77. EUROPE AND THE IDOL. HOW MUCH LONGER SHALL WE SACRIFICE OUR SONS TO THIS ACCURSED IDOL? (The inscription on the idol is "Anglia.") Revolutionary Poster. ? German propaganda. _GERMAN_ 78. GIPKINS. BRINGT EUREN GOLDSCHMUCK DEN GOLDANKAUFSSTELLEN. (Bring your gold ornaments to the Gold-purchasing Depôt!) _AUSTRIAN_ 79. ALFRED OFFNER. ZEICHET 7. KRIEGSANLENIHE. (Subscribe to the Seventh War Loan.) _AMERICAN_ 80. BABCOCK. JOIN THE NAVY--THE SERVICE FOR FIGHTING MEN. Recruiting Poster for the U.S. Navy. I.--POSTERS AND THE WAR Never in the history of the world have the accessories of ordinary civilised life met with so searching a test of their essential quality as during the War. All national effort throughout the belligerent countries was organised and directed to serve a single purpose of supreme importance. This purpose in its turn served as a touchstone to sort out whatever was useful and valuable in everyday things, and shaped the selected elements into weapons of immense power. The poster, hitherto the successful handmaid of commerce, was immediately recognised as a means of national propaganda with unlimited possibilities. Its value as an educative or stimulative influence was more and more appreciated. In the stress of war its function of impressing an idea quickly, vividly, and lastingly, together with the widest publicity, was soon recognised. While humble citizens were still trying to evade a stern age-limit by a jaunty air and juvenile appearance, the poster was mobilised and doing its bit. Activity in poster production was not confined to Great Britain. France, as in all matters where Art is concerned, triumphantly took the field, and soon had hoardings covered with posters, many of which will take a lasting place in the history of Art. Germany and Austria, from the very outset of the War, seized upon the poster as the most powerful and speedy method of swaying popular opinion. Even before the War, we had much to learn from the concentrated power, the force of design, the economy of means, which made German posters sing out from a wall like a defiant blare of trumpets. Their posters issued during the War are even more aggressive; but it is the function of a poster to act as a "mailed fist," and our illustrations will show that, whatever else may be their faults, the posters of Germany have a force and character that make most of our own seem insipid and tame.