Posters, Propaganda and the Military: A Print History

One image did more to define what a recruitment poster looks like than almost anything before or since — and it's a reminder that print has been military hardware in its own right for over two centuries.

Maps First

Long before recruitment posters, the military drove one of Britain's most important printing projects: the Ordnance Survey, which grew out of military mapping needs from the 18th century onwards. Accurate printed maps were, quite literally, strategic assets.

The Poster That Defined a Genre

On 5 September 1914, an illustration by the artist Alfred Leete appeared on the cover of the magazine London Opinion: Lord Kitchener, moustached and stern, pointing directly at the viewer. It was quickly adapted into a recruitment poster, and its direct-address format, a figure pointing straight out of the page, became the template that recruitment and propaganda posters the world over would copy for the rest of the century. The original poster print run was modest, in the region of 10,000 copies, but its influence was completely disproportionate to that number.

Print at Wartime Scale

Between 1914 and 1916, the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee produced roughly 12.5 million individual poster copies across 164 separate typescript and lithographic designs — an enormous logistical print operation, run in the middle of a war, using the print technology of the day: letterpress and lithography.

Beyond Posters

Military print wasn't limited to recruitment. Field manuals, forces' newspapers for troop morale, and psychological-operations leaflets dropped over enemy lines all featured across both World Wars — print doing the job of information, morale and persuasion, wherever it was needed.

Today: Remembrance and Community Print

Modern military-connected print is less about propaganda and more about remembrance and community: poppy appeal posters, regimental association banners, veterans' charity fundraising material, and printed programmes for remembrance events.

Where This Connects to What We Print

Remembrance events, veterans' associations and military charities still need exactly this kind of printed material — banners, posters and printed programmes through our large format & signage service, and fundraiser t-shirts through our charity & fundraising printing page.

Frequently asked questions

Who created the famous Kitchener recruitment poster?

The artist Alfred Leete, whose illustration first appeared as a London Opinion magazine cover on 5 September 1914 before being adapted into a recruitment poster.

How many WWI recruitment posters were printed?

The Parliamentary Recruiting Committee produced roughly 12.5 million copies across 164 designs between 1914 and 1916; figures for individual designs vary between sources.

What military print exists today?

Remembrance event material, regimental and veterans' association banners, and military charity fundraising print are the modern continuation of military printing.

Browse our large format & signage printing page, or see the History of the Printing Press for the wider story.