In 1915 the War Office at last moved in the matter of war
correspondents. Lord Kitchener, prejudiced against them, was being
broken down a little by the pressure of public opinion (mentioned from
time to time by members of the government), which demanded more news of
their men in the field than was given by bald communiqués from
General Headquarters and by an “eye-witness” who, as one paper had
the audacity to say, wrote nothing but “eye-wash.” Even the enormous,
impregnable stupidity of our High Command on all matters of psychology
was penetrated by a vague notion that a few “writing fellows” might be
sent out with permission to follow the armies in the field, under the
strictest censorship, in order to silence the popular clamor for more
news. Dimly and nervously they apprehended that in order to stimulate
the recruiting of the New Army now being called to the colors by vulgar
appeals to sentiment and passion, it might be well to “write up”
the glorious side of war as it could be seen at the base and in the
organization of transport, without, of course, any allusion to dead or
dying men, to the ghastly failures of distinguished generals, or to the
filth and horror of the battlefields. They could not understand, nor did
they ever understand (these soldiers of the old school) that a nation
which was sending all its sons to the field of honor desired with a deep
and poignant craving to know how those boys of theirs were living and
how they were dying, and what suffering was theirs, and what chances
they had against their enemy, and how it was going with the war which
was absorbing all the energy and wealth of the people at home.
“Why don't they trust their leaders?” asked the army chiefs. “Why don't
they leave it to us?”
“We do trust you--with some misgivings,” thought the people, “and we do
leave it to you--though you seem to be making a mess of things--but
we want to know what we have a right to know, and that is the life and
progress of this war in which our men are engaged. We want to know more
about their heroism, so that it shall be remembered by their people and
known by the world; about their agony, so that we may share it in our
hearts; and about the way of their death, so that our grief may be
softened by the thought of their courage. We will not stand for this
anonymous war; and you are wasting time by keeping it secret, because
the imagination of those who have not joined cannot be fired by cold
lines which say, 'There is nothing to report on the western front.'”
In March of 1915 I went out with the first body of accredited war
correspondents, and we saw some of the bad places where our men lived
and died, and the traffic to the lines, and the mechanism of war in
fixed positions as were then established after the battle of the Marne
and the first battle of Ypres. Even then it was only an experimental
visit. It was not until June of that year, after an adventure on the
French front in the Champagne, that I received full credentials as a war
correspondent with the British armies on the western front, and joined
four other men who had been selected for this service, and began that
long innings as an authorized onlooker of war which ended, after long
and dreadful years, with the Army of Occupation beyond the Rhine.