THE PERIL OF THE CENSORSHIP
War brings into discussion many subjects upon which men differ widely
in their opinions, and the present war is no exception to the general
rule.
Amateur and expert alike argue on a thousand disputed points of
tactics, of strategy, and of policy: it has always been so: probably it
will be so for ever. But the censorship imposed by the Government, on
the outbreak of war, has achieved a record.
It has earned the unanimous and unsparing condemnation of everybody.
Men who have agreed on no other point shake hands upon this. For sheer,
blundering ineptitude, for blind inability to appreciate the mind and
temper of our countrymen, in its utter ignorance of the psychological
characteristics of the nation and of the Empire, to say nothing of the
rest of the world, the methods of the censorship, surely, approach very
closely the limits of human capacity for failure.
When I say "the censorship" I mean, of course, the system, speaking in
the broadest sense. It matters nothing whether the chief censor, for
the moment, be, by the circumstance of the day, Mr. F.E. Smith or Sir
Stanley Buckmaster. Both, I make no doubt, have done their difficult
work to the best of their ability, and have been loyally followed, to
the best of their several abilities, by their colleagues. The faults
and failures of the censorship have their roots elsewhere.
Now to avoid, at the outset, any possibility of misunderstanding, I
want to make it absolutely clear that in all the numerous criticisms
that have been levelled at the censorship, objection has been taken not
to the _fact_ that news is censored, but to the _methods_ employed and
to the extent to which the suppression of news has been carried.
I believe that no single newspaper in the British Isles has objected
to the censorship, as such. I am quite sure that the public would very
definitely condemn any demand that the censorship should be abolished.
Much as we all desire to learn the full story of the war, it is obvious
that to permit the indiscriminate publication of any and every story
sent over the wires, would be to make the enemy a present of much
information of almost priceless value. Early and accurate information
is of supreme importance in war time, and certainly no Englishman
worthy of the name would desire that the slightest advantage should be
offered to our country's enemies by the premature publication of news
which, on every military consideration, ought to be kept secret.
This is, unquestionably, the attitude of the great daily newspapers in
London and the provinces, which have been the worst sufferers by the
censor's eccentricities. They realise, quite clearly, the vital and
imperative necessity for the suppression of information which would be
of value to the enemy, and, as a matter of fact, the editors of the
principal journals exercise themselves a private censorship which is
quite rigid, and far more intelligently applied than the veto of the
official bureau. It would surprise a good many people to learn of the
vast amount of information which, by one channel or another, reaches
the offices of the great dailies long before the Press Bureau gives
a sign that it has even heard of the matters in question. The great
retreat from Mons is an excellent instance. It was known perfectly
well, at the time, that the entire British Expeditionary Force was in a
position of the gravest peril, and it is, perhaps, not too much to say
that had the public possessed the same knowledge there would have been
a degree of depression which would have made the "black week" of the
South African War gay and cheerful by comparison, even if there had not
been something very nearly approaching an actual panic.
But the secret was well and loyally kept within the walls of the
newspaper offices, as I, personally, think it should have been: I do
not blame the military authorities in the least for holding back the
fact that the position was one of extreme gravity. Bad news comes soon
enough in every war, and it would be senseless folly to create alarm
by telling people of dangers which, as in this case, may in the end be
averted. The public quarrel with the censorship rests on other, and
totally different, grounds.
That a strict censorship should be exercised over military news which
might prove of value to the enemy will be cheerfully admitted by every
one. We all know, despite official assurances to the contrary, that
German spies are still active in our midst, and, even now, there is--or
at any rate until quite recently there was--little or no difficulty in
sending information from this country to Germany. No one will cavil at
any restrictions necessary to prevent the enemy anticipating our plans
and movements, and if the censorship had not gone beyond this, no one
would have had any reason to complain.
What may perhaps be called the classic instance of the perils of
premature publication occurred during the Franco-Prussian War of
1870-71. In those days there was no censorship, and France, in
consequence, received a lesson so terrible that it is never likely
to be forgotten. It is more than likely, indeed, that it is directly
responsible for the merciless severity of the French censorship to-day.
A French journal published the news that MacMahon had changed the
direction in which his army was marching. The news was telegraphed
to England and published in the papers here. It at once came to the
attention of one of the officials of the German Embassy in London, who,
realising its importance, promptly cabled it to Germany. For Moltke the
news was simply priceless, and the altered dispositions he promptly
made resulted in MacMahon and his entire force capitulating at Metz.
Truly a terrible price to pay for the single indiscretion of a French
newspaper!
It is not to be denied that to some extent certain of the "smarter"
of the British newspapers are responsible for the severity of the
censorship in force to-day. In effect, the censorship of news in this
country dates from the last war in South Africa. Some of the English
journals, in their desire to secure "picture-stories," forgot that the
war correspondent has very great responsibilities quite apart from the
mere purveying of news.
The result was the birth of a war correspondent of an entirely new
type. The older men--the friends of my youth, Forbes, Burleigh, Howard
Russell, and the like--had seen and studied war in many phases: they
knew war, and distinguished with a sure instinct the news that was
permissible as well as interesting, from the news that was interesting
but _not_ permissible. Their work, because of their knowledge, showed
discipline and restraint, and it can be said, broadly, that they wrote
nothing which would advantage the enemy in the slightest degree.
In the war in South Africa we saw a tremendous change. Many of the
men sent out were simply able word-spinners, supremely innocent of
military knowledge, knowing absolutely nothing of military operations,
unable to judge whether a bit of news would be of value to the enemy
or not. Their business was to get "word-pictures"--and they got them.
In doing so they sealed the doom of the war correspondent. The feeble
and inefficient censorship established at Cape Town, for want of
intelligent guidance, did little or nothing to protect the Army, and
the result was that valuable information, published in London, was
promptly telegraphed to the Boer leaders by way of Lourenço Marques.
Many skilfully planned British movements, in consequence, went
hopelessly to pieces, and by the time war was over, Lord Roberts and
military men generally were fully agreed that, when the next war came,
it would be absolutely necessary to establish a censorship of a very
drastic nature.
We see that censorship in operation to-day, but far transcending
its proper function. It was established--or it should have been
established--for the sole purpose of preventing the publication of news
likely to be of value to the enemy. Had it stopped there, no one could
have complained.
I contend that in point of fact it has, throughout the war, operated
not merely to prevent the enemy getting news which it was highly
desirable should be kept from him, but to suppress news which the
British public--the most patriotic and level-headed public in all the
world--has every right to demand. We are not a nation of board-school
children or hysterical girls. Over and over again the British public
has shown that it can bear bad news with fortitude, just as it can
keep its head in victory. Those of us who still remember the terrible
"black week" in South Africa, with its full story of the horror of
defeat at Colenso, Magersfontein, and Stormberg, remember how the only
effect of the disaster was the ominous deepening of the grim British
determination to "see it through": the tightening of the lips and the
hardening of the jaws that meant unshakable resolve; the silent, dour,
British grip on the real essentials of the situation that, once and for
all, settled the fate of Kruger's ambitions.
Are Britons to-day so changed from the Britons of 1899 that they cannot
bear the truth; that they cannot face disaster; that they are indeed
the degenerates they have been labelled by boastful Germans? Perish the
thought! Britain is not decadent; she is to-day as strong and virile
as of old and her sons are proving it daily on the plains of Flanders,
as they proved it when they fought the Kaiser's hordes to a standstill
on the banks of the Marne during the "black week" of last autumn. Why
then _should_ the public be treated as puling infants spoon-fed on tiny
scraps of good news when it is happily available, and left in the bliss
of ignorance when things are not going quite so well?
From November 20th, 1914, up to February 17th, 1915--a period of three
months of intense anxiety and strain--not one single word of news
from the Commander-in-Chief of the greatest Army Britain has ever put
into the field was vouchsafed to the British public. For that, of
course, it is impossible to blame Sir John French. But the bare fact
is sufficient condemnation of the entirely unjustifiable methods of
secrecy with which we are waging a war on which the whole future of
our beloved nation and Empire depends. The public was left to imagine
that the war had reached something approaching a "deadlock." The
ever-mounting tale of casualties showed that, in very truth, there had
been, in that silent period of three months, fighting on a scale to
which this country has been a stranger for a century.
Will any one outside the Government contend that this absurd secrecy
can be justified, either by military necessity or by a well-meant but,
as I think, hopelessly mistaken regard for the feelings of the public?
We are not Germans that it should be necessary to lull us into a
lethargic sleep with stories of imaginary victories, or to refrain
from harrowing our souls when, as must happen in all wars, things
occasionally go wrong.
_We want the truth_, and we are entitled to have it!
I do not say that we have been deliberately told that which is not
true. I believe the authorities can be acquitted of any deliberate
falsification of news. But I do say, without hesitation, that much news
was kept back which the country was entitled to know, and which could
have been made public without the slightest prejudice to our military
position. At the same time, publication has been permitted of wholly
baseless stories, such as that of the great fight at La Bassée, to
which I will allude later, which the authorities must have known to be
unfounded.
It is not for us to criticise the policy of our gallant Allies, the
French. We must leave it to them to decide how much or how little
they will reveal to their own people. I contend, with all my heart,
that the British public should not have been fobbed off with the
studiously-guarded French official report, with its meaningless--so
far as the general public is concerned--daily recital of the capture
or loss of a trench here and there, or with the chatty disquisitions
of our amiable "Eye-Witness" at the British Headquarters, who manages
to convey the minimum of real information in the maximum of words. It
is highly interesting, I admit, to learn of that heroic soldier who
brained four Germans "on his own" with a shovel; it is very interesting
to read of the "nut" making his happy and elaborate war-time toilet
in the open air; and we are glad to hear all about German prisoners
lamenting the lack of food. But these things, and countless others of
which "Eye-Witness" has told us, are not the root of the matter. We
want the true story of the campaign, and the plain fact is that we do
not get it, and no one pretends that we get it.
Cheerful confidence is an excellent thing in war, as well as in all
other human undertakings. Blind optimism is a foolhardy absurdity;
blank pessimism is about as dangerous a frame of mind as can be
conceived. I am not quite sure, in my own mind, whether the methods of
the censorship are best calculated to promote dangerous optimism, or
the reverse, but I am perfectly certain that they are not calculated
to evoke that calm courage and iron resolve, in the face of known
perils, which is the best augury of victory in the long run. Probably
they produce a result varying according to the temperament of the
individual. One day you meet a man in the club who assures you that
everything is going well and that we have the Germans "in our pocket."
That is the foolishness of optimism, produced by the story of success
and the suppression of disagreeable truths.
Twenty-four hours later you meet a gloomy individual who assures you we
are no nearer beating the Germans than we were three months ago. That
is the depths of pessimism. Both frames of mind are derived from the
"official news" which the Government thinks fit to issue.
Here and there, if you are lucky, you meet the man who realises that we
are up against the biggest job the Empire has ever tackled, and that,
if we are to win through, the country must be plainly told the facts
and plainly warned that it is necessary to make the most strenuous
exertions of which we are capable. That is the man who forms his
opinions not from the practically worthless official news, but from
independent study of the whole gigantic problem. And that is the only
frame of mind which will enable us to win this war. It is a frame of
mind which the official news vouchsafed to us is not, in the least
degree, calculated to produce.
In the prosecution of a war of such magnitude as the present unhappy
conflict the public feeling of a truly democratic country such as ours
is of supreme importance. It is, in fact, the most valuable asset of
the military authorities, and it is a condition precedent for success
that the nation shall be frankly told the truth, so far as it can be
told without damage to our military interests.
Mr. Bonar Law, in the House of Commons, put the case in a nutshell when
he said that--
"He had felt, from the beginning of the war, that as much information
was not being given as might be given without damage to national
interests. Nothing could be worse for the country than to do what the
Japanese did--conceal disasters until the end of the war. He did not
say that there had been any concealment, but the one thing necessary
was to let the people of this and other countries feel that our
official news was true, and could be relied upon. He wondered whether
the House realised what a tremendous event the battle of Ypres, in
November, was. The British losses there, he thought, were bigger than
any battle in which purely English troops were engaged. It was a
terrible fight, against overwhelming odds, out of which British troops
came with tremendous honour. All the account they had had was Sir
John French's despatch. Surely the country could have more than that.
Whoever was in charge, when weighing the possible damage which might
be brought about by the giving of news, should also bear in mind the
great necessity for keeping people in this country as well informed as
possible."
That, I venture to think, is a perfectly fair and legitimate criticism.
The battle of Ypres was fought in November. Mr. Law was speaking in
February. Who can say what the country would have gained in recruiting,
in strength of determination, in everything that goes to make up the
_morale_ so necessary for the vigorous conduct of a great campaign, had
it been given, at once, an adequate description of the "terrible fight
against overwhelming odds" out of which the British Thomas Atkins came
with so much honour?
The military critics of our newspapers have, perhaps, been one of
the greatest failures of the entire campaign. One of them, on the
day before Namur fell, assured us that the place could hold out for
three months. Another asserted that the Russians would be in Berlin by
September 10th. Another, just before the Germans drove the Russians for
the second time out of East Prussia, declared that Russia's campaign
was virtually ended! Besides, all the so-called "histories" of the
war published have been utter failures. Personally, I do not think the
nation is greatly perturbed, at the present moment, about the conduct
of the actual military operations. No one is a politician to-day,
and there is every desire, happily, to support the Government in any
measure necessary to bring the war to a conclusion. We have not the
materials, even if it were desirable, to criticise the conduct or write
the history of the war, and we have no wish to do so. But we desire to
learn, and we have the _right_ to learn, the facts.
It has always been an unhappy characteristic of the military mind
that it has been quite unable, perhaps unwilling, to appreciate the
mentality of the mere civilian who only has to pay the bill, and look
as pleasant as possible under the ordeal. And I suspect, very strongly,
that it is just this feeling which lies at the root of a good deal of
what we have had to endure under the censorship. In its essence, the
censorship is a military precaution, perfectly proper and praiseworthy,
but only if applied according to the real needs of the situation.
Quite properly the military mind is impatient of the intrusion of the
civilian in purely military affairs, and I have no doubt whatever that
that fact explains the gratifying presence--in defiance of our long
usage and to the annoyance of a certain type of politician--of Lord
Kitchener at the War Office to-day. But military domination of the
war situation, however admirable from the military point of view, has
failed to take into sufficient account the purely civilian interest in
the progress of the war and the extent to which the military arm must
rely upon the civilian in carrying the war to a successful conclusion.
Our military organisation, rightly or wrongly, is based upon the
voluntary system. We cannot, under present conditions, obtain, as the
conscriptionist countries do, the recruits we require merely by calling
to the Colours, with a stroke of the pen, men who are liable for
service. We have to request, to persuade, to advertise, and to lead men
to see their duty and to do it. To enable us to do this satisfactorily,
public opinion must be kept well informed, must be stimulated by a
knowledge of the real situation. When war broke out, and volunteers
were called for, a tremendous wave of enthusiasm swept over the
country. The recruiting organisation broke down, and, as I have pointed
out, the Government found themselves with more men on their hands than
they could possibly train or equip at the moment. Instead of taking
men's names, telling them the exact facts, and sending them home to
wait till they could be called for, the War Office _raised the physical
standard for recruits_, and this dealt a blow at popular enthusiasm
from which it has never recovered. Recruiting dropped to an alarming
degree, and, so recently as February, Mr. Tennant, in the House of
Commons, despite the efforts that had been made in the meantime, was
forced to drop a pretty strong hint that "a little more energy" was
advisable.
Now the connection between the manner in which the recruiting question
was handled, and the general methods adopted by the censorship, is
a good deal closer than might be imagined at first sight. Both show
the same utter failure on the part of the military authorities to
appreciate the psychology of the civilian. Psychology, the science of
the public opinion of the nation, must, in any democratic country,
play a very large part in the successful conduct of a great war; and
in sympathetic understanding of the temper of the masses, our military
authorities, alike in regard to the censorship and recruiting question,
have been entirely outclassed by the autocratic officials of Germany. I
do not advocate German methods. The gospel of hate and lies--which has
kept German people at fever-heat--would fail entirely here. We need no
"Hymns of Hate" or lying bulletins to induce Britons to do their duty
if the needs of the situation are thoroughly brought home to them.
But we have to face this disquieting fact, that, whatever the methods
employed, the German people to-day are far more enthusiastic and
determined in their prosecution of the war than we are.
That is a plain and unmistakable truth. I do not believe the great mass
of the British public realises, even to-day, vitally and urgently, the
immense gravity of the situation, and for that I blame the narrow and
pedantic views that have kept the country in comparative ignorance of
the real facts of the situation.
We have been at war for eight months and we have not yet got the men
we require. Recruits have come forward in large numbers, it is true,
and are still coming forward. But there is a very distinct lack of
that splendid and enduring enthusiasm which a true realisation of the
facts would inevitably evoke. Priceless opportunities for stimulating
that enthusiasm have been, all along, lost by the persistent refusal to
allow the full story of British heroism and devotion to be told.
We can take the battle of Ypres as a single outstanding example. The
full story of that great fight would have done more for recruiting in a
week than all the displayed advertisements and elaborate placards with
which our walls are so profusely adorned could achieve in a month!
Sir John French's despatch, as a military record, bears the hall-mark
of military genius, but it is idle to pretend that it is a literary
document calculated to stir the blood and fire the imagination of our
countrymen. Admirable in its firm restraint from the military point of
view, it takes no account of the civilian imagination. That is not Sir
John French's business. He is a great soldier, and it is no reproach to
him that his despatch is not exactly what is required by the urgency
of the situation. Moreover, it came too late to exercise its full
effect. Had the story of Ypres been given to the public promptly, and
in the form in which it would have been cast by a graphic writer who
understood the subject with which he was dealing and the public for
whom he was writing, we should probably have been better off to-day
by thousands and thousands of the much-needed recruits. The failure
to take advantage of such a glorious opportunity for the stimulation
of enthusiasm by purely legitimate means, convicts our censorship
authorities of a total failure to appreciate the mentality of the
public whose supposed interests they serve.
And as with successes, so with failures. It is the peculiar
characteristic of the British people that either a great victory or
a great disaster has the immediate result of nerving them to fuller
efforts. We saw that in South Africa: it has been seen a hundred
times in our long history. Let us turn for a moment to the affair at
Givenchy on December 20th. Sir John French's despatch makes it clear
that the repulse of the Indian Division on that occasion was a very
serious matter, so serious, in fact, that it required the full effort
of the entire First Division, under Sir Douglas Haig, to restore the
position. Yet, at the time, the British public was very far from fully
informed of what had happened: much of our information, indeed, was
derived from German sources; and these sources being naturally suspect,
the magnitude of the operations was never realised.
There may have been excellent military reasons for concealing, for the
moment, the real position, though I strongly suspect that the Germans
were quite as well informed about it as we were. But there could be no
possible reason for concealing the fact from the public for a couple of
months, and thus losing another opportunity of powerfully stimulating
our national patriotism and determination.