World War One – Page 27 – Old Magazine Articles

To Outlaw War
(Literary Digest, 1922)

Not pacifists, but soldiers, have signed what several editors term one of the most striking and remarkable appeals for peace that have come to their tables.

Veterans of the 1914-1918 slaughter called for their respective governments to oppose territorial aggrandizement and demanded that an international court be established to outlaw war; following the establishment of said court, the immediate effort to disarm and disband sea and air forces and destroy the implements of warfare should begin. The American Legion Commander-in-Chief, Alvin Owsley (1888 – 1967), was among the signators.

Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.

A Briton Writes From Ypres
(Harper’s Weekly, 1915)

In a letter to his family, a soldier from one of the Scottish territorial regiments gives an account of his experiences fighting in Belgium.

He was in the thick of the fighting that came as a result of the Kaiser’s desperate attempt to take Ypres, yet he indulges in no heroics. He writes as though reporting a cricket game or a boat race.

Wrong Turn at Gallipoli
(Ken Magazine, 1938)

This is an opinion piece written at a time when the world stood at the doorstep of World War II. The writer went to some length to outline the fatal error made just one generation earlier and how the sins were to be paid for by their sons and daughters:

The world of today, an upheaval of antagonisms heading toward destructive war, was not inevitable. Russia need not have fallen to the Bolshevists, Germany to the Nazis, Italy to the Fascists. The United States need not have entered the Great War. Two million men slain in battle need not have died. These consequences resulted from a decision of a few men during the World War.

He argued that the Dardanelles Campaign is where the whole war went sideways.

Click here to read what the Kaiser thought of Adolf Hitler.

A Tribute to General Pershing
(American Legion Weekly, 1924)

Six years after the last shot was fired, war correspondent Frederick Palmer (1873 – 1958) typed up some sweet words of praise for the American W.W. I Commanding General John Pershing:

When the people at home were thinking in terms of thousands, Pershing planned for an army of a million men overseas…He was organizer and molder of the A.E.F.. The stamp of his character was upon it in so far as any one man can put his stamp upon a vast, modern army.

During that brief period of the war in which Pershing’s Doughboys were at bat against the Germans, Palmer worked under the general as the press liaison officer and censor for the entire A.E.F. (a job he hated). His bitter recollections of W.W. I were recorded in his 1921 memoir; click here to read the review.

Click here to read an article from 1927 by General Pershing regarding the American cemeteries in Europe.

Sioux Code-Talkers of the Great War
(The Stars and Stripes, 1919)

The Navajo code-talkers in the Second World War are well-known, but not so terribly well known were their brothers the Sioux, and the similar contributions that they had made just twenty years earlier in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

Dogfight Over Hunland
(Vanity Fair, 1918)

British fighter pilot in the Great War, Lieutenant E.M. Roberts, gave this account of the deadly game of Boche-hunting above the clouds:

I noticed he was going down a little, evidently for the purpose of shooting me from underneath. I was not quite sure as yet that such was really his intention; but the man was quick…he put five shots into my machine. But all of them missed me.

I maneuvered into an offensive position as Quickly as I could, and I had my machine gun pelting him…The Hun began to spin earthward.

The French Hatred of Germany
(Literary Digest, 1894)

French hatred of Germany has been looked upon as something of a bugaboo, as being greatly exaggerated, and having little reality except in the writings of the sensationalists. That this hatred is a fact, a very serious fact…

Grim Determination on the German Home Front
(Literary Digest, 1916)

This report, filed from Switzerland, stood in stark contrast to hundreds of other articles previously published by the Allied presses that reported how regretful the Germans were for having provoked war and how economic privations were making them even more-so. This unnamed journalist insisted that the German home front that he saw in 1916 was composed of a proud and determined people who were fully prepared to see the war through to a German victory.

Eastern European Jews Slaughtered
(Current Opinion, 1920)

One of the most sinister results of the war has been a new wave of anti-Semitism in Europe. Recent dispatches from Berlin describe street demonstrations against Jews and speak of a veritable pogrom atmosphere in Munich and Budapest. In Poland, Jewish blood has flown freely, amid scenes of horror described by Herman Bernstein and other writers in American newspapers. In Ukraine the number of Jews massacred during the early part of the present year is estimated anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000.

General Pershing On The W.W. I Cemeteries & Monuments of Europe
(American Legion Monthly 1927)

Ten years after Wilson’s declaration of war U.S. General John J. Pershing (1860 – 1948)wrote this article concerning the American W.W. I monuments and cemeteries scattered throughout France, Belgium, Italy and Britain.

The Crown Prince in Exile
(The Literary Digest, 1919)

In the attached magazine interview, Kaiser Wilhelm’s son and fellow exile, Crown Prince Wilhelm III (1882 – 1951, a.k.a. The Butcher of Verdun), catalogs his many discomforts as a refugee in Holland. At this point in his life, the former heir apparent was dictating his memoir (click here to read the book review) and following closely the goings-on at Versailles.

Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.

German Mortars and Field Guns
(Almanach Hachette, 1919)

A couple of the primary field guns of the German artillery corps are clearly rendered in black and white on the attached file: the 105mm field gun and the 150mm howitzer. Also illustrated are two German trench mortars; 240mm and 305mm, respectively.

Supplying the A.E.F. in Siberia
(The Stars and Stripes, 1918)

Special woolen coats and breeches and underwear, long mufflers, worsted socks and long stockings, gloves and gauntlets are other things which are being issued to the Doughboys in Russia. Alaska Yanks are said to be right at home in their new surroundings, although they complain sometimes of the heat.

An additional article is attached concerning the supply of medals that had to be shipped North; reading between the lines, you will get a sense that much gallantry was expected…

When the Doughboys complained, they complained heavily about their uniforms; read about it here.

Something Was Lacking in the Slang of the Doughboys
(The Stars and Stripes, 1918)

The American poet Carl Sandburg once wrote words to the effect that Slang is language that takes off its coat, spits on its hands, and goes to work – a very soldierly description it was, too. That said, an anonymous Journalist from The Stars and Stripes examined the casual lingo muttered by the Doughboys in France and surmised that a

universal slang in this man’s army is as hard to find as universal peace in this man’s world.

Perhaps it was all due to the fact that we weren’t in that war long enough to make it our own.

Sniper Mask
(The Great War, 1918)

As if simply having to be mindful of wind velocity and camouflage was not enough to occupy the thoughts of your average World War I German sniper, some were burdened to a further degree by having to affix this half-inch steel sniper mask to their faces…

Napoleon Takes Charge
(Literary Digest, 1922)

The Napoleon who plays the Monday-morning-quarterback in these columns was created by the tireless researcher Walter Noble Burns (1872 – 1932); his version of Bonaparte explains what went wrong on the Western Front and how he would have beat the Kaiser – but not before he dishes out liberal amounts of defamation for the senior commands on both sides of No Man’s Land.

The war’s stupendous blunders and stupendous, useless tragedies made me turn over in my sarcophagus beneath the dome of the Invalides. I can not conceive how military men of even mediocre intelligence could have permitted the Allied Army to waste its time by idly lobbing over shells during a three-years’ insanity of deadlocked trench warfare.

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

The Power of Positive Thought in Military Training
(Outing Magazine, 1918)

The power of positive thinking is one of the necessary elements that has been ingrained within the psyche of every U.S. Army recruit for at least the past 100 years. Positive thought is the topic of this 1918 article about the wartime training of U.S. Army officer cadets at Camp Grant, Illinois, by Major Herman J. Koehler (1859 – 1927), who believed deeply that there is no limit to human endurance.

Read what the U.S. Army psychologists had to say about courage.

The U.S. First Division 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 AND 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.

An article from THE NEW REPUBLIC recognizing that 1914 marked the end of an era.