ABSTRACT
While receptive to the value of new propaganda techniques from art and lm to the mass presentation of large-scale war, Lieutenant-Colonel Buchan maintained a balance between ashy opportunism and traditional expertise. us, his bookish presence helped to ensure the continuing primacy of written texts
to the positive reinforcement of the war e ort. A de hand at running up penportraits, he furnished warrior-king descriptions to accompany Francis Dodd’s 1917-18 portrayals of commanders, Generals of the British Army. e veneration of soldiers in these sabre-rattling sketches led the liberal C. E. Montague, probably the leading British correspondent on the Western Front, to wrinkle his nose. ey were, he felt, rather too sunny to be credible to the ordinary Tommies idealized in regular press reports.4
