Why did they have ww1 letter formats?
For a number of reasons they formatted letters; firstly, to keep morale and support for the war high at home. If any parent/spouse knew what their child/mate had to endure during the war, it would discourage people from enlisting or from freely volunteering. Conditions were bad for the average rank and file soldier and the prospects of living through the war were slim, so there had to be censorship to prevent the truth being known in order to keep the war effort going strong. The second reason was intelligence. The great war was the first war to be operated on many fronts using many different tactics, including intelligence, propaganda and eavesdropping. I can’t think of any of the slogans from WW1 but one from WW2 was “Loose lips sink ships” ie: be careful about talking about what you know. Also, the commanding officer would personally write the letter to announce that a soldier had been killed in action. There was never mention of your son slowly bleeding to death or lying on the col
