Lord Kitchener Wants You - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A 1914 recruitment poster

Military recruitment

Military recruitment is the act of requesting people, usually male adults, to join a military voluntarily. Involuntary military recruitment is known as conscription. Many countries that have abolished conscription use military recruiters to persuade people to join, often at an early age. To...

depicting Lord Kitchener

Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener

Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC , was an Irish-born British Field Marshal and proconsul who won fame for his imperial campaigns and later played a central role in the early part of the First World War, although he died halfway...

, the British Secretary of State for War

Secretary of State for War

The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...

, above the words "WANTS YOU" was the most famous image used in the British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

recruitment campaign

Recruitment to the British Army during World War I

At the start of 1914 the British Army had a reported strength of 710,000 men including reserves, of which around 80,000 were regular troops ready for war. By the end of World War I almost 1 in 4 of the total male population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had joined, over five...

of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. It has inspired many imitations.

Origins

Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914. The poster was designed

Graphic design

Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

by Alfred Leete

Alfred Leete

Alfred Ambrose Chew Leete was a British graphic artist. Born at Thorpe Achurch, Northamptonshire, he studied at Kingsholme School, Weston-super-Mare, before moving to London in 1899 and taking a post as an artist with a printer...

and had first appeared as a cover illustration for London Opinion, one of the most influential magazines in the world, on 5 September 1914. A similar poster used the words "YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU". It is often wrongly referred to as "BRITONS WANTS YOU".

On the outbreak of the First World War, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

Herbert Asquith appointed Kitchener as Secretary of State for War. Kitchener was the first member of the military to hold the post and was given the task of recruiting a large army to fight Germany

History of Germany during World War I

During World War I, the German Empire was one of the Central Powers that ultimately lost the war. It began participation with the conflict after the declaration of war against Serbia by its ally, Austria-Hungary...

.

The poster has often been seen as a driving force helping to bring millions of men into the Army. The image first appeared in the front cover of the hugely influential London Opinion magazine on 5 September 1914, a month that had the highest number of volunteers

Monthly recruiting figures for the British Army in the First World War

This is a table of the number of recruits for the British Army during the First World War, 1914-1918.All recruits were technically volunteers until January 1916, when men were recruited under the Derby Scheme and as conscripts following the Military Service Act 1916. From July 1917, all recruits...

. In response to requests for reproductions, the magazine issued postcard-sized copies, and the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee obtained permission to use the design in poster form. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

recorded the scene in London on 3 January 1915; "Posters appealing to recruits are to be seen on every hoarding, in most windows, in omnibuses, tramcars and commercial vans. The great base of Nelson's Pillar

Nelson's Column

Nelson's Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in central London built to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson, who died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The monument was constructed between 1840 and 1843 to a design by William Railton at a cost of £47,000. It is a column of the Corinthian...

is covered with them. Their number and variety are remarkable. Everywhere Lord Kitchener sternly points a monstrously big finger, exclaiming 'I Want You'". Although it became one of the most famous posters in history, its widespread circulation did not halt the decline in recruiting.

Imitations

The image of Lord Kitchener with his hand pointing directly at the viewer has inspired numerous imitations:

Image:370px-WarioWantsYouToMakeGames.jpg| Wario

Wario

is a fictional character in Nintendo's Mario series. The character was designed as another antagonist to Mario , and first appeared in the 1992 Game Boy title Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins as the main antagonist and final boss...

is seen above the text "I Want You To Make Games" for a promotion of the first WarioWare D.I.Y contest

Origins

Imitations

Further reading