Find old World War 1 articles here. Find information on uniforms, women, gas warfare, prisoners of war and more.
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.
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…
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:
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.
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.
Numerous little vignettes depicting the American Expeditionary Forces in France.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
