Aftermath (WWI) – Page 2 – Old Magazine Articles

Under-Nourished German Children
(Magazine Advertisement, 1922-3)

Attached is a sad advertisement that ran on the pages of THE NATION for a number of years following the end of the war. Posted by a German charity, the ad pictures -what we can assume to be- a starving German child from one of the more impoverished regions of Saxony or Thuringia. All told, the photo and the accompanying text clearly illustrate the economic hardships that plagued post-World War I Germany.

Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.

Over 15,000 Suicides in 1928 Germany
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1931)

A short notice compiled from figures collected at the end of 1928 showed that Germany was the all-time global-champion when it came to suicide:

In that year 16,036 persons in Germany committed suicide. This is an average of 44 a day or 39 for each 100,000 persons in the country…

New Rules of Warfare
(Time Magazine, 1923)

The International Commission of Jurists of the World Court under the Presidency of Professor John Bassett Moore of Columbia University, New York, drew up at The Hague new ‘rules of warfare’… Chief among the rules for aircraft in warfare are provisions against bombing private property not of a military character and against attacking non-combatants.

In the War’s Aftermath Came Spiritual Disillusion
(Current Opinion Magazine, 1919)

At the thirty-fifth annual Church Congress of the Protestant Episcopal Church (1919), clergy members seemed to agree that Christian leaders were needlessly complicit concerning their support for the First World War and were guilty of substituting Christian principles for patriotism:

Christianity has betrayed itself body and soul.

If you would like to read about the spirit of disillusion that permeated post-war literature, click here.

1919: Franco-American Relationship Begin to Cool
(The North American Review, 1919)

During the closing months of the American presence in France, one element can be found in the majority of the letters written to loved ones at home:

The French aren’t treating us as nice.

In the war’s aftermath, writer Alexander Woollcott (1887 – 1943) attempted to explain the situation to his readers; what follows were his observations.

As Europe Saw America in the War’s Aftermath
(The Smart Set, 1921)

H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, editors of The Smart Set, surmised that as the Europeans bury their many dead among the damp, depressing ruins of 1920s Europe, America is neither admired or liked very much:

…the English owe us money, the Germans smart under their defeat, the French lament that they are no longer able to rob and debauch our infantry.

The Passing of an Era
(The Nation, 1922)

British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey (1862-1922) was quicker than most of his contemporaries when he recognized what was unfolding in Europe during the August of 1914, and uttered these prophetic words:

The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.

The anonymous old wag who penned this opinion column came to understand Gray’s words; four years after the war he looked around and found that the world speeding by his window seemed untouched by the heavy handed Victorians. For this writer, the Victorian poet and writer Matthew Arnold (1822 – 1888) represented the spirit of that age and it all seemed to come crashing down in 1922:

Granting that the son of Arnold of Rugby was more troubled over the decay of Christian dogma than we are, it should be remembered that the decay symbolized for him a fact of equal gravity to ourselves — the loss of a rational universe in which to be at home. But he never doubted how a new world was to be built — by justice and by reason, not by claptrap and myth.

Anticipating the American Century
(The Spectator, 1921)

Attached is a review of The American Era by H.H. Powers. The reviewer disputes the author’s argument that the First World War made Britain a weaker nation:

Mr. Powers’ interpretation of the war and it’s squeals is that the Anglo-Saxon idea, having triumphed, will set the tone for the whole world. He also believes that the real depository and expositor of this idea in the future must be America. Britain, he thinks,in spite of her great geographical gains from the war– he considerately exaggerates these, has sung her swan song of leadership.

A similar article about American power can be read here.

The Collapse of the European Aristocracy
(NY Times, 1919)

The three great military monarchies which have lately fallen to pieces – Russian, Austro-Hungarian and German – were all based upon an aristocracy of large landed properties, whereas the other European countries had become parliamentary and democratic states. Europe was thus divided between two political orders, founded on two social orders, in fact, into two different worlds between which the river Elbe was approximately the boundary…

The war proved a decisive test of the stability of the two social orders; the democratic states went through it without flinching, the monarchies which had which had engendered the war in the hope of strengthening their position have gone under; from their defeat has sprung the revolution, which is overthrowing all aristocracies.

Click here to read a 1916 VANITY FAIR article about how the war had affected the British upper class.

Germany on the Eve of Hitler
(New Outlook Magazine, 1933)

The first half of this article succinctly summarizes the German political experience that took place between 1919 through 1933; the second half anticipated a new, stable beginning for Germany. The German correspondent seemed not be bothered at all about their incoming chancellor.

A similar article can be read here…

The Shell-Shocked Millions
(American Legion Weekly, 1919)

With the close of the war came the release of millions of combat veterans onto the streets of the world. Some of these veterans adjusted nicely to the post-war world – but many had a difficult time. Their maladjustment was called Shell Shock and it could manifest itself in any number of ways; in the attached article, written less than a year after the war, one anonymous American veteran explained his own personal encounter with the illness.

Click here to read a post-W.W. I poem about combat-related stress…

Post-War Diary
(Atlantic Monthly, 1928)

Printed posthumously, the attached article was written by British Lieutenant Colonel Charles A Court Repington (1858 – 1925) as he recalled his conversations with French Field Marshals Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929), Joseph Joffre (1852 – 1931) and a number of other French statesmen about the First World War during a series of chats that took place in the autumn 1924.

The Monument at Vimy Ridge
(The Literary Digest, 1936)

The attached article was written nineteen years after the smoke cleared over Vimy Ridge and succinctly tells the story of that battle in order that we can better understand why thousands of Canadian World War One veterans crossed the ocean a second time in order to witness the unveiling of the memorial dedicated to those Canadians who died there:

Walter S. Allward (1876 – 1955), Canadian sculptor, worked fourteen years on the completion of the monument, which cost $1,500,000.

The article also touches upon some of the weird events that have taken place at Vimy Ridge since the war ended…

Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.

The Feminist Rebellion of the Twenties
(The Dilineator, 1921)

It was estimated that there were as many as two million empty seats around the collective family dinner tables in Post World War One Britain. Such an absence of young men could not help but lead to a new social arrangement:

England is the great human laboratory of our generation – England with her surplus of two million women, her restless, well-equipped, unsatisfied women.

Too many European women were unable to find husbands and moved to America.

German Post-War Thinking
(American Legion Weekly, 1922)

Thus any traveler in Germany feels that the future grows darker and darker for both Germany and Europe. There is no doubt that the German people have learned little from their war experiences and that it would require only a spark to set them off in another wild rush down through Europe behind Russian guns. It is a dismal prospect, and it is a terrible one, for it would mean, in the final analysis, the utter destruction of European civilization.

Franco-American Relations After W.W. I
(Literary Digest, 1927)

Ten years after America entered the First World War, thrice elected French Prime-Minister André Tardieu (1876 – 1945) put pen to paper and came up with a book about the complicated relations between France and the United States Devant l’Obstacle (1927):

They go on repeating the words ‘American friendship’ without realizing that America as a nation does not want friendships, and separates herself from her political associates the moment she can do so, as unceremoniously as she did in 1919, when she signed a separate peace with Germany. Few French students know or remember that less than twenty years after Lafayette left the American shores, America was at war with the country to which she virtually owed her freedom…

Click here to read another article in which André Tardieu slanders the Americans.
Click here should you wish to read good thoughts by a Frenchman concerning America’s entry into W.W. I.

Post-War French Opinions About Their American Allies
(Literary Digest, 1920)

Here are a few French thoughts regarding America’s late arrival in the war and some additional opinions on the matter of Uncle Sam’s inflated ego.

Click here to read an article by a grateful Frenchman who was full of praise for the bold and forward-thinking manner in which America entered the First World War.

German Veterans of the War
(American Legion Monthly, 1934)

The Versailles Treaty insisted that Germany must have no W.W. I veterans organizations or conventions of any kind; 18 years later the Nazi leadership in Germany thought that was all a bunch of blarney and so the War Veterans Associations was formed. This article tells about their first convention (July 30, 1934).