Falsehood in War-Time

Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War, written by Arthur Ponsonby in 1928 lists and refutes pieces of propaganda used by the Allied Forces (Russia, France, Britain and the United States) against the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria).

After the Second World War, a new edition of the book was given the updated title Falsehood in War-Time: Propaganda Lies of the First World War.

Arthur Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, was born Arthur Augustus William Henry Ponsonby in 1871. Lord Ponsonby attended Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he joined the Diplomatic Service. In 1906, Ponsonby ran as a Liberal candidate, unsuccessfully, at the general election but was elected a Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom (MP) at a by-election in 1908. Lord Ponsonby was opposed to Britain's involvement in World War I and helped form the Union of Democratic Control (UDC). He stood as an “Independent Democrat” in the new Dunfermline Burghs constituency in the 1918 general election and was defeated, and joined the Labour Party, becoming the MP for the Brightside Division of Sheffield in the 1922 general election. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport after the 1929 general election. He was granted a peerage and became Leader of the House of Lords in 1930. In 1940, Lord Ponsonby resigned from the Labour Party because he was opposed to its decision to join the National Government.

Falsehood in War-time identifies the role propaganda played in World War I, in general and specific terms and lists over 20 falsehoods that were circulated during the First World War. Indicative of his worldview Ponsonby regards these falsehoods as a fundamental part of the way the war effort was created and sustained, claiming that without lies there would be “no reason and no will for war”.

Some of these falsehoods contain atrocity propaganda reported on German Army troops which were reported killing and maiming of inoccent civilians and captured soldiers.

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