Military Recruiting in Pop Culture

In the article by Roger Stahl, he talks about how the military is taping into the pop culture to get more recruits. This is not a new thing and has been going on for at least over a century. The British Government used this idea to try and sell its citizens on the ideas of Imperialism and later on for fighting in wars. Their main targets were public school boys and they would try and instill these ideas to them through everything from sports to even the boy scouts. In school they would be taught the skills of what it was to be a man, as well as patriotism for ones crown and country. To instill these values they would play sports, go on camping trips, learn poetry, put on plays and even read books that showed these values. The genre of novels for boys, were like the video games of today for recruiting. The novels would have adventure stories about men in the British Army during events such as the Boer War. Though the portrayals in these novels would mostly be romantic views of life in the military. The most popular author of these books was G.A. Henty. He was a prolific writer and a journalist. He never served in the British Army, but his books featured the army. One of the main themes he used in his books was men who would shot to kill instead of wound because it was less messy. The plots of his books were also very often romanticized life in the military.

When the First World War broke out the British Government was able to see a pay off in this tactic for recruitment. In the beginning they were able to rely solely on volunteers and to keep these volunteer rates high they started a public poster campaign that appealed to not only the men, but to women. The posters were plastered in public. The ones aimed at women were to try and pressure the men in their lives to enlist or to be okay with them enlisting and not hold them back. The ones aimed at men tried to appeal to their sense of patriotism or sense of duty. The British Government was able to use these tactics until January of 1916, after the falling numbers of volunteers, they had to use conscription to get men to fight in the army. So whether you hate the idea of militarization in the public sphere or not, it can be seen in history as a handy tactic that the military can use to increase their recruitment.