What was The Bryce Report of 1915?

Answer 1

Lord James Bryce (1838-1922) was a respected British literary figure throughout the world prior to the First World War. From 1914 to the early parts of 1915 reports of German atrocities against Belgian civilians reached the British public the newspapers. To investigate the validity of the claims made against German occupying soldiers in Belgium, the Privy Council of Great Britain asked Bryce to head a Royal Commission to shift through accounts of atrocities.http://wiki.answers.com/#_ftn1 The investigation was skewed from the beginning; the actual investigators on the Commission, amongst them Bryce and other respected intellectuals, never interviewed the Belgian witnesses and the British soldiers making the claims of atrocities. The interviews were conducted by an outside group, which then passed on accounts which were to be considered factual by the Commission.http://wiki.answers.com/#_ftn2 Bryce was not responsible to establish the validity of the reports he received, but merely determine whether the reports suggested whether the Germans were guilty of the sexual, sadistic and murderous claims against them.http://wiki.answers.com/#_ftn3 Therefore, Bryce published his report, based on selected and questionable evidence, and accused the occupying German army of crimes ranging from rape and destruction of buildings to murder and crimes against children.http://wiki.answers.com/#_ftn4 The report was not a form of fabricated Propaganda; the conclusions reached by Bryce's committee were reasonable based on the evidence given. However, none of the evidence was verified as true by the committee.http://wiki.answers.com/#_ftn5

The publishing of the Bryce Report was, despite its questionable evidence, some of which was known to be unproven and out-right false, received as fact throughout allied and neutral nations, especially in America. The publishing of the Bryce Report marked the beginning of a shift from factual propaganda to more sensational propaganda.

Answers.comMessinger, Gary S, British propaganda and the state in the First World War, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 71-72.

Answers.comWilson, Trevor, "Lord Bryce's Investigation into Alleged German Atrocities in Belgium, 1914-1915," Journal of Contemporary History 14 no. 3 (1979), 373.

Answers.comWilson, "Lord Bryce's Investigation into Alleged German Atrocities in Belgium, 1914-1915," 373.

Answers.comMessinger, British propaganda and the state in the First World War, 73.

Answers.comWilson, "Lord Bryce's Investigation into Alleged German Atrocities in Belgium, 1914-1915," 378.

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