Censorship

Censorship rested on wartime laws and the state of siege. In France it was based on the state of siege law of 1849 and the law of 5 August 1914 on press indiscretions, passed without debate; in Britain on the Defence of the Realm Act of 8 August 1914; and in Germany on the state of siege, which placed censorship in the hands of the military district commanders. In Austria preventive censorship was in force from July 1914, and the war could be written about only on the basis of official communiqués.

Censors read letters from the front and struck out of newspapers troop movements and numbers, disasters and losses, and often criticism of the government as well. French dailies appeared with blank spaces where texts had been cut, and censorship was caricatured as "Anastasie" with her scissors. In the occupied Polish, Lithuanian and Belgian lands the occupier's censors blocked the publication of political resolutions and declarations. Easing censorship was one of the opposition's demands, and in France it lasted until 1919.