Divide and Conquer

Divide and Conquer is an episode from the Why We Fight-series, that was produced by the American war-department and supervised by lieutenant-colonel Frank Capra. The intention of the department was to inform prospective soldiers about and motivate them for the war that was going on. It mattered greatly that they were familiar with the world history in the period between 1918 and 1941. The Treaty of Versailles, the growing Japanese aggression in the East, the increasing threat by Hitler in Europe, and especially the changing American foreign policy in those years were presented to them. The understanding that the United States policy of isolationism belonged to the past, and that the inevitable American military action offered a solution to the problems had to be imposed upon them quickly. Only newsreels and other existing documentary filmmaterial has been used to convince them of the good cause.