ABSTRACT

This chapter considers a few examples of the visual and material cultural representation of Herbert Horatio Kitchener and Haig over the course of the twentieth century. The experience of a Second World War, and the substantial shift in Britain's place in the world that followed, was not kind to the popular representation of either Kitchener or Haig. Like the Kitchener conspiracy films of the 1920s, Haig was used as a cipher to make broader political points about contemporary society and the dangers of militarism and social stratification. The Leete image of Kitchener is perhaps the best example of a representation that has frequently been appropriated and its original context dropped or reworked for new purposes. By way of contrast, Haig's visual depiction in both the 1960s and 1990s remained connected to the negative picture of the First World War that was in ascendant in the second half of the twentieth century.