Davis' role as a war correspondent, instead of as a historian, gives With the Allies a unique flavor. The book gives a feeling of immediacy to the descriptions of several important events in the early stages of the war. Davis' writing takes you close to the actual events and tries to create a feeling for the events in both your thoughts and emotions.
With the Allies used material that Davis originally wrote for newspapers while working for the Wheeler Newspaper Syndicate. Davis' material also appeared in the Scribner's Magazine, which, like With the Allies, was published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
The reporting skills of Davis give an eyewitness account to two horrifying acts of destruction that helped turn worldwide public opinion against the Germans:
- The destruction of Louvain, Belgium during the march of the German army through Belgium towards France in August 1914.
- The heavy damage to a historic cathedral in Rheims, France during fighting in September 1914.
Davis was also a famous novelist. His reporting often had an evocative, dramatic style, with the restraint of an experienced novelist. Here, he described some of the fighting in Soissons, France in September 1914:
From our left the wind carried the sounds clearly. The jar and roar of the cannon were insistent, and on both sides of the valley the hilltops were wrapped with white clouds. Back of us in the wheat-fields shells were setting fire to the giant haystacks and piles of grain, which in the clear sunshine burned a blatant red.The human face of the war appears in much of With the Allies. Davis tried to show how the war affected people in different ways throughout the world. For example, a young woman in New York City lost a job as a telephone switchboard operation because the decreased demand for cotton from Europe meant that wealthy Southern cotton growers could not spend money in the hotel where the young woman worked.
The effects of the war on different cities was one perspective that Davis used to describe the war. He would paint a peacetime picture of Paris or Brussels. Then, he would show how the streets, shops, and other places were often completely emptied of human life because of the war.
When Davis was arrested on suspicion of being a spy, he spent much time among German soldiers, including officers. He marched with them, stayed in a house that they had taken over, and observed them in their private, ordinary, human moments.
Davis' human interest reporting was most valuable in his description of suffering, particularly in Belgium:
At Louvain it was war upon the defenceless, war upon churches, colleges, shops of milliners and lace-makers; war brought to the bedside and the fireside; against women harvesting in the fields, against children in wooden shoes at play in the streets.The deep sympathy and concern that Davis showed in such accounts is often at odds with descriptions in literary reference books of Davis as a self-absorbed individual who thrived on his status as a celebrity.
With the Allies does not thoroughly analyze the reasons for the war like the books that were earlier reviewed for this blog. Davis focused on the German military aristocracy as the main cause of the war.
Davis highlighted the words and deeds of his fellow Americans in several parts of the book.
- In the preface, Davis said that he could not follow U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's advice to be neutral about the war after Davis witnessed the actual conditions of the war.
- Significant contributions were made by American diplomats Myron T. Herrick in Paris and Brand Whitlock in Brussels. They helped Americans caught up in the war return to the United States, and also helped maintain some kind of order in the European cities where they worked.
- Davis praised the efforts of American hospital workers in Neuilly, France.
Davis covered six wars, including the Boer War and the Spanish-American War, before dying suddenly in 1916 at the age of 52. He did not live to see (maybe fortunately) the full extent of what he described in With the Allies in a chapter titled "The Waste of War":
If it confined itself to destroying forts and cradles of barbed wire then it would be sufficiently hideous. But it strikes blindly, brutally; it tramples on the innocent and the beautiful. It is the bull in the china shop and mad dog who snaps at children who are trying only to avoid him.With the Allies was published by Charles Scribner's Sons as the first in a series of books about World War I that was grouped under the main title The War on All Fronts. A 1917 edition of With the Allies includes a publisher's note that says that the books in the series were intended to create "strong and vivid impressions of the character of each of our Allies, of the part each is playing, of the nature of the fighting on each of the various fronts." A later book in the series was Fighting France, by the novelist Edith Wharton.
With the Allies was published around December 16, 1914, when it was advertised in The Brooklyn (New York) Daily Eagle. The preface was dated December 1, 1914. An advertisement for it also appeared in The New York Times on November 28, 1914. Front page headlines in that day's Times included:
- GERMANS RUSH AID TO TRAPPED ARMY; ANOTHER BIG BATTLE NEAR IN POLAND / Czar's Main Force Flung Out to Meet Reinforcements from Prussia.
- RUSSIANS BY A RUSE SANK GERMAN CRUISER / Czar's Fleet in Disguise Joined Baltic Squadron and Wrought Serious Damage.
- SAYS BRITISH NAVY IS STRONG AS EVER / Churchill Tells Commons There is Every Reason for Full Confidence in its Power
Online versions:
Newspaper information from Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/)
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