KEY POINTS:
The original Phoney War lasted eight months, from Britain and France's declaration of war on September 3, 1939 until May 10, 1940, when Germany invaded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
Rugby's phoney war will also last eight months. It began with the commencement of the Super 14 on the first weekend in February. War will break out in earnest on the first weekend in October when the Rugby World Cup reaches quarter-final stage.
For the most part it was a stand-off, as on the Franco-German border where allied and German troops eyeballed each other across the terrain separating the Maginot and Siegfried Lines. Both sides did, however, crank up their propaganda.
Adolf Hitler was impressed by Britain's propaganda during World War I, considering it a major factor in the collapse of morale on the German home front. After gaining power in 1933, he created the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, headed by Joseph Goebbels.
During the phoney war, the RAF dropped propaganda leaflets over Germany and the Nazis launched the infamous Germany Calling radio broadcasts, featuring Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce) whom the British hanged for treason in 1946.
Rugby's phoney war has also featured a barrage of propaganda, mostly directed at the All Blacks. Much propaganda is based on the theory of the Big Lie, a term coined by Hitler in Mein Kampf. In essence, the theory holds that if a lie is big enough, people will tend to think it must be true because no one would be sufficiently brazen to lie on that scale. Then if you repeat it often enough, people will eventually believe it.
The big lie underpinning the propaganda campaign against the All Blacks - and their supporters, for sapping morale at home is all part of the exercise - is that New Zealand is programmed to fail at World Cups because of defects in our rugby DNA which cause us either to peak too soon or to choke.
It dismisses the notion that the All Blacks failed to win any of the past four World Cups because they simply weren't good enough, since that would allow the possibility that this time around, they might well be good enough.
As with all big lies, it contains a glimmer of truth: by winning the 1987 World Cup, the All Blacks peaked too soon for the 1991 tournament. They avoided that trap in 1999 by cunningly losing five tests on the trot in 1998, therefore they must have choked in that semifinal against France. The French, who obviously aren't in on the plan, naively cling to the view that they produced one of their greatest-ever performances.
In 1984, George Orwell elaborated on the theory, adding that one must "forget any fact that has become inconvenient". Thus in the Daily Telegraph this week, the former England hooker Brian Moore wrote: "So the Kiwis are human after all. The sight of the Aussies beating them in the Tri-Nations and the Saffers coming close was a welcome one in the final countdown to the World Cup."
The inconvenient fact is that last year the Springboks beat the All Blacks, and the Aussies ran them close - inconvenient because it doesn't fit the premise of the All Blacks being a team in decline. For that to stand, they must be portrayed as having been much better a year ago.
All German artists, writers, and journalists were required to register with the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Something similar seems to apply across the Tasman, where in recent weeks three former Wallaby coaches have been wheeled out to add their voices to the chorus of taunts. And an axis of evil began to take shape this week with one of the three, Eddie Jones, joining forces with Springbok coach Jake White.
White is a creative propagandist. His latest offering is the claim that the Springboks have a greater tradition of performing a Zulu war dance than the All Blacks have of doing the haka. Only a white South African named White would be brazen enough to pretend that four decades of apartheid never happened.
The fact that our opponents put so much effort into propaganda is, of course, a tribute to the All Blacks. What should concern us is that they obviously believe it works. And we should beware of its insidious appeal. After all, during the phoney war, up to 6 million Britons tuned into Germany Calling.
