The Coming of the Hun! American Fears of a German Invasion, 1918

Abstract

The best-documented American poster of First World War was created by Joseph Pennell (1869-1926), one of most popular American illustrators of late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Figure I).1 It was designed for Fourth Liberty Loan drive, which opened on September 28, 1918, and closed on October 19. Pennell wrote, the idea came into head on way back from New York, where I had attended a meeting of Committee on Public Information at which loan was announced and posters asked for.2 I made sketch on train, carried it out on transfer paper when I got to Philadelphia, and put it on zinc plates, printed it and went west, and it was not till months after that I heard it had passed both juries New York and Washington, and was to be used as one of posters for fourth liberty loan. The caption reads THAT LIBERTY SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH and presents a frightful image of New York City destroyed by air attacks (Pennell 9). In foreground, headless statue of Liberty is surrounded by flames. Her broken torch lies at her feet, an apt symbol of a vanquished America. In background, city is engulfed flames, and sketchy pen work creates a moving scene of ruin and destruction. As Pennell himself wrote, my idea was New York city bombed, shot down, burning, blown up by an enemy (9). His original idea for caption was BUY LIBERTY BONDS OR YOU WILL see THIS (18). For today, idea that German forces could have invaded United States 1918 is absurd. It would have been a military undertaking that even today would present almost insurmountable difficulties, and when First World War began 1914, most Americans were sure that United States would not become involved. They felt fully protected by oceans and would have agreed with Dr. Roland G. Usher, chair of Department of History at Washington University and author of books on American history, who wrote New York Times, needless to say, European war will not involve United States actual hostilities. ... We are too distant from scene of war; too entirely devoid of interests combatants might seriously injure ... to cause them to assail us (Sullivan 86). And his 1915 book on PanGermanism, he prophesied that in no event is a German army likely to set foot on soil of North America to attack United States, Canada, or Mexico. ... Any notion that Germany would even dream of conquering America is based on a fundamentally incorrect conception of Pan-Germanism (Usher 136-37). But when United States entered conflict on side of allies a little less than three years later, this sense of invulnerability had vanished along with our neutrality. Germany had become our enemy-an so powerful that it was a threat to our very existence -and a great many Americans believed that a German invasion of continental United States was not only possible, but also quite likely and possibly even imminent. This article investigates some of causes for this radical change attitude. Books, articles, and especially films will all be considered an effort to recreate cultural context which Pennell's striking poster was seen and understood. Invasion literature was a popular genre of early twentieth-century fiction, both England and America. One of most popular was H. G. Wells's War Air, which was written 1907 and began to appear as a serial Pall Matt Magazine January 1908. In Wells's book, Germany attacks United States as opening move a last vast effort for world conquest. The German navy defeats American North Atlantic Fleet and a German air armada of zeppelins, huge monsters as large as a battleship, and oneman flying machines called Drachenflieger (dragonflies) bombard New York (Wells). Wells gives a vivid description of massacre of New York. …