World War One – Page 10 – Old Magazine Articles

‘Playing the Game”
(The English Review, 1915)

Sporting terms used as a metaphors for war are very common and come naturally to those who tend to think about matters military on a regular basis; yet this article uses the expression, playing the game more as a character trait that was unique to the British. The author, Austin Harrison, writing in 1915 (the year of grim determination) believed that the English have always played the game as a matter of course; they have always maintained good form, and yet:

Playing the game is only half the battle in war [and]…it will be the finest game we ever have played.

A Pat on the Back for the Doughboys
(The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

The attached Stars & Stripes article briefly summarizes the American efforts from Cantigny to the Armistice and serves as one big attaboy for the whole Doughboy army. The journalist anticipates John Mosiere’s World War One history, The Myth of the Great War, which opines that it was the high morale and seemingly endless supply lines of the A.E.F. that served as one of the most decisive factors in bringing the war to a close.

Stars & Stries could not have agreed more.

Ten years later a Frenchman writing for La Revue Mondiale would say essentially the same thing, click here to read that article.

Click here to read an article about life in a W.W. I German listening post…

The Eight World War One American Cemeteries
(Literary Digest, 1923)

Written five years after the Armistice, this is an article about the eight U.S. W.W. I cemeteries that were erected in Europe (with the help of German P.O.W. labor) and the money that was set aside by the veterans of The American Legion to aid in the upkeep of these memorials:

The American flag is still in Europe, even tho the last Doughboy has left the Rhine. It floats over eight cemeteries, six in France, one in Belgium and one in England…It is the high honor of the American Legion to represent the American people in the fulfillment of the sacred national obligation of decorating the graves of our soldiers abroad on Memorial Day. The Legion pledges itself always to remember and honor our dead on foreign soil on the day when the heart of all Americans is thrilling with reverence for them.

The A.E.F. in North Russia 1918 – 1919
(American Legion Monthly, 1934)

Illustrated by a photograph depicting the cold weather uniforms worn by each of the six Allied armies that served time in Siberia(North Russia), this article is a reminiscence told by one of the American veterans of that cold, uncomfortable and long-forgotten campaign.

– from Amazon:

Why did we go to Russia? by Harry J. Costello

U.S. Cemeteries: A Flag for Every Grave
(American Legion Weekly, 1920)

An article that appeared in an American veterans magazine concerning the pageantry that would mark the Memorial Day of 1920 at each of the primary A.E.F. cemeteries in France.

More than 127,000 American soldiers, sailors and Marines gave up their lives during the war…Total battle deaths in the A.E.F. killed in action and died of wounds were 50,329 including casualties in the Siberian force. Deaths from disease including the A.E.F. and men in the home cantonments, were 58,837…No American field of honor will be without it’s Memorial Day ceremony, no American grave without its flag and its flowers…

An interesting article that was written at a time it was believed that the A.E.F. cemeteries were going to be closed and the interred repatriated. There is a photograph of an early prototype headstone that was later rejected in favor of a stone cross; references are made to Suresnes Cemetery in Paris.

Carrier Pigeons of the US Army Signal Corps
(American Legion Weekly, 1919)

Illustrated with images of maimed and disfigured carrier pigeons, this article is filled with interesting lore of the battles waged by the ‘feathered aviators’ of the 1914 – 1918 war. You will read about how the pigeons were often dyed black so as to be mistaken for crows; how they were used at sea and at Verdun and that spies relied upon them.

During the course of World War II the U.s Army signal Corps deployed more than 50,000 pigeons.

It was said that the carrier pigeons of W.W. II were ten percent stronger.

W.W. I Memories of the Imperial and Osmanic-Balloon Division
(Click Magazine, 1940)

In the Spring of 1940, Leo Kober, devoted reader of CLICK MAGAZINE and former crew member of one of the Kaiser’s airships during the First World War, felt compelled to send his personal snap-shots of his zeppelin days to the editors of his fave mag with a few notations; and now we pass them along to you.

The Ground Taken by the German Armies
(NY Times, 1915)

Here is a numeric account, estimated by the Germans, indicating how much of Europe was conquered and occupied by their army on the first anniversary of World War One. The report also accounts for the amount of land being occupied by the Entente powers, and the number of Allied prisoners, machine guns and artillery pieces taken by the central powers within this same time frame. The report was interpreted by the Berlin-based American Association of Commerce before being filed in its entirety by the Associated Press.

The French Navy Sank Their Own Submarine
(The Atlanta Georgian, 1917)

This news piece appeared in a Georgia newspaper during the closing weeks of American neutrality. The first report of this French naval blunder involving a French torpedo boat sinking a French submarine came from Berlin, rather from Paris or London, where such events would never make it past the censors.

This brief notice makes no mention as to the original source or who witnessed the accident.

George Bernard Shaw: An Anti-Militarist on the British Home Front
(NY Times, 1915)

A letter written by the celebrated playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1957) to an Austrian friend that appeared in the Munichener Neueste Nachrichten as well as the Frankfurter Zeitung in April, 1915:

At that time scarcely one of the leading newspapers took heed of my insistence that this war was an imperialistic war and popular only in so far as all wars are for a time popular.

Click here to read Shaw on the Titanic disaster…

Lusitania Torpedoed
(NY Times, 1915)

A short column from the front page of The New York Times dated May 6, 1915 in which one of the Lusitania survivors recalled that famous submarine attack and it’s immediate aftermath:

…Immediately we both saw the track of a torpedo followed almost instantly by an explosion. Portions of splintered hull were sent flying into the air, and then another torpedo struck. The ship began to list to starboard.

In 2008 Mr. Gregg Bemis, the American who is the owner of Lusitania, and sole possessor of all salvaging rights, examined the remains of the great ship where it rested some eight miles off Ireland’s South-West coast and provided proof-positive that the ship was indeed hauling armaments.

– from Amazon:

Lusitania and the Laws of the Sea
(Harper’s Weekly, 1915)

Attached is a two column article pertaining to neutral states and the international laws of war as agreed upon at the Hague Convention of 1899.

This piece appeared three months prior to the infamous submarine attack on the ship and alludes to a little known matter involving Lusitania and the masquerade of flying the flags of non-combatant nations while crossing the Atlantic.

The ruse by which the Lusitania escaped the possible danger of submarines, the use of the American flag, has been resorted to over and over again in modern naval wars.

Controlling the Radical Presses
(NY Times, 1917)

Here is a World War I article that appeared on the pages of The New York Times some four months after the American entry into the war and it reported that the U.S. Government was obligated to close all news and opinion organs that questioned any efforts to prosecute the war or support the allied nations. The Times reported that the government was granted this power under Title 1, section 1, 2, and 3 of Title 12 of the Espionage Act (signed by President Wilson on June 13, 1917). Although no publications were named, the reader will be able to recognize that the only ones slandered as pro-German were those that would appeal to the pro-labor readers.

To learn how many African-Americans served in the W.W. I American Army, click here.

Scenes From The War
(Scribner’s Magazine, 1919)

Numerous little vignettes depicting the American Expeditionary Forces in France.

Winning the War with Women
(Harper’s Monthly, 1917)

Ida Tarbell (1857 – 1944), one of the greats of American journalism, wrote this article about the policy changes that were evolving in Washington and recognized that the mobilization of women in the cause of defeating Germany was a solid step in the direction of victory:

One of the many innovations of the National Council of Defense is an entirely original attempt to use the women power of the country.

Tarbell insightfully pointed out that up until that moment men and women had very little experience working together side by side.

Read a 1918 article about the women’s city.

With The Marines
(Scribner’s Magazine, 1919)

A U.S. Army officer was ordered to march with the Marines during their first engagement of the war and explained all that he saw:True to their tradition of ever being the first to fight, the Marines made up, in part, the first fighting unit of the A.E.F. to reach foreign shores… It was my fortune to to be assigned to the Marines and my privilege to go with them into the front line for their first hitch.

Face Masks Will Fight Influenza
(The Stars and Stripes, 1918)

The influenza of 1918 took a large bite out of the American Army, both at home and abroad. The military and civilian medical authorities were at a loss as to what actions should be taken to contain the disease, and as they paused to plan, thousands died. The attached article describes one step that provided some measure of success in the short term.

A more thorough article about Influenza can be read here.

Click here to read more about Influenza.

A Starbucks Cure for the 1918 Influenza
(The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

Coffee has the ability to remedy some physical ailments, however this small article told the story of one U.S. Army Colonel who felt so helpless upon seeing so many sick army men come ashore in France suffering from such a terrible illness as influenza, and was moved to do the only thing that he could in his power to offer comfort: unlimited cups of hot coffee. How real was coffee as a preventative measure in the face of influenza? The good colonel was on to something – it wasn’t the java bean that made an impact, it was the heat: viruses die when exposed to high temperatures.

A more thorough article about Influenza can be read here.

Click here to read about the earliest use of face masks to combat airborne disease.