1917 – Page 6 – Old Magazine Articles

The German Blockhouse
(L’Illustration, 1917)

Here is an architectural plan and a photograph of a German blockhouse that was constructed in Flanders during 1917. The Historian John Laffin is very informative on this subject when he refers to it in his 1997 book, The Western Front Companion:

Blockhouses generally measured 30 ft. along the front, with a width of 10 ft. They were sunk three feet into the ground and stood 7 feet above it. The front was up to 30 inches thick. Massively strong, a blockhouse was virtually impervious to shell-fire; even a heavy shell would merely knock a large chip off the edge.

This article appears on this site by way of a special agreement with L’Illustration.

World War I Zeppelins at War
(L’Illustration, 1917)

Attached are two wartime illustrations from a French magazine that depict the artist’s understanding of the frantic life on board a zeppelin that is under attack from enemy aircraft.

The Interior of a Zeppelin’s Gondola
(L’Illustration, 1917)

A black and white photograph depicting the gondola interior of the German zeppelin 49, that was brought down over Bourbonne-les-Bains, France in 1917. At the center of the image is the pilot’s wheel and off to the right sits the zeppelin’s bombsite.

The Army Insignia of the World War I French Army
(1917)

A New Propaganda Delivery Sysytem
(Literary Digest, 1917)

Photographs of a small, hand-held helium balloon being loaded with German translations of President Wilson’s April (1917) war address in order that they might be released over the German trenches. This small notice makes clear that this particular method of persuasion resulted in fifty Germans surrendering.

Germany Introduces the Leather Gas Mask
(Popular Mechanics, 1917)

A year and a half before the end of World War I, the German Army introduced the Lederschutzmasken, a leather gas mask made of specially treated Bavarian sheepskin with removable lenses. Designed to replace the rubberized cloth gas masks, the 1917 respirators proved to be far more effective against phosgene gas than the 1915 masks. The Allied powers dismissed the new design as evidence that material shortages on the German home front were forcing changes.

Click here to read about the celebrations that took place in Paris the day World War One ended.

Belva Ann Lockwood: Pioneer Sufragette
(The Literary Digest
(1917)

Attached herein is the obituary of a remarkable woman and early feminist: Belva Lockwood (1830 – 1917) was the first woman lawyer to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court. A graduate of Genesee College, she was the nominee from the Equal Rights Party of the Pacific to run for President during the 1884 U.S. election.

British Officer’s Uniform Insignia
(Bovril Booklet, 1917)

Attached you will find five black and white drawings illustrating the British Army sleeve insignia worn throughout the First World War.

Czarevitch Alexis
(The Atlanta Georgian, 1917)

Here is a terribly unflattering and premature report concerning the death of the Romanov heir, Czarevitch Alexis (1904 – 1918). Although he would not actually be murdered until the July of 1918, this article reports that his death was entirely due to poor health.

The Elsie Janis Cocktail
(Vanity Fair, 1917)

Anticipating the onslaught of prohibition, the actress Elsie Janis (1889 – 1956; also known as, The Sweetheart of the A.E.F) understood that, even with the absence of alcohol in the United States, boys and girls, men and women would continue their pursuit of love, marriage and divorce.

The Florida Water Colors of John Singer Sargent
(Vanity Fair, 1917)

A few words on the water colors that John Singer Sargent (1856 – 1925) made in 1917 which pictured the Villa Viscaya in Miami, Florida. The paintings were later purchased by the Worcester Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts.

President Wilson Exonerates Mexico & Japan
(The Atlanta Georgian, 1917)

When the diplomatic leadership in Washington began to unravel the plot that was revealed behind the Zimmerman telegram, the Wilson administration wisely concluded that the governments of Japan and Mexico were not complicit in the scheme that had been cooked-up by the Germans.

The Mills Bomb
(Trench Warfare, 1917)

A black and white mechanical drawing illustrating the most famous of British hand grenades that was ever used by British and Commonwealth forces during the course of World War One.

Clothing the Camper and Yachtsman
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1917)

For all too few it is understood that fashion need not end in the wilderness: for it is more than likely that that was where the need for fashion was first recognized and it was there, among the toads and the dung, that the Well-Dressed man first crawled out of the muck and civilization

was born. With all this in mind, Robert Lloyd Trevor reviewed the fashions for the enjoyment of camp-life in this 1917 Vanity Fair review. Another vital concern touched upon by the journalist was the clothing available to the yachtsmen at that time:

Yachting is one of the things that begin at the bottom. That is to say, at the shoes. They are the foundation, as it were, for the rest of life on the rolling deep.

Civilization: An Anti-War Film
(The Atlanta Georgian, 1917)

Attached is a brief review of Civilization, the silent anti-war film produced by Thomas Ince in 1917. Sadly, Ince underestimated the power of film as a means of persuasion; World War I raged on for another year and a half following it’s release.

Poets in Their Glory: Dead
(Literary Digest, 1917)

This 1917 article listed the known body count of dead poets who were rotting away in no-man’s land. A number of the scribes are unknown in our era; among the prominent names are Alan Seeger, Julian Grenfel and Rupert Brooke.

Printed in a popular U.S. magazine, it appeared on the newsstands the same week that Wilfred Owen, the most well known of World War I poets, was discharged from Craiglockhart Hospital, where he first resolved to write poetry about his experiences in the war.

A Tribute to Philip Gibbs: War – Correspondent
(The Literary Digest, 1917)

Two articles from 1917 heaped praise upon the laureled cranium of the British war correspondent Philip Gibbs (1877 – 1962). Having written diligently for the readers of the DAILY MAIL and DAILY CHRONICLE, who were also anticipating his book THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME (1917), Gibbs was admitted to the VANITY FAIR Hall of Fame (for whatever that was worth at the time):

He has been able to bring the wide, modern, romantic outlook to bear in his survey and analysis of fighting and the conditions of fighting…He is a war-correspondent of a ‘new dispensation’, giving ‘not a realistic or a melodramatic vision of war, but a naturalistic vision’.

At the close of hostilities in 1918, Philip Gibbs was filled with disgust concerning his cooperation with the censors and would begin writing NOW IT CAN BE TOLD (1920), in which he angrily names the bunglers in command and admits that he wrote lies all through the war.