order to correct these tendencies, the only course open to us is to clarify the true nature of our national polity, which is at the very source of our education, and to strive to clear up individualistic and abstract ideas.

° bushido:the way of the warrior. Using the Evidence:

Ideologies of the Axis Powers 1. Making comparisons:What similar emphases can you ﬁnd in these three documents? What differences can you identify? Consider especially the relationship of individuals and the state.

2. Criticizing the West:In what ways did Mussolini, Hitler, and the authors of Cardinal Principlesﬁnd fault with mainstream Western societies and their political and social values? 1018 chapter21/ the collapse and recovery of europe, 1914–1970s 3. Considering ideas and circumstances:From what concrete conditions did the ideas expressed in these documents arise? Why did they achieve such widespread popularity? You might even consider using these docu- ments to make the case in favor of fascist or authoritarian government from the viewpoint of the 1930s.

4. Considering ideas and action:To what extent did the ideas articulated in these documents ﬁnd expression in particular actions or policies of political authorities?

5. Noticing continuity and change:To what extent were the ideas in these documents new and revolutionary? In what respects did they draw on long- standing traditions in their societies? In what ways did they embrace mod- ern life and what aspects of it did they reject? Have these ideas been com- pletely discredited or do they retain some resonance in contemporary political discourse? 1019 Visual Sources Considering the Evidence:

Propaganda and Critique in World War I M ore than any other conﬂict before it,World War I was represented visu- ally and publically in many ways. Newspapers competed to print the most sensational pictures, many taken by soldiers themselves using handheld cameras.The war also offered a highly popular theme for the new technology of cinema and the emerging motion picture industry. One of the most perva- sive uses of art and artists involved the proliﬁc creation, under government aus- pices, of posters designed to generate public support for the war. Independent artists, many of whom participated in the war, tried to depict its horror and devastation, both during the conﬂict and after it ﬁnally ended.The ﬁrst three visual sources illustrate the ofﬁcial propaganda dimension of the war’s repre- sentation, while the ﬁnal two provide examples of how that enormous con- ﬂict and its outcomes were subjected to artistic scrutiny.

The “total” character of World War I ensured that women would be mo- bilized for the struggle in many ways. In Russia, after the revolution of early 1917, a number of all-female combat units were created to shame or inspire the war-weary male soldiers into greater action. Some British women even pre- sented men not in uniform with a white feather, symbolizing cowardice, to en- courage them to enlist. More widely, women were recruited into war-related industries to replace the men who were away ﬁghting, as the British poster on page 982indicates. American women were strongly encouraged to save food, especially wheat, to support the war effort. Posters also gave the great struggle a feminine face.Visual Source 21.1is a 1917U.S. poster meant to encourage people to buy Liberty Bonds, which raised money for the war effort and dem- onstrated the buyer’s patriotism. ■ How would you describe the posture of the woman in this poster?

What image of a woman does it seek to convey? ■ What message does the backdrop of the poster communicate? Notice the church and city in ﬂames. ■ In appealing for sacriﬁce or public support in time of war, why might a feminine image be more effective than a masculine image? ■ Compare this poster with the British one shown on page 982in this chapter. What different message about the role of women does this image convey? To what kind of audience did each of these posters appeal? 1020 chapter21/ the collapse and recovery of europe, 1914–1970s Among the chief uses of wartime propaganda posters was to portray the enemy in the most despicable terms. German posters, for example, often depicted the country’s enemies as animals or misbehaving children, suggest- ing that they were something less than fully human. They usually showed Russians as alcoholics.Visual Source 21.2is a French poster from around 1915. Visual Source 21.1Women and the War (Library of Congress, LC-USZCA-9462) 1021 considering the evidence/ visual sources: propaganda and critique in world war i It pictures Germany as Thor, an ancient pagan Germanic god of thunder, who had been turned into a demonic ﬁgure as Christianity took hold in Europe.

The caption at the top of the image reads: “The god Thor — the most bar- baric of the barbarian divinities of old Germany.” ■ What does the poster convey by presenting Germany as Thor? ■ Note the Prussian imperial eagle standing on a bomb. What impression of German goals does that convey? ■ How do you understand the religious imagery of this French print?

Notice Thor preparing to destroy a church with his hammer as well as the broken cross between his feet at the bottom. ■ To whom do you think such images were directed and for what purpose?

A distinctive feature of World War I was the extensive use of troops drawn from the colonies of the contending powers. Many thousands of African and Asian men took part in that struggle, both in their homelands and in Europe.

The French, for example, were initially reluctant to employ colonial troops, fear- ing to arm black men and perhaps uncertain of their loyalty. But the desperate need for manpower ﬁnally overcame these reservations, and France recruited large numbers of men from its North and West African colonies as well as from Southeast Asia. Some 71,0 0 0French colonial soldiers died in the war.Visual Source 21.3shows a French wartime poster; the French translates as “Day of the African Army and Colonial Troops.” ■ What image of African soldiers does the poster suggest? How might this image be at variance with that of earlier European stereotypes of their African subjects? ■ What is conveyed by the juxtaposition of an African soldier and his French counterpart ﬁghting together? ■ Why might the French have set aside a special day to honor colonial troops? ■ How might the experience of ﬁghting in Europe have affected the outlook of a West African soldier?

The destructiveness of the Great War was almost beyond the imagination of contemporary Europeans. Among its most notable and horriﬁc features was the long period of trench warfare, in which lines of entrenched men, often not far apart, periodically went “over the top,” only to gain a few yards of bloody ground before being thrown back with enormous causalities.Visual Source 21.4 shows a particular instance of this process by the British painter John Nash (1893–1977), who was an ofﬁcial war artist. Nash was also part of an eighty- man British unit that was sent over the top in late 1917and one of only twelve 1022 Visual Source 21.2Deﬁning the Enemy (The Art Archive) 1023 Visual Source 21.3War and the Colonies (Private collection/Barbara Singer/The Bridgeman Art Library 1024 chapter21/ the collapse and recovery of europe, 1914–1970s survivors of that attack. Three months later he painted this haunting picture from his memory of that experience.

■ What posture toward the war does this image convey? Do you think Nash’s military superiors were pleased by the painting? ■ How does the painting portray the attitude of the soldiers? ■ What does war do to human beings? What answer to this question does this image suggest? ■ How might you imagine the response of those who created the ﬁrst three images to John Nash and this portrayal of trench warfare?

Among the many outcomes of the Great War was the presence in every European country of disillusioned, maimed, and disﬁgured veterans, many of them literally “men without faces.” For some intellectuals and artists, they represented the fundamentally ﬂawed civilization that had given rise to such carnage. Often neglected or overlooked, such men were reminders of a terrible past that others wanted to forget. The German artist Otto Dix (1891–1969), who served in his country’s military forces throughout the war and was seri- ously wounded, portrayed this situation in a 1920painting called Prague Street (Visual Source 21.5). In 1924, he joined with other artists to mount an exhibi- tion entitled No More War. His antiwar activism later earned Dix the enmity of the Hitler regime, which ﬁred him from his academic position and destroyed some of his paintings. Artistically, Dix worked in a style known as the “new objectivity,” which focused heavily on the horrendous outcomes of the war.

It deliberately included subject matter that was upsetting and even ugly, and it made little attempt to create a uniﬁed image, preferring to present discon- nected “particles of experience.” ■ How does the painting describe the situation of the veterans? ■ On the left, the arm of a wealthy man drops a coin into the outstretched hand of a maimed veteran, while on the right, a well-dressed woman in a pink dress and high heels walks by with her dog. What do these features add to the portrayal of the plight of the veterans? ■ Notice the leaﬂet on the skateboard of the legless cripple at the bottom.

It reads “Juden raus”( Jews out).” What does this suggest about the political views of these veterans? Keep in mind that Hitler, although not maimed, was a disillusioned veteran of World War I, as were many of his early followers. ■ What do the images in the store windows suggest? ■ What commentary does this painting make on German society after the country’s defeat in World War I? How does it foreshadow what was to come? 1025 Visual Source 21.4The Battleﬁeld (Imperial War Museum, London/The Bridgeman Art Library) 1026 Visual Source 21.5The Aftermath of War (Kunstmuseum-Stuttgart © 2010 Artist’s Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bildkunst, Bonn) 1027 considering the evidence/ visual sources: propaganda and critique in world war i Using the Evidence:

Propaganda and Critique in World War I 1. Describing the war:Based on these visual sources, how would you deﬁne the novel or distinctive features of World War I compared to earlier European conﬂicts?

2. Considering war and progress:How do you think Otto Dix and John Nash might have responded to the ideas of Condorcet contained in Document 16.2, pages 752–54?

3. Images as propaganda and criticism:This selection of visual sources contains a mix of those that express essentially government-sponsored messages and those that convey the outlook of individual artists.What ideas about the war did governments seek to inculcate in their citizens? How do the paintings of John Nash and Otto Dix respond to those ideas?

4. Seeking further evidence:What other kinds of visual sources would be useful in constructing a visual history of World War I?