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Find old World War 1 articles here. Find information on uniforms, women, gas warfare, prisoners of war and more.
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 German military maneuvers have aroused the attention of Europe to the splendid equipment and administration of the Army, not only in the fighting spirit, but in the commissariat and its medical service.
-so begins the attached article which referenced the overall sense of intimidation and uneasiness that was triggered by the display of bristling military might that was recently witnessed. The journalist mused about just what the Franco-Russian Alliance would mean in the face of such an advanced military force, touching upon the size of the German Army compared with other forces in Europe -openly stating that France could never stand up to an attack.
Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) served as one of France’s wartime Premieres (1917-1920). The following is an excerpt from his letter to the American people imploring them to share in his outrage concerning Germany’s open contempt for their obligations agreed to under the Versailles Treaty. Clemenceau would die seven years later, fully convinced that another devastating war with Germany was just around the corner.
Click here if you would like to read about the 1936 Versailles Treaty violations.
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.
An interesting letter written during the opening weeks of the war by a Canadian officer stationed with a British Guard regiment. The letter is filled with earnest enthusiasm:
We are all one in aim, in spirit and in that indefinable quality of loyal co-operation which holds together the British Army fighting against enormous odds in France, as it binds together the British Empire by bonds not less strong because they are invisible.
By the time this letter was written in 1917, Seigfreid Sassoon and Wilfred Owen would have found very little common ground with it’s author. However the letter is remarkable for it’s eloquence and passion in support of the war.
This page contains a chart clearly stating the number of men who served in the U.S. Army during World War One, the number of men provided by each state and what percentage of the entire army originated from these states.
*Doughboys from New York numbered 367,864 and made up 9.7% of the U.S. Army.
*Doughboys from Pennsylvania numbered 297,891 and made up 7.93% percent.
*While the men of California made up 2.98% of the army, clocking in at 112,514.
etc…etc…etc…
Click here to read about the shipments of chewing gum that were sent to the American Army of W.W. I.
Attached is a graph comparing the amount of time it took for both the British Army and the American Army to have 2,000,000 soldiers on the Western Front during World War One:
The British sent to France many more men in their first year in the war than we did in our first year. On the other hand, it took England three years to reach a strength of 2,000,000 men in France and the United States accomplished it in one half the time.
The attached essay reviews a colossal history written by a veteran of the U.S. First Infantry Division, Captain Shipley Thomas: The History of the A. E. F.
– for those who are looking for some knowledge concerning what the American Army was up to during the last six months of the War (it was bloodiest period) the review makes for a good read.
Click here to read about the high desertion rate within the U.S. Army of 1910.
Click here to read some statistical data about the American Doughboys of the First World War.
The attached file is composed of two informative paragraphs and a table listing the 42 American Army divisions, the states from which they were pooled and the locations of their respective training camps:
The Doughboys were trained in the division, which was our typical combat unit. In the American Army it was composed of about 1,000 officers and 27,000 men. Training and sorting organizations of about 10,000 men, known as depot brigades, were also utilized, but as far as possible, the new recruits were put almost immediately into the divisions which were the organizations in which they would go into action.
Click here to read about the efforts that were made to get free cigarettes to the Doughboys…
The attached pie chart will give you an understanding as to the history of the U.S. Army officer corps that served throughout the First World War. Drawn in 1931 and based upon the data collected by the Department of War, this study outlines the history of Army leadership between April of 1917 through November of 1918.
Click here to read a 1917 article about the U.S. Army officer training camp at Plattsburg, New York.
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.
Attached is a small piece that explains how the draft of 1917 was conducted. Illustrated with three charts, this article provides the number of males in the U.S. at that time (54,000,000), how many had registered under the Selective Service Act (26,000,000), the percentage of the whole number who had never registered and how the onslaught of the influenza epidemic had effected the W.W. I draft.
In the fall of 1917 the first half million came rapidly. During the winter the accessions were relatively few, and those that did come in were largely used as replacements and for special services.
When you stop to think of patriotic poetry, Gertrude Stein
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.’
Written by Major E. Penberthy, former Commandant of the British Third Army Sniping School, this is an account of the training and organization of snipers as they functioned within the British Army at the time of the Great War.
In the early days of the war, when reports of German ‘sniping’ began to be published, it was commonly considered a ‘dirty’ method of fighting and as not ‘playing the game’.
Two and a half months into the war, a devoted reader of THE SPECTATOR (and we are among them) responded to an earlier article concerning partisan sniping activity in occupied France and Belgium, wrote to the editors to point out that the Hague Convention (precursor to the Geneva Convention) condemned the practice of summary sniper executions. Mention is made of the fact that the occupying German forces
disregarded the law.
