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,