Articles from 1919
Shortly after the death of William Michael Rossetti
(1829 – 1919), Welsh poet and essayist Arthur Symons
(1865 – 1945) wrote this essay remembering the man, his brother (Dante Gabriel Rossetti) and the friendship that the two shared with poets George Meredith and Algernon Charles Swinburne.
An assortment of opinions gleaned from various interviews with German soldiers who all made remarks about the naked aggressiveness shared by the A.E.F.:
The French would not advance unless sure of gaining their objectives while the American infantry would dash in regardless of all obstacles and that while they gained their objectives they would often do so with heavy loss of life.
The post-war publicity machine of French fashion designer Paul Poiret was in fine form when he saw to it that his minions invited the Paris-based correspondent from American VOGUE to his house for a grand fete, seated her comfortably, drink in hand, right on the fifty-yard line in order that she might be better able to report to her handlers back in New York that Paris was back.
The correspondent who was not invited was the fashion journalist from FLAPPER MAGAZINE; American flappers did not approve of Poiret one bit. Click here to read what they thought of him.
Art alone survives the earthquake shocks of revolution, and Russian art has been doubly secure because of it’s deep-rooted imagination and it’s passionate sincerity.
That was the word from Oliver M. Sayler writing from Moscow as it starved during the Summer of 1919. Sayler, known primarily for his writings on Russian theater from this period, wrote enthusiastically about the Russian Suprematist Casimir Malyevitch, Futurist David Burliuk and The Jack of Diamonds Group; believing deeply in the Russian Revolution, he wrote not a word about how the Soviets mistreated the modern artists of Russia.
The difficult task of wandering the war-torn countryside of Europe in search of fallen World War I American pilots fell to a U.S. Army captain named E.W. Zinn. A combat pilot himself, Zinn had roamed France, Belgium and Germany interviewing the local population to see what they knew of American crash sites:
Many times he has come upon a grave with a rude cross on which was scrawled:
‘Unidentified American Aviator’ or ‘Two Unidentified American Aviators’
Captain Zinn has found that in a great many cases American fliers were buried either by the Germans or by civilians with no mark of identification left on them.
Click here to read some statistical data about the American Doughboys of the First World War.
In light of the overwhelming hostility toward Germans, whether they come to Paris to sign a peace treaty or for other reasons, the Parisian Gendarmes thought it best to enclose their hotel with palisade-style fencing, which they hoped would serve the dual purpose of keeping them in as much as it would serve to keep hostile natives out.
A photo of the barricade illustrates the article.
Two paragraphs from THE STARS AND STRIPES explained the legal status extended to all those demobilized Doughboys who wore the highly coveted discharge chevron. The red wool chevron was worn (point down) on the left arm.
A post-Armistice Day feature article that reported on the war-time activities of the four infantry regiments that made up the U.S. Ninety-Third Division (the 369th, 370th, 371st and the 372nd).
Two of these regiments were awarded the coveted Croix de Guerre. Accompanying this history is a black and white illustration of the Division’s insignia.
Immediately after the war General Pershing put the boys in the Army Intelligence Section to work compiling hundreds of pages worth of information concerning what the German Army thought of their American counterparts. It was concluded that, by enlarge, the Germans were afraid of the Doughboys – seeing them as recklessly brave, and unpredictably aggressive – provided with all the food they could want and kitted out with sensible and efficient equipment, the Germans begrudgingly learned not to underestimate their pugnacious enemies from across the sea.
However, the Germans learned just as quickly not to overestimate the American soldier when he was a prisoner of war: the Doughboys were believed to have been defiant, ill-mannered, cheeky and when required to work or salute German officers they would simply refuse.
The report was declassified in 1990.
Click here to read an article about the sexually-transmitted diseases among the American Army of W.W. I…
The U.S Army only ordered two types of trench periscopes during the war. The first kind was a simple wooden box, painted a lovely shade of olive drab and measuring two inches square and 15 inches in length with two inclined mirrors set at both ends (pictured). This type was manufactured by two companies and well over 100,000 were produced.
The second variety was a mirror that was designed to fixed to the end of a bayonet, a total of 100,000 of these were delivered before the end of July, 1918 and 50,000 additional ones before November.
(Until we get the title link fixed, you can read the article by clicking here.)
Monday, June 2 [1919], was a holiday in the 2nd Division in the bridgehead on the Rhine. The anniversary of the battle of Chateau-Thierry was observed. It is just a year ago that infantry and Marines of the 2nd Division were thrown against the Boche on the Paris-Metz road near Chateau-Thierry, and from that moment on the Americans were in continual fighting until November 11.
The attached is a black and white diagram depicting five different German gas artillery shells that were manufactured to be fired from a number of different guns of varying calibers.
In retaliation for a 1914 French tear-gas grenade attack at Neuve Chapelle, the German Army, on April 22, 1915, hurled 520 gas shells at British and Canadian units in Belgium, killing five thousand and incapacitating ten thousand more.
Clicke here to read more articles about W.W. I gas warfare.
A black and white photograph of the seldom remembered French anti-barbed wire gun.
Another anti-barbed wire invention can be read here…
A STARS & STRIPES clipping from 1919 announcing to both Army and Marines that the era of the overseas cap had arrived and was not going away anytime soon:
The overseas cap, which has (not) protected its wearers from the rains of sunny France and the suns and snows and sleets all over the A.E.F., will be permitted to remain the official headgear of the returning troops after they get back to the States.
The editors of TOUCHSTONE MAGAZINE hired one of John Sloan
An American artillery officer from that famous division recalled the last minute of the war to end all wars…
A great picture of Lieutenant Charles Godefroy flying his Nieuport under the great arch of Paris during the Autumn of 1919. The stunt was performed three weeks after the French Victory parade that marked the end of the First World War and was intended to serve as a salute to the French pilots who died during the course of that blood bath.
Serving as the representative for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a special correspondent for THE CRISES MAGAZINE – and gathering information for his forthcoming tome on the African-Americans who served in the First World War, Dr. Dubois sailed for France in order to attend the Versailles Conference in Paris.
