During World War I, French banks were called upon to lend funds to the government to finance military operations; these loans were government bonds issued through banks, and given by civilians to the government at a fixed low-interest rate. At the time of the fourth Defense Loan in 1918, the banks intensified their poster campaigns; these were intended to encourage the population to contribute to the country’s decisive victory and to its reconstruction after the war. Their agents produced numerous patriotic posters with persuasive slogans like this one, which urges the people of France to “Make One More Effort!” In a very simple, illustrational image with a restricted color palette, the artist shows a civilian man in a suit and bowler hat reaching up from a trench to hand a box of cartridges to a crouching “poilu” (French infantryman), who looks nervously in the direction of a group of German soldiers in the distance. An equally well-dressed little girl stands on tiptoe as she offers the soldier a grenade. The message could hardly be more literal.