Find old World War 1 articles here. Find information on uniforms, women, gas warfare, prisoners of war and more.
Attached is a Vanity Fair article printed a few months after the Lusitania sinking in which the journalist listed the many and myriad explanations as to why this event was such a departure from the traditions of naval warfare set in place by John Paul Jones, Admirals Nelson and Dewey.
Click here to read read a 1919 German condemnation of Admiral Von Tirpitz.
An article by the admired British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (1881 – 1931) concerning those aspects of the 1914 war that combined to make the entire catastrophe something unique in human history:
Everything has changed; uniforms, weapons, methods, tactics. Cavalry had been rendered obsolete by trenches, machine guns and modern artillery; untrained soldiers proved useless, special battalions were needed on both sides to fight this particular kind of war that, in no way, resembled the battles your father or grand-fathers had once fought.
A good read.
Click here to read about the fashion legacy of W.W. I…
To read about one of the fashion legacies of W.W. II, click here…
Assorted dry observations regarding what the women of Gotham were sporting that last American Spring of peace (Congress would declare war on Germany during the April of 1917).
Yank and Aussie and Jock, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Pole, Checko-Slovak, Tommy, Indian, all from the newly arrived Brazilians to the wizened and and weather-beaten poilus wearing the seven brisques denoting four years in the furnace, knew no nationality, no difference of tongues or even of uniform.
Click here to read another article about the 1918 Armistice.
– from Amazon:
The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
Attached is one American journalist’s view of the Great War as it is waged on the home-front by the British people. He was impressed with the resolve of the population to win the war and he found that everyone, regardless of age or infirmity, was pursuing war work with a surprising earnestness.
The outward evidences of a nation at war are plentiful in London. Soldiers are everywhere. Columns of armed men and columns of recruits still in civilian clothes march through the streets. Drilling goes on in the parks and other places all day and every day.
Read about how the First World War effected life on the campus of Eton College.
William Beebe is best remembered for his exploration of the oceans in a submersible craft called a Bathysphere, however, as a younger man his study of nature brought him to war-weary Paris.
Four devastating years of war had altered the city and made quite an affect on the young naturalist. His astute and very moving observations were recorded in this essay, A Naturalist in Paris.
This link displays the first six pages; the remaining seven pages are available upon request.
Click here to read about the day when the Nazis took Paris.
Author and radio commentator Emil Ludwig (1881 – 1948) recalled the economic catastrophe that devastated post-World War I Germany as a result of their inflated currency:
Inflation in Germany really started on the first day of the war in 1914 when the government voted a credit of five billion marks. This was not a loan…I saw the mark, the German monetary unit corresponding to the British shilling or the American quarter, tumble down and down until you paid as much for a loaf of bread as you would have paid for a limousine before inflation started.
A British journalist encountered the United States Marine Corps and found them to be an impressive curiosity that spoke an odd, nautical language. One Marine in particular was singled out and, although anonymous some of you will recognize right away that he could only be one man: Sergeant Dan Daily of the Fifth Marines.
Click here to read about the high desertion rate within the U.S. Army of 1910.
The W.W. I poster campaign was a vast undertaking that was new in the annals of warfare. Never before had government locked arms with the newly created forces of mass-media (such as it was) in an effort to instill some sense of patriotism in the hearts of so many. The old salts who edited Sea Power Magazine recognized this and so they documented as many of the posters dealing with the US. Navy as they could find.
The attached single page article explains the origins and development of the famed Tell That To The Marines poster that was painted by James Montgomery Flagg in 1918.
Here is a brief notice that appeared in a small, semi-monthly magazine concerning a PoW exchange that took place between the Soviets and the Germans some three years after the Russian Army made their uneasy peace with Imperial Germany.
Click here to read an article about the American POW experience during the Korean War.
Attached is a book review of what was described as the first book of it’s kind: a compilation of assorted recollections by Imperial German officers of their years spent in captivity at the officer’s prisoner of war camp at Skipton in Yorkshire.
This two page article is about P.O.W.s and the plays and concerts that they launched while in captivity; it is illustrated by numerous images of the prisoner/performers in costume.
If you are looking for an article that spells out how much more educated people used to be as compared to now, you might have found it.
Click here to read about the W.W. II Canadian POWs who collaborated with the Nazis.
Click here to read about American POWs during the Vietnam War.
Les Américains Sont Là!
Those were the words on everybody’s lips as the first big detachments of United States troops began to appear in the Paris streets… I think there is a simple politeness in these young warriors from across the sea, whether they come from some of the big cities, New York, Boston, Chicago or from some far-away states on the other side of the Rockies.
Sporting terms used as a metaphors for war are very common and come naturally to those who tend to think about matters military on a regular basis; yet this article uses the expression, playing the game more as a character trait that was unique to the British. The author, Austin Harrison, writing in 1915 (the year of grim determination) believed that the English have always played the game as a matter of course; they have always maintained good form, and yet:
Playing the game is only half the battle in war [and]…it will be the finest game we ever have played.
The attached Stars & Stripes article briefly summarizes the American efforts from Cantigny to the Armistice and serves as one big attaboy for the whole Doughboy army. The journalist anticipates John Mosiere’s World War One history, The Myth of the Great War
Stars & Stries could not have agreed more.
Ten years later a Frenchman writing for La Revue Mondiale would say essentially the same thing, click here to read that article.
Click here to read an article about life in a W.W. I German listening post…
Written five years after the Armistice, this is an article about the eight U.S. W.W. I cemeteries that were erected in Europe (with the help of German P.O.W. labor) and the money that was set aside by the veterans of The American Legion to aid in the upkeep of these memorials:
The American flag is still in Europe, even tho the last Doughboy has left the Rhine. It floats over eight cemeteries, six in France, one in Belgium and one in England…It is the high honor of the American Legion to represent the American people in the fulfillment of the sacred national obligation of decorating the graves of our soldiers abroad on Memorial Day. The Legion pledges itself always to remember and honor our dead on foreign soil on the day when the heart of all Americans is thrilling with reverence for them.
Illustrated by a photograph depicting the cold weather uniforms worn by each of the six Allied armies that served time in Siberia(North Russia), this article is a reminiscence told by one of the American veterans of that cold, uncomfortable and long-forgotten campaign.
– from Amazon:
Why did we go to Russia? by Harry J. Costello
An article that appeared in an American veterans magazine concerning the pageantry that would mark the Memorial Day of 1920 at each of the primary A.E.F. cemeteries in France.
More than 127,000 American soldiers, sailors and Marines gave up their lives during the war…Total battle deaths in the A.E.F. killed in action and died of wounds were 50,329 including casualties in the Siberian force. Deaths from disease including the A.E.F. and men in the home cantonments, were 58,837…No American field of honor will be without it’s Memorial Day ceremony, no American grave without its flag and its flowers…
An interesting article that was written at a time it was believed that the A.E.F. cemeteries were going to be closed and the interred repatriated. There is a photograph of an early prototype headstone that was later rejected in favor of a stone cross; references are made to Suresnes Cemetery in Paris.
