Lord Kitchener Wants You!

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1:37Dana Schwartz:Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Menke. Listener discretion advised. It's a poster that is so iconic, I'm sure you'll be able to imagine it just from me describing it to you. It's a recruitment poster from World War I, where a stern man with facial hair stares down the viewer, his finger almost pointing out from the paper as if he wants to poke you directly in the chest. He wants you. American listeners, I am not describing Uncle Sam. Instead, today's episode is about the poster from several years before Uncle Sam, the poster that inspired the American advertisement across the pond.

2:29The recruitment posters in the UK didn't feature stars and stripes or a man with a long white beard. Instead, they had a strong, masculine-looking man with a thick, bushy mustache, evoking a Victorian-era style that would have come across as nostalgic and empowering to British citizens a few decades later in the Edwardian era. It's a throwback to the imperial colonial fashion. This man on the poster is Lord Kitchener, and unlike Uncle Sam, he is not a made-up character meant to inspire national pride, but a very real, living at the time, person. Lord Kitchener was the Secretary of War, and his face on British recruitment posters became one of the most iconic images of the 20th century in the UK, going on to inspire parodies and copycats all over the world.

3:34But the thing about making a man two-dimensional is, at a certain point, he stops being a man and starts to become a cartoon. Kitchener became, well, kitschy. A retro emblem of rah-rah nationalism on its most simplistic surface level. So how did a man become a mascot? And what, exactly, was he representing? I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.

4:11Horatio Herbert Kitchener was born in Ireland on June 24, 1850, although his family was English and only Irish property owners. He was from what seemed to be a fairly wealthy and well-connected family, although his father comes across in accounts as pretty unlikable. He was described as, quote, an unpopular, tenant-evicting eccentric who used newspapers instead of blankets in bed. Kitchener went to school in Switzerland, where the family had moved for his mother's tuberculosis, before his education at the Royal Military Academy. From there, Kitchener's military career took him all over the globe.

4:58He became a veritable Where's Waldo figure of British imperialism. Kitchener spoke Arabic, and he worked on campaigns throughout Egypt, the Middle East, and Africa. I'm not going to get too much into his military career, but there is one important incident I think worth talking about. In 1884, the British Major General Charles Gordon helped to organize a defense of the city of Khartoum in Sudan against a siege led by the Muslim religious leader who proclaimed himself to be Mahdi. The defense lasted for almost a year, and though the British government had resented Gordon for getting involved in the first place, The British public was so behind him that a relief force was eventually sent in to try to rescue him.

5:52Kitchener was part of that relief force, and though the attempted rescue was ultimately a failure, Kitchener came out of it a well-known and popular military figure, which continued as he won a number of important victories in Sudan through the late 1890s, 90s, all victories framed as justice for Gordon, when Kitchener finally led the charge to recapture the city of Omdurman and defeat the Muslim forces. They were the type of victories that do well in propaganda, their hero avenged. But even at the time, there were plenty of people put off by Kitchener and his forces' brutality. In order to prevent the Mahdi's tomb from becoming a place that might symbolically galvanize supporters, Kitchener had it blown up, and the body of the Mahdi was desecrated, his corpse beheaded in reference to the way that Gordon, the British general, had been beheaded more than a decade earlier.

7:01Churchill wrote that their victory had been, quote, disgraced by the inhuman slaughter of the wounded, and Kitchener is responsible for this. From Sudan, Kitchener would go on to become Commander-in-Chief of India, and then he served as Pro-Consul of Egypt until World War I broke out in 1914, and Kitchener agreed to become Secretary of State for War. There was a reason Kitchener was appointed, and why he would later become a literal poster boy. For one, he was an actual soldier who had won dramatic victories within living memory. At 6 '2", above average height, he was handsome and well-built, and had an imposing presence.

7:51I saw him described as a, quote, figure of absolute will and power. an emblem of British masculinity. Really, he became a figure almost synonymous with British imperialism. There is one aspect of Kitchener's personality that almost seems to be a parody of 19th century colonial behavior. Apparently, Kitchener was so cheap that he made a habit of, quote, asking for objects that he admired. I quote, he sometimes stole attractive objects from his hosts, and at Simla, he took plants from his neighbor's garden, end quote. Taking whatever he wants, a perfect, almost comedic embodiment of the British attitude at the time.

8:42Unlike so many people in England at the time the First World War broke out, who imagined they would be gloriously fighting the Germans and then happily home by Christmas, Kitchener understood that the conflict was going to last longer than anyone wanted to believe. He knew that they would need real manpower and hundreds of thousands of men to enlist if they were going to put up a fight. And so, with the power of his new post, Kitchener began recruiting. The New Army was a volunteer portion of the army founded in 1914 at Kitchener's recommendation for 500 ,000 new volunteers. The group is also sometimes referred to as Kitchener's Army.

9:29But how would you get so many young men to sign up? Kitchener's name and his reputation were certainly powerful, But as it turns out, what was even more powerful was his face. Though it quickly became obvious that more men would be needed to fight in the war, conscription was, back in 1914, a controversial and politically risky proposition. And so for the time being, recruitment was their best avenue for more men. And for that, the British government would need to advertise. The first recruitment advertisement ran in newspapers on a full page on August 4th, the day England declared war against the German Empire.

10:17The ad had no faces, just the Union Jack and the coat of arms of King George V and the words, Your king and country need you. But soon, it wouldn't just be the king who needed you. It would be Kitchener, too. In September of 1914, a designer and illustrator named Alfred Leet, working for the Caxton Advertising Agency, created the first version of the now-iconic image of Lord Kitchener pointing at the viewer. It was originally designed for the cover of the London Opinion magazine, with the headline, Your Country Needs You. As I mentioned before, Kitchener is a striking-looking man. He has an aspect that sort of evokes a vague, platonically manly ideal of a different era of manliness, with his strong mustache and smart, narrowed eyes.

11:15But Leet also enhanced the effect. By this point, the real Kitchener was 64 years old. The photo that Leet used as a reference for Kitchener in his illustration was taken sometime in Kitchener's 30s. It reminds me almost of the way that Queen Elizabeth I didn't circulate portraits that showed her aging and took care to appear forever young in the minds of her citizens. Youth and vitality were, then as now, synonymous in people's minds with symbolic power. Leet also made Kitchener's mustache darker and bigger. Kitchener, as a war hero and the name associated with army recruitment, was already considered a symbol of national identity.

12:08The poster with his face just made it manifest. The London Opinion had a weekly circulation of around 300 ,000, but the Kitchener image would be reused as part of a recruitment campaign on posters and in newspaper advertisements, with text reading, Lord Kitchener Wants You. Apparently, Kitchener felt a little uneasy about how popular his name and image were becoming, and he had encouraged the advertisers to always use the words, God Save the King, at the bottom of the posters. After all, soldiers would be fighting for their king, and not for Kitchener. Within six months, Kitchener's image was ubiquitous.

12:57According to the Times on January 3rd, 1915, quote, posters appealing to recruits are to be seen on every hoarding, in most windows, in omnibuses, tramcars, and commercial vans. The great base of Nelson's column is covered with them. Their number and variety are remarkable. Everywhere, Lord Kitchener sternly points a monstrously big finger, exclaiming, I want you. It's hard to tease out exactly how much power we should ascribe to an advertising campaign, but by the end of 1914, recruitment into the army had massively increased. At the beginning of 1914, the British army consisted of about 700 ,000 men, including reserves, with fewer than 100 ,000 professional soldiers.

13:50But according to one estimate, the advertising campaign featuring Lord Kitchener helped in part to recruit more than a million figures, with the publication of Leet's first image of the secretary coinciding with the highest number of enlisting volunteers. The campaign was so powerful and popular that it led to ire among enemies. There was a pamphlet being published in New York at the time called The Vital Issue that was virulently pro-Germany. It was aggressively trying to promote America's neutrality in the war, and in their January 15th issue, an op-ed was written complaining about the Kitchener posters in a way that I find actually quite funny in retrospect.

14:42I quote,

15:12Minister of War is leveled at him like some revolver. The op-ed continues, quote, The entire business of recruiting is saturated with sordidness and vulgarity. The pamphlet claims the idea of the finger-pointing was stolen from an American cigar ad, although I could not find any advertisement featuring the motif except for the ones that came after Kitchener in homage or parody. Despite the pearl-clutching of pro-German propagandists, and how omnipresent the image of pointing Lord Kitchener has become in the century since its debut, a few modern researchers have challenged the notion that the poster itself was originally as ubiquitous as people have assumed.

16:06One researcher, James Taylor, argued that after the war was over, the pointing Kitchener design was acquired by the Imperial War Museum, who helped popularize it after the fact. And the far more printed recruitment poster at the time was what was known as the 30-word poster. In that poster, there is simply a boring, non-pointing image of Kitchener that looks like a proper portrait or a school picture, printed next to an excerpt from one of his speeches. Quote, Men, material, and money are the immediate necessities. Does the call of duty find no response in you until reinforced? let us rather say superseded by the call of compulsion, enlist today.

16:59Not quite as catchy as Lord Kitchener Wants You. And to be frank, the poster does not have the same immediacy without the finger-pointing. Whether or not the finger-pointing poster was everywhere, There are plenty of contemporary sources referencing that Leet's pointing illustration, and a number of contemporary photographs that make it clear the poster was in fact in circulation. And even if the very boring 30-word poster did have a much larger print run, Personally, I think it's no wonder why the pointing poster stuck in our collective imagination through the decades. But even an incredibly memorable poster couldn't create an endless supply of young men willing to throw themselves into the human meat grinder of trench warfare as the First World War continued to rage on.

18:04Despite their initial reticence, in 1916, Parliament introduced the Military Service Act, conscripting men into the armed forces for the first time in British history. Every man between 18 and 41 was required to enlist by choice or wait to be automatically enlisted. With exceptions for married men, childless widows, men in the church, those in protected industries, and the like. Sometimes, the law is a stronger incentive than a finger pointed in your face, regardless of what a manly face that finger is attached to. So why did the Kitchener picture become so iconic?

18:51Dana Schwartz:One factor probably has to do with what E.B. Goldstein called the differential rotation effect. In other words, no matter where you're standing, Kitchener's eyes and finger seem to follow you. It's the same effect that the Mona Lisa utilizes, that makes it seem like she's always watching. It's also a simple and memorable pose, which makes it easy to parody and duplicate. The same style was used all over the world, in India, Canada, Germany, and of course, with James Montgomery Flag's Uncle Sam poster in the United States. An 11-year-old boy who would grow into the writer George Orwell certainly would have seen Lord Kitchener's face staring down at him from all over the United Kingdom.

19:42It might have gone on to inspire the iconography of Big Brother in Orwell's book 1984, who stares down from posters from across Orwell's dystopian country. Big Brother is watching you. But even though Kitchener's poster would endure, Lord Kitchener himself did not. Kitchener did not survive the war. He was on board the cruiser HMS Hampshire in 1916 on the way to Russia with a delegation when they hit a German mine and the ship sank. There were 737 deaths off the coast of Orkney in Scotland and only a handful of survivors. Perhaps ironic for someone whose face you could see on every train stop in the country, Kitchener's body was never found.

20:39The nation was heartbroken at reports of Kitchener's death. It seemed like a uniquely devastating, almost psychological attack on morale to kill such a beloved figure who seemed more powerful than death itself. You can't kill Uncle Sam, but the Germans could kill the very mortal Lord Kitchener. But even after his death, Kitchener would be a symbol to unite and rally others to continue the fight. Yet another poster featuring Kitchener's face debuted in 1916. This time, Kitchener does look older. His mustache is white and drooping. His eyes are tired. His portrait has a flag gathered around it. And Kitchener's sword and hat lie in respectful stillness at the portrait's base.

21:35The text on the poster reads, He did his duty. Will you do yours? Even in death, Kitchener could not escape his fate as a recruitment poster, meant to inspire guilt and duty in those who might be willing to lay down their lives the way that he had.

21:59Dana Schwartz:That's the story of Lord Kitchener's World War I posters, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear the very strange saga of the conspiracy theories around Kitchener's death.

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26:17premium. Trial eligibility varies. Terms apply, cancel anytime. That's a mouthful. As is the case with most sudden unexpected deaths of very famous people, there were a number of conspiracy theories that sprang up in the aftermath of Kitchener's death. Lord Alfred Douglas is probably most famous as Oscar Wilde's lover, the man whose father eventually challenged Wilde, leading to Oscar Wilde's charges of criminal gross indecency and his imprisonment. But after Lord Alfred Douglas' relationship with Wilde, Douglas had a, let's say, Wilde second act. He renounced homosexuality and became an incredibly devout Catholic.

27:05Plenty of his later life would be tragic, but personally I find it difficult to have too much pity because he also was an extremist right-winger and raging anti-Semite. In 1923, he published an account in his extreme anti-Semitic weekly magazine claiming that Winston Churchill had falsified reports and helped to kill Lord Kitchener on behalf of his Jewish friends for nefarious reasons. Douglas taunted Churchill into bringing legal action, and Lord Alfred Douglas was eventually found guilty of criminal libel and forced to go to prison for six months.

27:54Dana Schwartz:Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz. writers for noble blood are hannah johnston hannah zwick paul jaffe natasha lasky and me dana schwartz the show is edited and produced by jesse funk and gnomes griffin with supervising producer rima il kayali and executive producers aaron manke trevor young and matt frederick for more podcasts from iheart radio visit the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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