Everybody’s Business: Film, Food and Victory in the First World War

Abstract

One month after the outbreak of the Second World War, the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign was introduced in Britain in an attempt to grow more food to feed a nation in conflict, at which time the government persuaded people on the Home Front to convert their gardens into allotments in order to cultivate vegetables. Correspondingly, strategies were also created to encourage farmers to transform their land as part of the war effort. The campaign for the production of food not only concerned the need to educate in order to provide for the country, but also provided an impetus for community and patriotism. Outlining the need for home-grown products and productive cultivation of the landscape, Dig for Victory in the Second World War was a scheme that was professional from the outset involving the screening of numerous newsreels and documentaries in its implementation. That this plan was mobilised at such short notice owes a debt to the First World War, a period that witnessed the birth of film as official propaganda. However, the main disparity between the two film campaigns lies in their strategies for dealing with the populace. The Second World War was deemed ‘the People’s War,’ using the working class as central protagonists with the aim of disregarding class difference. Alternatively, the First World War deployed upper-and middle-class characters in fiction films in order to educate. These practices were put into operation despite the fact that the cinema audience during this period was predominantly comprised of those fighting starvation, and indeed those actually ‘digging for victory.’ This article analyses the strategies inaugurated in the cinematic food campaign in the First World War in both newsreels and fiction film, and traces a trajectory to the Dig for Victory campaign in the Second World War.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See Richard Farmer, The Food Companions (Manchester, 2011).

2. See Angus Calder, The People’s War (St Albans, 1971).

3. Other significant Home Front campaigns aimed at British civilians during the war focused on recruitment. In the government-sponsored film, Mrs John Bull Prepared (1918), the central character Mr Smith is a prosperous businessman who refuses to let his son volunteer and his two daughters participate in war work. Unlike the campaign for the production of food however, this crusade was aimed largely at the upper and middle classes, as the working class were required for industry. Over half of the men who reported for service were comprised of commercial, clerical and professional occupations and posters such as Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War? (1915) and Go! It’s your duty lad! (1915) used emotional blackmail to urge men to enlist with the British Army. See Adrian Gregory, The Last Great War: British society and the First World War (Cambridge, 2008), 244.

4. Avner Offer, The First World War: an agrarian interpretation (Oxford, 1989).

5. Further emphasis was placed on agricultural food production. See Alan G. V. Simmonds, Britain and World War One (London, 2012), 209.

6. Richard Van Emden and Steve Humphries, All Quiet on the Home Front (London, 2003), 215–216.

7. See Van Emden and Humphries, loc. cit.

8. Simmonds, op. cit., 205.

9. George Robb, British Culture and the First World War (Basingstoke, 2002), 119.

10. Food War Committee, 16 March 1917, 1, CAB/27/7, NA.

11. Food War Committee, 16 March 1917, 1, CAB/27/7, NA.

12. Food (War) Committee report of 16 March 1917, np CAB/24/7, NA.

13. Food (War) Committee report of 16 March 1917, np CAB/24/7, NA.

14. Ibid., 166.

15. Ibid., 129.

16. Interdepartmental report on Restrictions of Imports of February 1917 to the Right Honourable Earl Curzon of Kedleston, February 1917, 16, CAB 24/3, NA.

17. Women’s weekly magazines such as Woman’s World and Mother and Home focused on ideas for economy during wartime. The magazines included recipes and tips. Robb, op. cit., 61–62.

18. Nicholas Reeves, The power of film propaganda—myth or reality?, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 13(2) (1993), 181–201.

19. August 1916 saw the screening of The Battle of the Somme (British Topical, 1916) which raised approximately £30,000 for military charities. For further reading see Cate Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning (London, 1977), 45.

20. Philip M. Taylor, British Propaganda in the Twentieth Century (Edinburgh, 1999), 7.

21. Rachel Low, The History of the British Film 1914–1918 (London, 1973), 37.

22. Offer, op. cit., 356.

23. Offer, op. cit., 222.

24. A similar poster image of mother and child around a table with a loaf of bread superimposed onto imagery of a naval battle with the words ‘Don’t Waste Bread! Save Two Slices Every Day and Defeat the ‘U’ Boat’ was produced simultaneously. IWM PST 133354. Further ways in which food rationing was implemented through the medium of film was in the National Kitchens’ Scheme set up by the government to encourage people to save coal by not cooking at home. See Opening Of New National Kitchen By Mrs Lloyd and National Kitchen—Stoke Newington (1918).

25. The shortage of farm labour was remedied in part by prisoners of war. See German Prisoners of War: camp in England for non-commissioned officers and men (1917).

26. Simmonds, op. cit., 211.

27. Report of the Food Production Department for the Week ending 29 May 1917, War Cabinet. CAB/24/14, National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey (NA).

28. Ibid.

29. Food Production Department: Report on the work of the Food Production Department for the Week ending 19 February 1918, 2, CAB/24/42, NA.

30. A government report notes that although by early 1918 there was an increase in recruits, albeit the demand from farmers had not been met.

31. Offer, op. cit., 307.

32. As a result of village women’s enterprise, the Women’s Institute was founded in 1915, its main concern the preservation of food.

33. Other Pathé films include the WW1—Women Flour Workers (1919), Bacon for Breakfast—feeding the soldiers in France (1916), Land Army Girls in Midlands Carrying on with Autumn Work, Land Girls in Orchard, Women Agricultural Plough Girls (1917), Ploughing Up the Parks (1918), The Women Farmers of Britain (1918).

34. Anon, Aberdeen Evening Express, 26 February 1918, 3.

35. Reeves (1993), loc. cit.

36. Low, op. cit., 195.

37. Government Report: The Labour Situation: Report from the Ministry of Labour for the Week ending the 28th November 1917, 20, CAB/24/33, NA.

38. Simmonds, op. cit., 203.

39. Report by the Food Controller on Bread, Meat and Sugar, 11 January 1917, 2. CAB/24/3, NA, 4.

40. Report from the Ministry of Labour for the Week ending the 28 November 1917, 18, CAB/24/33, NA.

41. This was a propaganda film issued for the Ministry of Food but privately financed.

42. By 1917, the number of women in service remained at 1.25 million. Large quantities of food were often required to feed these households, and the employer was directed to take the lead in instruction on waste avoidance and the most effective and economical way of cooking. This is exemplified in the Win the War cookery book, which informs the lady of the house: ‘the struggle is not only on land and sea; it is in your larder, your kitchen, and your dining room. Every meal you serve is now literally a battle [italics original emphasis].’ Reeves (1999), 216.

43. Seed potatoes were highlighted as extremely important produce as part of the wartime food campaign. See War Cabinet Report, President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries Week ending 22 May 1917, which informs that ‘A cargo of 150 tons of Irish potatoes has been shipped at the instance of this Department for distribution to Kentish farmers who have grubbed their hops as the result of the recent order,’ CAB/24/14, NA 437. How to Save time with Your Potatoes (MOI) and The Secret (MOI) both deal with the use of potatoes as part of a daily diet; whereas the former is instructive, the latter is fictional.

44. A secret report from Lord Devonport, the food controller of bread, meat and sugar, to the Right Hon. D. Lloyd George, states that he has consulted the War Food committee of the Royal Society ‘as to what quantity per day or per week of bread, and of other foods with which I am dealing is necessary for the maintenance of efficiency in different classes of the community,’ Report by the Food Controller on Bread, Meat and Sugar, 11 January 1917, 2. CAB/24/3, NA.

45. People signed Food Economy Pledge Cards. A Report for Week ending 30 May 1917 suggests that Empire Day (May 12) was observed as Food Economy Day and the King’s proclamation was publicly read where Food Economy Pledge cards were signed. ‘Two cinema films illustrating the necessity for food economy are being released for exhibition all over the country within the next two or three days,’ Minister of Food Report for Week ending Wednesday, 30 May 1917, CAB/24/15, NA.

46. Cate Haste, Keep the Home Fires Burning (London, 1977), 46.

47. See http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1917/mar/19/food-economy-campaign, Commons Sitting, 19 March 1917, Accessed 6/12/2013.

48. Low, op. cit., 57.

49. Report for Week ending Wednesday, 20 June 1917, CAB/24/17, 168, NA.

50. Anon., The Burnley News, 18 August 1917, 9.

51. Anon., Swindon Advertiser and North Wilts Chronicle, 5 April 1918, 2.

52. Other less liberal states such as Germany, Italy and Russia all expanded their campaigns. See Gary Messinger, An inheritance worth remembering: the British approach to official propaganda during the First World War, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 13(2) (1993), 117–127.

53. See James Chapman, The British at War: cinema, state and propaganda 1939–45 (London, 2008), 2.

54. Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs: Foreign Publicity, July 1939, 29, CAB/24/288, NA.

55. Daniel Smith, The Spade as Mighty as the Sword: the story of the Dig for Victory campaign (London, 2013), 136. Radio was an important medium of war available to the majority of the population, and programmes also offered advice for wartime recipes clearly directed at the everyday listener.

56. Ibid., 45.

57. Ibid., 47–48.

58. Reeves (1999), op. cit., 181.

59. Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain: rationing, controls, and consumption 1939–1955 (Oxford, 2000), 111–112.

60. See <http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/theartofwar/films/dig_victory.htm> Accessed 13 May 2013.

61. For an extensive list of Food Flash films, see Farmer, op. cit., 230–236.

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Notes on contributors

Stella Hockenhull

Stella Hockenhull is Reader in Film and Television Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. She is the author of Neo-Romantic Landscapes: an aesthetic approach to the films of Powell and Pressburger (2008) and Aesthetics and Neo-Romanticism in Film: landscapes in contemporary British cinema (2013).