List of military attachés and war correspondents in World War I

The multi-national military attachés and observers who took part in the First World War were expressly engaged in collecting data and analyzing the interplay between tactics, strategy, and technical advances in weapons and machines of modern warfare.

Military and civilian observers from every major power closely followed the course of the war. Most were able to report on events from a perspective somewhat like what is now termed "embedded" positions within the land and naval forces of both sides. These military attachés, naval attachés and other observers prepared voluminous first-hand accounts of the war and analytical papers. In-depth observer narratives of the war and more narrowly focused professional journal articles were written soon after the war; and these post-war reports conclusively illustrated the battlefield destructiveness of this conflict.

The functions of a military attaché are illustrated by the American military attachés in Japan during the war years. A series of military officers had been assigned to the American diplomatic mission in Tokyo since 1901 when the US and Japan were co-operating closely in response to the Boxer Rebellion in China. The military attaché advised the United States Ambassador to Japan on military matters, acted as a liaison between US Army and the Imperial General Headquarters, and gathered and disseminated intelligence. The military attaché's office in Tokyo usually had two assistants and a number of "language officers" who were assigned specifically to learn Japanese whilst attached to Japanese Imperial Army regiments as observers. These "language officers" translated training and technical manuals and reported on conditions in Japanese military units.[1]

Press coverage of the war was affected by restrictions on the movement of non-combatant observers and strict censorship. This raises the question of the role the media plays in selecting news about such conflicts. Events which support the position of either one of the protagonists in a conflict are understood as instrumental factors in the modern mediated conflict, and the publication of information on these events is construed as one of the major goals of the conflicting parties and one important activity of journalists.[11]

In Britain, there were initially five official accredited war correspondents: Philip Gibbs, Percival Philips, Henry Perry Robinson, Herbert Russell, and William Beach Thomas. Their reports were vetted by C. E. Montague. Other writers and journalists who later received official accreditation from the British government were John Buchan, Robert Donald, Hamilton Fyfe, Henry Nevinson, and Valentine Williams.

• Military attachés and observers in the Russo-Japanese War
• United Nations Military Observer
• List of participants to Paris Peace Conference, 1919

• Kepplinger, Hans Mathias, Hans-Bernd Brosius and Joachim Friedrich Staab. "Instrumental Actualization: A Theory of Mediated Conflicts," European Journal of Communication, Vol. 6, No. 3, 263-290 (1991) doi:10.1177/0267323191006003002
• Strachan, Hew. (2001). The First World War: To Arms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-926191-8
• Stringer, Harry R. (1919). Heroes All!: A Compendium of the Names and Official Citations of the Soldiers and Citizens of the United States and of Her Allies who Were Decorated by the American Government for Exceptional Heroism and Conspicuous Service Above and Beyond the Call of Duty in the War with Germany, 1917-1919. Washington, D.C.: Fassett Publishing Company. OCLC: 394536

• Tim Luckhart, "War Correspondents," International Encyclopedia of the First World War