THE FIRST WORLD WAR as reported in the daily news

[Niner]

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE !!!!!

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-1/

The French admire the soldier like look and "Montana Hats" and fine equipment of the new green American troops. The newly landed troops are chaffing at the bit and eager to see some action. So says the newspaper. I got a feeling some of the troops weren't feeling all that sanguine. And the ones that were.. would probably be whistling a different tune soon enough.

[DuncaninFrance]

There is that farmyard smell again........

"By June 1917, only 14,000 U.S. soldiers had arrived in France and the AEF had only a minor participation at the front in late October 1917, but by May 1918 over one million U.S. troops were stationed in France; though only half of it made it to the front lines"

[Niner]

"By June 1917, only 14,000 U.S. soldiers had arrived in France." That was true enough and the American public knew that most of the US "for the war" Army was only just being signed up for drafting and a long way from being trained and ready for action. The US was in such a big hurry to join the slaughter that they sent these troops before they were trained for what they would face. And although these men had been in the service for various lengths of time and some had served in the Mexican border fiasco, none had any training or experience with a conflict of such magnitude with it's own strange ways of being waged and the horrendous mortality rates that they would have to face. And even though the US population was never given the numbers of this first group of troops sent, they knew it was only a token force of what was expected to follow.

The cheer leading in the press was part of what was held to be patriotic duty and, just as well, since any criticism in the press would have been widely protested, certainly met with an official government rebuke and possibly prosecuted. Anybody not cheering was a "slacker". Anybody expressing any negativity would have been a traitor.

[Niner]

And from a London editor comes some advice on censorship. Not exactly the path the US had chosen nor will chose.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-1/

[Niner]

An example of freedom of press being subject to the unwritten patriot test.


http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-1/

[Niner]

This guy needed a union to back him up....or a lawyer.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-4/

[Niner Delta]

What??? A days pay for a days work...... we'll have none of that shit, there's a war to win.....

.

[Niner]

The war effort gets the Senate to debating cutting off booze to the American people. It's a fight to decide what constitutes booze and how much of it will be prohibited. Not everybody is in favor of prohibition on Constitutional grounds.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-1/

[Niner]

Meanwhile..."Bagdad" or Baghdad is making the news.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-2/

[Niner]

The Seattle Star wants to help out the coming draftees in getting a leg up on the French language.

Next lesson....
Vous n'avez perdu qu'une jambe? Quelle chance!
You only lost one leg? How fortunate!


http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ ... d-1/seq-3/