But then, in many ways the war that the British actually fought bore little resemblance to the war they expected. This mistakes the fears of wartime 1940 – when an invasion was very much a possibility – with those of prewar 1939 – when it was barely even considered. The specific purpose of the poster was to stiffen resolve in the event of a Nazi invasion. Why does all this matter? Even though the origins of Keep Calm are now well-documented, it is still commonly associated with the Blitz.Ī recent Guardian article even claimed that In 2000, one of these was found in a secondhand bookshop in Northumberland, and this copy eventually launched the modern obsession with this previously obscure piece of propaganda. In April 1940, with the British people having adjusted to the Phoney War and no sign of an impending aerial apocalypse, the vast majority of the Keep Calm posters were pulped and recycled, with only a few making their way into public view. But unlike two other propaganda posters created at the same time, Keep Calm was never publicly displayed on a large scale, because the mass bombing raids that were expected at the start of the war never came. In the summer of 1939, as war with Germany seemed increasingly likely, Ministry of Information planners designed the Keep Calm poster in order to stiffen morale in the event of just such an emergency. The point of the Keep Calm poster was not that it was believed to represent an innate British trait instead, the fear was that the working classes in particular were all too likely to panic and riot after an intense bombing campaign. Keep Calm and friends: the three posters designed by the Ministry of Information in 1939. We thought of air warfare in 1938 rather as people think of nuclear warfare today. A generation later, former prime minister Harold Macmillan recalled in 1966 that, The Luftwaffe did not attack London immediately upon the outbreak of war, and while 40,000 British civilians were killed in the Blitz, this suffering was spread out over seven months, rather than concentrated in a few weeks.Īs terrible as it was, the Blitz was nothing compared to the knock-out blow that was feared before the war. The reality was very different, because the knock-out blow theory was wrong. Of course, the catch, if the knock-out blow theory was accurate, was that instead of soldiers it would be civilians who would bear the brunt of the death and destruction in the next war.īy 1939, the scale of the expected attack meant that the British people were facing the prospect of around 2.1 million casualties in the first two months of war, perhaps as many as 170,000 in the first 24 hours alone. Many were also determined to avoid the shocking number of deaths of young men over four years of stalemate and slaughter in the trenches of the Western Front. The idea of the knock-out blow was extrapolated from the limited experience of the first strategic bombing campaigns of the First World War. Surrender would inevitably follow within weeks or even days. Millions would flee into the countryside to escape the raids, and the economy would collapse. The great cities such as London would be destroyed by incendiary bombs and poison gas, causing such intense suffering that morale would collapse. The theory of “ the knock-out blow from the air,” widespread in the 1920s and 1930s, predicted that the next war would begin with shattering air raids by thousands of bombers. Despite the terrible suffering and mass casualties inflicted by Hitler’s Luftwaffe, Britain did not give in instead it survived to play a key role in defeating Nazi Germany. In particular, this meant enduring the Blitz, the German bombing of London and other cities between September 1940 and May 1941, with cheerfulness and courage – the so-called Blitz spirit. It embodies the “ stiff upper lip” of the British people in standing up to Hitler in the Second World War. Rather than merely being a nostalgic relic of a reassuring past, Keep Calm should be seen as a symbol of terror.Īs well as the elegance and simplicity of its design, Keep Calm’s popularity draws on an ideal of stoicism traditionally linked with the British national character. But while it is well-known that Keep Calm originated as British wartime propaganda, the original context is rarely appreciated. It’s a cultural – and marketing – phenomenon. It has spread further by being remixed and memeified: Keep Calm And Drink Tea, Now Panic And Freak Out, Change Words And Be Hilarious. The original Keep Calm survivor at Barter Books, Alnwick.
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