1920 – Old Magazine Articles

A Doughboy Remembers
(The Independent, 1920)

On the second anniversary of the Armistice, an American veteran of the war looked back on his days in military training. In this article, he walked the grounds of his old cantonment wistfully recalling how each plot of ground was put to use:

“…the K.P.’s peeling potatoes at the doors of the mess hall, the prisoners digging ditches or working on the coal pile, the guards walking their posts, the officers with their ladies under the trees… Here, under these trees, were the tents of the medical staff… There were the horse-stalls… That thrill, that enthusiasm, that lofty notion that the country was greater than the man…”

The Political Landscape
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1920)

Weeks after the Prohibition Amendment came into effect, there was much scurrying about by all politicians on both the state and Federal levels – all looking for allies they could rely upon to either defend or overturn the legislation, depending upon their respective constituencies. The first question put to each representative was, “Are you wet or dry?” Shortly before this article went to press, Congress held a vote to repeal the Volstead Act: the repeal was rejected by a vote of 254 to 85.

Deporting the Reds
(American Legion Weekly, 1920)

In this 1920 American Legion Weekly article the mojo of the Red Scare (1917 to 1920) is fully intact and beautifully encapsulated by W.L. Whittlesey who condemned the U.S. Government for ever having allowed large numbers of socialist immigrants to enter the country and spread their discontent throughout the fruited plane. On the other hand, the writer was grateful that the government was finally tending to the matter of deporting them in large numbers and doing so with every means available.

Ludendorff’s Apology
(The Nation, 1920)

A second and far more thorough book review of My Story, by German General Erich von Ludendorff (1865 – 1937).

When the bitterness of these days has passed, historians will very likely classify Ludendorff as first among the military geniuses of his time. But his ‘own story’ will have importance principally because of certain sidelights it casts upon his motives and psychology.

A shorter review of Ludendorff’s memoir can be read here.

Read about Ludendorff’s collusion with Hitler…

General Von Ludendorff Defends Himself
(The Dial Magazine, 1920)

Attached is a review of Von Ludendorff’s memoir entitled My Own Story as it appeared in a much admired journal of the arts.

‘Ludendorff’s Own Story’ by Erich Friedrich Von Ludendorff gives a G.H.Q. view of the war from August 1914 to November 1918. It has a certain quality of forthrightness which makes its fallacies and mistakes apparent to the reader even when they escape the author. Ludendorff’s thesis is that the war was lost because the the army at home had not another Ludendorff to direct it…

In 1920 the representatives from the victorious nations who convened at Versailles demanded that Kaiser Wilhelm, General Ludendorff and an assortment of various other big shots be handed over for trial – click here to read about it.

A longer review of Ludendorff’s memoir from The Nation can be read here.

Click here to read about Ludendorff’s association with Hitler.

A Review of Grand Admiral Von Tirpitz Memoir
(The Dial Magazine, 1920)

The well respected arts journal, THE DIAL, published a very brief notice reviewing the post-war memoir, My Memoirs, by Admiral Alfred Von Tirpitz (1849-1930). The Dial reviewer found the Von Tirpitz’ memoir interesting as a psychological study:

My Memoirs, by Grand Admiral von Tirpitz is one of those elaborate vindications which carry the authentic conviction of guilt…If Germany was really, as the Grand Admiral estimates, a sheep in wolf’s clothing, a few more memoirs like this will leave no regret about her fate.

Read an article about the many faults of the German Navy during the Second World War…

Recalling Two of the War’s Blunders
(The English Review, 1920)

Added to the growing pile of reviews that attempted to sort out all the various explanations as to why the war went so badly for practically all the nations involved was this 1920 article that presented a clear description of the 1914 drive on Paris as well as the disaster that was the Gallipoli campaign.

The books reviewed were penned by two of the war’s principal players: The March on Paris by General Alexander Von Kluck (1846-1934) and Gallipoli Diary by General Sir Ian Hamilton (1853-1957).

The story of the German onrush and it’s memorable check can now be pieced together with accuracy. It tallies with the account of General Sir Frederick Maurice. We now know that the Germans failed through want of General Staff control, through inadequate intelligence, above all, through striking at two fronts at the same time.

‘Father Duffy Tells What Happened”
(The Home Sector, 1920)

In this article, the famous chaplain of the 165th Infantry (formerly the NY Fighting 69th) Father Francis Duffy (1874 – 1932) describes how the regiment was ripped to shreds in two offensives – hinting all the while that somebody blundered:

Since 1915 no commanders in the older armies would dream of opposing too strongly wired and entrenched positions [with] the naked breast of their infantry. They take care that the wire, or part of it at least, is knocked down by artillery or laid flat by tanks before they ask unprotected riflemen to [breach the line]. When the wire is deep and still intact and strongly defended, the infantry can do little but hang their bodies upon it.

More about Father Duffy can be read here…

Siegfried Sassoon on the Soldier Poets
(Vanity Fair, 1920)

The following five page article was written by the World War I poet, Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), in an

attempt to give a rough outline of what the British poets did in the Great War, making every allowance for the fact that they were writing under great difficulty….

Sassoon gave a thorough going-over of every war poet that he admired, naming at least twenty. It is a wonderful and revealing read for all those who have come to admire the poets of the First World War and Sigfried Sassoon in particular.

Click here to read additional articles about W.W. I poetry.

A Glossary of Terms for Movie Fans
(Vanity Fair, 1920)

During the summer of 1920, Photoplay Magazine ran this glossary of movie terms with cartoons by Ralph Barton and doggerel verses by Howard Dietz.

With new technology came new terms that seemed odd to the ear (it should be remembered that this new technology did not involve the use of one’s ear at all); words to be added to the nation’s vocabulary were fade-out, shooting, box-office and location.

To shoot a scene is nothing new-
Directors should be shot at, too

When The Doughboys Returned To France
(Home Sector, 1920)

Despite its almost unanimous vows testified to by countless rounded phrases in trenches and billets, a good share of the A.E.F. is returning to France. It is almost chasing its own tail in the effort to get back, for it was only a few weeks ago that newspapers everywhere said that the last of the A.E.F. was home. And before the rear guard of the A.E.F. was aboard boats headed westward, the vanguard of the returning A.E.F. was pouring back into France through every port.

The Invention of the Car was Revolutionary
(Vanity Fair Magazine, 1920)

As early as 1920, the number of automobiles was quickly growing throughout the Western world. In this very brief article, a journalist lays out how rapidly life was changing in the United States as a result of the horseless carriage.

The village smithy is no more. In the place of that interesting relic of a bygone day, there stands a substantial concrete building marked ‘Garage’…

Crack of Doom for the Draft Dodgers
(American Legion Weekly, 1920)

Doomsday looms just over the horizon for the draft deserters. That wily gentleman who hid behind a tree and chuckled as his neighbor shouldered a gun and marched off to battle is soon to have that chuckle mopped off his face. He will find that no tree vegetates enough to cover from shame the miserable carcass of his manhood…According to the latest reports, 173,911 is the maximum number of draft registrants chargeable with willful desertion.

Post-W.W. I Society and the New Spirit of the Twenties
(The Independent, 1920)

In 1920 there were many articles celebrating the three-hundredth anniversary of the Puritan’s arrival on Cape Cod. This one writer decried the lack of enthusiasm that marked the modern age following the end of the Great War – a world that stood in contrast to the Pilgrim spirit. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced during the war. Shell shocked and traumatized, the world seemed different: the old order had collapsed, replaced by an age of machines. The author of this column, Preston Slosson, was one of the observant souls to realize that the legacy of the First World War was disillusionment and cynicism.

Our stock of idealism has temporarily run low and a mood of cynicism has replaced the devoted enthusiasm of 1918…

Click here to read a 1916 article about life on the German home front.

The Armistice Day Offensive
(The Home Sector, 1920)

A Congressional committee of investigation has recently been treated to a scathing arraignment of the General Staff because military operations on the front of the Second Army were continued up to the hour of the signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918. Members of the operations Section of the Staff, particularly the chief, Brigadier General Fox Conner, have been accused of slaughtering men on the last day of the war in order to satisfy their personal ambitions.

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
(NY Times, 1920)

A remarkable book is this latest by Sinclair Lewis. A novel, yes, but so unusual as not to fall easily into a class. There is practically no plot, yet the book is absorbing. It is so much like life itself, so extraordinarily real. These people are actual folk, and there was never better dialogue written than their revealing talk.

Post-World War I France
(The North American Review, 1920)

In the later years of the First World War, the American journalist Alexander Woollcott (1887 – 1943) served as a writer for the Doughboy newspaper The Stars & Stripes. In this roll he was able to travel far afield all over the American sectors of the front where he saw a great deal of the war: flattened villages, ravaged farmland, factories reduced to ruble. In the attached article from 1920, Woollcott reported that the war-torn provinces of France looked much the same, even two years after the Armistice. He was surprised at the glacial speed with which France was making the urgent repairs, and in this article he presented a sort-of Doughboy’s-eye-view of post-war France.

Mary Pickford Considers Her Rolls
(Vanity Fair, 1920)

This article was written by the silent film star herself for a fashionable American magazine concerning a few of the difficulties in the way of dress, make-up, manners and technique an actress might consider before portraying a child on stage or screen.