recto: Australia's Deadly Peril; The Military Situation, Now! verso: Your help is needed

A fold out poster-pamphlet with text and illustrations on both sides. This pamphlet was part of a recruitment kit compiled by the Australian government, and published by the Director-General of Recruiting, Victoria Barracks, Melbourne. The kit was designed to promote the Voluntary Ballot Enlistment Scheme, in which men would submit cards to a lottery. If their names were drawn out, they would agree to serve in the A.I.F.
The Director-General was Donald Mackinnon, a Victorian barrister and politician, appointed in December 1916 following the first rejection of conscription in October 1916. Towards the end of the war, following the failure of the Federal government to win the right to conscript soldiers, and the failure of voluntary recruiting to attract enough men, the armed forces were desperate for more recruits. The government responded by releasing a series of posters by Norman Lindsay, accompanied by essays that were designed to shock the reader. This is one of five Norman Lindsay leaflets issued by the Director-General of Recruiting in conjunction with the final nation-wide recruiting campaign in October 1918. The leaflets, which were all illustrated by Norman Lindsay, were folded to form an envelope-size packet. ' 'Your Help is Needed', on the verso side, depicts an Australian soldier defending his fallen comrade from the enemy. It is the third page of this fold-out leaflet. The pamphlet used many tropes established during the war about the Germans, or the 'Hun', and repeated stories (some apocryphal) about German atrocities.

The essays accompanying Lindsay's powerful and disturbing drawings concentrated mainly on 'the Military Situation' and the geopolitical consequences for the British Empire if Germany won. The others leaflets analysed German Thought, German Atrocities and the Australian Army. There are four images on this three page leaflet, all of a grim nature. Lindsay used the vivid and almost painterly graphic style he had developed for his work in 'The Bulletin' for these prints.

recto: The first drawing, under the heading 'The Military Situation', is in black and white and depicts a German fending off two Allied soldiers with his bayonet - by showing hand to hand combat, Lindsay is indicating how desperately close the war had become. The second image, also in black and white, but with a slight use of red ink, depicts a simian looking German hacking off the hand of a European peasant: the title for this reads '"Peace by Negotiation"' (the red ink is used to show the blood from the amputated limb). The third image, under the title "Australia's Deadly Peril' is particularly gory, and uses red ink against the black and white drawings to dramatic effect. A giant jackboot has descended from the sky, and is dripping with red blood. The spur of the shoe has skewered a mother and her baby; women, children and men cower in the foreground, terrified and waiting for the jackboot to crush them. On the verso, (page 3) is the fourth and largest image: an Australian soldier stands over the body of his prone comrade, and is fending off Germans who are advancing towards him with bayonets.