On 15 August 1914, Parisians settling down to peruse the latest copy of the weekly music periodical, Le Ménestrel, were greeted with the following notice:

The seemingly dismal situation reported by the publication's director was not limited to Le Ménestrel alone. With the declaration of war in early 1914, publishing houses faced a number of practical and economic problems to overcome in order to continue operations. A large proportion of the publishing industry's workforce was of mobilisation age, resulting in a lack of manpower. The situation was exacerbated by shortages of primary materials: paper was in short supply throughout the war, with government forced to restrict the number of grams available to publishers, and regulations limiting both paper and fuel consumption for businesses were issued by the Préfecture on an ever-changing basis.

Daily newspapers were frequently curtailed in length, or appeared in smaller format, with the result that column space more usually reserved for concert and operatic reviews was frequently sacrificed for news of the fighting fronts. The situation was worse for dedicated music periodicals, with many forced to cease publication during the conflict. Whilst Le Ménestrel hoped to continue publication in a reduced format of four, rather than eight, pages throughout the war, it was eventually forced to abandon its plans, publishing its last wartime issue on 5 September 1914 and remaining silent until after the Armistice. Other important music periodicals such as Le Monde musical and Le Guide musical were to suffer the same fate, although some did manage to publish occasional wartime issues. However, Parisians were not entirely deprived of musical news. Le Courrier musical, directed by the critic Charles Tenroc, was able to continue for much of the war, with the exception of an initial hiatus from mid 1914 to 1916.