Le Petit Journal - Les Instantanés de la Guerre

'Le Petit Journal'

Colorful Front-Pages and Allegories Galore

two typical coverpages - left a patriotic allegory and right a portrait

'Le Petit Journal' was a long existing illustrated magazine supplement that appeared in a somewhat old-fashioned 19th century format. The back and front covers were printed in bold and eye-catching color, usually with prints or etchings of news-worthy events of the more sensationalist kind or patriotic allegories. The price was amazingly cheap and the print-run ran into more than a million copies for every issue. The inside pages consisted of text and at times pages of photographs or large-sized war maps. .

Some of the following scans are from various issues published in 1919 and as can be seen, throughout the year almost every cover was dedicated to matters pertaining to the Great War. During the war years themselves, a large number of coverpages were devoted to depicting various well-known and lesser-known commanding officers and heros of the Allied armies. In the later years of the war, instead of producing colored illustrations, use was made of hand-colored photographs, often decorated with flowery motifs or set out in more modernist appearing collages.

see also Eugène Damblans - la Grande Geste / Charles Louis Blombléd - Coverpages for the Tabloid Press

two typical pages of war photos

two examples of backpage illustrations

left : Russian women volunteers

right : a young regimental mascot with the Russian volunteers in France