The Weekly War: How The Saturday Evening Post Reported World War I

Edited by Chris Dubbs and Carolyn Edy

University of North Texas Press, 2023

Courtland Jindra, Reviewer

In our increasingly fractured media environment where people tend to go into their different media silos for entertainment, news, and culture, it may seem strange that a magazine sought to be the main source of news and culture to “average” America. The Saturday Evening Post of the early 20th century attempted to appeal to, and influence the opinions of, middle America. While the rich city dweller might subscribe to Harper's Weekly, your typical American in what we'd now term "flyover country," had seen nothing like this until Cyrus Curtis bought the struggling newspaper in 1897. Curtis converted the publication to a magazine, hired the ambitious young editor George Horace Lorimer, and together they'd turn The Saturday Evening Post into a juggernaut that appealed to middle class Americans, with everything from short stories by popular authors, to in-depth articles about famous newsmakers of the day, pieces on business and sports, recipes, reviews of theater, and so on. Basically, it was a one-stop shop for a bit about everything going on in the country at the time.

When war clouds gathered on the horizon in the summer of 1914, Lorimer decided he should send correspondents to Europe to cover what might prove to be the biggest story of the age. The Saturday Evening Post did not usually have staff writers as such—the magazine depended on people to submit their work freelance—but Lorimer changed his mind during the war and worked on getting writers overseas so they'd give him stories that he was sure the public would be interested in. Once the shooting started in late July, his prescience was duly rewarded. Lorimer had people on the ground from practically the earliest days of the fight. Hundreds of articles would be written during the next five-and-a-half years about the conflagration and its aftermath. Most would focus on the Western Front, but the magazine would run pieces from Russia, Serbia, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, pretty much anywhere there was a good yarn to tell. 

This anthology, put together by Chris Dubbs and Carolyn Edy, cherrypicks 33 essays and columns from four distinct periods of the war (early days, the lead up to U.S. engagement, Americans in the fight, and after the war) to give a flavor of how the entire conflict was covered. Chapters before each section also discuss some of the memorable events and stories that were published at the time but not included in the anthology proper.

Several of the writers are included multiple times in the volume since the Post's correspondents (few of whom had ever actually covered a war before) wrote numerous articles from the afflicted countries. Most articles are quite memorable, with wonderful turns of phrase and imagery. They're occasionally filled with humor but always a sense of pathos. In one, “Europe's Ragdoll”, Irvin S. Cobb describes how much Belgium suffered at Germany's expense. He describes a destroyed toy doll he saw that had been left on a random road:

Since then, I have seen many sights. Some were dramatic and some were pathetic and nearly all were stirring; but I still recall quite clearly the little picture of the forks of the Belgian road, with a background of empty fields and empty, wrecked houses, and just at my feet the doll, with its head crushed in and the sawdust spilled out in the rut the ongoing army had made. And always now, when I think of this, I find myself thinking of Belgium.

Another, “Ward Eighty-Three” by Elizabeth Frazier, documented time she spent as a volunteer nurse at a French hospital. In one vignette she discusses a Frenchman who denigrated the Croix de Guerre he had received. Later she noted:

It was not until several days later when I came upon him unobserved, poring over the official notice of decoration, and caught the look of pride, of emotion in the young face, that I really got the matter straight. Twenty-one is twenty-one the world over, and always hides its loves.

In covering the Balkans, Herbert Corey noted in an article titled “An Army of Homesick Old Men” when the Allied offensive was reclaiming territory that:

Then the French did one of the graceful things they can always be counted on to do. “This," said the officer in command, "is an old Serbian town. The Serbs shall be the first to enter."

There is a piece describing the ongoing Armenian Genocide and one from an observer of the signing of the Versailles Treaty (and how anti-climactic is all seemed). I could probably pull quotes that have stuck with me from nearly all of the selections, but I think “Ruins” (again by Elizabeth Frazier) describing the devastation of eastern France culminates both the tragedy of war and why France was so adamant that Germany had to suffer in its aftermath:

During the war certain German potentates had openly avowed their intention to "strike France to the heart for fifty years." Beholding the systematic destruction, it seemed as if they had done it.

All in all, this is a well-curated tome and a must-have for a lover of long-form writing from the era.

Courtland Jindra