The visual assault of the war took place not only at the front. In a much less threatening but by no means obscure manner the war occupied every newspaper, from articles to obituaries and, finally, in a shortened, simplified form, in the advertisements banking the texts. Newspaper layouts presented large amounts of information in fine type; headlines offset important ideas, and drew the reader's attention to a featured topic. The image of the soldier became associated with the commerce of war, and was used to advertise everything from cigarettes to field glasses to footwear: Craven ‘A’, a mixture of ‘soothing, comforting’ tobacco, employed the image of Field Marshal Sir John French smoking a pipe, creating a narrative context for purchase:

Repeating the word ‘comforting’ reminded the public of what they could do for the men on the line: provide a taste of the solace of home by purchasing pipe tobacco, either to send to the soldiers on active service, or for investment and consumption by patriotic civilians. Equally, by association, one could be like the Field Marshal by smoking what he smoked. This form of endorsement worked to promote the interests of the Carreras tobacco company, but it also furthered the notion of a fully participatory war, just as Brooke's image and poetry ‘endorsed’, through association and self-epitaph, the values of volunteerism and sacrifice.

Newspapers also set themselves up as the public's direct link to the front. Most newspaper advertisements in The Bookman's Christmas issue of 1917 trumpeted their coverage of the war. For the Saturday Westminster, the notice went: ‘POLITICS. THE WAR. LITERATURE. ART. THE DRAMA. All have their space in the SATURDAY WESTMINSTER. The Weekly Magazine-Review for the Man Who Thinks’.