Wellington House and British Propaganda in an Original Document of 1916

Abstract

Our study is about the way Wellington House structured its activity, means and methods used in building propaganda in the world. Wellington House was the secret department of British propaganda during World War I, with the mission to create a positive image of the British Empire in the world, and also to counteract the propagandistic actions of the Central Powers, especially of Germany. There is no Romanian study about the activity of Wellington House. Our study is based on an original document found in National Historical Central Archives in Bucharest. The document shows the unofficial methods of propaganda used by the British government during World War I and it is dated September 1916. It is a very consistent report (112 pp.), written by Wellington House and it is addressed to the Foreign Office. The complete title of the document is Third Report on the Work Conducted for the Government at Wellington House. In order to understand the propagandistic methods that Wellington House used, we took into account to examples: USA, Greece, Italy and Romania. Those four countries, in the moment of writing the report, represented important strategically objectives for Great Britain and Entente. Our study demonstrates the fact that Great Britain used very sharp official and unofficial propagandistic methods with a double aim: to annihilate the German influence and to create a favorable stream for the four countries to join Entente into the war.