Ships in Bottles The postcard above reflects an aspect of the history that found Germany and Great Britain at war in 1914. The conceit of this German postcard is that the battleships of the British Royal Navy, observed through the periscope of a German submarine, are confined to port—“bottled-up”—out of fear of Germany’s navy. […]
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The Big Pond This postcard, printed in Germany, is captioned, in translation, “Friend and Enemy at the Big Pond.” The image shows children representative of the nations soon to be at war at the edge of a pond on which toy boats are being sailed. The card was issued before the war broke out, but […]
“Civilization—To Your Health! [A Great War-Era Postcard Featuring an Image by the Dutch Artist, Louis Raemaekers] World War One—the “Great War”—certainly counts as one of the major events in modern human history. Its effects were felt for decades after the guns fell silent—and in important respects (not least, the political borders of the […]
I acknowledged, in earlier posts to this site, that I have become obsessively interested in the hideous tragedy we recall as “World War I”—the “Great War.” As related in those posts, I formed a particular interest in the ways in which picture postcards of the period document both the course of the conflict […]
As of this writing, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed the lives of 160,000 of our friends and relations. It is a measure of the tragedy that large numbers of bits and bytes would be consumed by the mere listing of their names. Remembering even a small fraction of those dead in any meaningful way would […]
Offered here, for the delectation of readers, is a list of songs that are favorites of JudgmentsHere. An effort has been made to have the selections span a variety of genres, and to tilt toward the neglected and the obscure. There are few better feelings than stumbling on a piece of music […]
Propaganda Postcards and the German Invasion of Belgium “The first casualty when war comes is truth,” observed United States Senator Hiram Johnson in a 1918 speech. Coincidentally, his subject was the Great War—America’s involvement in which Johnson had opposed. “Truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of […]
I will not live long enough to see any particular lump of coal become a diamond. But I have lived long enough to see a love song written by one of my contemporaries mischaracterized as “traditional”—the song being thereby attributed to that prolific genius of yore, Anonymous. Such attribution cuts the song loose […]
The images on picture postcards sent to and from soldiers on the First World War’s western front captured, in “real time,” the passions and prejudices (etc.) of the men who fought the war, and of the societies that sent them into the trenches. The postcards were rolled off the presses quickly, to serve needs of […]
