not so optimistic. But neither here, nor in any of the conversations I
have heard at the headquarters of the Allies, was there a doubt
expressed as to ultimate victory. They had a quiet confidence that was
contagious. There was no bluster, no assertion; victory was simply
accepted as a fact; the only two opinions might be as to when it would
occur, and whether the end would be sudden or a slow withdrawal of the
German forces.

The French Algerian troops and the Indian forces of Great Britain came
up for discussion, their bravery, their dislike for trench fighting
and intense longing to charge, the inroads the bad weather had made on
them during the winter.

One of the officers considered the American press rather pro-German.
The recent American note to Sir Edward Grey and his reply, with the
press comments on both, led to this statement. The possibility of
Germany's intentionally antagonising America was discussed, but not at
length.

From the press to the censorship was but a step. I objected to the
English method as having lost us our perspective on the war.

"You allow anything to go through the censor's office that is not
considered dangerous or too explicit," I said. "False reports go
through on an equality with true ones. How can America know what to
believe?"

It was suggested by some one that the only way to make the censorship
more elastic, while retaining its usefulness in protecting military
secrets and movements, was to establish such a censorship at the
front, where it is easier to know what news would be harmful to give
out and what may be printed with safety.

I mentioned what a high official of the admiralty had said to me about
the censorship--that it was "an infernal nuisance, but necessary."

"But it is not true that messages are misleadingly changed in
transmission," said one of the officers at the table.

I had seen the head of the press-censorship bureau, and was able to
repeat what he had said--that where the cutting out of certain phrases
endangered the sense of a message, the words "and" or "the" were
occasionally added, that the sense might be kept clear, but that no
other additions or changes of meaning were ever made.

Luncheon was over. We went into the library, and there, consulting the
map, Colonel Fitzgerald and General Huguet discussed where I might go
that afternoon. The mist of the morning had turned to rain, and the
roads at the front would be very bad. Besides, it was felt