Spain This one-time world power had sunk to the level of a second-rate power after the 17th century. During the World War, however, it grew to become the most important neutral state of Europe. Favorably situated geo-strategically – two continents plus two oceans meeting at the Straits of Gibraltar – Spain constituted a veritable island of neutrality, surrounded by the warring states of France with Morocco, England with Gibraltar, and after March 1916 Portugal as well. That caused this land on the Iberian Peninsula to unexpectedly become the object of international interest. Despite co…

War Press Office (German Kriegspresseamt), a government department that was responsible for the control and censorship of the press in Germany. After the creation of the Central Censorship Office in February 1915, the German Supreme Army Command and the War Ministry intensified their efforts to exert a “positive” influence on the press. The visible expression of this policy was the establishment of the War Press Office on October 14, 1915, an agency that was directly subordinated to the Supreme Army…

Censorship At every juncture during the First World War, each participating power did its utmost, by means of considerable measures of censorship, to create a united front of opinion that would identify as much as possible with the national political and military leadership. Such suppression of undesired information was the reverse aspect of the propaganda by which all the combatant states sought to influence in their favor both their own population and the populations of friendly and opposing countries. The Prussian State of Siege Law ( Gesetz über den Belagerungszustand) of June 4…