World War One – Page 58 – Old Magazine Articles

The Battle of Belleau Wood in Retropspect
(Literary Digest, 1927)

Nine years after he commanded the U.S. Fourth Corps during World War One, Major General Joseph T. Dickman (1857 – 1928) reconsidered the necessity of fighting for that ground in his memoir, The Great Crusade, and concluded that:

Belleau Wood was a glorious, but an unnecessary sacrifice…It was magnificent fighting, but not modern war.

The battle was fought by the U.S. Marines attached to the Second Division, which was under the command of General Dickman. If you would like to read a small piece regarding the war record of the U.S. Fourth Corps in France, click here.

President Wilson Exonerates Mexico & Japan
(The Atlanta Georgian, 1917)

When the diplomatic leadership in Washington began to unravel the plot that was revealed behind the Zimmerman telegram, the Wilson administration wisely concluded that the governments of Japan and Mexico were not complicit in the scheme that had been cooked-up by the Germans.

The Taxis of the Marne
(The World Veteran, 1954)

KEY WORDS: Taxis of the Marne Battle 1914,soldiers taken to Marne Battle by Taxi,Taxis cabs in wartime,WW1 French 7th Division

The Spirit of the War at Harrow
(Cornhill Magazines, 1918)

Written as a companion piece for The Spirit of the War at Eton, the article gives an moving account as to how the war affected life on campus while Britain was taking such tremendous losses.

Behind the Scenes at the Doughboy Training Camps
(Leslie’s Weekly, 1918)

This article written by Edwin A. Goewey and illustrated by C. Leroy Baldridge (1889 – 1977) reported on how America’s granite youth was chiseled into fighting trim at the Long Island training camps at Upton and Mineola. Reference is made to the contributions made by Father Francis Duffy and Major-General J. Franklin Bell.

Click here to read about the AEF officer training at Plattsburg, New York.

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

A Tribute to Philip Gibbs: War – Correspondent
(The Literary Digest, 1917)

Two articles from 1917 heaped praise upon the laureled cranium of the British war correspondent Philip Gibbs (1877 – 1962). Having written diligently for the readers of the DAILY MAIL and DAILY CHRONICLE, who were also anticipating his book THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME (1917), Gibbs was admitted to the VANITY FAIR Hall of Fame (for whatever that was worth at the time):

He has been able to bring the wide, modern, romantic outlook to bear in his survey and analysis of fighting and the conditions of fighting…He is a war-correspondent of a ‘new dispensation’, giving ‘not a realistic or a melodramatic vision of war, but a naturalistic vision’.

At the close of hostilities in 1918, Philip Gibbs was filled with disgust concerning his cooperation with the censors and would begin writing NOW IT CAN BE TOLD (1920), in which he angrily names the bunglers in command and admits that he wrote lies all through the war.

Siegfried Sassoon Reviewed
(Touchstone Magazine, 1920)

American poet Marguerite Wilkinson(1883 — 1928) was very impressed with the World War I poetry of Sigfried Sassoon, MC (1886 – 1967); in this three page review she lucidly explained why Sassoon’s voice was different from all the other wartime versifiers and illustrated her point by quoting liberally from his two earlier volumes, The Old Huntsman (1917) and Counter Attack (1918):

Such wisdom is the shining power of Sigfried Sassoon. To read it is to come face to face with indelible memories of unspeakable anguish. No palliatives are offered. The truth about warfare is told, as Mr. Sassoon understands it, with vigor and in sight…It is told by a man, a soldier, who will never forget this Calvary of the youth of our generation.

Poets in Their Glory: Dead
(Literary Digest, 1917)

This 1917 article listed the known body count of dead poets who were rotting away in no-man’s land. A number of the scribes are unknown in our era; among the prominent names are Alan Seeger, Julian Grenfel and Rupert Brooke.

Printed in a popular U.S. magazine, it appeared on the newsstands the same week that Wilfred Owen, the most well known of World War I poets, was discharged from Craiglockhart Hospital, where he first resolved to write poetry about his experiences in the war.

Gaudier-Brzeska
(Literary Digest, 1916)

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891 – 1915) was an avant-garde sculptor of the Vorticist school. Prior to the war he resided in London and broke bread with the talented Bohemians of that burg, and this article is composed of snippets of text from a remembrance written by his close friend, Ezra Pound.

Joseph Cummings Chase: Soldiers All
(Rob Wagner’s Script, 1942)

Joseph Cummings Chase (1878 – 1965) was an American painter who’s name is not likely to be associated with World War I artists but, like Sir William Orpen, he had a comfortable place within fashionable circles and he, too, was commissioned to paint portraits of the anointed within his nations military establishment. This article appeared in 1942 and primarily concerns the W.W. I portrait that Chase painted of Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur during the closing days of the war:

Joseph Cummings Chase is without doubt one of the world’s greatest portrait painters, and as luck would have it, he was in Paris when World War I began, at which time the Government commissioned him to paint the Distinguished Service Cross men, both enlisted men and officers, wherever he could catch up with them; some in dugouts, some in trenches, and some behind the lines.

Click here to see a few trench war images by German Expressionist Otto Dix.

Click here to read a 1942 article by Rockwell Kent on the proper roll of American artists during wartime.