Trench Mortar
(The Great War, 1918)
The attached photo first appeared in a 1918 issue of Great War Magazine and pictures the Brandt Grenade-Thrower. Designed in […]
Trench Warfare
The Dummy Horse Observation Post
(Popular Mechanics, 1918)
History’s ancient example of camouflage, the Trojan horse, has a modern twist in this illustrated article. The journalist reported that at some undated point earlier in the war the French had a chance to set a mock horse-carcass between the opposing trenches and use it as an observation post.
The View from the German Trenches
(NY Times, 1915)
Originally appearing in the Berlin Tageblatt, this dispatch, written by Bernhard Kellerman (1879 – 1951), was later translated and printed in the The N.Y. Times magazine, Current History. It reported on the hardships and morale of German infantry serving in Flanders during the second year of the war.
A War Like No Other
(Hearst’s Sunday American, 1917)
An article by the admired British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (1881 – 1931) concerning those aspects of the 1914 war that combined to make the entire catastrophe something unique in human history:
Everything has changed; uniforms, weapons, methods, tactics. Cavalry had been rendered obsolete by trenches, machine guns and modern artillery; untrained soldiers proved useless, special battalions were needed on both sides to fight this particular kind of war that, in no way, resembled the battles your father or grand-fathers had once fought.
A good read.
Click here to read about the fashion legacy of W.W. I…
To read about one of the fashion legacies of W.W. II, click here…
German Dugouts
(L’Illustration, 1915)
A 1915 diagram from a French news magazine depicting the depth of a German front-line dugout. John Laffin makes it quite clear in his World War One book, The Western Front Companion:<img src=http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=oldmagazinear-20&l=as2&o=1&a=075091520X width=1 height=1 border=0 alt= style=border:none !important; margin:0px !important;:, that the term dugout seems misleading when applied to the Germans:
From 1915, the remarkably well developed German positions, notably on the Somme front, reflected their strategic advantage. They were on enemy soil, the Germans held the initiative and they could afford to settle down in their dugouts. Hence, most had electricity, drainage, sewage system, piped water, a telephone system and many were heated. The soldiers could lie down on mattresses resting on beds made of stacking stretched over wooden frames, and -and because of deep overhead cover – 30 to 40 feet of it, they were safe even during heavy shell fire.
This article appears on this site by way of a special agreement with L’Illustration.
Click here to see a 1915 ad for British Army military camp furniture.
Click here to read an article about life in a W.W. I German listening post…
W.W. I Trench Fighting
(The New Republic, 1915)
The seasoned war correspondent from THE NEW REPUBLIC filed this essay some five months into the war in order to clarify for his American readers the exact nature of trench warfare. His observations are based upon the trench fighting that he witnessed both in France and during the Russo-Japanese War, some nine years earlier:
There is an illusion that the range and effectiveness of modern arms tend to keep armies far apart. On the contrary, there is more hand-to-hand fighting today than at any time since gunpowder was invented… at this rate the French will not drive out the Germans in months, but on the other hand a frontal attack, and every attack must now be frontal, even if successful would cost several hundred thousand men.
The article was written by Gerald Morgan; by war’s end he would serve as General Pershing’s press chief (ie.censor).
Trench Warfare and the Wounds That Were Inflicted
(Harper’s Weekly, 1915)
An informative article from World War I concerning the doctors of all the combatant nations and how they dealt with the filthy conditions of stagnant warfare and all the different sorts of wounds that were created as a result of this very different war.
Entry to a German Dugout
(L’Illustration, 1915)
A French photograph showing the entry way to one of the many subterranean shelters that dotted the Western front during the First World War; also included is another diagram of what one of the smaller German dugouts resembled that had such an entry.
This article appears on this site by way of a special agreement with L’Illustration.