The News from the Front!

Another new find, this one a pamphlet by the Paris Chamber of Commerce with an update on the Great War in May of 1916. This is a good little snapshot of Wilson’s “Stop or I will say stop again!” foreign policy. In a few months he would be reelected with the catchphrase “He kept us out of war!”. A couple months after that, we would be sending under-trained troops to be slaughtered in that war we were kept out of. Worst president ever.

This booklet also goes into the Russian help on the Western front (“showing the inexhaustible resources of their army”–the new terrors in charge of Russia would pull them out of the war in 10 months), colonial forces adding strength and lightly cared for lives, and ever-important neutral Swedish opinion (don’t ask about their iron ore shipments).

As much as we may feel we live in a dumb time, the time of the early 20th century wins. Every horror that was to echo through the next hundred years was tried out then.

facts about the war (pdf file)