Why 'murder of babies' is the pinnacle of war propaganda

The news spread quickly. The German forces cut off the hands of Belgian babies! 

The year was August 1914 when German forces breached  "neutral" Belgium's border to avoid French fortifications along the French-German border. At the time, the Germans had already declared war on France. 

Tensions were high in Europe by August 1914, especially after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in June 1914 — which would morph into the driving factor leading to World War I. 

The 'Great War' was fought over four years starting in 1914 between the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire) and the Allied forces (Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan and the United States). 

When the German forces invaded Belgium, it violated the 1839 Treaty – which had declared Belgium neutral. The Treaty subjected relations between European powers to legal rules and preserved the safety of smaller states. Thus, the German forces' invasion of Belgium upset the British government to no end. 

What unfolded was nothing short of war crimes by the German forces in August. During their pillage, they killed thousands of civilians. But later, historians also took stock of how mainly British war propaganda fueled, mobilised and shifted global (especially the Allied forces') public opinion). 

This propaganda included: The Germans cut off Belgian babies' hands! Akin to a highlight reel, this piece of information and news of babies bayoneted, the nurses whose breasts were cut off, and the Canadian soldier who was crucified to a barn door at the hands of the German forces — implanted a visual seed in the audience's mind. The Germans are barbaric and evil.

The vivid details that came out of the German's pillage shocked the world. Subsequently, it was relentlessly used in war propaganda over the course of time. This is one example – the "Once a German - Always A German!" posters were distributed for sale in France, Belgium and Britain: the enemy bayonets babies, murders nurses, burns cathedrals and sinks merchantmen. 

So much so, it quickly became dubbed as the "Rape of Belgium," "Remember Belgium," and "Poor little Belgium" — in fact it was the victimisation of Belgium which ultimately persuaded the US to join WWI and enlist soldiers. 

When the victims are babies, children and women – the impact is more visceral than the deaths of men as collateral damage, historians and experts say.  

The German forces did in fact commit atrocities against Belgians during the invasion and later during its four-year occupation. On the flipside, during the invasion, rumours also circulated that Belgian "guerilla" fighters slit the throats of sleeping German soldiers and gouged out their eyes. 

In 1915, former British Ambassador to the US, James Bryce chaired an official British commission and produced the "Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages." The report substantiated the claims of German forces' atrocities, including the hacked-off children's hands. This report, which was seen as credible in the US, almost single-handedly solidified US support for the Allied Forces' cause.  

Germany countered with the "White Book," in response, and Belgium refuted it with its "Grey Book". All parties engaged in the war of words, while on the battleground soldiers and civilians continued to be killed in World War I. 

It was after the war ended that the Bryce Report was challenged. One investigation report said that they were given six addresses where Belgian babies' hands were chopped off, but upon visiting the sites, no such evidence was found. Additionally, later reports found that men were the chief victims of the German forces. 

The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was around 40 million.

Repercussions of atrocity propaganda (the dissemination of information about the crimes committed by the "enemy" in a war) reverberate for years in many forms. For instance, when reports of actual grotesque atrocities committed by Nazis first started to surface, it was met with doubt and skepticism by the world audience. In some cases, even journalists felt reluctant to report on the atrocities during the initial years. 

Back to the Middle Ages

The use of children in propaganda to vilify and demonise the "enemy" is a historical practice. For instance, "blood libel" — the false allegation that Jews use the blood of non-Jewish, usually Christian children, for ritual purposes was widely used to persecute Jews. This also found a place in Nazis' antisemitic propaganda as well. 

However, "blood libel" charges against Jews across Europe date back to the Middle Ages. For instance, the news of a missing Italian two-year-old boy named Simon in 1475 led the father to accuse the local Jewish community. It resulted in the arrest, torture and execution of eight Jews.  

Although this appears to be minuscule, it serves as a drop in the ocean of recorded "blood libel" persecutions against Jews. Sometimes, resulting in deaths of the accused Jews. 

Beside the circulation of false allegations to persecute a minority group, the use of children in propaganda is also well-documented as the cause of grave civil wars and atrocities. 

In 1641, an English statesman by the name of Oliver Cromwell went on to become historically famous for the crimes he committed in Ireland. He came to the limelight during the 1639-1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms — but his role in 1641 perhaps supersedes all his achievements. 

In a nutshell, the 1641 Irish Rebellion was an uprising by Catholics in Ireland, whose demands included an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance and the return of confiscated Catholic lands. It became a "conflict" between Catholic Irish and English Protestants.  

However, 'reports' and 'hearsay evidence' – according to The Guardian in 2011 – began to circulate that the Catholics ripped open the stomachs of pregnant women and had their babies pulled out and beaten against rocks. 

This is particularly vivid. And it did the job because "These 'atrocities' were used by Cromwell to show how cruel, barbarous and alien the Irish were ... but it's based on highly unreliable evidence," said Dr Mark Sweetnam, Assistant Professor of English with Digital Humanities at Trinity College Dublin. As a result, Cromwell's atrocities included the massacres at two Irish towns, Drogheda and Wexford. 

Dr Mark was part of the research team studying the texts and evidence surrounding the 1641 Irish Rebellion, according to The Guardian report in 2011 — because even after three centuries, historians and analysts remain divided over this chapter in history.  

While Oliver Cromwell was an important figure in the War of the Three Kingdoms who inflicted a lot of suffering on the Irish people, he never founded a country. 

Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding members of the United States, penned a letter in 1782 with graphic vivid details about how Senneka Indians [Native Americans] loyal to the crown had scalped the heads of children, women and men.

Part of the letter reads "102 [scalps] of Farmers…; only 18 marked with a little yellow Flame, to denote their being Prisoners burnt alive, after being scalped, their Nails pulled out by the Roots and other Torments…"

But Franklin lied and published how Native Americans committed atrocities. Why? "Through these manufactured tales of atrocities perpetrated by Native Americans at the behest of the British, Franklin looked to influence the mindset of the British public as he worked on negotiating the peace treaty that would formally end the conflict between Britain and the new United States," said a 2015 Slate article.  

At the time, both colonists and their British opponents had enlisted the help of local Native American tribes in the conflict. And "Since Franklin was looking to secure reparations for colonists who had suffered Iroquois attacks, the atrocities reported in such vivid colour in the letter would, he hoped, sway British readers to support that objective," according to Slate.

The scalping letter was reprinted a few times in London, and many more times in the new US. "35 American newspapers republished Franklin's handiwork as truth before 1854, when the Trenton, New Jersey, State Gazette outed it as a hoax," according to Slate. 

Things deteriorated further in terms of how information and propaganda were used and circulated prominently through media by the late 19th century. 

By then, media and newspapers became more robust. In an interview with The History Channel in 2019, W Joseph Campbell, a professor of communication at American University in Washington, DC, explained how "No serious historian of the Spanish American War period embraces the notion that the yellow press of [William Randolph] Hearst and [Joseph] Pulitzer fomented or brought on the war with Spain in 1898." 

However, the understanding is it was the rivalry of these leading newspapers that fueled and greatly shifted the public opinion on the war. It was later found that some of the stories published by these establishments were fabricated. The stories were about the Spanish atrocities committed against the Cubans, including heaps of dead men, women and children left on the side of the road. 

It was dubbed as the first "media war" when terms such as yellow journalism came into prominence. Campbell explained how the content and stylisation of newspapers took the face of tabloids. Newspapers carried the objective to shock the reader rather than inform.   

It was the newspapers which may have heightened public calls for US entry into the conflict. However, there were multiple political factors that led to the war's outbreak. 

"Newspapers did not cause the Cuban rebellion that began in 1895 and was a precursor to the Spanish-American War," Campbell told The History Channel,  "And there is no evidence that the administration of President William McKinley turned to the yellow press for foreign policy guidance."

Closer to home, the rape of European women by the Indians was heavily used in literature from the half of the 19th century to World War I. This is well documented. After the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857, there was a peak in "mutiny fiction" in the 1890s, which essentially told of rape in the British novels. Not just novels, but plays and even children's stories were published on the subject. They also worked to justify Britain's brutal suppression of the uprisings of 1857 and continued domination of India.

The 20th-century wars

Speaking of literature, by the first half of the 20th century, the Nazis used sophisticated propaganda techniques such as advertisements, cinema and of course newspapers. For many years building up to the Holocaust, the Nazis used methods to "other" the Jews. Movies such as Will (1935) Festival of the Nations and Festival of Beauty (1938) and The Eternal Jew (1940) stand out among them. 

War propaganda, which includes atrocity propaganda, generally relies on the othering of the enemy. It can perhaps be dissected into sound bites such as showing that the enemy is capable of such extreme atrocities that they are not people. 

This works well into the dehumanisation narrative. In doing so, it becomes easier for governments to mobilise the public spirit and shift public opinion regarding wars and conflicts around the world. 

One can argue this is particularly important for democratic countries and leaders who depend on the "majority" voice or vote. 

In a Democracy Now story titled "How False Testimony and a Massive US Propaganda Machine Bolstered George HW Bush's War on Iraq" — no this is not about the 2003 Iraq invasion — it said how Nayirah, a teenage Kuwaiti girl, gave a heartfelt, moving testimony in front the US Congress about her lived experience of Iraqi soldiers' atrocities against the Kuwaitis. 

"They [Iraqis] took the babies out of incubators, took the incubators and left the children to die on the cold floor. It was horrifying. I could not help but think of my nephew," Nayirah testified in October 1990. 

Three months after the testimony, President George HW Bush launched the invasion of Iraq. But it turned out Nayirah's claims were not true. No human rights group or news outlet could confirm what she said. 

It also turned out Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US, Saud Nasser al-Sabah. She had been coached by the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, which was working for the Kuwaiti government, according to Democracy Now. The incubator claims were debunked by Amnesty International, among others. 

The Gulf War was an armed conflict between Iraq and a 42-country coalition led by the US.

The human toll of the Persian Gulf war — as many as 100,000 deaths, five million displaced persons and over $200 billion in property damage — ranks this conflict as the single most devastating event in the Middle East since World War I, according to Middle East Research and Project. 

The Gulf War came to an end in February 1991. 

On 17 December 1991, the Los Angeles Times published "Truth Is Again a Casualty of War: Fabricated accounts of atrocities in Yugoslavia have often led to fierce reprisals."

It was about the infamous Serbian photographer – who claimed to have seen the mutilated corpses of 41 children slaughtered by Croatian national guardsmen. This immediately stirred horror and outrage when it was broadcast around the world in late November.

Serbian rebels executed Croatian fighters the next day after the 41 children story was published and carried far and wide by the media. However, the photographer later said he fabricated his eye witness account. 

Tales of the 21st century: Where are we now?

The Iraqi Jumana Hanna testimony about her torture in Iraqi prison under Saddam Hussein's rule is one of the many stories and accounts that were circulated in the US and UK media in relation to Saddam's atrocious regime during the run-up and after the US invaded Iraq in 2003. 

Jumana's story was debunked later on and media outlets such as The Washington Post had to retract their story. 

The 2010 Kyrgyzstan ethnic war with Uzbeks also saw how false allegations or rumours of women being tortured at the hands of one party, without evidence, can fuel and erupt into violence and deaths. 

In 2011, the Libyan Civil War also saw "reports" or hearsay about viagra-fueled rapes committed by Gadaffi loyalists. 

In July 2014, Russia's news channel said Ukrainian soldiers in Sloviansk crucified a three-year-old boy to a board. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists fighting the Ukrainian military in the Donbas War —- and in February 2014, the Russo-Ukraine war began. 

This was debunked. Media outlets reported, later, that no such incident took place. 

Fast forward to 11 October 2023, US President Joe Biden said to a Jewish community in the United States that he is heartbroken to see Israeli beheaded babies by Hamas. 

When the American president repeats war crimes, there isn't much else to do but believe. The "beheaded babies" claim has been debunked. But it is still, to date, used fervently to justify Israel's disproportionate "retaliation" against the Palestinians in Gaza, and West Bank. 

In the age of social media coupled with biased mainstream media, dissemination of information and war/atrocity propaganda is a delicate (and for some, deadly) dance — one none of us have quite learned to do.