'le Regiment'
a Humor Magazine for the Troops
- A humor magazine much like 'Le Sourire' and 'Fantasio', 'Le Régiment' was specifically published for soldiers, lampooning and making light of an otherwise generally squalid and unappealing military life. It followed the succesful formula of printing colorful illustrations in which ladies did their utmost to divest themselves of their garments. But even by uncharitable and dissaproving standards, 'Le Régiment' was very tame and sedate. There were 4 pages with full color printing, often with a two-page spread done with considerable talent.
- 'Le Regiment' was a pre-existing magazine. With the Great War, a new numbering sequence was started and needless to say, many war-time subjects were taken up or aluded to in jokes, cartoons and caricatures. Aside from publishing colorful and finely executed line drawings, the magazine also featured short stories, serialized fiction, short notices and several pages of light-hearted photographs of performing artists at the front, soldiers having fun or engaged in recreational activities of the less serious kind. Perennial favorites were the impromptu soldier's orchestra using anything laying about for instruments, the amateur theatrical or soldiers in drag dancing with squad-mates (a sure sign that rotation back to the front-lines was imperative) .
Being a humor magazine did not preclude making fun of the enemy. While the jokes on Germans were hardly charitable, they were at least not overly cruel or tasteless either, focusing instead on the perceived shortages of food in Germany. Generally though, much like in the companion humor magazine 'la Baionnette', the common German soldier was portrayed more as an individual to be pitied for his misfortune in being born across the Rhine, rather than an instrinsically evil nationality.
two covers featuring one of the favorites of the troops : the Great War nurse
to a Gallery of Covers and Pages
advertisement for a war-time Almanach