Find old World War 1 articles here. Find information on uniforms, women, gas warfare, prisoners of war and more.
Attached is a Vanity Fair article printed a few months after the Lusitania sinking in which the journalist listed the many and myriad explanations as to why this event was such a departure from the traditions of naval warfare set in place by John Paul Jones, Admirals Nelson and Dewey.
Click here to read read a 1919 German condemnation of Admiral Von Tirpitz.
An article by the admired British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (1881 – 1931) concerning those aspects of the 1914 war that combined to make the entire catastrophe something unique in human history:
Everything has changed; uniforms, weapons, methods, tactics. Cavalry had been rendered obsolete by trenches, machine guns and modern artillery; untrained soldiers proved useless, special battalions were needed on both sides to fight this particular kind of war that, in no way, resembled the battles your father or grand-fathers had once fought.
A good read.
Click here to read about the fashion legacy of W.W. I…
To read about one of the fashion legacies of W.W. II, click here…
Assorted dry observations regarding what the women of Gotham were sporting that last American Spring of peace (Congress would declare war on Germany during the April of 1917).
Yank and Aussie and Jock, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Pole, Checko-Slovak, Tommy, Indian, all from the newly arrived Brazilians to the wizened and and weather-beaten poilus wearing the seven brisques denoting four years in the furnace, knew no nationality, no difference of tongues or even of uniform.
Click here to read another article about the 1918 Armistice.
– from Amazon:
The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
Attached is one American journalist’s view of the Great War as it is waged on the home-front by the British people. He was impressed with the resolve of the population to win the war and he found that everyone, regardless of age or infirmity, was pursuing war work with a surprising earnestness.
The outward evidences of a nation at war are plentiful in London. Soldiers are everywhere. Columns of armed men and columns of recruits still in civilian clothes march through the streets. Drilling goes on in the parks and other places all day and every day.
Read about how the First World War effected life on the campus of Eton College.
William Beebe is best remembered for his exploration of the oceans in a submersible craft called a Bathysphere, however, as a younger man his study of nature brought him to war-weary Paris.
Four devastating years of war had altered the city and made quite an affect on the young naturalist. His astute and very moving observations were recorded in this essay, A Naturalist in Paris.
This link displays the first six pages; the remaining seven pages are available upon request.
Click here to read about the day when the Nazis took Paris.
Author and radio commentator Emil Ludwig (1881 – 1948) recalled the economic catastrophe that devastated post-World War I Germany as a result of their inflated currency:
Inflation in Germany really started on the first day of the war in 1914 when the government voted a credit of five billion marks. This was not a loan…I saw the mark, the German monetary unit corresponding to the British shilling or the American quarter, tumble down and down until you paid as much for a loaf of bread as you would have paid for a limousine before inflation started.
A British journalist encountered the United States Marine Corps and found them to be an impressive curiosity that spoke an odd, nautical language. One Marine in particular was singled out and, although anonymous some of you will recognize right away that he could only be one man: Sergeant Dan Daily of the Fifth Marines.
Click here to read about the high desertion rate within the U.S. Army of 1910.
The W.W. I poster campaign was a vast undertaking that was new in the annals of warfare. Never before had government locked arms with the newly created forces of mass-media (such as it was) in an effort to instill some sense of patriotism in the hearts of so many. The old salts who edited Sea Power Magazine recognized this and so they documented as many of the posters dealing with the US. Navy as they could find.
The attached single page article explains the origins and development of the famed Tell That To The Marines poster that was painted by James Montgomery Flagg in 1918.
Here is a brief notice that appeared in a small, semi-monthly magazine concerning a PoW exchange that took place between the Soviets and the Germans some three years after the Russian Army made their uneasy peace with Imperial Germany.
Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War.
