World War One – Page 16 – Old Magazine Articles

John Maynard Keynes on the Versailles Treaty
(Current Opinion, 1922)

A magazine review of John Maynard Keynes book, A Revision of the Treaty (1922). The reviewer wrote that it lacks the prophetic fire of it’s author’s earlier book, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, but continues the argument of that book:

Mr. Keynes claims that almost everyone now has come around to his point of view. We practically all recognize, he says, the over-severity of the reparation clauses written into the Versailles Treaty.

Britain and France Draw Closer
(Literary Digest, 1921)

When Capitol Hill rejected the Versailles Treaty in 1919, Paris and London found themselves having to rely upon each other in ways they weren’t expecting.

The Ongoing French Occupation of Germany
(Literary Digest, 1928)

The attached article, written in 1928, reported on how heartily sick the Germans were at having to serve as hosts for three occupying armies as a result of a Versailles Treaty clause that mandated the Allied military occupation until 1935. The Foreign Minister of Germany, Dr Gustav Stresemann, made several eloquent pleas to the diplomatic community insisting that there was no need for the continuing encampments before he began submitting his bitter editorials to assorted European magazines, which are discussed herein:

Friendship between France and Germany is impossible as long as Allied troops remain in the occupation area of the Rhineland…

Calling Out the Kaiser, et al…
(”Our Times”, 1936)

[On January 16, 1920] the Peace Conference at Paris summoned Holland to yield the ex-Kaiser of Germany for trial… In its reply, issued January 23, Holland refused.

The conferees also demanded that Germany hand over some 850 German citizens to stand trial for numerous infractions; needless to say, nothing came of the request.

Chateau-Thierry: Setting the Record Straight
(The Literary Digest, 1919)

Rumor has it that when the U.S. Army’s senior staff officers had learned of the victory that the U.S. Marines had achieved at the Bois de Belleau in the summer of 1918, one of them had remarked, Those head-line hunting bastards! When reading this next piece you will immediately get a sense that the army was fed-up with the folks at home believing that the same Marines were responsible for the Army’s success at Chateau-Thierry. The war was already over by the time this piece appeared, making it clear to all that Chateau-Thierry was a feather in the cap for the Army, and no one else.

‘The Truth About Chateau-Thiery”
(Home Sector, 1919)

The veterans magazine that published the attached column, THE HOME SECTOR, was edited by Harold Ross, who, just a few months earlier, had held that same post at THE STARS and STRIPES; the article was written by Alexander Woollcott – previously a journalist with that same paper. I’m sure that this was quite common in 1919, but it would seem that these two men wanted to be forthright with their readers and set straight an issue that they wrote about when they were in the employment of Uncle Sam: the Doughboys who were victorious at Chateau-Thiery and Belleau Wood did not save Paris. Just as German historians have insisted for many years, those German divisions were simply not headed for Paris.

Who Were the Young Turks?
(Literary Digest, 1908)

This 1908 magazine article serves to define the Young Turk movement and present a brief history of those reformers who sought to modernize the government of Turkey and introduce a constitutional form of government that would benefit not only the Turks but also the people who reside within the dominions of the Ottoman Empire:

The program of the Young Turks includes individual liberty to all Ottomans; this liberty is to be inviolable excepting by process of law; the press is to be free, Ottomans may form commercial, industrial, or agricultural associations, so long as no law is infringed. All are to be equal before the law.

‘The Doughboys”
(The New Red Cross Magazine, 1919)

What we enjoyed about this piece by the Muckraking Ida Tarbell (1857 – 1944) was that it was written some six months after the heavy handed George Creel had ceased influencing Yankee magazine editors into printing pro-American blather, and so we tend to feel that her praise of the American Doughboys was quite sincere – and praise she does! Up hill and down dale, the Doughboys can do no wrong in her eyes.
This essay appeared in print around the same time the French had decided that all the Doughboys were just a bunch of racist hurrah-boys and were becoming increasingly sick of them. The Yanks might have squared their debt with the Marquis de Lafayette, but the recently returned Poilus were not above taking an occasional swipe at Ida Tarbell’s Doughboys…

Click here to read some statistical data about the American Doughboys of the First World War.

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.

‘Patriotism”
(The Crisis, 1918)

An interesting editorial from World War I in which the writer (possibly W.E.B. Duboise) expressed that an African-American’s sense of patriotism in that era was based on the nation’s potential to be judicious and fair.

The article is a fine example illustrating the influence that George Creel and his Committee on Public Information had strong-arming the American magazine editors during the period of World War One.

Papier-Mache Used to Deceive German Snipers
(Popular Mechanics, 1917)

By the time the U.S. Army had joined the war in 1917, they were far behind in the study of camouflage, but they did their best to catch up quickly. The American generals assigned the task camouflage to the Signal Corps, which began to cruise the ranks for artists and sculptors because of their natural abilities understand paint and scale (one of the more well-known W.W. I Signal Corps camofleurs was the painter Grant Wood: click here to read about him).

The attached article displays an illustration that clearly shows that the American Army had torn a page out of that well-worn play book written by the British Camouflage School in order to deploy papier-mache dummies along the front lines. There is no evidence or written word to indicate that it was actually done.

A POW Hears About The Armistice
(American Legion Weekly, 1921)

A former American prisoner of war recalled the American flag that he and his fellow prisoners had fashioned from Bull Durham and Lucky Strike bags the day they heard that the Germans had quit.

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.

The Decorated Marines from Belleau Wood
(NY Times, 1918)

An eyewitness account of the decoration ceremony that took place on a lawn of an unnamed French chateau in the Marne Valley on July 11, 1918. The ceremony was presided over by U.S. Army General James Harbord (1866 – 1947) and well over 100 Marines of the U.S. Second Division were cited for their deeds in the fighting North-West of Chateau-Thierry.

The Battle at Cantigny
(The Stars and Stripes, 1918)

The battle of Cantigny (May 28 – 31, 1918) was America’s first division sized engagement during the First World War; George Marshall would later opine that the objective was of no strategic importance and of small tactical value. General Pershing was hellbent on eradicating from the popular memory any mention of the A.E.F.’s poor performance at Seicheprey some weeks earlier, and Cantigny was as good a battleground in which to do it as any. Assessing the battle two weeks after the Armistice, Pershing’s yes men at the Stars & Stripes wrote:

But at Cantigny it had been taught to the world the significant lesson that the American soldier was fully equal to the soldier of any other nation on the field of battle.

Click here to read about the foreign-born soldiers who served in the American Army of the First World War.

Click here to read a STARS & STRIPES article about the sexually-transmitted diseases among the American Army of W.W. I…

Harold Ross: Managing Editor of The Stars & Stripes
(New York Tribune, 1919)

Sergeant Alexander Woollcott (1887 – 1943) wrote this article so that his New York readers (whom he had not addressed since signing on with the Doughboys) would know the key roll Corporal Harold Ross (1892 – 1951) played as Managing Editor at the Paris offices of The Stars & Stripes. Anyone who glances at those now brittle, beige pages understands how sympathetic the The Stars & Stripes and their readers were to the many thousands of French children orphaned by the war; Woollcott makes it clear that it was Harold Ross who was behind the A.E.F. charities that brought needed relief to those urchins.

It seems certain that no man in the A.E.F. had a greater influence on it’s thought and spirit…The men who worked with him on The Stars & Stripes considered him the salt of the earth.

To read another W.W. I article by Alexander Woocott, click here.

How the ‘Stars & Stripes’ Operated
(The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

Written during the closing days of the paper’s existence, the reporting journalist could not emphasize enough how lousy the paper was with enlisted men serving in the most important positions. You will come away with a good amount of knowledge concerning the manner in which THE STARS & STRIPES crew addressed their daily duties and still made it to the presses on time. Surprising is the high number of experienced newspapermen who wrote for the paper during the paper’s short existence.

Click here to read World War II articles from YANK MAGAZINE.