It Is Far Better To Face The Bullets

Issued in 1915 by the Publicity Department of the Central Recruiting Depot, Whitehall, this striking British First World War recruiting poster uses the new threat of aerial warfare to encourage men to enlist. A German Zeppelin appears above the London skyline, caught in the beam of a searchlight. Below are recognizable silhouettes of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The poster was printed by Andrew Reid & Co. Ltd. of Newcastle-on-Tyne. The artist is unknown. The message— “It is far better to face the bullets than to be killed at home by a bomb”—directly connected military enlistment with the defense of Britain itself. This was a particularly powerful appeal in 1915, when German Zeppelin attacks made aerial bombardment a new reality for British civilians. The first Zeppelin raids on Britain struck Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn in January 1915, followed by the first attack on London on May 31. (National Army Museum Collection)Rather than portraying combat at the front, the poster brought the war home. The Zeppelin hovering over London suggested that remaining in Britain offered no guarantee of safety, while the searchlight and appeal to “help to stop an air raid” presented enlistment as a way of directly protecting the country and its civilian population. It is an unusually graphic example of how the emerging threat of air warfare was incorporated into British wartime recruiting propaganda.Examples of this poster are held in important institutional collections, including the Library of Congress, Imperial War Museum, National Army Museum and Hoover Institution. This is an Original Vintage Poster, it is not a reproduction. This poster is conservation mounted, linen backed and in excellent condition. We guarantee the authenticity of all our posters.