most generals. These men took the war seriously. They were there
to get the news and, at no matter what expenditure of effort and
money, to get that news to the end of a telegraph-wire so that the
people in England and America might read it over their coffee-cups
the next morning. These men had unlimited funds at their disposal;
they had the united influence of thousands of newspapers and of
millions of newspaper-readers solidly behind them; and they carried
in their pockets letters of introduction from editors and ex-presidents
and ambassadors and prime ministers.

Then there was an army corps of special writers, many of them with
well-known names, sent out by various newspapers and magazines
to write "mail stuff," as dispatches which are sent by mail instead of
telegraph are termed, and "human interest" stories. Their
qualifications for reporting the greatest war in history consisted, for
the most part, in having successfully "covered" labour troubles and
murder trials and coronations and presidential conventions, and, in
a few cases, Central American revolutions. Most of the stories which
they sent home were written in comfortable hotel rooms in London
or Paris or Rotterdam or Ostend. One of these correspondents,
however, was not content with a hotel window viewpoint. He wanted
to see some German soldiers--preferably Uhlans. So he obtained a
letter of introduction to some people living in the neighbourhood of
Courtrai, on the Franco-Belgian frontier. He made his way there with
considerable difficulty and received a cordial welcome. The very first
night that he was there a squadron of Uhlans galloped into the town,
there was a slight skirmish, and they galloped out again. The
correspondent, who was a sound sleeper, did not wake up until it
was all over. Then he learned that the Uhlans had ridden under his
very window.