The Basis of Future Operations
VIII
Good propaganda must keep well ahead of actual political events. It must act as pacemaker to policy and mould public opinion without appearing to do so. Before political aims are translated into action, the world has to be convinced of their necessity and moral justification. What one desires to achieve must seem to be simply a psychological consequence of existing facts. We made no use of propaganda abroad, hardly knowing anything about it, although at home very skilful work was done against certain persons. Our political aims and decisions, issued to the world as sudden surprises, often seemed to be merely brutal and violent. This could have been skilfully avoided by broad and far-sighted propaganda.
Not only had we had no inclination for propaganda work in peace time, but we were also lacking in the necessary facilities. We had no world telegraph service, with its chain of cable and wireless stations. Efforts to remedy this had not yet been made. We lacked a leading journal of a strong national char-*acter, possessing influence abroad and weight at home, like the Times in England, the Temps in France, and the Nowe Vremya in Russia. All these three papers took their stand on strong national platforms. The newspapers from which foreigners received direct information from Germany were all devotees of internationalism, fundamentally opposed to our form of government, and gave a false and one-sided picture of pur life and thought and of the conditions in Germany.
In the field of propaganda, we had much to catch up. We had to start the fight against the enemy's home front, and to use it with all our might to intensify the effect of the submarine campaign, which had just been decided on. We could not renounce the use of weapons which might prove decisive.
I learnt from discussions which I had with leading men that there was still, even at this stage of the war, immense ignorance as to the real necessity of a propaganda animated by great
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