Designed by Alfred Leete and first published on the cover of London Opinion magazine on 5 September 1914, this poster is the original of the most-imitated recruitment poster design in modern history. The image depicts Lord Kitchener — the British Secretary of State for War — in his field marshal's cap, pointing directly at the viewer above the caption 'BRITONS [Lord Kitchener] wants YOU.' The combination of direct-address pointing finger, second-person imperative, and authoritative imagery established the visual vocabulary of recruitment posters for the entire twentieth century.
The poster is the source from which James Montgomery Flagg's 1917 American 'I Want YOU for U.S. Army' poster (featuring Uncle Sam) directly derives. Soviet, Italian Fascist, German Nazi, Chinese Cultural Revolution, and dozens of national posters across both world wars and the Cold War all descend visually from this single 1914 image. The composition has been parodied continuously since 1914 across every register from anti-war activism to advertising to internet memes.
The poster was originally a magazine cover, not a state-issued recruitment artifact — the British government's official recruitment posters of 1914 are different designs. Leete's image circulated through commercial reprint and was retroactively absorbed into the iconography of the British war effort. The image is in the public domain and held in the Imperial War Museum.
