Fighting in Flanders | Page 3

division of this journalistic army consisted of free
lances who went to the Continent at their own expense on the chance of
"stumbling into something." About the only thing that any of them
stumbled into was trouble. Some of them bore the most extraordinary
credentials ever carried by a correspondent; some of them had no
credentials at all. One gentleman, who was halted while endeavouring
to reach the firing line in a decrepit cab, informed the officer before
whom he was taken that he represented the Ladies' Home Journal of
Philadelphia. Another displayed a letter from the editor of a
well-known magazine saying that he "would be pleased to consider any
articles which you care to submit." A third, upon being questioned, said
naively that he represented his literary agent. Then--I almost forgot
him--there was a Methodist clergyman from Boston who explained to
the Provost-Marshal that he was gathering material for a series of
sermons on the horrors of war. Add to this army of writers another
army of photographers and war- artists and cinematograph-operators
and you will have some idea of the problem with which the military
authorities of the warring nations were confronted. It finally got down
to the question of which should be permitted to remain in the field--the
war correspondents or the soldiers. There wasn't room for them both. It
was decided to retain the soldiers.
The general staffs of the various armies handled the war correspondent
problem in different ways. The British War Office at first announced
that under no considerations would any correspondents be permitted in
the areas where British troops were operating, but such a howl went up
from Press and public alike that this order was modified and it was
announced that a limited number of correspondents, representing the

great newspaper syndicates and press associations, would, after
fulfilling certain rigorous requirements, be permitted to accompany his
Majesty's forces in the field. These fortunate few having been chosen
after much heart- burning, they proceeded to provide themselves with
the prescribed uniforms and field-kits, and some of them even
purchased horses. After the war had been in progress for three months
they were still in London. The French General Staff likewise
announced that no correspondents would be permitted with the armies,
and when any were caught they were unceremoniously shipped to the
nearest port between two unsympathetic gendarmes with a warning that
they would be shot if they were caught again.
The Belgian General Staff made no announcement at all. The police
merely told those correspondents who succeeded in getting into the
fortified position of Antwerp that their room was preferable to their
company and informed them at what hour the next train for the Dutch
frontier was leaving. Now the correspondents knew perfectly well that
neither the British nor the French nor the Belgians would actually shoot
them, if for no other reason than the unfavourable impression which
would be produced by such a proceeding; but they did know that if they
tried the patience of the military authorities too far they would spend
the rest of the war in a military prison. So, as an imprisoned
correspondent is as valueless to the newspaper which employs him as a
prisoner of war is to the nation whose uniform he wears, they
compromised by picking up such information as they could along the
edge of things. Which accounts for most of the dispatches being dated
from Ostend or Ghent or Dunkirk or Boulogne or from "the back of the
front," as one correspondent ingeniously put it.
As for the Germans, they said bluntly that any correspondents found
within their lines would be treated as spies--which meant being
blindfolded and placed between a stone wall and a firing party. And
every correspondent knew that they would do exactly what they said.
They have no proper respect for the Press, these Germans.
That I was officially recognized by the Belgian Government and given
a laisser-passer by the military Governor of Antwerp permitting me to

pass at will through both the outer and inner lines of fortifications, that
a motor-car and a military driver were placed at my disposal, and that
throughout the campaign in Flanders I was permitted to accompany the
Belgian forces, was not due to any peculiar merits or qualifications of
my own, or even to the influence exerted by the powerful paper which I
represented, but to a series of unusual and fortunate circumstances
which there is no need to detail here. There were many correspondents
who merited from sheer hard work what I received as a result of
extraordinary good fortune.
The civilians who were wandering, foot-loose and free, about the
theatre of operations were by no means confined to the representatives
of the Press; there was an amazing number of young Englishmen and