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The large circulation of the daily press in the trenches challenges the commonly held idea that newspapers were greatly rejected by the combatants. Despite censorship in war zones, newspapers were read as much as they were before the war. In 1914, the French General Staff was highly suspicious of the role of the press, though gradually it came to appreciate its usefulness in the general mobilization. On the one hand, its effect was principally to establish the reality of the reading habits of the troops which even the war could not greatly change. On the other hand, reading newspapers in the trenches reflected the troops’ specific and immediate needs, allowing them to build on their own experience and giving meaning to their engagement.