Conscripting Youth: Children and the Posters of the Great War

Advertisers know that children can sell just about anything.  A grinning cherub armed with an endearing catch-phrase is often used to melt our hearts and open our pocketbooks.  It is no surprise, then, that during the Great War, images of children were conscripted to promote the war effort in many Allied countries.  It was not just the cute appeal of the innocent child, however, that was used to drum up money for war bonds or recruit men to the regiments. In many cases, the strong social bonds of family expectations were used to put pressure on citizens as family members.

As this British poster of the melancholy man shows, fathers were targeted by posters which hoped to recruit men to to the ranks.  Here it is the social pressure of participating in the major event of the generation that is used to coerce fathers into enlistment.  The girl on his knee points to a history book and inquires what her father's role was in this epic adventure.  One can only imagine the shame that the son may have endured in learning his father had stayed at home, missing out on the derring-do of the living-room floor campaigns of his heroic toy soldiers.

Compassion for children as family members was often used to attempt to convince citizens to contribute to war bonds.  A poster sponsored by Curtiss Airplanes has a child praying for a brother overseas.  The consoling mother in this domestic scene helps the youth send hopeful prayers for their soldier's safe return.  The strong coloured vertical lines from the American flag's bars are contrasted with the soft oval portrait.  In a case of patriotic product placement, in lieu of the flag's stars, the Curtis company has inserted its own biplanes.  If only the reader contributes to war savings stamps, the idyllic family will be reunited.

Children were also used symbolically as the youth of a nation. The national siblings of Australia and England are here portrayed as innocent friends with hands clasped.  The clean-handed childhood chums, clad in angelic white over the vibrant yellow seem to suggest that by contributing to the war effort, one would be on the side of purity and right.  Again it is the family member away at war that is used to implore contributions from the public.  Here the message is more explicitly aggressive.  Instead of focussing on bringing the family together again, in this case War loan bonds will help "daddy" win the war.

Children as targets themselves were used by the Red Cross to encourage contributions to their humanitarian efforts.  Here a stoic yet compassionate nurse looms over the destitute French orphans.  The drab outfits of the French citizens and the deep orange of the fire-wracked city are offset by the vulnerability of the infant's pink attire. Again the concept of family is used in the emphasis of motherless and fatherless suffering.


Library and Archives Canada has a vast online archive of war posters, from which all the above images came.

Cowboys, Indians, and Mountain-men: German Perceptions of the Canadian Soldier

Beaverbrook (left) during the Great War.  LAC.

During the Great War, Canadian soldier's fought well due to their rugged backwoods perseverance, and stalwart frontier pluck.  Or at least so Sir Max Aitken, (Lord Beaverbrook to you), would have the readers of his publications in the Canadian War Records Office believe.  Tim Cook notes in Clio's Warriors that "Beaverbrook [and his CWRO officers] constructed an image of the Canadian soldier reflecting his own ideals. Canadians were depicted as a northern race of rugged civilian-soldiers who were separate from their British cousins." (Cook, 38)

Such perceptions of the frontier soldier had survived the interwar years.  It appears that the image of the Canadian soldier as a vigorous worker of the hinterlands had at times a very western flavour. An 9 June 1944, intelligence summary of the I Canadian Corps in Italy noted,

"Enemy PW recently interrogated in Italy gave the following comparisons of the fighting ability of their adversaries:

Canadians:Very good 'cowboy' manner. Tough, good hand-to-hand fighter, very fair in combat.

English: do not like hand-to-hand fighting.

Americans: Avoid hand-to-hand combat."

Bill McAndrew noted that the German assessment of Canadian soldiers was one of excellent field-craft:
He writes that the Germans claimed, “in fieldcraft (Indianerkrieg) superior to our own troops. Very mobile at night, surprise break-ins, clever infiltrations at night with small groups between our strong points.” (McAndrew, 56)

Vokes speaks to PPCLI, Riccione, Italy, 13 November 1944. LAC.

National pride was used to drum up combat motivation  by Major-General Chris Vokes who urged the troops to

"remember that the German is a worthy opponent, but the German isn't born who can stand up to Canadian Infantry imbued with the will to close

and destroy him." 

That the Canadians had been used in Italy as the break-in formation for the stalled offensive on the Adriatic, as well as through the Hitler Line, meant that German command began to form its own opinions of the Canadian's role in the Campaign.  The presence of Canadians in the line became a portent that a major assault was under way.  Kesselring is reported to have noted upon reports of the Canadians moving towards the Adriatic before the battle of the Gothic Line:  "if they really are Canadians....then it will be a true major operation." (McAndrew, 118)

It would be hard to say to what extent the image of the Canadian soldier crafted by Beaverbrook in the Great War influenced foreign conceptions in the Second World War.  Certainly some of this reputation came from the actions of Canadian formations in both conflicts.  The way that they were characterized as cowboys, Indians or mountain-men, however, suggests that beyond military effectiveness there were cultural factors at play in constructing the ideal of the Canadian soldier.

"NOTES ON ACTIVITIES, 1 CDN CORPS." Week ending 19 Oct 44. (Historical Section)
"CMHQ [Canadian Military headquarters] reports - Ops and admn [Operations and administration] -1 Cdn [1st Canadian] Corps." Canadian Military Headquarters London, 1939-1947. Library and Archives Canada. RG24, C-2, Volume 12306. Reel T17907.

Cook, Tim. Clio’s warriors Canadian historians and the writing of the world wars. Vancouver :: UBC Press, 2006.

McAndrew, Bill. Canadians and the Italian Campaign: 1943-1945. Montréal: Art Global, 1996

Jewish Ideals of Canada during the Holocaust

A passage from Frances Swyripa's recent work on ethno-religious identity and the Canadian prairies offers insight into the prevailing European concept of Canada as a land of wealth in the 1940s.  Swyripa writes:


"CANADA. That Was The Name Prisoners in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz gave to the barracks holding the belongings stripped from new arrivals. Jews from the ghettos and villages of eastern Europe, “they associated the sheer amount of the loot and its mind-boggling value with the riches [the country] symbolized.”  it was a place that most of these victims of the unfolding Holocaust would never see, but it existed in their imagination and dreams. "

Goods are sorted in Kanada yard.  Photo: Holocaust Research Project.

The question may be, whether or not Jews in the concentration camp were actually responsible for naming Kanada warehouse.  It seems more plausible that their German captors named the building, in which case the notion of Canada as land of plenty may be placed within the Nazi mind.

Remains of Kanada Warehouse. UMCHGS.

The remains of Kanada warehouse can still be seen in Auschwitz today.  The University of Minnesota Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, features some information and photographs about the site.

Swyripa, Frances. Storied Landscapes: Ethno-Religious Identity and the Canadian Prairies.
Winnipeg, MB, CAN: University of Manitoba Press, 2010. p 94.