World War I saw the complete and final death of the beard for the majority of all troops, for the simple reason that if you had a beard – well, you were gonna die because your gas mask wouldn’t seal.
That said, the ‘stache refused to go away and reigned supreme on the Western Front. It was paired with a short, cropped haircut. Why? Because while the ladies love glorious flowing locks, so do lice. And the ratio of lice to available women in the trenches was pretty much 1 billion to one, so off the hair went.
Clean cut, mustached, with nice high collars that made it difficult to look from side to side, the officers of 1918 cut a dashing figure. Well, you know, the ones that weren’t covered in mud.
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