Here is another account from The Enemy Order of Battle report (1919) - on this page two experienced German veterans recalled their unit's battles with the American infantry:
"American soldiers took big chances and [did so] irrespective of any danger."
Four months into the Noble Experiment of Prohibition, three respected British Writers, Hilaire Belloc, G K. Chesterton and Solomon Eagle all sound-off on American Prohibition.
The attached is a post-Armistice Day report on the American Army accounting figures involving the number of American soldiers and Marines serving in France at the time of the Armistice, how many (and which units) would be required for German occupation and how many would soon be repatriated.
London's post-World War I art world was rocked by a scandal involving a number forged drawings which were misleadingly signed with the name Aubrey Beardsley (1872 - 1898). This piece captures that moment.
"Katherine Stinson wants to carry letters up to Third Army".
By the time Katherine Stinson (1891 - 1977, a.k.a. "the Flying Schoolgirl") had applied for the job of carrying the mails to the occupying American forces in post-war Germany, she already had the distinction of being the fourth American woman to earn a pilot's license and the first woman to ever deliver air-mail for the U.S. Post Office. She didn't get the job...
A cartoon that appeared in an American veterans magazine on the first anniversary marking the last day of W.W. I. What is especially amusing is the satirical depiction of American combat officers and the last frame, which fully supports the thesis of Joseph E. Persico's book, "11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour" that the American Army was on the attack all the way up to the bitter end.
"Art alone survives the earthquake shocks of revolution, and Russian art has been doubly secure because of it's deep-rooted imagination and it's passionate sincerity."
That was the word from Oliver M. Sayler writing from Moscow as it starved during the Summer of 1919. Sayler, known primarily for his writings on Russian theater from this period, wrote enthusiastically about the Russian Suprematist Casimir Malyevitch, Futurist David Burliuk and The Jack of Diamonds Group; believing deeply in the Russian Revolution, he wrote not a word about how the Soviets mistreated the modern artists of Russia.
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.
Two paragraphs from THE STARS AND STRIPES explained the legal status extended to all those demobilized Doughboys who wore the highly coveted discharge chevron. The red wool chevron was worn (point down) on the left arm.
An excellent cartoon that serves to illustrate the difficulty that the American suffragettes had to overcome in post World War I America. Following the demobilization of so many women who played vital roles during the course of the war, the next task at hand was to see to it that her fathers, brothers and uncles understood that these veterans of the war expected greater opportunity and would not reside gladly in the same world of low-expectations that saw them off at the docks in 1917
The least important aspect of the Versailles Treaty is discussed in this article. Many scholars have looked far and wide to find such a trivial concern, but the crack team of post-debutante archivists at OldMagazineArticles.com have succeeded where the learned have failed.
The difficult task of wandering the war-torn countryside of Europe in search of fallen World War I American pilots fell to a U.S. Army captain named E.W. Zinn. A combat pilot himself, Zinn had roamed France, Belgium and Germany interviewing the local population to see what they knew of American crash sites:
"Many times he has come upon a grave with a rude cross on which was scrawled:
'Unidentified American Aviator' or 'Two Unidentified American Aviators'"
"Captain Zinn has found that in a great many cases American fliers were buried either by the Germans or by civilians with no mark of identification left on them."
Click here to read some statistical data about the American Doughboys of the First World War.
Assorted black and white illustrations depicting an variety of French artillery pieces from the years 1916 and 1917; among them is a railway gun, "Obusier de 520"
Two articles from two different magazines reported the news that the World Champion Boxer of 1919, Jack Dempsey (1895 – 1983), would soon try his hand at movie acting. The Vanity Fair item is actually a cartoon by that old sentimentalist, John Held, Jr.(1889-1958).
In the future, other athletes would follow in his steps to Hollywood; his fellow boxer Gene Tunney would follow him out there eight years later (The Fighting Marines). Swimmers Buster Crabbe (Buck Rogers) and Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) got the fever and came out during the early days of sound movies.
To be sure, there were complications with the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. While American clergy debated with government concerning the issue of sacraments involving wine, one enterprising restaurateur took advantage of the fact that the law, as it was originally written, only involved alcoholic beverages and decided to offer an inebriate in the form of a jelly sandwich.
The author of "The White Man's Burden" gets the back-hand for all of his narrow-minded jingoism by Robert Wilson Lynd (1879 - 1949), who penned this angry review of Rudyard Kipling's (1865 - 1936) body of work, finding the author to be too much the Victorian imperialist.
The author of this piece interviews the poet Robert Nichols (1893 - 1944) and finds the writer was convinced that the differences between the two peoples rests in their understanding of the idea of freedom.
Sergeant Alexander Woollcott (1887 - 1943) wrote this article so that his New York readers (whom he had not addressed since signing on with the Doughboys) would know the key roll Corporal Harold Ross (1892 - 1951) played as Managing Editor at the Paris offices of The Stars & Stripes. Anyone who glances at those now brittle, beige pages understands how sympathetic the The Stars & Stripes and their readers were to the many thousands of French children orphaned by the war; Woollcott makes it clear that it was Harold Ross who was behind the A.E.F. charities that brought needed relief to those urchins.
"It seems certain that no man in the A.E.F. had a greater influence on it's thought and spirit...The men who worked with him on The Stars & Stripes considered him the salt of the earth."
To read another W.W. I article by Alexander Woocott, click here.
Attached herein, you will find the fashionable coats, suits, shoes and cufflinks for men from the harsh winter of 1919 that had been approved by the Fifth Avenue swells of the VANITY FAIR editorial department.
A printable selection of the detachable shirt collars
(of both the cotton and rubber varieties) available to both men and boys from the 1919 Sears & Roebuck catalog, no. 138.
Shortly after training in France began it was discovered that the leggings of the American Army were no match for the moisture of the French countryside and so puttees were issued for the whole A.E.F. - the attached notice ordered the entire U.S. Army to wear them in place of canvas leggings.
An article written for an American veterans organization one year after the war, the attached piece tells the story of the five American naval batteries that were mounted on specially made rail cars and deployed along the Western Front. The article is two pages long and is filled with interesting facts as to the whereabouts of their assorted deployments and what was expected of the naval crews who worked them.
The net-heads of 1919 were delighted to be able to read tennis articles once more following that long dry spell that began in the summer of 1914 and left them all with such a distaste that had only recently ended.
The editors of Leslie's Weekly jumped into the first post-war tennis season with this article, titled "Tennis Again To The Fore" where they began to enthusiasticly write of the great players of the sport; names like, Suzanne Lenglen (1899-1938)of France and Australia's Norman Brooks (1877-1968) and Gerald L. Patterson (dates?)-who would all go on to dazzle and amaze the tennis world of the 1920s.
The veterans magazine that published the attached column, THE HOME SECTOR, was edited by Harold Ross, who, just a few months earlier, had held that same post at THE STARS and STRIPES; the article was written by Alexander Woollcott - previously a journalist with that same paper. I'm sure that this was quite common in 1919, but it would seem that these two men wanted to be forthright with their readers and set straight an issue that they wrote about when they were in the employment of Uncle Sam: the Doughboys who were victorious at Chateau-Thiery and Belleau Wood did not save Paris. Just as German historians have insisted for many years, those German divisions were simply not headed for Paris.
At the thirty-fifth annual church congress of the Protestant Episcopal Church (1919) clergy members seemed to agree that Christian leaders were fully complicit in the recently ended war and were guilty of abandoning Christianity for patriotism:
This piece concerns the Grand-Mufti of Palestine, as well as various Christian clergymen in the United States, who all weighed-in on the topic of Palestine as the Jewish homeland.
It was not beyond the editors of The Stars and Stripes to indulge in ethnic stereotyping from time to time and, no doubt, they exercised that privilege here as well, however the performance of the American Indian soldier got high marks for a number of valued skills from many Allied officers on the Western Front. It was not simply their ability to shoot well which invited these compliments, but also their instincts while patrolling No-Man's Land in the dark in addition to a common sense of bravery shared by all. The article is rich with a number of factoids that the Western Front reader will no doubt enjoy; among them, mention is made of German women serving in combat.
Read some magazine articles about one of the great failed inventions of the Twentieth Century: the Soviet Union.
If you've been jumping from site-to-site for the past twenty minutes looking for reliable information regarding the early career of a silent film actor of the U.K. persuasion who was known as James Knight (1891 - 1948) - you have found it. Click the title above, gaze at the digitized image of his smiling mug and read on!
An Arthur B. Davies (1862 - 1928) review written by VANITY FAIR art critic Frederick James Gregg following the opening of an exhibition highlighting the the private collection of N.E. Montross. The critic wrote:
"Since the death of Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847 – 1917), Mr. Davies has been recognized, by persons abroad who are familiar with art in America, as the leading living painter on this side of the Atlantic."
Aside from scanning and posting vast numbers of historic magazine articles, the only other activity that has heightened our sense of inner tranquility has been our various walks through British and Commonwealth World War I graveyards. They are truly unique and beautiful gardens that can be appreciated on a number of different levels and it was not surprising to learn that many of the finest aesthetic minds in Britain had a hand in their creation.
This article, printed six months after the last shot was fired, is about the Imperial War Graves Commission (now called The Commonwealth War Graves Commission) and their plans as to how the dead of the British Empire were to be interred.
Click here to read about a 1920 visit the grave of poet Rupert Brooke.
Senegalese, Moroccans, Algerians, Americans - this six page article summarizes the participation of the various Allied units that were composed entirely of Black men throughout the four year course of W.W. I.
"'Black devils' the German soldiers called them, when, fighting like demons, they had forced the Kaiser's shock troops to retreat before them."
An illustration of the insignia patch and a brief account of the origins, deployments and war-time activities of the U.S. Army's 90th Infantry Division during World War One. We have also provided a review of A History of the 90th Division by Major George Wythe (which the reviewer didn't especially care for but nonetheless provides a colorful account of the division's history in France).
A post-Armistice Day feature article that reported on the war-time activities of the four infantry regiments that made up the U.S. Ninety-Third Division (the 369th, 370th, 371st and the 372nd).
Two of these regiments were awarded the coveted Croix de Guerre. Accompanying this history is a black and white illustration of the Division's insignia.
When the Doughboys began arriving in France the infantry and artillery were kept in the rear areas and taught the necessities of World War One trench warfare. This was not the case with engineering units of the A.E.F. who were dubbed "noncombatants" and dispatched hither and yon to attend to those duties deemed appropriate for men with such training. The U.S. Sixth Regiment of Engineers were rebuilding roads on the Somme when the German army came across no-man's land on March 21, 1918 (a.k.a. Kaiserschlacht: "the Kaiser's battle) and they were quickly ordered to go in support of a nearby British regiment. These engineers were the first Americans to come under German fire and their story is told here by Private E.P. Broadstreet, who was there.
The experiences of the 108th Engineers (Thirty-Third Division) during the Argonne campaign is also told in this article.
Another first-hand account of that day can be read in an interview that appears in this book: Make the Kaiser Dance.
"One of the most romantic figures of the entire war was Thomas Lawrence, a young Oxford graduate who had specialized in archeology... To Colonel Lawrence more than any other man was due the efficient organization of the Hejaz Army. He worked in perfect harmony with King Hussein and Prince Faisal, to whom he was second in command."
"Monday, June 2 (1919), was a holiday in the 2nd Division in the bridgehead on the Rhine. The anniversary of the battle of Chateau-Thierry was observed. It is just a year ago that infantry and Marines of the 2nd Division were thrown against the Boche on the Paris-Metz road near Chateau-Thierry, and from that moment on the Americans were in continual fighting until November 11."
An article written by David Le Roy Ferguson (dates unknown), an African-American pastor assigned to minister to the black Doughboys posted to the depot at St. Nazaire, France. The men of his flock were stevedores who were ordered to perform the thankless task of off-loading cargo from the various supply ships arriving daily to support the A.E.F.. Aside from working as cooks or in other service positions, this was a customary assignment given to the African-Americans during the war; only a small percentage were posted to the 92nd and 93rd combat divisions.
Pastor Ferguson's magazine article salutes the necessary labor of these men while at the same time adhering to the usual simple descriptions of the African-American as cheerful, musical and rather crude.
Like a lot a guys, Vladimir Lenin said many nice things about feminism, but, alas, all his sympathetic talk just blended in with all the other Utopian promises he made - and couldn't deliver.
In this interview the Kaiser's son and fellow exile, Crown Prince Wilhelm (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 and following closely the goings-on at Versailles.
Click here to read what Kaiser Wilhelm II thought of Adolf Hitler.
"Prohibition has been pretty rough on everybody, but there is no class of people which it has hit so hard as the theater-goers. The Federal Amendment has completely wrecked their evenings. It isn't so bad while the show is going on; the blow falls between the acts. In happier times the intermissions were the high spots of the evening..."
With pin-point accuracy, Vanity Fair was able to identify the new minority-victim class that emerged from America's unfortunate experiment with Prohibition: Broadway theater enthusiasts (It might be argued that the real victims were American bar tenders, many of whom high-tailed it over to Europe where they established a number of American-style bars).
The attached page from the magazine can be classified as humor and is illustrated with six great sketches by Edith Plummer.
"The three great military monarchies which have lately fallen to pieces - Russian, Austro-Hungarian and German - were all based upon an aristocracy of large landed properties, whereas the other European countries had become parliamentary and democratic states. Europe was thus divided between two political orders, founded on two social orders, in fact, into two different worlds between which the river Elbe was approximately the boundary..."
"The war proved a decisive test of the stability of the two social orders; the democratic states went through it without flinching, the monarchies which had which had engendered the war in the hope of strengthening their position have gone under; from their defeat has sprung the revolution, which is overthrowing all aristocracies."
Click here to read a 1916 Vanity Fair article about how the war had affected the British upper class.
Few topics were as irksome to the editors of THE AMERICAN LEGION WEEKLY than that of the draft dodger. This article appeared one year after the close of the war and presents all the facts about the deferment process and how many native-born American men had shirked their responsibility to kin and country.
One of war's many, many sad stories. This one concerned a German mother living in Coblenz during the American post-war occupation and how she came to realize that her son would not be coming home.
Additional data regarding the 1917 Draft and how the first one million inductees measured-up physically:
"The first adequate physical survey in half a century was made possible when the Selective Service system brought before medical examiners some ten million men. Of the 2,510,000 men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one 730,000 (29 percent) were rejected on physical grounds."
We found it interesting to learn two facts from this article; the first being that the highest number of acceptable draftees were from the countryside and the second involved the malady of flat feet -which effected one out of every five American men at that time.
Immediately after the war General Pershing put the boys in the Army Intelligence Section to work compiling hundreds of pages worth of information concerning what the German Army thought of their American counterparts. It was concluded that, by enlarge, the Germans were afraid of the Doughboys - seeing them as recklessly brave, and unpredictably aggressive - provided with all the food they could want and kitted out with sensible and efficient equipment, the Germans begrudgingly learned not to underestimate their pugnacious enemies from across the sea.
However, the Germans learned just as quickly not to overestimate the American soldier when he was a prisoner of war: the Doughboys were believed to have been defiant, ill-mannered, cheeky and when required to work or salute German officers they would simply refuse.
The report was declassified in 1990.
Click here to read an article about the sexually-transmitted diseases among the American Army of W.W. I...
These images, as well as the headline, were from a paid avertisement for a fashionable fifth avenue shop that had originally appeared in a chic Conde Nast magazine.
Written during the closing days of the paper's existence, the reporting journalist could not emphasize enough how lousy the paper was with enlisted men serving in the most important positions. You will come away with a good amount of knowledge concerning the manner in which The Stars and Stripes crew addressed their daily duties and still made it to the presses on time. Surprising is the high number of experienced newspapermen who wrote for the paper during the paper's short existence.
As a response to the drastic increase in French and British tank production, German industry manufactured a powerful (if cumbersome) anti-tank rifle in early 1918. The weapon fired a 13mm armor-piercing bullet but it's heavy recoil made the weapon difficult to operate. The Abris Museum in Albert, France has one of these currently on display.
Here is a reminiscence of the grand parade following the close of America's bloody Civil War. It took two days; with the Army of the Potomac marching on the first day followed by General Sherman's Army of the West on the next. The Grand Review was the brain-child of Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton and was attended by (so it was believed) over one hundred thousand people from the victorious Northern states.
An interview with the famous silent film comedian, "Fatty" Arbuckle, as it appeared in a forgotten Hollywood trade magazine. Accompanying the interview are eight lines of biographical information pertaining to his Hollywood career as it stood in the year 1916. This short profile first appeared in The Studio Directory of The Motion Picture News and will serve to answer some of the questions readers might have concerning his career, before it took it's tragic turn.
If you would like to read about the films of the Thirties, click here. Click here to read about physical perfection during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Half way through the year of 1919, editorials like this one began to appear in many places which served to inform the English-speaking world that the Germans were peacefully handing over their African colonies (as they were obliged to do in article 119 of the Versailles Treaty):
"Germany renounces in favor of the principal Allied and Associated Powers all her rights and titles over her overseas possessions."
Numbered among the many Monday-morning-quarterbacks who appeared in print throughout much of the Twenties and Thirties were the old horse soldiers of yore, bemoaning the fact that industrial warfare had deprived their kind of the glory that was their birthright. This was not the case on the Eastern Front, where Imperial Russian generals had seen fit to launch as many as 400 cavalry charges - while American troopers were ordered to dismount (along with most other cavalry units in the West) and suffer postings with the Service of Supply, among other assorted indignities.
"George V's son is a regular. He has the 'bonhomie'of a Broadway John, smokes all the time, admires a pretty face with an open affection, is bored by Beethoven, is a disciple of American jazz, and he hates to get up early in the morning."
One year after the First World War reached it's bloody conclusion, Admiral German Grand Admiral Alfred Von Tirpitz (1849 - 1930) was in a frenzy writing his wartime memoir in order that it arrive at the printing presses before his critics could do the same. One of his most devoted detractor was a naval advocate named Captain Persius who had been riding Tirpitz as early as 1914 for failing to fully grasp the benefits of the U-boat. In 1919 Captain Persius took it upon himself to widely distribute a pamphlet titled, "How Tirpitz Ruined the German Fleet", which was reviewed in this article.
"Tirpitz never realized the power of the submarine... Tirpitz was building Dreadnoughts when he should have been concentrating on submarines, and what is worse was building them with less displacement than the British, less strongly armed and of lower speed."
In 1920 the representatives from the victorious nations who convened at Versailles demanded that Kaiser Wilhelm, Admiral Tirpitz and an assortment of other big shots be handed over for trial - click here to read about it.
With the close of the war came the release of millions of combat veterans onto the streets of the world. Some of these veterans adjusted nicely to the post-war world - but many had a difficult time. Their maladjustment was called Shell Shock and it could manifest itself in any number of ways; in the attached article, written less than a year after the war, one anonymous American veteran explained his own personal encounter with the illness.
Click here to read a post-W.W. I poem about combat-related stress...
A digest concerning the thoughts of Tuskegee Institutes's Robert R. Moton (1867 - 1940) and his reflections on the 1919 lynchings. Principal Moton pointed out that lynching served as the primary cause for the northerly migration of the African-Americans and was creating a labor shortage that would in no way benefit the economies of the Southern states. He stated that more and more Whites were recognizing the injustice of the crime and taking measures to actively oppose it. Seven influential Southern newspapers were named that had recently condemned lynching.
Attached are assorted W.W. I combat images by noted German Expressionist Otto Dix (1891 – 1969). Shortly after returning from the war, Dix threw away his uniform, locked himself in his print studio and began to diligently labor over a vast number of etching plates - all baring the dreadful images of trench warfare that had been burned into his memory during the course of living his beastly, troglodyte existence in the trenches of France.
The miracle that was "Volcanized Rubber" allowed the well-dressed man to maintain his dashing profile even when called to compete in athletics. Two of the oldest surviving examples of a sport shoe that uses this particular style of rubber and has been in continuous production since the twenties and thirties are both made by Converse: one is the Jack Purcell tennis shoe and the other is the black canvas, high-top Chuck Taylor Basketball shoe.
"The essential facts are that women can do men's heavy work with substantially equal output, without any disturbance of the particular industry, and, when guided by proper conditions, without detriment to their health. How far and how long they ought to do it in the emergency arising from the war is to be decided upon different grounds."
Click here to read about the women war workers of the Second World War.
A short news item named the three American officers who served "over there" long enough to be granted the adornment of a fourth overseas chevron. Each gold wire chevron, worn on the lower left cuff, represented a single six month period served in theater; the vast majority of A.E.F. uniforms had anywhere between one and three sewn in place.
Here is Leon Trotsky's reminiscence of those heady days in 1917 that served as the first step in a 75 year march that went nowhere in particular and put millions of people in an early grave - this is his recollection of the fall of the Kerensky Government and the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics(R.I.P.).
"THE REVOLUTION was born directly from the war, and the war became the touchstone of all the revolutionary parties and energies..."
A review of three volumes of World War One poetry: From the Front edited by Lt. Clarence Edward Andrews (dates?), Songs From The Trenches by Herbert Adams Gibbons (1880-1934) and Robert Graves' (1895–1985) "Fairies and Fusiliers".
Attached is a two page account of the sixty-four lynchings that took place during 1918; the names of the victims, dates, locations, and their alleged violations. There is no mention made concerning how the data was collected.
"According to THE CRISES records there were 64 Negroes, 5 of whom were Negro women, and four white men, lynched in the United States during the year 1918, as compared with 224 persons lynched and killed in mob violence during 1917, 44 of whom were lynchings of Negroes..."
At the time this magazine profile first appeared in 1919, P.G. Wodehouse (1904-1975) had recently resigned his post as the Drama Critic for VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE in order to pursue his ambition as a novelist and playwright. This article revealed to all Wodehouse's keen interest in American slang and the language of American comic strips.
Click here to read magazine articles about D.W. Griffith.
In the June, 1920 issue of British Vogue, an anonymous correspondent tried her hand at prophecy:
"As surely as the woman of yesterday was born to ride in a limousine, the woman of today was born to fly an aeroplane."
-that said, we have higher hopes for the women of the 21st Century - however, a year earlier, the Vanity Fair writer charged with covering all aspects of motoring, both horizontal and vertical, penned this enthusiastic article and filled it with the names of many of the women aviators who were at that time, striving to make new records in aviation history; it must have been a very exciting time in history to experience (except for the dental care).
A small notice appeared in POPULAR MECHANICS MAGAZINE that announced African Americans "will be allowed" to live in a new town located in Virginia intended to house the employees of the naval station in nearby Portsmouth. Due to small reports as this, Truxton proved to be a destination during the African-American migration period.
The American Army contracted two varieties of fighting knives throughout the First World War:
• the 1917 model trench knife with the nine inch triangular blade, and
• the 1918 Mark I trench knife with the 6.75 double-edged flat blade
The 1917 knife was the one that was carried during the war. The conflict had ended by the time it was decided to begin production on the second knife, which saw some use during W.W. II.
This article is illustrated with pictures of both and goes into some detail at to the manufacturers and the various matters that the Quartermaster Corps considered in weighing their decision as to what should be involved in designing such fighting knives.
An uncredited interview with the celebrated Russian composer, Sergie Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943); his education, family and his work at the Moscow Conservatory as well as the Moscow Grand Theater. Attention is paid to his activities in the United States following his flight from the 1917 Russian Revolution.
"Figures were presented at the National Lynching Conference showing that in the last thirty years 3,224 persons have been killed by lynching, 2,834 of them in Southern states which once were slave-holding."
Printed in 1919, the editors of ALMANACH HACHETTE published this single page overview of the feminine fashions that appeared on the streets of Paris during the war years.
This article appeared some seven months after the war, and it presents an interesting account of the first American tank units that ever existed.
The preferred tank of the American Army of World War I was a light tank made by the French called a Renault. It had a crew of two, measured 13 feet (4 meters) in length and weighed 6.5 tons. The tank's 35 hp. engine moved it along at a top speed of 6 miles per hour. This article outlines where the American tanks fought, which units they supported and who commanded them; some readers may be interested to know that reference is made to the First American Tank Brigade and the officer in charge: Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton (1885 – 1945).
"During the course of the Meuse-Argonne battles, the tank units of the 1st Brigade had lost 3 officers and 16 enlisted men killed, and 21 officers and 131 enlisted men were wounded. These losses were suffered in 18 separate engagements..."
The attached is a black and white diagram depicting five different German gas artillery shells that were manufactured to be fired from a number of different guns of varying calibers. In retaliation for a 1914 French tear-gas grenade attack at Neuve Chapelle, the German Army, on April 22, 1915, hurled 520 gas shells at British and Canadian units in Belgium, killing five thousand and incapacitating ten thousand more.
Clicke here to read more articles about W.W. I gas warfare.
A brief notice reporting on the number of American Soldiers captured during the First World War. Also listed are the number of Americans who died in captivity as well as the number of prisoners taken categorized by branch of service. Interestingly, the notice states that 281 American Civilians were also taken prisoner.
Interestingly, the notice states that 116 American Civilians were also taken prisoner and we can assume that these Americans were with the Salvation Army, the Jewish Wellfare Board, the Knights of Columbus, etc.
An eye-witness account of the construction of the American Meuse-Argonne Cemetery in Romagne, France:
"They are now gathering up the bodies of the 26,000 American boys who were killed on the Argonne-Meuse battlefield, and are burying them in a great cemetery at Romagne, a little town in the heart of the region where the fighting took place. Here and there all over the battlefield are stakes, each marking the grave of an American soldier who was buried where he fell."
"In one of the office buildings a large force of clerks is keeping the records of the dead; no banking firm could be more careful of its accounts than are these clerks...and their superiors of their registration of graves."
Poet and playwright W.B. Yeats (1865 - 1939) had his say on the matter of "theater-subscriber-book-of-the-month-club" types who are more likely to attend performances because they feel they "should", rather than attending for their own reasons of personal enjoyment:
"And the worst of it is that I could not pay my players, or the seamstresses, or the owner of the building, unless I could draw to my plays those who prefer light amusement, or who have no ear for verse and literature, and fortunately they are all very polite."
This is a wonderful read in which the American World War One fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker (1890 - 1973), recounted his experiences in France. Arriving rather late in the game (March, 1918), he quickly racked up 26 kills, a Croix de Guerre, a Distinguished Service Cross, the Legion d'Honeur and the Congressional Medal of Honor (which would not be approved and awarded to him until 1930). He was the top Ace in the American Air Service. In his later life, he would go on to become one of the founders of Continental Airlines.
"I learned pretty fast. Long practice in driving a racing-car at a hundred miles an hour or so gives first-class training in control and judging distances at high speed..."
In his later life, Rickenbacker would go on to become one of the founders of Continental Airlines.
Click here to read an article about the development of aerial reconnaissance during W.W. I.
This advertisement was placed in an American veteran's magazine as an attempt to produce some profit from the vast surplus of uniform items that remained in all the combatant nations at war's end. Puttees, unlike other uniform items, enjoyed a brief moment in fashion's spotlight during the late teens and much the twenties as an accessory for those who enjoyed camping and hunting (or simply wished to affect the look).
Also included is a fashion photograph of puttees from a VANITY FAIR fashion editorial from 1917
In the early parts of the 20th Century serious attention had been paid in some quarters to what was called "dress reform". An article from the August 14, 1929 magazine The Nation pointed out that
"The Life Extension Institute weighed the street clothing of the women in New York City last June. The clothing of the women...averaged two pounds, ten ounces, while that of the men was was eight pounds, six ounces."
The Italian Futurist Ernesto Thayaht offered his remedy for the fashion maladies of the day with the design of a one piece garment that many Americans chose to see simply as pajamas. Needless to say, it didn't catch on.
A short piece on the British novelist Hugh Walpole (1884 - 1941). This notice concerns the writer's first trip to the United States following the the close of the First World War and the printing of his novel, "The Secret City"; which reflects much of what the writer saw in the Russian Revolution during his service with the British Government:
"In 'The Secret City', as in ' The Dark Forrest,' the author handles very special material at first hand. Mr. Walpole served in the Russian Army during the first year of the war...He was in Russia all through the Revolution. 'The Secret City' is real Russia (even Russians admit this), somber, tragic, idealistic, half-maddened by the virus of revolt, yet imposing upon one a quality at once presaging and splendid."
This paragraph was lifted from a longer article regarding the battle-savvy Native Americans of World War One and it supports the claims made in 1918 by a number of anonymous allied POW's who reported seeing female soldiers in German machine gun crews toward the close of the war. The article appeared after the Armistice, and this was a time when The Stars and Stripes editors were most likely to abstain from printing patriotic hooey.
If you would like to read another article about women combatants in W.W. II, click here.
The following letter was written by a Belleau Wood veteran of the U.S. Marine Corp's Sixth Regiment, Private Hiram B. Pottinger. It was included the World War One memoir, "" (1919) by Brigadier General A.W. Catlin, U.S.M.C. (1868-1933), who believed it rendered accurately the enlisted man's view of the battle.
The letter is accompanied by a black and white photograph depicting what is clearly a re-staging of the Marines mad dash across the wheat fields that sit just outside the Bois de Belleau.
It is little remembered in our day that the Native Americans who served in the American Expeditionary Forces along the Western Front were permitted to wear moccasins in place of the regulation Pershing boot. "Ethnic pandering" is not a term that should come to mind; this was a high complement paid by their commanding officers for a well-respected prowess in battle. The following is a small portion from a larger article which is posted on "The Native American" page of this website; the entire article can be read following the link that reads "A Talent for Sniping".
A 1919 article that recalled the U.S. Army's First Division Armistice Day assault in the Bois de Romaigne:
"The First Division was a pretty tired outfit. It had seen eleven months of almost continuous fighting...Rumors were around that there was going to be an armistice, but few listened and none believed. We had been bunked before."
"The artillery fire increased and the machine guns rattled. You were on outpost and you fired your rifle, just fired it at nothing in particular. Everybody was doing it. The din increased until 11 o'clock, it ended with a crash that startled you. Fini la Guerre?"
This article discusses the various opinions between several Jewish organizations and prominent Rabbis in the United States as to what an independent Israel would mean for American Jews.
Attached is a collection of news items that were of interest to the African-American community during World War One. This one-page article illustrates how united and strong the African-American war effort was during the Great War.
"The training of dogs for war purposes began in a limited way a number of years prior to the outbreak of the European war, the Germans being particularly interested in it. There were some trained war dogs in both the French and Belgian armies, but the British had none to speak of, nor did the United States. The dog began his general usefulness in the late war as a beast of burden."
"Evidently, the Twenty-Sixth meant that the hand was off the collar of the dog of war, but he could only go to the end of the leash. The Twenty Sixth was to be given the leash and the full field later...When the Twenty-Sixth started to attack on the early morning of the 21st there was nothing to attack. The German was going and the Twenty-Sixth was to give chase..."
By the time these images in American VOGUE hit the streets, the fashion house of Paul Poiret (1879 - 1944) was very much on the decline. Following the close of the First World War the designer was never able to regain his pre-1914 status. With the restlessness of the Twenties came the demand for a new mood in fashion and Coco Channel (1883 – 1971) became the new champion of Paris Fashion. Poiret closed his doors ten years after these photos were printed.
Legendary silent film player Erich von Stroheim (1885 – 1957) gave an account of his life and career in this 1920 interview printed in Motion Picture Magazine. The article touches upon von Stroheim's roll as producer for the movie "Blind Husbands" (1919), but primarily concentrates on his pre-Hollywood life and his disappointment with the "provincial" nature of American films:
"Motion picture audiences have been educated down to to accept drivel until they have lost all perspective. It will take time to again build up a sane balance and an artistic judgment."
The Current Opinion foreign correspondent filed this short dispatch about the pandemonium unfolding in post-World War I Germany:
"The great fact to the outside world is that a German parliament has actually precipitated a crisis. It threw out the Scheidemann cabinet. It presided over the birth of a Bauer one. It was the German parliament which dictated to the government regarding its composition, instead of meekly obeying the government, as had been the custom..."
"Being the story of the second of the three splendid achievements of the United States Navy in the World War: the laying of the greatest submarine mine barrier in all history, which effectually prevented the Kaiser's U-boats from leaving their secret bases for the steamer lanes of the Atlantic."
The intended readers for the attached article were the newly initiated members of the American Legion (ie. recently demobilized U.S. veterans), who might have had a tough time picturing a Paris that was largely free of swaggering, gum-chewing Doughboys gallivanting down those broad-belted boulevards, but that is what this journalist, Marquis James (1891 - 1955) intended. At the time of this printing, the A.E.F. (American Expeditionary Force) had been shaved down from 4,000,000 to half that number and re-christened the A.F.F. (American Forces in France) and the A.F.G. (American Forces in Germany). With a good bit of humor, the article concentrates on the antics of the American Third Army in Germany as they performed their "Bolshevist busting" duties in the Coblenz region.
This uniform regulation was printed for all home bound Doughboys to see early in 1919; the order was later rescinded, however, it seemed that the General who was placed in charge of all state-side Army units during World War One disliked the European style military fashions that the A.E.F. was affecting. He also wished to ban the trench coat, over-seas cap, puttees and the Sam Brown Belt.
Illustrated with images of maimed and disfigured carrier pigeons, this article is filled with interesting lore of the battles waged by the 'feathered aviators' of the 1914 - 1918 war. You will read about how the pigeons were often dyed black so as to be mistaken for crows; how they were used at sea and at Verdun and that spies relied upon them.
During the course of World War II the U.s Army signal Corps deployed more than 50,000 pigeons.
Pictured in the attached PDF file is a seldom-seen black and white photograph depicting the deflated remains of an unidentified W.W. I German zeppelin as it rested on the tree tops of a French forest after having been forced from the skies.
An account of the war-time activities of the four infantry regiments that made up the U.S. Ninety-Third Division (the 369th, 370th, 371st and the 372nd). Two of these regiments were awarded the coveted Croix de Guerre.
A good nine-panel cartoon that appeared in an American veterans magazine on the first anniversary of the Armistice. What is especially amusing is the satirical depiction of American front-line officers and the last frame, which fully supports the thesis of Joseph E. Persico's book, "11th Month, 11th Day, 11th Hour" that the American Army was on the attack all the way up to the bitter end.
In this article, P.G. Wodehouse (1904 - 1975) sounded-off on a new type of novelist that had surfaced in 1919 - and has yet to decamp. He breaks the novelizing classes into two groups:
"...the ordinary novelist, the straightforward, horny-handed dealer in narrative, who is perfectly contented to turn out two books a year, on the understanding - a gentleman's agreement between himself and his public - that he reserves movie rights and is allowed an occasional photograph in the papers.."
A STARS & STRIPES clipping from 1919 announcing to both Army and Marines that the era of the overseas cap had arrived and was not going away anytime soon:
"The overseas cap, which has (not) protected its wearers from the rains of sunny France and the suns and snows and sleets all over the A.E.F., will be permitted to remain the official headgear of the returning troops after they get back to the States."
The following is a whimsical drawing which served to illustrate the reduced levels of French migration to the United States as a result of the 1914 European conflict.
"We find ourselves preparing for the next war when the ink is hardly dry on the still unratified Treaty of Peace."
These were the thoughts of the Japanese rulers who were terribly surprised to find that they had quickly become the subject of much attention by their former allies, the Americans and the Commonwealth powers following the close of the First World War.
A thumbnail history of the United States Army Ambulance Service, which first arrived in June of 1917.
"All through the hard French fighting of 1917 the 6,000 American ambulance drivers kept steadily at work in every sector of the French front. It was not until March, 1918, that the first sections of the service found themselves helping in battles with the fighting regiments of their own Army."
Many of the volunteers were college men, such as the poet E.E. Cummings, who wrote an interesting account of his days as an ambulance driver during the war.
A three page article concerning the development of tanks during the First World War. While they were being created on the drawing boards of Britain's W. Foster Company, the code name for these land dreadnoughts was "water tanks"; hence the name.
"The first armored battle cars, or "tanks" were a British invention developed from an American automobile tractor used for agricultural purposes on the Western prairies. They made their initial appearance at the battle of the Somme (Flers), September 15, 1916."
However, it should be known that they were first used to greatest effect in the Battle of Cambrai (November 20 through December 7, 1917).
Click here to see a diagram of the W.W. I French Renault tank.
This is a lovely piece, originally written in French for a village paper, in which a journalist describes the collective excitement of the townsfolk in welcoming the Americans to their sleepy hamlet during the First World War, and how astonished they were to find that the arriving Doughboys were all of African descent!
An illustration of the insignia patch and a brief account of the origins, deployments and war-time activities of the U.S. Army's Ninety-Second Infantry Division during World War One. It is highly likely that the attached description of the 92nd's service record had been rewritten to suit the personal taste's of the paper's Jim Crow editors. Sadly, there are other examples of such biased editing at THE STARS and STRIPES.
Disgusted with being remembered for only playing the role of vampires, Theda Bara wrote this piece where she listed several sound reasons as to why she would never play such a roll again:
"To me, there is nothing so quaintly naive as this inability of the moving picture public to disassociate the screen personality of a star from his or her own personality. I wonder what they think a Mack Sennett bathing girl must be like around the house".
"Monday, June 2 [1919], was a holiday in the 2nd Division in the bridgehead on the Rhine. The anniversary of the battle of Chateau-Thierry was observed. It is just a year ago that infantry and Marines of the 2nd Division were thrown against the Boche on the Paris-Metz road near Chateau-Thierry, and from that moment on the Americans were in continual fighting until November 11."
"Two years ago when the men began to drop out of the industrial world at the call to the colors their women associates gradually slipped into their places, and in the majority of cases effectively filled them... Those men have now nearly all come back to claim their old, or better jobs. What of the girl, then, in the soldier's job? What is she going to do?"
A great picture of Lieutenant Charles Godefroy flying his Nieuport under the great arch of Paris during the Autumn of 1919. The stunt was performed three weeks after the French Victory parade that marked the end of the First World War and was intended to serve as a salute to the French pilots who died during the course of that blood bath.
Photographs of the Christmas Bullet, the flexible-winged strutless bi-plane, and the designer of the craft, Dr. William Christmas (1865 – 1960). Also pictured are the Curtiss two seater, the Dayton-Wright Air Limousine and the Dayton Wright bi-plane.
Click here to read the 1912 obituary of Wilbur Wright.
Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) interviewed his much admired friend, Joseph Conrad (1884-1941) for the pages of a fashionable American magazine and came away this very intimate and warm column:
"There is a mystery first of the man himself-- the mystery that the son of a Polish nobleman should run away to sea, learn English from old files of the 'Standard' newspapers when he was thirty, toss about the world as an English seaman, finally share with Thomas Hardy the title of the greatest living English novelist--- what kind of man can this be?"
At the thirty-fifth annual Church Congress of the Protestant Episcopal Church (1919), clergy members seemed to agree that Christian leaders were needlessly complicit concerning their support for the First World War and were guilty of substituting Christian principles for patriotism:
"Christianity has betrayed itself body and soul".
If you would like to read about the spirit of disillusion that permeated post-war literature, click here.
This article listed the skills required to survive as a sniper in W.W. I France:
"One extremely important rule was that he should swab the muzzle of his rifle after every shot, to make sure that no moisture had collected there. One tiny drop of water would, upon the rifle's discharge, send up a puff of steam that would reveal him to his carefully watching enemies."
To see a diagram of the American W.W. I sniper rifle, click here.
During the closing months of the American presence in France, one element can be found in the majority of the letters written to loved ones at home:
"The French aren't treating us as nice".
In the war's aftermath, writer Alexander Woollcott (1887 - 1943) attempted to explain the situation to his readers; what follows were his observations.
"Those were the words on everybody's lips as the first big detachments of United States troops began to appear on 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."
Click here to read an article that compares the two world wars.
Shortly after the death of William Michael Rossetti
(1829 – 1919), Welsh poet and essayist Arthur Symons
(1865 - 1945) wrote this essay remembering the man, his brother (Dante Gabriel Rossetti) and the friendship that the two shared with poets George Meredith and Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Published at a time when America stood so reluctantly on the doorstep of the Prohibition era, an unnamed editor at The Literary Digest compiled a number of quotes from numerous literary sources as if to illustrate the deep roots the Western world of belles-lettres has invested in the culture of alcohol.
The Paris Victory Parade celebrating the end of the 1914 - 1918 war was a long awaited and much anticipated fashion event and Mme. Parisienne was not going to miss it for all the crepe de Chin in China. This VOGUE correspondent contrasted the Paris that existed a short time earlier, the gray, deserted Paris with the Paris of the 1919 Victory Parade and notes how eager the natives were to recreate that mirthful, light-hearted Paris of 1913 that they all remembered so well. There is a great sense of joie de vivre throughout the article, but it very rapidly becomes a laundry list concerning who-wore-what-where.
A piece of VANITY FAIR social satire concerning the returning American veterans of the World War I and how the industrial slaughter had changed them (as if such a thing could!).
Serving as the representative for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a special correspondent for THE CRISES MAGAZINE - and gathering information for his forthcoming tome on the African-Americans who served in the First World War, Dr. Dubois sailed for France in order to attend the Versailles Conference in Paris.
On February 5, 1918 the Cunard passenger liner, Tuscania (having been pressed into service as a troop ship) was sent to the bottom of the sea by a German U-boat; well over one thousand, five hundred Doughboys from various units were drowned, as were her British crew which was numbered over three hundred. On the first anniversary a survivor of the attack wrote to the editors of the Stars and Stripes.
This paragraph was lifted from a longer article concerning the battle-savvy Native Americans of World War One and it supports the claims made in 1918 by a number of nameless allied POW's who reported seeing female soldiers in German machine gun crews toward the close of W.W I. There is solid documentation pertaining to the women who served in the Serb, Russian and French armies but very little as to the German ladies who did the same. The article appeared after the Armistice and this was a time when "The Stars and Stripes" editors were most likely to abstain from printing patriotic falsehoods.
If you would like to read another article about women combatants in W.W. II, click here.
Click here to read additional articles about the rolls women played during W.W. I.
A thumbnail biography of the celebrated silent film director,D.W. Griffith, appears on a page from a fashionable magazine paid for by the publicity office of the film studio. Directors back in the teens had to be fluffed and soothed, too.
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.
"Already the young architects of Italy are looking forward to a new renaissance of building, toward the production of a new style based upon modern methods of building and adapted to modern needs. The impulse to this new movement came from the brilliant Futurist Antonio Sant'Elia, who carried the ideas of the Italian innovators into the field of architecture, but whose development was cut short by his heroic death in the war... Nevertheless, his influence upon the younger architects has been great. Fortunately, they have been able to adapt his ideas to the exigencies of practical building, and in some instances to avoid a complete severing with the traditions of the past."
A spirited commentary concerning how the African-American Doughboys came to see France, rather than their own homeland, as the land of equality and liberty. It was written by Oscelo E. McKaine, who was serving as a second lieutenant in the all-black 92nd Division. In later life he would play an important roll in the South Carolina civil rights movement.
It was Lt. Commander Norman Wilkinson (1878 - 1971) of the Royal Navy who deduced that white (reflecting blue at night) was a suitable base color for naval camouflage. Wilkinson based his reasoning on the snow-capped iceberg that made such quick work of TITANIC, remembering all the while that seagulls are white, as are pelicans and the Antarctic Petrels. When the war broke out, his findings were presented to the Admiralty and it was concluded that elements of the North Atlantic fleet should be so painted. They added the black in order that the ships appear gray on the horizon.
Tom Wolf and Mark Twain have not been the only men to have lamented the drab hues so prevalent in manly attire: now you may add to that list a new name: H. Dennis Bradley. The late Mr. Bradley was a tailor in London's Old Bond Street some time back, and he was quite vocal concerning the issue of men's fashions. Being a true "man of the cloth", Mr. Bradley was certain that, prior to the unpleasantness of 1914, men's fashions were headed in a healthy and aesthetically sound direction, but when the boys came home, the promise was not kept.
"We may not go back to the rainbow shades and wonderful stuffs of the bucks and the dandies of olden times--do what we will, we live in utilitarian days--but whatever comes do not let us revert to the hideous hues and shapelessness of the Victorian era..."
Click here to read a 1929 article about the Dress-Reform Movement.
Eight months after the death of Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919), the now defunct Rocky Mountain Club asked the former Secretary of State Elihu Root (1845 – 1937: Nobel Peace Prize 1912), to "say a few words" of remembrance regarding his old friend and colleague:
"No one ever misunderstood what Theodore Roosevelt said. No one ever doubted what Theodore Roosevelt meant. No one ever doubted that what he said he believed, he intended and he would do. He was a man not of sentiment or expression but of feeling and of action. His proposals were always tied to action."
The historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Theodore Roosevelt at number 17 insofar as his impact on the American mind was concerned - click here to understand his reasoning...
An article by The American Legion Weekly correspondent Rex Lapham about the last issue (until the next war) of The Stars and Stripes. The article recorded many sentimental remarks, words of praise and seldom heard facts about the history of the Doughboy newspaper.
"If the paper found it's way across, as it surely did, into the hands of the German intelligence officers - if that's what they could be called - it must have given them something to ponder about. How could they have reported anything favorable to the ears of the German high command after having perused this defiant and determined manifestation of Doughboy psychology?"
Click here to read how the newspaper was staffed and managed in 1918 Paris.
Attached, you will find a small profile of Kosaku Yamada (1886 - 1965) published shortly after his New York debut in 1919. Classicly trained in Europe, "Yamada organized the first symphonic orchestra of native players to perform the music of Occidental composers under a Japanese conductor", which later became the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. This article outlines some of his various accomplisments up to 1919, while deleting others. Prior to his two year sojurn in the United States, he had composed three Japanese operas: "Reisho" (1909), "Ochitaru Tennyo" (1913) and "Shichinin No Oujo" (1916).
The editors of TOUCHSTONE MAGAZINE hired one of John Sloan's (1871-1951) groupies to interview him for one of their feature articles. It is an informative interview and there are a number of seldom seen sketches reproduced; the opening paragraphs give one a sense of what 1920s Greenwich Village was like at night, although one comes away feeling that the man could do no wrong. John Sloan's friend, Robert Henri (1865-1929), when given the chance also failed to make any nasty comments about the painter.
Naval mines had been around for centuries, in one form or another - and this article pertains to the particular type of anti U-boat mines that were put in place along those well-traveled sea lanes known best by that kind of German warship.
Click here to read about one of the greatest innovations by 20th Century chemists: plastic.
Attached is a caroon created in response to the memoir of Crown Prince Wilhelm (1882-1951), which came out earlier that same year (the review is posted on this site), this cartoon was drawn by Gluyas Williams (1888-1982) a cartoonist who is largely remembered by current generations for his contributions to THE NEW YORKER as well as his illustrations for a series of books by humorist Robert Benchley. In 1910, Williams served as Editor of 'The Harvard Lampoon' and upon graduation a year later began a brilliant freelance career as a cartoonist for 'The Century Magazine', 'Collier's' and 'Judge' among others.
Click here to read about the woman who entertained the U.S. troops during the First World War.
The attached remembrance of sniping on the Western Front was written by Major H. Hesketh-Pritchard, D.S.O, M.C. (author of Sniping in France 1914-18) and recalls the development and changes of sharp-shooting on both sides during the war. Pritchard broke down the scouting and sniper involvement on the Western Front into four phases:
Phase I (1914 - 1915): German snipers weigh heavily on Allied soldiers (Clear German advantage)
Phase II (1915 - 1916): British sniping organized (Advantage even)
Phase III (1916 - 1918): British sniper program takes off (Slight British Advantage)
Phase IV (1918 through to the Armistice): Allied Offensive takes effect (Snipers began scouting)
Here is a page from The Enemy Order of Battle report (1919) by the subsection of the same name that was an arm of the U.S. Army General Staff. The report tells of Baccarat, a portion of the Western Front during the later part of the war that was quiet, by mutual agreement between the French and Germans - until the U.S. Army took their place in the French position - and then all Hell broke loose.
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."
In light of the overwhelming hostility toward Germans, whether they come to Paris to sign a peace treaty or for other reasons, the Parisian Gendarmes thought it best to enclose their hotel with palisade-style fencing, which they hoped would serve the dual purpose of keeping them in as much as it would serve to keep hostile natives out. A photo of the barricade illustrates the article.
Here are seven drawings by Henry Raleigh (1880 - 1944) that depict the sorts of silent film characters that were likely to be seen in the 1920s W.W. I movies. These sketches are accompanied by a few dry remarks by the Vanity Fair editors:
"No matter how much we may wish to lose sight of the war, it can't be done. There will always be reminders of it. You suppose that, just because a little thing like peace has been declared, the playwrights, the theatrical managers, and the moving picture producers are going to let a chance like the war get by? Since we have become accustomed to German spies, Red Cross nurse heroines, and motor corps vampires, we could never go back to the prosaic mildness of innocent little country heroines, villains in fur-lined overcoats and cub reporter heroes. No actor will ever again consent to play a society role in evening clothes with flap pockets and jet buttons, when he can appear in a war play wearing an aviator's uniform and going around in a property airplane."
An article about Roland Rohlfs (1892 - 1974), chief test pilot of the Curtiss Engineering Corporation and his Curtiss Wasp triplane, the aircraft he flew at an altitude of 30,000 feet when he set a new speed record (163.1 mph) in 1919.
"To-day was a great day in London. The Guards' Division was inspected by the King at Buckingham Palace and had a triumphant march to welcome them home...East End and West End rubbed shoulders to-day and showed the same respect for each other that not so long ago they had shown in the trenches."
Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.
Dial editor Robert Morss Lovett compared and contrasted two very different First World War memoirs in this article: America in France, by Frederick Palmer (1873 - 1958) and Floyd Gibbons' (1887 - 1939) And They Thought We Wouldn't Fight.
These three articles from THE STARS AND STRIPES of W.W. I reported on the U.S. Army Campaign hat which was a well-loved uniform item and most Doughboys were pretty choked-up to see that it was going to be replaced by a piece of millinery as slovenly as the overseas cap.
In our era, we don't think it terribly odd to see someone in an art museum dressed as though they were going to go poll-vaulting standing next to someone else who is clothed as if they were intending to rope a steer. This sort of untraditional-tradition began in the twenties. The attached link will show you a magazine advertisement for men's knickers which appeared at a time when this sort of thinking began to evolve and "knickerbockers" began a new life as an in-town and on-campus fashion choice. Previously, knickers were worn by young boys or strictly for men who enjoyed country sports; other examples of similar active-ware abuse in the Twenties involved the clothing of yachtsmen, hunters and tennis players. This era saw the rise of the sportswear industry.
Cigarette smoking was far more prevalent in the United States after the First World War than it was in earlier days; this is largely due to the free cigarettes that were widely distributed among the nations soldiers, sailors and Marines during that conflict - and this is the subject of the attached article. It was written by Benedict Crowell (1869 - 1952), who served as both the Assistant Secretary of War and Director of Munitions between 1918 and 1920 - and although his column informs us that numerous tobacco products were dispersed throughout the ranks on a seemingly biblical scale, he does not touch upon the tragic topic of the addictions that soon followed (contrary to popular belief, the American medical establishment had their suspicions about tobacco long before the war).
The attached VANITY FAIR art review by Christian Brinton (1870 - 1942) covered the first public exhibition of the British War Artists to be shown on American shores (1919):
"A direct product of war and war conditions, it reflects not only the varied aspects and incidents of the great struggle, but but also the actual state of British artistic taste at the present moment...England has been the first to enlist the services of the artist, and the readiest to grant him the measure of official standing so manifestly his due."
Launched jointly by the British Ministry of Information and the Worcester Art Museum, the exhibit was comprised of almost 250 paintings. This review discusses the art of Paul Nash, Muirhead Bone, Sir John Lavery, James McBey,Sir William Orpen, Augustus John, C.R.W. Nevinson, John Everett, Frank Brangwyn and Eric Kennington.
The same forces that saw to it that alcohol was outlawed were debating as to whether or not liquor should be similarly restricted. It is interesting to read this piece because the same exact arguments are used to this very day as to the same subject. Tobacco was as well understood eighty six years ago. KEY WORDS: Outlawing Tobacco, Prohibition of Tobacco, Second-Hand Smoke, Congress and Smoking, Tobacco Laws, Congress and Tobacco, History of Tobacco, History of Tobacco in America...
An assortment of opinions gleaned from various interviews with German soldiers who all made remarks about the naked aggressiveness shared by the A.E.F.:
"The French would not advance unless sure of gaining their objectives while the American infantry would dash in regardless of all obstacles and that while they gained their objectives they would often do so with heavy loss of life."
A brief article published some six months after the Armistice in which the editors collected various opinion pieces from assorted German newspapers that clearly stated the deep hatred many Germans felt for their former king. Also mentioned was the possibility that the dethroned Kaiser could possibly stand trial before the "court of Nations".
"The rotten branch on the Hohenzollern tree must be broken off, so that the tree may once more bloom and flourish. William II is superficial, frivolous, vain, and and autocratic; a lover of pomp; proud of his money, void of seriousness; a petty worshiper of his own petty self; without one trait of greatness, a poseur, an actor, and worst of all for a ruler: a coward."
Click here to read what the Kaiser thought of Adolf Hitler.
The post-war publicity machine of French fashion designer Paul Poiret was in fine form when he saw to it that his minions invited the Paris-based correspondent from American VOGUE to his house for a grand fete, seated her comfortably, drink in hand, right on the fifty-yard line in order that she might be better able to report to her handlers back in New York that "Paris was back".
The correspondent who was not invited was the fashion journalist from FLAPPER MAGAZINE; American flappers did not approve of Poiret one bit. Click here to read what they thought of him.
You will see that during the First World War it was not beyond the editors of THE STARS and STRIPES to indulge in ethnic stereotyping from time to time and, to be sure, they exploited that privilege in the attached article ("Yank Indian was Heap Big Help in Winning the War") yet regardless of this fact, the performance of the American Indian soldiers on the Western Front got high marks for a number of valued military skills from many of the French and British officers who came in contact with them. It was not simply their ability to shoot well that inspired the praise, but their nocturnal instincts while patrolling in the darkness of No-Man's-Land as well as a unique sense of bravery.
The article is rich with a number of factoids that the Western Front reader will no doubt enjoy; among them, mention is made of German women serving in combat.
This article in a 1919 issue of THE NEW YORK TIMES that told the history of Negro infantry units during the First World War. It concerns the combat record of the American 92nd and 93rd Divisions - units that were dubbed 'Schwartz Teufel' (black devils) by the luckless Germans who stood in the opposite trenches.
"The negro soldiers of the United States arrived late on the field of battle, but in more than sufficient time to make Germany feel the strength of their arm. In all 83,000 Negroes were drafted for service in the National Army sent overseas. More than 626 of the 1,250 colored men who completed their course of training were commissioned as officers in the United States Army; nearly 100 negro physicians and surgeons received commissions as officers in the Medical Reserve Corps and a full 30,000 men constituted the 92nd Division detailed for duty in France under General Pershing. The total number of Negro combat troops was 42,000".
This is a swell read, written in that patois so reminiscent of those fast talking guys in 1930s Hollywood movies. One of the many reasons I find this era so interesting has to do with the fact that the war coincided with that mass-media phenomenon called advertising - and this article pertains exactly to that coincidence. This column was printed shortly after the war in order to let the Doughboys in on the existence of a particular group within the A.E.F. that was charged with the task of dumping propaganda leaflets all over the German trench lines:
"Propaganda is nothing but a fancy war name for publicity and who knows the publicity game better than the Yanks?"
General Karl Wilhelm Georg August von Einem (1853 – 1934), commander of the German Third Army (1914 - 1919) granted a short interview to a member of the U.S. Army General Staff concerning his observations regarding the American Army.
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, and was moved to do the only thing that he could in his power to offer comfort: unlimited cups of hot coffee. How real was coffee as a preventative measure in the face of influenza? The good colonel was on to something - it wasn't the java bean that made an impact, it was the heat: viruses die when exposed to high temperatures.
This is a wonderful read in which the American World War One fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker (1890 - 1973), recounted his experiences in the skies above France.
"I learned pretty fast. Long practice in driving a racing-car at a hundred miles an hour or so gives first-class training in control and judging distances at high speed..."
Written with a strong spirit of gratitude, this is the obituary of Teddy Roosevelt as it appeared in the N.A.A.C.P. magazine The Crises. Published at a time when the friends of the black man were few, this is a stirring tribute to a man who, although not always an ally, was respected as "the world's greatest protagonist of lofty ideals and principles".
Click here to read a 1945 article about the funeral of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, TR's nephew.
Click here to read an article about one of New York's greatest mayors: Fiorello LaGuardia.
An illustration of the insignia patch and a brief account of the origins, deployments and war-time activities of the U.S. Army's Twenty-Sixth Division
(a.k.a. the "Yankee Division
")during World War I.
Attached herein are diagrams of three World War I shrapnel artillery shells designed for use on land. The illustrator provided precise details concerning the mechanism of each - the precise operation of the percussion fuse, the time ring, the location of the acid and the essential shrapnel projectiles.
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.
Aside from barb wire, poison gas, machine guns and trenches, the untested American officer corps had one other alien item to contend with: the Sam Brown Belt. Worn by all the officers in the allied armies and widely recognized as the premiere emblem of authority along the front lines, many American officers were of mixed minds concerning this military fashion accessory.
The Doughboys of the the U.S. Twenty-Seventh Infantry remember the bad old days in Vladivostok guarding the trans-Siberian railway line:
"The Czar's old government used to send its enemies to Siberia, to exile; Uncle Sam's government sent its own men there to guard a railroad. Whose railroad it was and what it was there for and why Americans should be taken away from a perfectly good war in France and stationed up there to take care of it -- surely you can answer all these questions. If you can't, don't go to any of the veterans of the Siberian Expeditionary Force, because they won't give you very coherent answers. They think the whole trip was a post-season special, staged especially for their benefit."
"Katherine Stinson (1891-1977) wants to carry letters up to Third Army". By the time Stinson (a.k.a. "the Flying Schoolgirl") had applied for the job of carying the mail to the occupying forces in post-war Germany, she already had the distinction of being the fourth American woman to earn a pilot's license and the first woman to ever deliver air-mail for the U.S. Post Office. She didn't get the job...
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.
One writer's reminiscence of attending a London party and being introduced to Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) and the object of his affection, John Gray. The author insists, as has been documented in other places, that Gray was the model for Wilde's character Dorian Gray:
"Once at a Private View in the New Gallery, as I came downstairs, I came on Wilde, in the midst of his admirers, showing more than ever his gift of versatility. Seeing me he made a gesture, and as I went up he introduced me to John Gray, then in what is called 'the zenith' of his youth. The adventure was certainly amusing..."
At the end of the First World War, the young women of France were asked the question:
"Who would you choose for a husband, a Frenchman or an American? And what are the qualities and faults which justify your preference?"
Some of the answers were pretty funny (especially the responses made by the irate Frenchmen returning from the Front). After all the votes were tallied, it was discovered that, regardless of their "gold teeth", "big tortoise shell glasses" and shaved faces, the Doughboys were able to charm as much as a quarter of the women asked (which was a good deal better than they thought they would do) Some women, however, were not very impressed.
Click here to read an article about social diseases within the A.E.F..
Click here if would like to read about British Women and American G.I.s during the Second World War...
Here is a Crisis Magazine summary of the all the various lynchings that had been recorded in the United States between the years 1885 through 1918. Additional lists are provided that give an account of the participating states for the year 1918, the genders of the victims and the racial group to which they belonged.
At the time this profile first appeared in 1919, P.G Wodehouse (1904 - 1975) had recently resigned his post as the drama critic for Vanity Fair in order to realize his ambitions as a novelist and playwright. This article revealed to all Wodehouse's keen interest in American slang and American comic strips.
Attached are some of moving observations penned by the Editor of The Independent, Hamilton Holt (1871 - 1951) when he toured Seicheprey, Cantigny, Chateau Thierry, St Mihiel and the Argonne battle fields -- which were the five battlefields where General Pershing chose to launch operations in the European war against Imperial Germany. There is one winsome photograph of the Aisne-Marne Cemetery as it appeared shortly after the conflict.
Within a year Holt would change his mind about the war as well as the treaty signed at Versailles.
A 1919 film review of Broken Blossoms, directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess:
"Broken Blossoms came to the screen a masterpiece in moving pictures. Bare narration of the story cannot hope even to suggest the power and truth of the tragedy that Mr. Griffith has pictured."
For some in the U.S. Congress and for President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) in particular, the prohibition of alcohol in the United States (passed by Congress on November 1, 1918) was simply viewed as an appropriate war-time measure guaranteed to maintain the productivity of an efficient working class. However, with the First World War coming to a close, President Wilson saw little need in keeping the entire law as it was written, and he suggested allowing the sale and distribution of beer and wine. This article will inform you of the political will of the "dry" members of congress as well as the strength of the American clergy in 1919
A good nine-panel cartoon that appeared in an American veterans magazine on the first anniversary of the Armistice.
What is especially amusing is the satirical depiction of German soldiers in the final frame, which fully supports the thesis of Joseph E. Persico's book, Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour
that the American Army was on the attack all the way up to the bitter end.
Attached is a remembrance that was written by a Canadian infantryman who participated in the capture of a German sniper in Flanders:
"We wasted no time on the return journey but hustled "Fritz" along at a brisk pace...Like most of his breed there was a wide 'yellow streak' in this baby-killer and he cried 'Kamerad' instantly. By the time the lieutenant had secured his prisoner's rifle our barrage was falling and, under its protection, he began his march back with the prisoner, and met us before he had gone twenty-five yards...The prisoner expected to be killed at once and begged piteously for his life, saying 'he had a wife and three children.' One of the men replied that if he had his way he would make it a 'widow and three orphans.'"
Some ninety-three years ago, "Fish" was the name scribbled on those unique cartoon illustrations that could be found throughout VOGUE (both American and British) and VANITY FAIR. The editor of American VOGUE between the years 1914 and 1952, Edna Woolman Chase (1877 - 1957) called this English cartoonist "brilliant" and began running her drawings from her earliest days in that office; her full name was Ann Fish and this article will tell you all we know about her.
"This most cosmopolitan of living black-and-white satirists has never stirred from England in all her days. She has never especially extended herself as a spectator of the London life which she so amusingly depicts. She has never gazed on Fifth Avenue."
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, which opines that it was the high morale and seemingly endless supply lines of the A.E.F. that served as one of the most decisive factors in bringing the war to a close.
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...
It is often believed that the Germans were the first to use chemical weapons during the Great War, but historians like to point out that they were second to the French in this matter: in August of 1914, French infantry fired tear-gas grenades and in October, the Germans one-upped them with chemical artillery shells during the battle of Neuve Chapelle. However, the Germans are properly credited for being the first of the combatants to use chemical artillery with the most devastating effect. On April 22, 1915, the German Army hurled 520 gas shells at British and Canadian units in Belgium, killing five thousand and incapacitating ten thousand more. Following this historic incident, both sides began producing large amounts of gas shells and, of course, gas masks. The following is a black and white diagram depicting five different German gas artillery shells that were manufactured to be fired from a number of different guns of varying calibers.
Rumor has it that when the U.S. Army's senior staff officers had learned of the victory that the U.S. Marines had achieved at the Bois de Belleau in the summer of 1918, one of them had remarked, "Those head-line hunting bastards!" When reading this next piece you will immediately get a sense that the army was fed-up with the folks at home believing that the same Marines were responsible for the Army's success at Chateau-Thierry. The war was already over by the time this piece appeared, making it clear to all that Chateau-Thierry was a feather in the cap for the Army, and no one else.
It has been said that when the U.S. Army's senior staff officers had learned of the great victory that the U.S. Marines had achieved at the Bois de Belleau in the summer of 1918, one of them had remarked, "Those head-line hunting bastards!" When reading this next piece you will immediately get a sense that the army was fed-up with the folks at home believing that the same Marines were responsible for the Army's success at Chateau-Thierry. The war was already over by the time this piece appeared, making it clear to all that Chateau-Thierry was a feather in the cap for the Army.
Click here to read an article about the American snipers in W.W. I France. Click here to read about W.W. I art.
A VOGUE editorial from the Fall of 1919 praising the swank of six nifty Parisienne purses -each created from different materials and each displaying the industrious fingers of skilled craftsmen.
Click here to read about happy Hollywood's discovery of plastic surgery...
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.
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.
"It has officially been decided that the A.E.F. has grown up and must now wear pants."
A 1919 order appeared in THE STARS and STRIPES indicating that the era of army-issued olive drab knee breeches had passed and soon all American Army personnel would be issued long pants:
"Experts have decided that the breeches legs shrink when wet and impede the circulation, and it is assured that the kind that he used to wear in civilian life will not cause the Doughboy cold feet..."
"To supply the A.E.F. until August, 2,500,000 pairs of pants have been ordered, and these, which will cost only nineteen cents a leg more than breeches did, will be of better quality than the latter."
An article on the pioneer aviator Harry Hawker (1889 - 1921), written on the heels of his his failed attempt to "beat the Yankees" in crossing the Atlantic. Australian by birth, Hawker came to Britain specifically to seek a career in the infant aviation industry. His wish was answered in 1912 when he was hired by Tommy Sopwith. Hawker saved his wages to afford flying lessons and acquired his flying permit in the September of that same year. The following month he won the British Michelin Cup with a grueling endurance flight of 8 hr, 23 min. Sopwith was impressed and Hawker was promoted to chief test pilot. The rest is told herein...
There were many benevolent organizations that volunteered to go abroad and cheer up the American military personnel serving in W.W. I Europe; groups such as the Jewish Welfare Board, the Knights of Columbus, the War Camp Community Service and the Salvation Army - to name just a few, but the Y.M.C.A. (Young Men's Christian Association) was the only one among them that irked the Doughboys. In this 1919 exposé former STARS and STRIPES reporter Alexander Woollcott (1887 - 1943) levels numerous charges against the Y, believing that they had misrepresented their intentions when they asked the War Department to grant them passage. Woolcott maintains that their primary mission was proselytizing rather than relief work.
Click here to read another article about the YMCA.
"The production of the overseas cap for the American Expeditionary Forces was likewise an extensive undertaking. When the requisition for overseas caps came from France, it was not possible to design one here because of a lack of knowledge as to what was required... As soon as [a] sample was received a meeting of cap makers was called in New York, and 100 manufacturers attended. One and all agreed to turn over their factories to the exclusive production of overseas caps until all requirements were met. It took these cap makers only two weeks to to turn out the first order. In all 4,972,000 caps were delivered."
The concluding paragraph contains more venomous comments as to what these American milliners thought of the lid.
A travel article written by the former French fighter pilot Jean Murat (1888 - 1968)-who, one year hence, would commence a fruitful career in film acting that would lead to performances in over ninety movies. Mr. Murat was not terribly impressed with New York at all. Murat found the New Yorker's love for all things French a tad tiresome.
Click here to read about the NYC air-raid wardens of W. W. II...
A single page report giving an account of two racial uprisings that took place in 1919. The journalist was not at all alarmed that such events should have taken place in a Southern locale like Washington, D.C. -but was stunned to hear of race riot in the Northern city of Chicago. The article is accompanied by two photographs illustrating the events.
Here is a book review of The Colleges In The War And Afterward (1919) by Parke Rexford Kolbe:
"One obtains a very clear picture of our educational institutions during the war and a definite feeling of the difficulties encountered when agencies which were quite individualistic, quite self-dependent, suddenly found themselves mere sub-departments of the War Department submitting to a command from higher authority as if they had been used to it all their lives..."
Although the origins of chewing gum have been traced to many different parts of the ancient world, no culture has whole-hardheartedly embraced the stuff quite as thoroughly as the Americans. The Yankee "bromance" with chewing gum has largely been credited to the American industrialist William Wrigley, Jr. (1861 - 1932) for creating, in 1906, a gum that appealed broadly to the American palette - and when Americans went to war in 1917, Wrigley's chewing gum was in their arsenal.
We added to this page a small column about Dr. Morris Nafash, who was one of the brilliant chemists at the Bazooka Bubble Gum Company.
Click here to read about the A.E.F. love for candy...
Click here to read about all the effort that was made to get cigarettes to the Doughboys.
Corporal Frank Sears of the American Expeditionary Force put pen to paper and explained for all posterity the unsanitary conditions of in France:
"Life in the trenches is made up of cooties, rats, mud and gas masks...
We became so used to mud up in the lines that if our chow did not have some mud, or muddy water in it we could not digest it. It was just a case of mud all over: eat, drink, sleep and wash in mud."
A short notice concerning the number of sexually diseased American World War I soldiers who were treated or segregated during the war and post-war periods.
What is missing from this report was an anecdote involving General John Pershing, who upon hearing that his army was being depleted by social disease, quickly called for the posting of Military Policemen at each bordello to discourage all further commerce. The immediate results of this action were pleasing to many in the American senior command however the next problem concerned the growing number of venereal cases within the ranks of the Military Police.
A five page magazine article which saluted the heir of Britain's King George V, Edward VIII (1894 – 1972: following his 1936 abdication he was granted the title Duke of Windsor). The article was written by the venerable journalist and U.S. Civil War veteran, George Haven Putnam (1844 – 1930) in order to mark the first visit made to the United States by that crowned head.
A review of the paintings and sculptures from the Weimer Republic and the manner in which that new art served to reflect the social upheaval that was taking place in Germany at that time. The article concerns itself primarily with one art exhibit in particular, the Spring Exhibition of the Berlin Secession (1919) and the two art factions who participated: there were the artists of "Der Sturm" a movement that existed prior to the war and a newer, post-war tribe; the "November Group". Also displayed were the works of two painters who served in the Kaiser's army and did not return; Franz Marc (1880-1916) and August Macke (1887-1914).
"It is hoped by the German Expressionists and the artists of the "New Objectivity" that their art will serve as a tool for the destruction of Germany's old order."
A black and white diagram depicting the interior and exterior of the German A7V heavy tank. Manufactured in the spring of 1918, only twenty were ever known to have existed. Although the illustration depicts only two men, it is said that the tank had a crew of 18 and measured 26 feet, three inches in length and 10.5 feet in width. The A7V had two heavy Maxim machine guns placed within it's turret, while the tank's primary weapon was a 57mm gun mounted at the very front (these guns were believed to have been of Russian or Belgian origin). The tank could travel an estimated fifty miles at the top speed of 6 mph; it weighed 32 tons and sported armor plating that was 30mm thick at the bow and 20mm thick all around. The tank's two 150 horse-power, 4-cylinder water cooled engines were made by Daimler.
The "Side-Seam" suit style had it's appeal in the early Twenties and could be found in many a magazine in the form of vests and overcoats, however the look did not survive the era and is now numbered among the Zoot Suit and Leisure Suit as one of the forgotten fads of Twentieth Century mode.
This is a letter from an American infantry Major, James E. White, who wrote home to explain that there was still much to do six days after the armistice.
The major's letter relayed his experiences as being one of the first Allied officers to enter the formerly occupied city of Metz, in order to evacuate wounded American prisoners:
"The following Tuesday the grand entry of the French troops took place, but no welcome was more spontaneous than than that given to the group of American officers who on that Sunday peacefully invaded the fortress of Metz."
Buried on page eight of a post-war issue of The Stars & Stripes was this column reporting on the wartime activities of the AEF censors in France - men assigned to not simply censor all outgoing mail from Europe, but to also chemically test each one for traces of invisible ink.
Click here to read an article the post office censorship duing the Second World War.
A smattering of cartoons depicting those sweet young things of yore who were partial to bathtub gin, short skirts and
short hair styles.
In 1919 you didn't have to be plugged-in 24/7 to the youth scene in order to recognize that bobbed hair was where the fickle finger of fashion was pointing. Perhaps the editors of VANITY FAIR presumed that a "bobbed hair party" was the best social alternative that could have been offered six months after the 1919 passage of the 18th Amendment, which ushered in the Prohibition of alcohol throughout the United States.
The French made light Renault tank was first seen on the Western Front in 1918, it had a crew of two, measured 13 feet (4 meters) in length and weighed 6.5 tons. The tank's 35 hp. engine moved it along at a top speed of 6 mph. The factory options were few: one turret was fashioned to accommodate a 37mm gun while the other was made for a machine gun. The American Army placed 227 of these tanks in the field; these Renaults were distinctly different from those commanded by their French allies: the American version sported an octagonal turret (the French used a circular one) and steel wheels (the French Army preferred wood).
If you wish to read about the only German tank of World War I, click here.
This torn page from VOGUE will let you in on Edward VIII (1894-1972), Prince of Wales, and his whirl wind tour in the dominion of Canada in 1919. All the swells of the snowy North stepped out in full regalia to meet him.
Poet and playwright W.B. Yeats (1865 - 1939) had his say on the matter of "theater-subscriber-book-of-the-month-club" types who are more likely to attend performances because they feel they "should", rather than attending for their own reasons of personal enjoyment:
"And the worst of it is that I could not pay my players, or the seamstresses, or the owner of the building, unless I could draw to my plays those who prefer light amusement, or who have no ear for verse and literature, and fortunately they are all very polite."
1919 marked the third anniversary of the Battle of Verdun and the grounds were still littered with the dead, surrounded by a tons of equipment, lying in open fields pock-marked by thousands of high explosive shells:
"Spring will come to France next month, but Spring will not come to the field of Verdun. Already the grass is green on the broad stretches of Champagne; in the Vosges the snow patches linger only in the stubborn shelter of rocks that bar the sun,; but there is no portent of resurrection in all the stretch of churned up gravel marking the line of forts that protect the citadel of the Meuse from the Northeast...the shell holes are filled with clear water, and between them course new born brooks, sublimating in crystal pools from which no man would dare drink."
The U.S Army only ordered two types of trench periscopes during the war. The first kind was a simple wooden box, painted a lovely shade of olive drab and measuring two inches square and 15 inches in length with two inclined mirrors set at both ends (pictured). This type was manufactured by two companies and well over 100,000 were produced.
The second variety was a mirror that was designed to fixed to the end of a bayonet, "a total of 100,000 of these were delivered before the end of July, 1918 and 50,000 additional ones before November".
By the time April of 1919 rolled around, it seemed to the Doughboys who were waiting for that boat to take them "back to the good ol' U.S. of A" that their French allies had a short term memory and were terribly ungrateful for American sacrifices made on their behalf. Many post-Armistice letters written by the Doughboys were filled with snide comments about the high prices they were asked to pay for everyday merchandise, prices that seemed to be chosen just for them. Wisely, the Stars and Stripes editors chose not to take sides in this debate but ran this nifty little piece about the manner in which the Americans of 1782 treated their French allies during the American Revolution.
Click here to read about the foreign-born soldiers who served in the American Army of the First World War.
Here is a very simple list of President Wilson's Fourteen Points can be printed off of a PDF by clicking the title above.
Wilson's Fourteen Points were ignored at Versailles and the United States withdrew it's support for the historical conference in favor of two separate peace agreements made with Germany and Austria at a later date.
Click here to read more magazine articles about President Woodrow Wilson.
The historian Henry Steele Commager ranked Woodrow Wilson at number 18 insofar as his impact on the American mind is concerned - click here to understand his reasoning...
Historians may ad the following to that list of the many "firsts" that World War I has claimed as its own:
The First World War was the first conflict in which the American soldier preferred candy to chewing tobacco.
"Candy in the days of the old Army was considered a luxury. The war with Germany witnessed a change... Approximately 300,000 pounds of candy represented the monthly purchases during the early period of the war. Demands from overseas grew steadily. The soldier far from home and from his customary amusements could not be considered an ordinary individual living according to his own inclinations, and candy became more and more sought after. As the need increased, the Quartermaster Department came to recognize the need of systematic selection and purchase."
"The suffering sweet tooth of the Yank was not appeased by candy alone. The third billion pounds of sugar bought for Army represents a tremendous number of cakes, tarts, pies and custards. An old soldier recently stated that the ice cream eaten by the Army during the war would start a new ocean..."
Click here to read about the shipments of chewing gum that was sent to the American Army of W.W. I.
An illustrated article from the chic Conde Nast magazine, VANITY FAIR, regarding one of the great Canadian disappointments of the immediate post-war years: the failure to build the Canadian war memorial building. By the summer of 1919 1,000 paintings and drawings depicting the experiences of the World War had been amassed with the intention of displaying them in a museum that was to serve as a remembrance to the Canadian servicemen of that war.
Throughout the Twenties and Thirties there were numerous advisory groups charged with the task of launching the museum, but they were never able to agree on key issues. With the outbreak of the Second World War the urgency of the project took root - and, finally, the Canadian War Museum was officially established in 1942 (and opend in 1967).
There are two paintings illustrating the article: "Camouflaged Ships" by E. Wadsworth and "Strathcona Horse on the March" by A.J. Munnings.
The following article presented a brief account of the deeds of Major Charles W. Whittlesey of the 308th Infantry Regiment ( Seventy Seventh Division) and why he was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Shortly after the war Whittlesey would commit suicide.
Dramatic diagrams of the three varieties of German grenades that were found along the World War One battlefields: the German "stick grenade" (ie. potato masher), the disc grenade and the rifle grenade.
Sergeant Alvin York (1887 - 1964) of the 328th Infantry Regiment, Eighty-Second Division, was one of the great heroes of the First World War. The attached four page article recalled those deeds as well as his glorious trip to New York City where he was luxuriated at the Waldorf Astoria and feted by the swells of Gotham.
What we enjoyed about this piece by the Muckraking Ida Tarbell (1857 - 1944) was that it was written some six months after the heavy handed George Creel had ceased influencing Yankee magazine editors into printing pro-American blather, and so we tend to feel that her praise of the American Doughboys was quite sincere - and praise she does! Up hill and down dale, the Doughboys can do no wrong in her eyes. This essay appeared in print around the same time the French had decided that all the Doughboys were just a bunch of racist hurrah-boys and were becoming increasingly sick of them. The Yanks might have squared their debt with the Marquis de Lafayette, but the recently returned Poilus were not above taking an occasional swipe at Ida Tarbell's Doughboys...
Click here to read some statistical data about the American Doughboys of the First World War.
Fashion, like all empires, has it's slaves. The slaves are treated cruelly but, strangely, they never seem to mind; they do what ever is required of them. Many are the examples of fashion's tyranny: in the past it has demanded that it's slaves wear cowboy boots, although none could rope a steer, and it has demanded of it's slaves that they wear uniforms, although none could fight. In fashion's name the slaves have removed ribs and teeth, reduced or enlarged body parts, dyed hair cross-dressed and tattooed themselves like jail-birds. The slaves do it all and there seems to be no limit to fashion's fickle whims that will ever make them say, "no".
To illustrate this point, you can read this beautifully illustrated Vogue magazine article from 1919 in which the beast demands perfectly healthy young women to walk with canes.
A chic (if anonymous) poet printed in a fashionable society magazine sings "farewell"to champagne and pities the poor man-about-town who must now stroll the boulevards with only lemonade on his breath.
(1895 – 1983), would soon try his hand at movie acting. The Vanity Fair item is actually a cartoon by 
.(1889-1958).
" gets the back-hand for all of his narrow-minded jingoism by Robert Wilson Lynd (1879 - 1949), who penned this angry review of Rudyard Kipling's (1865 - 1936) body of work, finding the author to be too much the Victorian imperialist.
.
edited by Lt. Clarence Edward Andrews (dates?), Songs From The Trenches by Herbert Adams Gibbons (1880-1934) and Robert Graves' (1895–1985) "Fairies and Fusiliers".
(1904-1975) had recently resigned his post as the Drama Critic for VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE in order to pursue his ambition as a novelist and playwright. This article revealed to all Wodehouse's keen interest in American slang and the language of American comic strips.
(the 369th, 370th, 371st and the 372nd). Two of these regiments were awarded the coveted Croix de Guerre.
concerning their support for the First World War and were guilty of substituting Christian principles for patriotism:
(1829 – 1919), Welsh poet and essayist 
(1865 - 1945) wrote this essay remembering the man, his brother (Dante Gabriel Rossetti) and the friendship that the two shared with poets George Meredith and Algernon Charles Swinburne.
, appears on a page from a fashionable magazine paid for by the publicity office of the film studio. Directors back in the teens had to be fluffed and soothed, too.
's (1871-1951) groupies to interview him for one of their feature articles. It is an informative interview and there are a number of seldom seen sketches reproduced; the opening paragraphs give one a sense of what 1920s Greenwich Village was like at night, although one comes away feeling that the man could do no wrong. John Sloan's friend, 
(1865-1929), when given the chance also failed to make any nasty comments about the painter.
(1888-1982) a cartoonist who is largely remembered by current generations for his contributions to THE NEW YORKER as well as his illustrations for a series of books by humorist Robert Benchley. In 1910, Williams served as Editor of 'The Harvard Lampoon' and upon graduation a year later began a brilliant freelance career as a cartoonist for 'The Century Magazine', 'Collier's' and 'Judge' among others.
, and was moved to do the only thing that he could in his power to offer comfort: unlimited cups of hot coffee. How real was coffee as a preventative measure in the face of influenza? The good colonel was on to something - it wasn't the java bean that made an impact, it was the heat: viruses die when exposed to high temperatures.
that the American Army was on the attack all the way up to the bitter end.
, which opines that it was the high morale and seemingly endless supply lines of the A.E.F. that served as one of the most decisive factors in bringing the war to a close. 
.
) and why he was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Shortly after the war Whittlesey would commit suicide.