On les aura! (Second National Defence Loan)

Why it works

France paid for much of the First World War by borrowing from its citizens, and this poster sold the second National Defence Loan, launched in October 1916. Abel Faivre drew a young infantryman, a poilu, surging forward with his rifle in one hand and the other arm flung skywards as he shouts back to comrades beyond the frame; the words are little more than his cry, "On les aura!" ("We'll get them!"), and the instruction to subscribe. The Imperial War Museums calls it the most famous French poster of the war, notes that the cry quoted General Pétain at Verdun, and reads the pose as an echo of François Rude's sculpture on the Arc de Triomphe, casting an ordinary soldier as Victory. It is studied for turning a government bond into one heroic gesture and a battle cry. The image was reused in France, copied in Italy and adapted in the United States in 1943; the Library of Congress calls it the most remembered French poster of the war.