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McKernan cites the attempts of British official propagandists led by Charles Urban to have their films screened in the US during the First World War. Urban's confusion between the commercial imperatives of the film industry and the propagandist aims of the British officials led to the chaotic mishaps that characterized the effort to get the British war message onto American cinemas.

The techniques of modern official propaganda were established during the First World War. Film became a part of the propaganda drive undertaken in Britain, France, the United States and Germany, but it was a young medium whose expert practitioners were still aiming to discover certain ways of attracting and holding audiences, and this uncertainty fed into the use of film for official purposes during the war.

Official propaganda during the First World War fell into three categories, being directed at enemy, home or neutral audiences. Film could play little or no part in any campaign directed at enemy audiences, owing to the inevitable restrictions of cinema distribution - no German cinema was going to book a film promoting the Allies' point of view. Film was therefore best directed towards home or neutral audiences, but in Britain (as opposed to Germany) there was little official understanding at the outset of the war of the potential of film as a medium by which an official point of view might be projected. It was largely through pressure exerted by the film trade that official filming was eventually sanctioned and then brought under absolute governmental control. The desire to influence neutral audiences, most particularly the United States, became the object of greatest interest to British propagandists, and it was in this arena that film was first made use of.

America was the key target for a number of reasons. Newly emergent as a world power, it was the largest non-combatant Western nation, and its forces and support would be invaluable to the Allies, should it abandon its stance of strict neutrality declared by President Woodrow Wilson at the outbreak of war. That position of neutrality was viewed by many in Britain as showing indecisiveness, even cowardice; America owed loyalty to its parent nation, it was felt, and had to be persuaded of the Tightness of the Allied cause. Most importantly, American business interests, in particular the anglophile J.P. Morgan Jr., were providing the loans necessary for the British government to buy its military supplies, and it was hoped that British propaganda in America would keep the needs and sacrifices of the Allies in the minds of American finance, and likewise counteract the influence of German propaganda in the United States. Eight million of America's total population of 105 million in 1914 were of German ethnic origin. They were able to amass strong support throughout the country, not least among members of the film trade and sympathetic sections of the press. They were an influential minority, and keeping the peace among the nations represented within the United States was a strong governing factor in Wilson's policy of neutrality.1

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Although the story of British propaganda during the War has been well told, and the story of the British official films as directed at home audiences well documented in recent years, the efforts of the British official propagandists to put those films on to American screens has been scarcely covered before now.2 In this essay, a complicated business has been distilled largely from official papers at Britain's Public Record Office, and the personal papers of the leading figure in getting the films screened in America, Charles Urban. Urban was the best known film producer in Britain at the time, renowned for his exploitation of the Kinemacolor film system and his impassioned advocacy of the film of fact as an educative force. He was a proud, impulsive man, a gifted salesman but not a natural diplomat. His confusion between the commercial imperatives of the film industry and the propagandist aims of the British officials led to the chaotic mishaps that characterised the effort to get the British war message onto American cinema screens.

How Britain Prepared

On 9 February 1916 Urban set sail for America. He had been commissioned by the covert British propaganda outfit, known informally as Wellington House, to organise the exhibition in America of a film Urban himself had produced entitled Britain Prepared. This was a documentary feature, first shown in Britain in December 1915, which demonstrated Britain's military and especially naval preparedness. The first half of the film, The New Army in the Making', showed scenes of recruits in training, various scenes of military life and special activities, the manufacture of munitions, and King George V reviewing troops. The second part, The Sure Shield of Britain and Empire', showed the building and launching of a battleship, and spectacular scenes of the navy at sea, including a number of sections in the Kinemacolor process. The colour scenes, however, required special projection facilities for showing the films at double-speed, and they were not included in any of the overseas exhibitions of the film, including America. Originally twelve reels in length, the version Urban took with him to America was 7,500 feet, some two hours in running time.3 Urban also took with him a set of short films produced on behalf of the British Topical Committee for War Films, a representative body of the British film trade which had negotiated with the War Office to enable filming to take place on the Western Front.

This was part of a general programme of international distribution for Britain Prepared, timed for March 1916. In most countries the film was handled by a local concessionary; for a few territories of particular importance, direct representation was required. T.A. Welsh of the Gaumont company took the film to France; the novelist Gilbert Frankau took it to Italy. A.S. Paulsen of the Nordisk film company took the film to Scandanavia. Maurice Sandman, manager of a major theatrical circuit in India, took the film to India and the Far East, including exhibitions in China and Japan.4

The two most important direct representatives, however, were those selected for Russia and America. The contrast between the two is significant. For Russia (and Rumania) Wellington House employed Alfred Claude Bromhead, managing director of Gaumont in Britain, a company which had well-established links in Russia. Bromhead left at the end of January 1916 with twenty copies of the film, plus the Western Front films as they became available, and visited Petrograd, Bucharest, the Northern and Southern Russian Fronts and Finland (then part of the Russian empire), giving two exhibitions before Tsar Nikolai II, and many exhibitions before Russian troops, often conducted in the open air. The programmes were popular and greatly impressed their target audiences, although some of the hungry, ill-equipped troops viewed with mixed feelings the sight of a well-fed and munitioned British army. When Bromhead returned to Britain in October 1916, his expedition was accounted one of the successes of the British filmed propaganda campaign.5

The situation in America was to prove very different. Crucially, the Wellington House Cinema Committee failed to secure a satisfactory arrangement for the United States akin to that offered by Gaumont in Russia. Consequently they were compelled to send out someone to make the necessary arrangements on the spot. That representative would travel with just a single print of Britain Prepared, in contrast to the twenty with which Bromhead had been equipped. Their first choice was the film distributor William Jury, but he was unwell, so Charles Urban was selected instead. Though a less biddable character than Jury, he was nevertheless an obvious choice. he held a high position within the industry, he had produced Britain Prepared, personally supervising the filming of its naval sections, and he was American by birth, with long-established business contacts in that country. What Wellington House did not know, however, was that Urban (now a naturalised Briton) had German ancestry, a clumsy over-sight on their part, though Urban's loyalty to the all led cause was beyond question. he nevertheless kept completely silent over his antecedents, and came close to panic when they were nearly revealed at a crisis point in his American negotiations.6

Urban's first tasks were to report to British Foreign Office staff in Washington, to whom he would be answerable, then to find a theatre in New York where he could mount a prestige exhibition for trade and press representatives. His instructions were to obtain a standard commercial deal for the film. Its government origins had to be hidden, both because the official propagandist intent had to be kept secret, and because were it known that the film was official in origin, the film trade would expect to handle it for free. he immediately found a wall of resistance. The film was simply viewed as uncommercial. American audiences had been fed a plethora of topical films at the outset of the war with exaggerated titles - War is Hell, The Battling British, European Armies in Action, England's Menace - that offered only pre-war library footage of troop manoeuvres and parades, and this had aroused a backlash against films claiming to depict the war.7 Urban asked for permission to re-edit the material to incorporate the best of the 'British Army in Flanders' films taken for the War Office, the first of many re-edits of the film material at his command. In this form, and within the tight March deadline set for him by the Cinema Committee, Urban finally secured a booking at the Wurlitzer Fine Arts Hall for 9 March. It was introduced to a trade and press audience by Frederick Palmer, an American war correspondent who had been accredited to the British Expeditionary Force, and was now on a tour of America to explain Britain's war role. The audience was appreciative to a degree, but quite forthright in its reasons for not wanting to book the film. The plain, topical values of Britain Prepared were 'too good', 'too classy', 'too intellectual'. The films lacked 'punch'. One exhibitor explained matters clearly, 'If it showed troopers being blown to pieces, it would go all right1.8 'I have never before found myself in such a difficult position in my honest endeavour to bring about a business plan on a straight and reasonable basis', a bewildered Urban told J. Brooke Wilkinson, secretary of the British Board of Film Censors and a member of the Wellington House Cinema Committee, adding, 'I would not trust myself to express my opinion of the film crowd on this side in cold type'.9

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Having failed to secure any interest from the film trade, and suspecting that the reasons could be as much political as commercial, Urban widened his net hopefully to attract interest from patriotic societies such as the St George's Society. The first such screening was a private exhibition of Britain Prepared on 17 March at the Berkeley Theatre, New York, for the American Society. The programme for the event stressed preparedness, which was then a significant political rallying cry in the United States. The Preparedness Movement campaigned to secure enlargement of America's military forces, with a limited form of peacetime conscription, arguing that America needed such forces to protect its economic interests worldwide and to bolster national pride at a time of social unrest. The programme drew inferences from the film that must have made Wellington House most uncomfortable:

Every problem in national preparedness which confronted Britain 15 months ago confronts the United States of America to-day. Had Britain been adequately prepared there would have been no war, and millions of lives would have been spared.10

The film was therefore being presented 'to show what America will be obliged to do in the event of Foreign Complications'. Such an overt political message specifically for America was something that Wellington House had wanted to avoid.

It was at this screening that Urban made the acquaintance of William J. Robinson. Robinson was an Ulster Irishman, thirty years resident in America, and a quite minor figure in the film trade.11 Robinson told Urban that he had been anxious to demonstrate his patriotism in some way, and that in view of Urban's plight, he would put together a syndicate of like-minded American businessmen who would purchase the rights to Britain Prepared and the Flanders films and put them out in spite of the American film trade. Robinson appears to have been a dubious business figure, not dishonest as such, but with a reputation as 'an unsuccessful company promoter'.12 His presence would soon cause alarm to British officials, but he undoubtedly moved quickly and was as good as his word. By the end of the month he had formed the 'Britain Prepared Syndicate', out of which came the Patriot Film Corporation. This was formed with the sole purpose of acquiring the exploitation rights to Britain Prepared and all films of the war taken for the British Topical Committee for War Films throughout the USA, from the date of contract until one year after the war was over. This control over all future Topical Committee productions was to be the most controversial feature of the contract. The members of the Syndicate were 'British subjects and British sympathizers' known to Robinson.13

On 7 April the rights to the British war films were duly assigned to the Patriot Film Corporation, for a truly handsome payment of $25,000 plus $20,000 covering the cost of thirty prints of Britain Prepared.14 Posters were designed, pamphlets printed, and patriotic music prepared. New film was added from the footage taken on the Western Front, with particular emphasis on the section showing the destruction of a German blockhouse. The film's title had changed, moreover, to How Britain Prepared. This subtle alteration, insisted upon by Robinson, would later prove controversial. The 'preparedness' message had already been implicit in the original title, but a tone of instruction had been introduced, which would be reinforced by the promotional methods of the Patriot Film Corporation and the film's new, direct tag line, The Motion Picture Object Lesson for America'.

How Britain Prepared was shown at the Belasco Theatre, Washington, on 15 May, courtesy of the National Press Club. The illustrious invited audience featured members of the US Senate and Congress, and representatives of the military, finance and foreign embassies. It included the Secretary of War and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, as well as such representatives of pro-preparedness bodies as the National Security League and the Association for National Service.'5

The many comments and endorsements that followed from American politicians and military leaders invariably picked up on the prepardedness theme, comments that Urban had compiled and issued as a booklet.16 The most distinguished invitee had been secretary of War Newton Baker, whose bland comment was that he felt Very keen interest in the pictures ... [which] gave me valuable information and great pleasure'. The leading statement came from Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy:

My dear Sir,

I was particularly glad to have an opportunity ofseeing the pictures showing 'How England [sic] Prepared'. These pictures must be of tremendous interest all over the country and will undoubtedly carry the lesson that, while an enormous amount of work has been done by England since the war began, all of this would have been very greatly simplified if there had been more adequate preparations for it before hostilities commenced.17

Again, the implication that Britain had been in a state of unpreparedness at the outbreak of war was not a message that Wellington House wanted the film to convey. Many others commented particularly on the unpreparedness of the army, contrasting it with the transparent readiness of the navy. all were nevertheless greatly impressed by the scale of Britain's war effort, and by the plain truthfulness of the film. Senator Francis W. Warren stated, The picture was interesting also because no "fake" scenes were shown, and because they actually represented what was claimed for them.'18

There was, however, a strong reaction to the film's exhibition from German-American interests. During the screenings at the Belasco Theatre (How Britain Prepared was shown there twice daily for a week) the National Press Club came in for intense criticism and threats of resignation from members. The President of the Club had to make a defence of the position he had taken in front of the packed theatre, before the film could begin.19 German papers, and those sections of the media sympathetic to the German cause, or at least to maintaining America's neutrality, denounced the film and questioned its veracity. It was held to be a fake, as so many of the first so-called actualities depicting the war had been exposed as fakes, and it was argued in some that the whole thing had been staged in America.

On 29 May the film began afour-week engagement at New York's Lyceum Theatre, before appearing in several major cities over the summer. The comments of the film trade press were focussed on its commercial possibilities. Why should the ordinary American go and see it? Variety was scathing not only of its audience appeal, but of its political import as well:

The training of the flying fleets, the motorcycle artillery and the final leaving for the front after being reviewed by the King, takes up the major portion of the first part of the exhibition. There are about two or three hundred feet at the tail of the first part showing one of the heavy guns of the British artillery in action and the destruction of a German blockhouse. In showing that the latter was blown to pieces by the actual firing of eight shells from the big gun, the film had three cut-backs with repeats of the same scene. The second part shows nothing that contains any real action. The British fleet that is guarding the North Sea is shown, and while there are several examples of good sea photography there is little else to commend ... All in all the picture might be cut down to about 3,500 or 4,000 feet and make a fairly interesting subject. In its present form it is much too long. As a picture in the Preparedness campaign in this country its value is nil.20

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However, the majority of reviews in the general press were positive, alert to the film's sense of a nation coming together and making a supreme effort, and to its object lesson. A particularly thoughtful review came from the Chicago Tribune. The reviewer compared How Britain Prepared with Civilization, the Thomas Ince's Wilson-inspired pacifist epic. Civilization, the reviewer found, was 'an insincere and comic picture of war and its causes'; by contrast, How Britain Prepared, for all its elementary technique, revealed far more through its deep trust in the power of reality:

It is the handling of the most real and unimaginative material. It goes along without an attempt to intoxicate the emotions. It takes undecorated details thatseemingly have not a thrill in them. It seems to be as uninspired as a hardware catalogue. Gradually in the mind of any perceptive person there forms the idea that this is a real nation in a real trouble. The immensity of the effort begins to appal the comprehension. A thing is in the forming and it is a tremendous thing. And when out of all this grim work-a-day agony there appears on the screen such masses of trained, disciplined and willing men as American eyes have not seen since 1865, the thrill is real.21

Comparing the fictional fare at the one cinema with the non-fiction at the other, the reviewer concluded, The reality at the Colonial makes the unreality at the Grand seem a cheap and tawdry thing'. Such a reaction chimed perfectly with the message that Wellington House wished to put over.

The Hearst controversy

Urban returned to Britain in June 1916, where he undertook the editing of the greatest of all the British war films, The Battle of the Somme. The Western Front films up to that period had been released as a series of shorts, but such was the quality of the Somme footage that Urban persuaded the British Topical Committee for War Films and the War Office to issue the material as a single, feature-length release. he was proved right when the film enjoyed extraordinary success in Britain on its release in August. Urban by then was back in America, with instructions to facilitate the distribution and exhibition of The Battle of the Somme as soon as practical.22

Urban arrived again in New York on 11 August. Proper exploitation of How Britain Prepared had only started after 6 June, shortly before Urban's departure to Britain, when the twenty-nine extra prints arrived. The film had enjoyed a four-week run at New York's Lyceum Theatre, and further exhibitions had been held in Boston, Providence, Philadelphia, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo and some other cities, but bookings then fell away. William Robinson blamed the weather ( July had been excessively hot) and an outbreak of infantile paralysis, events which caused a marked fall in audience numbers and the closure of a number of theatres, plus the continued 'intense' opposition from German interests. Urban was horrified to discover that Patriot, which he had left apparently on the verge of triumph, was foundering.

Patriot had hired 'the best man in the business' to organise the promotion of the Lyceum shows. This was Al Lichtman, a film sales manager who had risen to fame within the industry on his selling of the Sarah Bernhardt picture Queen Elizabeth, which went on to make the fortune of Adolph Zukor and Famous Players.23 Business had been good at the Lyceum for How Britain Prepared, though not profitable owing to Lichtman's heavy advertising budget, but it should have provided the publicity impetus to establish the film on the American exhibition circuit.

This it failed to do. Urban arrived in the middle of the exhibition crisis. His mission now was to over-see the distribution of the Somme films, but he felt honour-bound to rescue How Britain Prepared if he could, and was acutely aware that the contract with Patriot was for all the British war films, and hence they too were the people to whom The Battle of the Somme would be entrusted. At the end of the summer season, after expenditure of some $100,000, Patriot had a deficit of $30,000, on top of the $45,000 expended on the rights and prints for How Britain Prepared. Robinson and Urban retired to reconsider a strategy that would incorporate the Somme films, and aimed 'for a big Fall campaign'.24

Urban had cabled to Robinson in advance of the contents and quality of The Battle of the Somme, and Robinson came up with a plan of combining the 'Kitchener's Army' section of How Britain Prepared with substantial sections from Somme as a single feature, 'distributing it through some organized distributing agents'.25 This hypothetical feature (the Somme films had yet to arrive in America and would not do so until September) also failed to generate any interest. Robinson complained:

I took the matter up with a number of the best firms in the trade, but was turned down in every instance, as in the judgement of the trade, America did not want to see war pictures, and their German customers were opposed to the showing of British films.26

The ineptitude and inexperience of the Patriot Film Corporation was by now quite evident. Their naivety had been shown not least in paying $25,000 for the rights (and $20,000 for the prints) for How Britain Prepared; as Urban noted, 'probably the largest sum ever paid by Americans for a foreign film' (by comparison, Zukor had paid $18,000 for the American rights to Queen Elizabeth).27 For an actuality film of feature length, with no obvious dramatic interest, and with ample evidence of trade and audience hostility towards the subject, it was a rash investment indeed, even if their prime motive had been patriotic.

The climate was ripe for an unwise action such as now occurred. Events started with the arrival of ten prints of The Battle of the Somme in America early in September. William Robinson was approached by Edward A. MacManus of the International Film Service with an offer to give the films general distribution, for an up-front cash payment such as Urban had always sought, with the promise of extensive newspaper advertising to support the films. The Battle of the Somme was shown to MacManus and some associates, following which a Vague proposition' was made for handling the films. Robinson drafted an agreement, which was delivered to MacManus on 13 September. Urban cabled Wilkinson on 17 September that a deal seemed in place. The International Film Service then sat on the contract for two weeks, having been offered an eight-day option. Urban tried to provoke them into action by sending them a copy of a letter he wrote to Robinson on 25 September that may have intimated at other possible business deals elsewhere, MacManus wrote two days later that the deal was cancelled. This at least was the order of events according to Urban.28

The problem was that the International Film Service was part of the William Randolph Hearst news empire, and advertising in Hearst newspapers was part of the deal. The Hearst press was the one major American newspaper interest which was not pro-Ally; in the eyes of the British propagandists this made it pro-German. Hearst was quite certainly in favour of American neutrality, and in maintaining this stance he defended the Germans and on frequent occasions attacked the British. The reasons for his anti-British line were various, but a major factor was his irritation at British propaganda, and the British control of the news cables to America. Hearst papers questioned the veracity or completeness of British dispatches, and as newspapers were the primary target of the British propaganda campaign, counter-acting the influence of Hearst became of major importance to the British. Urban and Robinson had no excuse in not being aware of the controversial nature of dealing with the International News Service. The obvious implication was that Hearst would buy up the rights to the film in order perhaps to suppress it, certainly to alter its message from that which the British propagandists needed to see.

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On 4 October 1916 an article appeared in the London Evening News which was to prove catastrophic for Urban. It appeared on the occasion of the exhibition of a new film from the Topical Committee, The King Visits His Armies in the Great Advance. The screening led The Evening News to ask:

... why Germans and pro-Germans in America are the only people who allowed in that country to make huge profits out of the showing of the British Government war films. Are the King's visit pictures to be placed in the hands of the same group who are making fortunes in the United States out of 'Britain Prepared' and The Battle of the Somme? This is an important question demanding an answer from the British Topical Committee, which distributes the films all over the world.

The article covered the exploitation of Britain Prepared in America:

While one big American firm here asked for and was refused copies of that picture certain people formed a company in America for exploiting the film, which they promptly renamed 'How Britain Prepared', an alteration of considerable importance in view of the approaching Presidential election and the campaign going on throughout that country in favour of 'preparedness'. The company formed for this purpose was called the Patriot Film Corporation, at the head of which was A.C. Lichtman. When the film reached New York it was shown by A.C. Lichtman at the Wurlitzer Hall.

It went on to assert that the film had made huge sums from packed theatres in New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey and other cities, before Patriot put up the States Rights, which were now nearly complete, 'so that the 25,000 picture theatres of the United States will have an opportunity of showing them, for which big sums of money have been paid to A.C. Lichtman's firm'.

Now comes the 'Battle of the Somme' picture, the greatest ever seen. Again it has fallen into the hands of Germans in America for the making of more money. Inquiries in America of Mr Charles Urban, who was responsible for taking the picture 'Britain Prepared', and who, about the time The Battle of the Somme' was privately shown at the Scala Theatre, took several copies of that picture to America, elicited the following reply:

Mr. Charles Urban's letter.

New York City, 18 September 1916

'The Battle of the Somme'

My dear Sir, - I have arranged for this picture to be shown jointly by the Patriot Film Corporation and the Hearst International Film Service, who will inaugurate the exhibits in the USA at an early date.

C. Urban

The article stated that therefore the film which depicted 'the bravery, the suffering and the death of British troops in their fight against Germans' was to be exploited for huge financial profit by the 'German-Americans' Lichtman and Hearst. Hearst was known to be 'rabidly anti-British'; Lichtman had 'given no evidence of being pro-British', and the Wurlitzer Hall, 'where he gives private exhibitions of these films' was not 'the resort of Americans of British sympathies'.29

This piece was misinformed, malicious, ignorant of the prices that could be expected of films, and ready to assume any middle-European name meant a German: Lichtman, Wurlitzer, and just maybe Urban. Nevertheless it ran close to the truth, and asked some awkward questions, and in view of how close it came to exposing the propaganda activities of Wellington House, the article was also quite dangerous. Its author was W.G. Faulkner, the outspoken film critic of The Evening News, and a strong advocate for the production of British war films.

Urban's reaction was volcanic. He had been battling against German, or supposedly German interests in America for months, and now here he was being accused of succumbing to those interests. There was also the worrying possibility that his German ancestry would be uncovered, and his loyalty put under severe questioning. Wellington House was anxious to smother the story as soon as possible, while get the truth of the situation from Urban, but his fury made him incoherent and his evasiveness made him seem suspicious. Wilkinson cabled Urban asking for urgent clarification, but Urban did not give the details he requested, stating by reply only that there was no Hearst deal, that Patriot owned all rights, that there was a 'concerted German effort made throughout America to prevent showing films', and that the attack in The Evening News was 'unquestionably made through German instrumentality or personal enemy'.30 Urban was fixated by the personal attack, and instructed his lawyer Julius White to file a libel suit for L50,000 damages. The threat of a libel suit threw Wellington House into alarm. This would imperil the very secrecy on which the British propaganda campaign in America rested. There were further danger signs with yet another Evening News article on 7 October, which said they had discovered that overseas distribution of the British war films was the responsibility of the Foreign Office. This was getting alarmingly close to the truth.31

The Evening News published a partial retraction on 9 October. Following representations from International itself, they now said that 'no arrangement exists between the International Film Service and Mr Charles Urban to show this picture [The Battle of the Somme] in America'.32 Urban nevertheless went ahead with preparing a detailed statement answering every point in the original articles, while Robinson issued an affadavit and a list of comments on the accusations on 10 October.

The accusations were answered one by one. There were no Germans directly or indirectly connected with the Patriot Film Corporation. Quite contrary to the claims of 'vast sums' being made they had a total loss of $88,000, with only the films themselves as an asset. Only when Urban had been unable to interest the trade had Robinson formed the Syndicate 'not from a money-making view, but out of pure patriotism, and made the film Britain's friendly message to America, without any political significance at all'. Lichtman, they stated, was never head of their corporation, nor even a director, but was hired on salary. In fact this was not strictly true, as Lichtman had indeed been named on Patriot letter-heads and in newspaper articles as general manager, and seems to have been so for the May-August period. He was, they said, a Russian Jew, pro-Ally, and had nothing to do with the Wurlitzer Hall exhibition. The Wurlitzer Hall, contrary to what was alleged, attracted 'thousands of British sympathizers'. Despite having shown How Britain Prepared in large city theatres, it was always at a loss, and no States Rights were ever sold, though some had been offered 'at low prices'.33

Of the specific Hearst accusations, Urban averred that he had never written the alleged letter dated 18 September arranging for the exhibition of The Battle of the Somme by Patriot and the International Film Service, and that 'any such letter is a forgery' (but how close was it to the cable he said that he sent to Wilkinson on 17 September?). The International Film Service did not hold and never had held rights to show any of the British war pictures. Robinson stated that he had been approached by the general manager of the International Film Service, who had 'offered to give great publicity to "The Battle of the Somme" pictures', after which he had drawn up a contract which they had refused to sign. 'Mr. Urban having had inside information in regard to Hearst plans reguested me to terminate all negotiations, which I did'.34 But for Wellington House and the British intelligence officers in Washington Urban and Robinson had not begun to explain what had actually occurred over the negotations for The Battle of the Somme. Instead it revealed alarming inconsistencies in Urban's actions, as well as having made it clear to all that the film propaganda campaign in America had been conspicuously unsuccessful. The British propaganda campaign organised by Wellington House was, from the outset, clandestine, discreet, literary-based, and directed at an influential elite. It aimed chiefly through letter-writing, 'newspaper articles, pamphlets and lectures from those often of literary standing who appeared to be speaking independently but were in fact acting on the direction of the propagandists, to influence those in America who might then argue the Allies' point of view with their own people. It was based on the assumption that Americans would be deterred by overt attempts to influence their opinions (such as Germany had attempted early on during the war). In method, materials, skills and intent it was wholly opposed to the mass campaign.35 In such a regime, film was an ill-fitting anomaly. It spoke to the masses, it was a direct medium ostensibly transparent in its aims, it was alien to both the class and literary culture of those who controlled British propaganda.

Hence, on his arrival in America, Urban was destined to be marginalised and misunderstood. His simple instructions were to negotiate contracts on a plain commercial basis, never revealing his connection with the British government. The latter restriction, while understandable, was doubly counter-productive. Firstly, the attempt to disguise the official source of How Britain Prepared appears not to have fooled anyone in the American film trade. Urban admitted to Charles Masterman (head of Wellington House), 'word has been passed around that the Patriot Film Corporation was simply organised for British propaganda, and every effort of theirs to put out the films met with silence or rebuff'.36 Secondly, and paradoxically, it may have been far more productive to have been open about the film's official nature, and by implication its propagandist intent. How Britain Prepared had been constructed according to the Wellington House tactic of letting the facts speak for themselves, and it would surely have been more impressive to be wholly honest and reveal, without exposing the existence of the organised propaganda campaign in America itself, the British government's special sanction on the film's production. The attempt to deceive only encouraged the accusations of fakery. This policy, albeit under different circumstances, was soon to be followed in Britain, where the trade's British Topical Committee for War Films was replaced by the government's own War Office Cinematograph Committee (WOCC) in November 1916, under Sir Max Aitken.37 Thereafter a war films's official status was intended to be its selling point.

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The WOCC was created because the War Office wished to keep hold of the increased profits accruing for the war films, which had been going to the film trade. The Battle of the Somme had been a tremendous financial success in Britain, and encouraged the expectation of further such success. Good propaganda, in any case, needed to be commercial. People had to want to see it, to be prepared to pay to see it. Thus, when Urban assured Masterman that the Patriot Film Corporation 'were not out for making money, they were prompted by patriotic motives', he was making a false virtue out of defeat, and was not speaking the language that Wellington House wanted to hear. If the film was not commercial, it was because no one wanted to see it, and good propaganda could not be made out of a film no one apparently wanted to see.

The picture of total trade antipathy is not wholly true. Urban admitted to Masterman that they had had 'offers galore for State Rights on a percentage of profits basis, etc.' but what they had not had was 'a single offer of cash'.38 There was evidence of greater interest in The Battle of the Somme, but exhibitors were using the weakened position of Urban and the Patriot Film Corporation to secure the films on a minimal basis. Following the collapse of the International Film Service negotiations, they had secured a booking at New York's prestigious Strand Theatre for two weeks. The Strand's manager Harold Edel struck a hard bargain, taking the picture in effect for nothing while demanding that Patriot guaranteed a payment of $1,000 to pay for the advertising.39 It was a worthwhile gamble to take, and Kitchener's Great Army in the Battle of the Somme, the combination of some of the non-naval material from How Britain Prepared with The Battle of the Somme that Robinson had proposed and Urban edited, opened on 23 October. The film did very good business, but Urban was infuriated to discover that the theatre had re-edited the film, converting what was meant to be a film in two parts, one to run the first week, the other to follow, into a single shortened and re-ordered feature. Worse still, in its publicity and in a new opening title for the film the Strand made the gross claim that fourteen cameramen had worked on the picture, four of whom had been killed. Urban demanded an apology and a change in the opening title, but Edel replied in puzzlement, saying that he thought the changes would 'add value to the film'.40

Urban had reorganised the footage available to him into a series of shorter films, in the hope that in this shorter form they could be more readily booked as part of a double feature programme: Jellicoe's Grand Fleet (four reels from How Britain Prepared), Munition Making by 300,000 Women of Britain (another two reels from How Britain Prepared), and the two halves of the film shown at the Strand, Kitchener's Great Army (four reels) and The Battle of the Somme (five reels). All were advertised in the film trade press in October under Urban's name as the 'official representative of the British War Office' but giving Patriot's address (729 Seventh Avenue), and rather too cheekily all were described as Charles Urban's own productions, with the exception of The Battle of the Somme.41 To these films Urban added a curious Gaumont production, With the Kut Relief Force in Mesopotamia, which does not appear to have been an official production, so that its presence in Urban's hands is a mystery; and films that were wholly his own productions, namely fourteen animated war maps first made for him by Percy Smith in 1914-15, the Kineto War Maps series, which he renamed Urban Animated War Maps.42

Despite all the advertising blitz, and the uniformly positive reviews that the new Battle of the Somme footage received, nothing emerged in the form of any deals for extended rights, nor does it appear that any bookings were achieved for the new material that they were offering. They then planned to turn to the various war relief charities, such as the Red Cross, aiming to organise charity screenings across the country. It was a reasonable strategy, and would raise funds for war charities such as had always been the partial aim of the British war films. However, it was scarcely a demonstration of the commercial value, and by extension the value as propaganda, of The Battle of the Somme.

Meanwhile, the matter of the libel suit against The Evening News ended. Masterman had a meeting with Julius White where he strongly indicated that Urban suspend the action until his return to Britain, and Urban, recognising from White that what had been a recommendation was in effect an order, agreed by cable on 7 November to do so.43 Urban still intended to pursue the action in Britain, but this never came about. For there were now two major changes in the film propaganda programme that wholly altered matters. Firstly, the formation of the WOCC under Sir Max Aitken brought British war filming under direct War Office control, replacing the quarrelsome British Topical Committee for War Films. Secondly, negotations were now under way for a major breakthrough in the distribution of the British war films in America, a world away from the inept amateurism of the Patriot Film Corporation.

Official Government Pictures, Inc.

The British propagandists were in despair over the incompetence of the Patriot Film Corporation. The contract, which gave it control over all future British war films to the end of the war and a year thereafter, was particularly irksome, and Robinson was an awkward character, who denied that the British government had any right to control the actions of his syndicate. They now looked for someone to buy out Patriot, which was demanding $100,000, covering the money it had expended on the rights and prints and its losses to date. An offer came from the St George's Society early in November to take over the films for the sum asked, forming committees for their exhibition in all major towns and giving the profits to war charities. The offer soon fell through, and Guy Gaunt, British naval attache in Washington and a leading figure in British Intelligence, made the bold suggestion to Wellington House that the entire management of Patriot be taken over by himself.44 All of this debate was academic, because suddenly and triumphantly Urban came up with a deal that left the propagandists realising that they had very little control over the situation at all.

In September 1916, while awaiting confirmation of the Hearst deal, Urban came across George McLeod Baynes, a former sales manager with the Hepworth Manufacturing Company in Britain, who was now working as an independent within the American film trade.45 Presumably after 27 September when it was confirmed that the International Film Service deal had fallen through, Urban asked Baynes if he would handle the films for Patriot on commission, and sell them on a States Rights basis, to which Baynes agreed. This ran wholly counter to Urban's protestations that he was refusing to countenance any States Rights offers, and would consider only cash offers, but his need was desperate. Baynes' name as 'general sales agent' began to appear on the trade press advertisements for The Battle of the Somme and other titles in October and November, and it was very probably his idea to drop Patriot's name from these and exploit Urban's. Guy Gaunt told Baynes there was no chance of the British government buying out the company, so Baynes set about secretly raising a corporation of his own, while more openly looking to secure a new deal for the British war films.46

Baynes had been previously negotiating with Henry D. Sleeper, who was head of the American Field Ambulance Service. There were no American troops taking part in the war, but there were volunteer college men serving as ambulance drivers in France, and Sleeper had asked Baynes to handle a fourreeler promoting the Field Ambulance Service, to be called The American Boys at the Front. It was Baynes' happy idea to combine this initiative with the British films, thereby giving the overall package the native appeal that Urban's films alone lacked. Baynes approached William K. Vanderbilt, a sponsor of the American Field Ambulance Service, who agreed 'to subscribe any part of the hundred thousand necessary'. The deal that was arranged was that Baynes came up with $30,000 cash (presumably all from Vanderbilt), three of the directors of Patriot invested $20,000 of their money in the new company, and the balance of $50,000 was to be paid out of the first profits. The new company was called Official Government Pictures, Inc. (OGP), with Vanderbilt as its president, and Baynes as its managing director.47

Urban cabled in triumph to Masterman on 13 December, 'American situation is in magnificent shape'. The new company had taken over all of the Patriot contracts and films, and fifty percent of profits were to go to British war relief work and fifty percent to the American Field Ambulance Service. A film distribution deal had also been secured with the Melies Manufacturing Company, releasing through the General Film Company, which had forty branches across the country. 'Under contemplated distribution these profits will be large, and the broad publicity and propaganda could not be equalled by any existing agency in America'. Urban 'volunteered to help this Committee and General Film to get these plans under way by 1 January'. He apologised, but he would not be returning to Britain, and could not take up an invitation to meet up with Aitken. Instead he cabled Aitken with a demand for fifteen prints of The Battle of the Somme, to be shipped as soon as possible.48

The British officials were in helpless turmoil. 'WHO IS BAYNES?', begged Gaunt. He was a representative of the British company Hepworth, so it seemed. Were the rights being sold to Hepworth? Baynes' evasive dealing aroused suspicion ('Baynes and [Robinson] cannot tell the same tale two consecutive days', Gaunt moaned), and enquiries were made of him at Scotland Yard. Behind Urban's back Wellington House hired a firm of New York lawyers to make a full enquiry into the affair. Rather to their surprise, the report indicated an equitable arrangement, with no question of a profit being made by the Patriot shareholders, the trustworthy Vanderbilt as chairman and the respected Henry P. Davison of J.P. Morgan as treasurer. Urban was not a part of the company, though there was a slight possibility of his being elected a director on account of his experience, but he had no financial interest or vote. Davison in fact soon dropped out, possibly on learning that Baynes had made use of Gaunt's name to lure him in, without Gaunt's knowledge. For all the worry that they felt over Baynes' involvement, and despite a dispute with Patriot over the exact nature of their rights in the British war fiims, it was felt wisest to go along with the situation.49

The General Film Company had been formed in 1910 to distribute the films of the members of the Motion Picture Patents Company to licensed theatres. By 1916 the once powerful organisation was powerful no more, and still less so was the Melies Manufacturing Company, the pale residue of the MPPC member formed by Gaston Melies. The distribution deal with Melies had been secured by Patriot during its last days, and was one of the assets that was acquired by OGP. It soon proved to be more of a liability. While all else was in hand, the General Film Company was undergoing a period of reorganisation, and spent four months in dilatory preparation of the films, while reporting continued problems with exhibitors in showing the war films. Their plan was to bring together all of the war films so far: The American Boys at the Front, How Britain Prepared and The Battle of the Somme, and release them as a serial under the general title The War.50 This was Urban's preferred strategy for the American market, releasing the films as a series of two-reelers, or 2,000 feet, making the material less daunting; shaping it to duplicate the form of the popular dramatic serials with the implication that here was a greater, true-life adventure; and securing a presence, and a financial return, from the theatres over a greater length of time. The War, however, was more boosted than shown. Despite an advertising campaign that luridly emphasised its thrilling dramatic properties, including the renowned 'rescue' scene from The Battle of the Somme now billed as someone shown winning the Victoria Cross, and the names of identifiable Americans, some who had been killed, in the Ambulance Service film, it seems only to have been shown in Boston in March. Baynes was greatly frustrated at the inaction and the lack of any financial return from the General Film Company, and turned to Pathe Exchange.

One of the major distributors in America, which had made its name in particular with the handling of dramatic serials such as The Perils of Pauline, Pathe had previously spurned Urban. Now a deal was readily struck on a 30-70 basis, with Pathe further paying $30,000 of OGP's indebtedness. The Pathe deal came into effect in April, the month in which America entered the war. Pathe had had ample time to judge the change in political determination and public mood in the first three months of 1917, and the British war films were now desirable products, reflecting a conflict in which America was now becoming involved. They had a willing audience, as a passion for the war swept through the country, and Baynes and Urban found themselves pushing at an open door.

OGP and Pathe kept to the General Film Company's plans and took How Britain Prepared, The Battle of the Somme and The American Boys at the Front, and made out of them a seven-episode series of two-reelers, given the general title The Battle of the Somme. By November 1917, with just twenty-five sets of prints, Pathe distributed the series to some 7,800 theatres across America, grossing $122,000 in the eight months from April. Urban was responsible for editing the series, adding intertitles 'suitable for American audiences, eliminating what we should call British patriotism', as he later described it.51 Further films followed from the War Office Cinematograph Committee. The huge success of The Battle of the Somme led to two further feature-length productions, The Battle of the Ancre and the Advance of the Tanks, released in Britain January 1917, and The German Retreat and the Battle of Arras, released in Britain June 1917. Unexpectedly, the release of these films in Britain showed diminishing returns, suggesting that the public were wearying of war films, particularly of such length, and that maybe The Battle of the Somme had already fulfilled a particular national emotional need. It did not escape Urban, however, that one significant difference between these later features and The Battle of the Somme was that he did not edit them. He felt all the more proud of his own abilities when those same films, re-edited by him, were successful in America.

The Ancre film was notably popular. It was retitled The Tanks in Action at the Battle of the Ancre, and was issued as a four-reel feature, sold by Baynes on a States Rights basis, in mid-May. The sight of the tanks proved an irresistible draw, and the general appeal of the film was subtly if shamefully raised by Baynes by leaving out any mention of the word 'British' in the publicity materials.52 By November it had grossed over $66,000, having been shown in nearly 2,700 theatres.53 Baynes felt the Arras film as delivered to them, was 'extremely weak', but in combination with another title Sons of the Empire and 'some odds and ends of ruins in France', they put it on general release as a six-episode series of two-reelers under the title The Retreat of the Germans at the Battle of Arras. For its New York opening at the Strand on the weeks of 19 and 26 August (the film was presented in two parts), there was extensive advertising once more, this time with the words 'On the British Front' added in small type at the bottom, indicating that Baynes had been reprimanded for his policy with Ancre.54 The person who had reprimanded him was Geoffrey Butler, head of a new propaganda organisation in America, the British Pictorial Service. Butler apprehensively attended a public screening, fearful that they might be repeating themselves with like material such as had been the case in Britain. Their film followed on from a Billie Burke feature, The Mysterious Miss Terry. To his relief few left the theatre after the Burke picture, and the title alone, The Retreat of the Germans at the Battle of Arras brought the house down. 'They cheered and roared and waved. From then on one triumph succeeded another'. Scenes that went down particularly well were those of the Guards, anything that showed tanks, a trench raid, field guns galloping into action, and examples of shell fire 'near the operator'. Butler observed:

As far as I could I changed places from time to time & listened to the crowd. It was commonplace but most friendly & most humble as regards USA. In no place did I hear unfriendly remarks. They showed one picture of German dead which divided the house, one side disgracefully clapping but the other obviously shocked by this.56

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OGP paid out $25,000 in rent for the theatre, and Baynes spent another $12,000 on advertising, yet they emerged with a profit of $16,000 and a lucrative contract with the Keith exhibition circuit, which was Baynes' greatest success. Keith paid $200,000 for a three-week exclusive on the Arras film, showing it across America in a three episode format from 17 September for an aggregate showing of 5,600 days, a deal that was later extended to 7,800 days. Baynes calculated in November that 'some 7000 odd days bookings at an average of about $40 per day' would lead to 'a gross business of some $400,000'. That was perhaps too sanguine a hope, but by the end of February 1918 the film had grossed over $116,000.56

Propaganda for the masses

The British propaganda campaign in America did not end in April 1917. With America's entry into the war a major objective had been achieved, but there was still anti-British propaganda that needed countering, and a strong feeling that British policy needed to be explained, its particular position understood. This was coupled with a growing feeling that the campaign in America to that point had been too discreet, too literary, and that America's participation in the war now led the way to a more open form of propaganda. Particularly it was felt by critics of Masterman's regime at Wellington House that what was needed now was engagement with the masses, largely untouched by the programme of influencing the elite. The system of influence had been undeniably effective in helping to condition the opinions of that elite, but the American populace at large demonstrated an alarming ignorance of the war and its progress, and that which it had gleaned was taken entirely from partial American sources. The climate was ripe for a radical change in British propaganda.57

In February 1917 a new Department of Information (DOI) was created, absorbing Wellington House's operation within its structure, and headed by the novelist John Buchan. The new department was under instruction to be far more open about its activities, to engage in a wider field of activity, including home propaganda and propaganda aimed at the enemy, and to increase production generally, including the production of war films.

The immediate change as regards films being sent to America was that they would no longer be sent selectively. The DOI admitted that it was not known what would play most effectively in America, so they would be sending one print and one negative of practically every official film produced in Britain. They were also turning away from the production of feature-length films, their reason being that the features were mostly seen by those sympathetic to their cause, and left too long a gap between one production and the next. It was far better 'to maintain a constant supply of interesting films of varying length, the great majority of which could be treated as topical films and included in the regular budgets [i.e. newsreels]'. The bias, therefore, would be towards supplying news and interest footage which could be edited and distributed as they saw fit, rather than major, infrequent titles whose impact brought diminishing returns. This was to be the newsreel-oriented policy that the WOCC, the DOI and its successor in 1918 the Ministry of Information would largely pursue to the end of the war.58

In May 1917 the British Bureau of Information was formed, headed by Geoffrey Butler. Controlled by the American division of the DOI, it was responsible for the supervision of British propaganda in America. By the summer of 1917 it had been renamed the British Pictorial Service.59 It had a division with particular responsibility for film, the War Films Commission, controlled by H.A. Goode, who also joined Official Government Pictures as a director. The sanguine reports delivered by both Baynes and Urban on their activities contrast significantly with reports provided by the British Pictorial Service. While it was readily acknowledged that the films were enjoying good distribution and a very encouraging reception among American audiences, the financial operations of the OGP (which essentially meant Baynes and Urban) were a cause for concern, mingled with an enduring distaste for 'cinemas' which characterised so many of the British diplomatic service. Butler reported to Buchan in August:

It is a constant struggle. The Vanderbilt Committee with men like Baynes and Urban on it is a constant worry. Baynes is not actually dishonest so far as I can see at present but he is the typical showman. You can not believe one single word he says. Moreover he is in the game for his own profit (it booms him in the cinema world enormously of course) and for him publicity is a secondary object though he would not confess it. Urban has done some excellent work unpaid but you cannot really trust him far ... You would not believe me if I told you a catalogue of the propositions they have tried to put over on us. Goode only keeps his end up by colossal bluff.60

The main concern of Baynes and Urban was to pay off the remaining bad debts of the Patriotic Film Corporation, and Butler became greatly irritated at their boasts of being able to achieve this goal within a few months, when the books revealed this to be an impossibility. Baynes left the word 'British' out of his advertising until they reprimanded him. There were attempts to mix their own products (Urban introducing the Kineto War Maps) with the British official films. However, Butler's hands were tied, as they were 'in a queer legal position' and had in any case no wish to 'wash or have washed dirty linen in public'.

Butler's account is tainted with a distaste for the film business. Between the lines there is a convincing picture of Baynes and Urban thriving in the atmosphere of success finally achieved, and blurring the boundaries between government duty and personal commercial advantage. This had been a trait of the British film industry in general in its relations with the various official bodies concerned with propaganda throughout the war, and it represented as much a cultural divide as any failure of duty on the part of the trade. The war undoubtedly represented a great opportunity for an emergent industry that was both expanding its audience base while struggling to maintain production in the face of the loss of international markets. The authorities were more likely to be viewed as an obstacle to good business than wise guides to the means of influencing audiences. Urban wrote of Butler and Goode that they were 'good, active men ... doing good work in their particular press work ... but these gentlemen know nothing of the film business'.61

By the time of the launch of The Retreat of the Germans and the Battle of Arras in August 1917, Urban was no longer useful to the British propagandists. Now that OGP was a proven success and there was a sound distribution deal with Pathe, Urban's work was officially done. However, he continued to be greatly involved. The films from Britain were delivered in the first instance to laboratories he had acquired for his own personal business at Bayonne, New Jersey, in April 1917. There Urban re-assembled the films for American consumption, before sending them on to Pathe for distribution. It is unclear where the re-titling took place, though the balance of the evidence indicates that Urban was responsible for this as well, and that there was no directive from the British Pictorial Service as to what wording or angle he should adopt. The message lay, as it always had done, in the pictures. At Bayonne Urban prepared the major OGP releases, but also produced ndividual 1,000-foot reels from the same material for special exhibition for army training camps, naval bases, and other official sources, upon request.62

A propaganda organisation had also been formed by the Americans, days after America's declaration of war, the Committee on Public Information (CPI). America had made a considerable leap from its isolationist stance to war combatant, and a home propaganda campaign was needed to explain to Americans what they were fighting for, and to control the information delivered to them in order that they might continue to support the war.63 The CPI was originally wary of film as a propaganda medium, but eventually created a Division of Films on 25 September 1917, handling film taken by army Signal Corps cameramen. However, it shunned the commercial trade and released the films through the Red Cross. The intention was commendably charitable, but the Red Cross was an inefficient and ineffective means of distributing the films, and after much criticism from the film trade, the CPI reorganised the Division of Films in March 1918 under a new director, Charles Hart, and with Pathe as distributors.64

Kineto Company of America

On 27 November 1917 Charles Urban formed the Kineto Company of America, with registered offices at 71 West 23rd Street, New York. Though it would become the means by which Urban would start up again in film production after the war, for the final year of that conflict the Kineto Company of America primarily offered an editing, processing and printing service, and that chiefly for British and American official films.

Urban's two main customers were the CPI and OGP. The CPI began using Urban immediately following the reorganisation of its Division of Films in March 1918. The CPI acted as the conduit for footage being shot by America's Signal Corps in France and issued three main features from the material, Pershing's Crusaders, America's Answer and the post-war Under Four Flags. The remaining footage it mostly distributed to the newsreels. However, the CPI was facing the same trouble as the British propagandists had faced, which was that it was far harder to place a motion picture item before its intended public than it was to place a story in a newspaper. There was little sympathy for the CPI from the American film trade, which resented government intrusion and found government films an audience turn-off. Just as in Britain, while American audiences had originally responded with enthusiasm to the first major war actuality films that they saw, their interest swiftly palled. The CPI had also to face the sort of response one exhibitor gave to America's Answer, who asked, 'why not have woven a little heart-interest story through the genuine scenes from France?' Their answer was to package the material in a palatable form, issuing it in short, one or two reel releases. This took up less of the programme time and so presented less of a risk to exhibitors, and could deliver its message regularly over a succession of weeks. Such a policy Urban had pioneered with the Ancre and Arras films, and it was inevitable that the CPI would follow the example of Britain and France and produce an official newsreel.65

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Official War Review was intended to be an outlet for all of the official footage from all the various sources, American and British, that then existed, and in particular it aimed to streamline operations with OGP. Baynes was named as the Division of Films' 'official representative' for the British and Italian governments, and Urban became the editor and (through the Kineto Company of America) responsible for printing the newsreel. Urban's co-editor was Ray L. Hall, who with particular irony had been editor of the Hearst International Film Service's newsreel, Hearst-Selig News Pictorial. Official War Review was first issued on 1 July 1918, and lasted for thirty-one weekly editions through into 1919, being distributed by Pathe and yielding 6,950 theatre bookings and receipts of $334,622 in America alone.66

Official Government Pictures continued to distribute the British war films in their charge, though the amount of new material sent to them lessened as the WOCC moved its production strategy towards newsreels. The official newsreel, the War Office Official Topical Budget, had had a limited distribution in both America and Canada from the summer of 1917, when its sales were handled by W. Orton Tewson (another former Hearst man). From March 1918 the newsreel was sent weekly to OGP, where it could be augmented by American material so long as the resultant content was at least sixty per cent British. The editing was conducted by Urban, and led naturally into his production of Official War Review from July.67

Urban returned to Britain in December 1917, primarily to settle his business affairs in the country now that he was relocating in America. He liaised with the WOCC and the DOI for the delivery of further official films, before returning to the United States in February 1918. He had a new authority to answer to in Britain, for on 4 March 1918 the Department of Information was replaced by the Ministry of Information (MOI), headed by Lord Beaverbrook (formerly Sir Max Aitken), who effectively brought all of the numerous and often conflicting strands of British propaganda, and British film propaganda, under one roof.68

Although the new material that Urban was handling was primarily newsreel, there were still the three major British war films in distribution throughout America: The Battle of the Somme, The Tanks in Action at the Battle of the Ancre and The Retreat of the Germans at the Battle of Arras were all still making money for war charities, though they were coming to the end of their commercial lives. The Battle of the Somme in its seven-episode, serial form, incorporating material from How Britain Prepared and The American Boys at the Front, running for seven weeks in each town, had earned L63,000 by January 1918 and was still bringing in L400 a week. The Tanks in Action at the Battle of the Ancre, exhibited as a single, four reel feature, had made L15,000. The Retreat of the Germans at the Battle of Arras, shown as a six-episode serial over six weeks in each town had made more than L25,000. Sixty-five million people, it was estimated, had seen the British war films in Urban's charge, and that was in 1917 alone - an astonishing turnaround from the situation Urban had faced throughout 1916.69

To replace these titles Urban and OGP introduced two new serials based on fresh WOCC/MOI material. Britain's Bulwarks was made up of material produced over the July-December 1917 period and was issued in America from May 1918 as a twelve-part serial. An illustration of the sometimes less than reverential approach that Baynes and Urban took towards the material offered to them comes in a letter from Baynes to H.A. Goode at the British Pictorial Service, which revealingly illustrates how Britain's Bulwarks was put together.

[W]e must be the judges and it is rather ridiculous for the Cinema Committee to ship miles of junk to us and expect us to buy it and to continue with our success. For example, they have sent us 25 copies of a two reeler, 'The King's Visit to the Fleet'. It is nearly 1800 feet long, there is barely 600 feet that can be used; all the rest is nothing but repetition. The King goes from ship to ship and shakes hand [sic] with everybody. The picture should be called 'The Glad Mitt'. In England every ship he goes on is of interest because any member of the audience may recognise a brother, a son, or a sweetheart, but that is not the case in America. 'The Capture of Messines' - another two-reeler. There is not 600 feet of this film that can possibly be put out. They have sent us 25 copies of practically 1800 feet. 'A Day with the Munition Workers' - This is only about 650 feet long and we can probably use about 500 feet of it. 'The King at the Front' - This is 1200 feet and half of it is very badly duped and uninteresting. We can use about 500 feet of this.70

They could use practically all 650 feet of 'Prisoners' Detention Camps in England', and with Mesopotamian footage which they already had, they envisaged at this point making a four-reel feature to be called The British Bulwarks, or The Five Phases of the War, or The British Forces East and West, their decision on this to be taken in consultation with Geoffrey Butler (who undoubtedly would have stressed the importance of keeping the word 'British' in the title). In this they would use 3,000 feet of the 5,300 feet sent to them. The remainder was made up into reels for the British Pictorial Service to supply to lecturers, so that nothing went to waste. Compiling and re-editing all this material cost them $7,000.

Britain's Bulwarks was followed by another twelve-part serial in August, advertised as commemorating four years since Britain entered the war. It was not a retrospective, however, being largely composed of material filmed 1917-1918 in Egypt and Palestine, with a title taken from Kipling, Britain's Far-Flung Battle Line.71 That there was more to such serials than simply some creative titles is indicated in an admiring review from Variety, contrasting strongly with the withering assessment from the same journal of How Britain Prepared, two years before.

It is all so vivid and carries with it a sense of actuality - not a series of official postings for the camera but all gathered in the course of government war work. Well worth seeing.72

The pace, variety and vivid interest were all remarked upon. The British war films were even contrasted favourably with the CPI's own major documentaries, whose pedestrian content disappointed the American film trade.

In September 1918 Urban returned to Britain. In a letter to the British Foreign Secretary A. J. Balfour he declared proudly that Official War Review was now being seen by three-and-a-half million people daily, and that he and Baynes had been instrumental in exhibiting twenty-six British war films since May of the previous year.73 He reported in person to the Cinema Committee for the last time on 24 September. The other purposes of his visit were presumably to organise the further transfer of his business to America, and to negotiate with the MOI for the export of further war films. This became irrelevant, however, with the war's end on 11 November, and Urban may well have been on the Atlantic when he heard the news, as he arrived back in New York on 17 November.

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Conclusion

Propaganda is never so simple an art as its detractors maintain; simple, that is, in the blatancy of its effects. America did not go to war because of British propaganda, as it was later claimed. British propaganda played on a climate of opinion that already existed in America, and was but one factor among many in influencing the turn of events. Propaganda is as much led by events as the generator of them; it has ultimately to be determined by truth, or else its dissembling will eventually become all too apparent. Propaganda is all too often seen for what it is, and then becomes counter-productive. This was certainly the fate of the British war films when first exhibited in America, and it indicates how much the British propaganda campaign was overall successful not so much in forming opinion as in playing upon opinions already held, and nurturing these.

The films shown after April 1917 succeeded commercially, but also played their part in the altered aims of the British propagandists in America. Those aims were, in general, to illustrate the scale of Britain's sacrifice, and to give a clear picture of modern warfare for American audiences, and the indications are that overall the films imparted these ideas. Geoffrey Butler's report on the audience reactions to The Retreat of the Germans at the Battle of Arras shows how attentive audiences could be to both images and titles, and how warmly such a film could be received.

It would be wrong, however, to make grand claims for British filmed propaganda in America. It was but one strand among many - letters, articles, pamphlets, photographs, posters, lectures, bazaars, paintings - so that its presence among the propaganda campaign was a relatively minor one, and those such as Masterman, Gaunt, Butler, Goode, Buchan and Beaverbrook to whom Urban was responsible in some form or other, were for much of their time during the war preoccupied with many other matters. Their concern was to form a climate of opinion, not to master the intricacies of the American film market. Nevertheless, film was particularly suited to reaching a mass audience, an audience often untouched by newspapers or by the more elevated methods of persuasion adopted by the British; and it could show war to a degree of reality, to a degree of comprehensibility, that no other medium could match. Through the serial war films and the British material that came to be included in the widespread newsreels, the propaganda campaign could be judged as being, after a clumsy start, a reasonable success.