Life — January 18, 1917 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Forty Years of It" This page satirizes German militarism and discipline. The headline quotes military figures (Gen. Leonard Wood and Gen. Hugh Scott) debating whether six months or a year of military training suffices to create soldiers. The cartoon contrasts this with Germany's approach: forty years of harsh officer training in Belgium created such brutalized commanders that they committed atrocities. The text references "horrors that its officers commanded" and notes Germany's moral corruption required prior to its Prussianization. The illustration shows a man in formal dress fleeing a wedding (set for 3:00 PM, now only 3:01) past a wrecked automobile—suggesting chaotic, violent disruption of normal life, likely representing German militarism's destructive impact on civilian society.