I was informed at the time, and have since been reinformed more than
once, that I am probably the only civilian spectator who has enjoyed
such a privilege during the present European war. Assuredly, to date
and to the best of my knowledge and belief, I am the only civilian who
has been so favored by the Germans. Well, I trust I am not hoggish.
Possessing, as it does, this air of uniqueness, the distinction is worth
much to me personally. I would not take anything for the experience;
but I do not think I shall take it again, even if the chance should come
my way, which very probably it will not.

It was mid-afternoon; and all day, since early breakfast, we had been
working our way in automobiles toward this destination. Already my
brain chambered more impressions, all jumbled together in a mass, than I
could possibly hope to get sorted out and graded up and classified in a
month of trying. Yet, in a way, the day had been disappointing; for, as
I may have set forth before, the nearer we came to the actual fighting,
the closer in touch we got with the battle itself, the less we seemed to
see of it.

I take it this is true of nearly all battles fought under modern
military principles. Ten miles in the rear, or even twenty miles, is
really a better place to be if you are seeking to fix in your mind a
reasonably full picture of the scope and effect and consequences of the
hideous thing called war. Back there you see the new troops going in,
girding themselves for the grapple as they go; you see the
re-enforcements coming up; you see the supplies hurrying forward, and
the spare guns and the extra equipment, and all the rest of it; you see,
and can, after a dim fashion, grasp mentally, the thrusting, onward
movement of this highly scientific and most unromantic industry which
half the world began practicing in the fall of 1914.