You’ve Enlisted My Affection for You
Source: My Personal Collection

This postcard romanticized a brutal period in history – that of the Great War, the war to end all wars, which became known as World War I when World War II began.

A Few Great War Facts

1. The Great War began in 1914 and ended when the armistice was signed on 11 November 1918.
2. There were 6,000,000 military and 4,000,000 civilian casualties.
3. About 8,000,000 soldiers surrendered and were held in POW camps.
4. The first chemical weapon, poison gas, was successfully used at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. Both sides used it after that time.
5. There were about 1,300,000 total casualties on both sides due to the use of gas weapons.
6. Most military casualties were young, unmarried men, but several hundred thousand families lost husbands and fathers.
7. Political upheaval was going on at the same time in many countries, among them Russia, Ireland, Australia, Canada and others because of war effects.
8. The loss of men killed during the war led to a surplus population of women.
9. Literature, arts, movies and personal stories about the war affected cultural perceptions, removing the romantic notions of war, instead leading to the belief that young men went off to war to make the world a safer place, but were slaughtered for nothing.
10. Veterans’ organizations around the world began to proliferate at the end of the Great War. In the United States, the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) grew rapidly, providing support to returning soldiers.

Centennial Remembrance:
The United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917, one hundred years ago.