World War One – Page 17 – Old Magazine Articles

Origin of the Word ‘Doughboy’
(The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

A few historians tend to believe that the sobriquet Doughboy had it’s origins in the 1846 – 48 war with Mexico (a perversion of the Spanish word ‘adobe’), but the attached article makes a different reference, dating the term to the American army’s period in the Philippines. An effort was also made to explain the term Buck Private.

Click here if you would like to read an article about the Doughboy training camps.

The Battle of Henry Johnson
(The Stars and Stripes, 1918)

The courageous acts of white soldiers were not so easily demeaned in other STARS & STRIPES features as were the heroics performed by Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts in this piece from the Spring of 1918. For those who have, through the years, read the history of the New York 369th Regiment of Infantry this article will leave you a little sadder for the racial stereotyping and cheekiness so clearly enjoyed by the journalist and his editors.

On June 2, 2015 Henry Johnson was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in a White House ceremony.

A Price was Paid at Fismette
(American Legion Weekly, 1924)

A two page history of the 32nd Division and their struggle to eradicate the bulge in the Marne battle line that resulted in the liberation of Fismette and Fismes.

The Military Police in France
(American Legion Weekly, 1923)

A genuinely funny reminiscence written by an anonymous Doughboy recalling his days as an M.P. in war-torn France during the First World War:

Now that it is all over I wonder what did I gain from my experiences as an M.P. in the great Army of Newton Baker’s Best?…Watching the dawn coming rosily up over snow-clad barracks roofs and rows of tents; informing careless privates, sergeants, lieutenants and even majors to ‘button that there button’; listening to the dull bang-slamming of artillery barrages on crossroads; jotting down the names of high-spirited young men found in cafés at the wrong hours -such things aren’t of much lasting value.

Click here to read an article about the sexually-transmitted diseases among the American Army of W.W. I – and the M.P.s in particular…

A British Tommy to the Mother of his Victim
(True Stories of the Great War, 1918)

One of the most moving letters included in the the 1918 book True Stories of the Great War
was the pair that we have attached herein: a British soldier, heartily sickened by war, composed a letter to the mother of the German he had killed, pleading for her forgiveness. The mother wrote back and her response was unpredictable.
This exchange was first published in a Geneva newspaper.

Click here to read about compassion on the battlefield.

Theodore Roosevelt on the Subject of Disarmament Treaties
(Review of Reviews, 1910)

Before there were diplomatic treaties between super powers on thermo-nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, there was the age of the Dreadnought: how many battleships should a country have? This article concerns the views of a Norwegian statesman named Erik Vullum (1850 – 1916) and his admiration for former U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt and his understanding of armament arbitration agreements between the major European powers prior to the First World War.

German Military Expansion
(The Spectator, 1912)

This small piece from THE SPECTATOR magazine concerned the 1912 budget increase mandated by the Imperial German Defense Bills which called for a growth of the German army and navy. The expansion of the fleet was to include eight battleships and nine cruisers of various sizes and provide for further additions later. The German Army was to be furnished with two additional army corps.

The Crown Prince: Saber Rattler
(Current Literature, 1912)

The son and heir of the German Kaiser, Crown Prince Wilhelm III (1882 – 1951) was known well throughout the pre-war era for demonstrating his dislike of the German Government’s peaceful policies and especially for his belligerent, anti-British remarks, which caused tremendous embarrassment to the Imperial German Chancellor, while giving no end of pleasure to the hot-heads of Berlin.

‘The Baseless Fear of War” by Andrew Carnegie
(The Independent, 1913)

Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919) tried his hand at clairvoyance and wrote this article in response to the constant plea for money from the U.S. Department of War, which he found completely unnecessary and excessive.

Our naval and military officials must dream of wars since most of them never even see one.

America’s First Shot
(Various Sources, 1917 – 1937)

The three articles attached herein were printed five years apart and collectively recall three different events by three different arms of the American military, each claiming to have fired the opening salvo that served notice to Kaiser Bill and his boys that the U.S.A. meant business:

• The first article chuckles at the Army for insisting that the First Division fired the premiere shot on October 23, 1917 in the Luneville sector of the French front;

• The second article recalls the U.S. Merchant Marine freighter MONGOLIA that sank a German U-Boat on April 19, 1917 while cruising off the coast of England.

• following up with the absolute earliest date of American aggression being April 6, 1917 – the same day that Congress declared war – when Marine Corporal Michael Chockie fired his 1903 Springfield across the bow of the German merchant raider S.M.S COMORAN on the island of Guam.

The Secret Papers of Robert Lansing
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1940)

In 1940, when America stood on the precipice preparing to enter another enormous conflict, the heretofore secret papers of Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State, Robert Lansing (1864 – 1928), were released – shedding light on the government’s reasoning as to why they felt U.S. intervention in the European war was necessary.

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.

Questioning German War Guilt
(The Nation, 1927)

This article from THE NATION was written by Alfred Von Wegerer in the interest of refuting Versailles Treaty article 231, which reads:

The Allied and Associated Governments affirm, and Germany accepts, the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.

Von Wegerer, like most Germans at that time, got mighty hot under the collar when he stopped to consider that Germany was blamed entirely for the start of the First World War. This article was written nine years after the close of the war when a number scholars on the allied side had already stepped forward to question, what has come to be called, the war guilt clause.

Read about the total lack of war guilt that existed in 1950 Germany…

First Blood
(American Legion Weekly, 1922)

A veteran of the U.S. First Division, Sixteenth Infantry, tells the chilling story of that rainy night in November, 1917, when the first German raid upon the American trenches took place:

It was on that night that Company F took over its first front line position, received its baptism of fire, bore the brunt of the first German raid and lost the first American troops killed and captured in the World War.

…two hundred and forty Bavarians, the widely advertised cut-throats of the German Army, hopped down on us. The first raid on American troops was in full swing. They had crawled up to our wire under cover of their artillery barrage and the moment it lifted were right on top of us.

The U.S. Army would not launch their own trench raid for another four months.

‘Soldier Man Blues from Somewhere in France”
(Literary Digest, 1927)

This article is essentially a collection of lyrics from an assortment of songs sung by the Black Doughboys who were charged with the task of loading and unloading trucks far behind the front line trenches. It was written in 1927 to serve as a review for Singing Soldiers by John J. Niles, who compiled the labor songs while stationed in France as a fighter pilot:

All dese colored soldiers comin’ over to France

All dese soldiers an’ me

Goin’ to help de Whites make de Kaiser dance

All dese soldiers an’ me…

Training the Doughboy
(U.S. Gov. 1931)

Two remarkably brief paragraphs concerning the required military training of the average American Doughboy throughout the course of America’s blessedly short participation in the First World War:

The average American soldier who went to France received six months of training in this country before he sailed. After he landed overseas he had two months of training before entering the battle line. The part of the battle line that he entered was in a quiet sector and here he remained one month before going into an active sector and taking part in hard fighting.

Click here to read a 1918 magazine article about the Doughboy training camps.

The Steel Tree Stump, Part II
(Literary Digest, 1919)

A black and white photograph illustrating one of the many iron tree stumps used throughout the war which served as field observation posts. It was in the night, when work was done by both sides to preserve and refortify their respective trenches that objects such as these were erected.

The Steel Tree Stump, Part I
(Popular Mechanics, 1917)

The American press seemed a bit late in writing about the wartime innovations when they printed this piece:

Observation posts made of lumber and sheet metal to look like tree trunks are among the latest disguises employed on the battle front to deceive the enemy and enable watchers to occupy positions of advantage.

The steel tree-stump gag had been in effect since 1915.