One threatening letter captured Fort Detroit, and leaflets later helped break armies
In August 1812 the British general Isaac Brock sent Fort Detroit a letter hinting he could not restrain his Native American allies once fighting began. A day later the American commander surrendered 2,188 men. Psychological warfare works on minds rather than bodies, and mass media made it far more powerful.
The term covers any military effort to gain an edge by shaping how others think and feel: their beliefs, emotions, motives and behaviour. Targets are not only enemy soldiers, whose morale can be deliberately ground down, but also governments, organisations and foreign civilians, reached through media in the hope of pressuring their leaders. Stories are considered central to a successful operation, and tools have evolved from printed pamphlets and radio broadcasts to disinformation spread online.
Brock's message of 15 August 1812 claimed he had no wish for a war of extermination but warned his allies would be beyond control once battle started. Brigadier General William Hull first refused, then signed a capitulation on 16 August. The loss, described as a colossal disaster for the United States, deflated American spirits and lifted those of Canadian soldiers, civilians and Tecumseh's confederacy.
Modern psychological operations are usually dated to the First World War, when literate, urban populations could be reached through mass newspapers, posters and leaflets fired or dropped over the lines. In August 1914 David Lloyd George put the MP Charles Masterman in charge of a propaganda agency at Wellington House, which recruited writers including Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy and produced over 1,160 pamphlets. Its 1915 report on German outrages in Belgium, mixing real and alleged atrocities, swayed opinion worldwide.
By the war's end the British unit MI7b had spread almost 26 million leaflets, some carrying postcards from prisoners describing humane treatment. When Germans began shooting the pilots, Britain switched to unmanned balloons drifting over no-man's land. At least one in seven leaflets was kept rather than surrendered despite harsh penalties, and Hindenburg conceded that many thousands had swallowed the poison. Propaganda aimed at Austria-Hungary's restless minorities contributed to its army's collapse at Vittorio Veneto.
Source: Psychological warfare
