ontributed towards setting up relations during the contest between us
in Whitehall and the world of journalism which were not always too
cordial. The question of correspondents in the war zone naturally
cropped up at a very early stage, and the decision arrived at, for
better or for worse, was that none of them were to go. The wisdom of
the attitude taken up by the military authorities in this matter is a
question of opinion; but my view was, and still is, that the
newspapers were treated injudiciously and that the decision was wrong.
I was, indeed, placed in the uncomfortable position of administering a
policy which I disliked, and which I believed to be entirely mistaken.
It, moreover, practically amounted to a breach of faith.

The General Staff had for some years prior to 1914 always intended
that a reasonable number of correspondents should proceed to the front
under official aegis on the outbreak of a European war. A regular
organization for the purpose actually took shape automatically within
the War Office, in concert with the Press, on mobilization. A small
staff, under charge of a staff-officer who had been especially
designated for the job two or three years before, with clerks, cars,
and so on, came into being _pari passu_ with G.H.Q. of the
Expeditionary Force on the historic 5th of August. The officer, Major
A. G. Stuart, a man of attractive personality and forceful character,
master of his profession and an ideal holder of the post, had been in
control of the Press representatives at Army Manoeuvres in 1912 and
1913, and he was therefore personally acquainted with the gentlemen
chosen to take the field. (He was unfortunately killed while serving
on the staff in France, in the winter of 1915-16.) The General Staff
had, moreover, gone out of their way to impress upon correspondents at
manoeuvres that they ought to regard the operations in the light of
instruction for themselves in duties which they would be performing in
the event of actual hostilities. They were given confidential
information with regard to the programme on the understanding that
they would keep it to themselves, and they always played the game.

But when war came, all this went by the board. Leave for
correspondents to go to the front, whether under official auspices or
any other way, was refused, and the staff and the clerks and the cars
abode idle in London under my wing. The Press world accepted this
development philosophically for th