other wars as rivals they
had fought to get the news; in this war they were fighting for their
professional existence, for their ancient right to stand on the firing-
line, to report the facts, to try to describe the indescribable. If their
death-knell sounded they certainly did not hear it. If they were licked
they did not know it. In the twenty-five years in which I have followed
wars, in no other war have I seen the war correspondents so well
prove their right to march with armies. The happy days when they
were guests of the army, when news was served to them by the men
who made the news, when Archibald Forbes and Frank Millet shared
the same mess with the future Czar of Russia, when MacGahan slept
in the tent with Skobeleff and Kipling rode with Roberts, have passed.
Now, with every army the correspondent is as popular as a floating
mine, as welcome as the man dropping bombs from an air-ship. The
hand of every one is against him. "Keep out! This means you!" is the
way they greet him. Added to the dangers and difficulties they must
overcome in any campaign, which are only what give the game its
flavor, they are now hunted, harassed, and imprisoned. But the new
conditions do not halt them. They, too, are fighting for their place in
the sun. I know one man whose name in this war has been signed to
despatches as brilliant and as numerous as those of any
correspondent, but which for obvious reasons is not given here. He
was arrested by one army, kept four days in a cell, and then warned if
he was again found within the lines of that army he would go to jail for
six months; one month later he was once more arrested, and told if
he again came near the front he would go to prison for two years.
Two weeks later he was back at the front. Such a story causes the
teeth of all the members of the General Staff to gnash with fury. You
can hear them exclaiming: "If we caught that man we would treat him
as a spy." And so unintelligent are they on the question of
correspondents that they probably would.

When Orville Wright hid himself in South Carolina to perfect his flying-
machine he objected to what he called the "spying" of the
correspondents. One of them rebuked him. "You have discovered
something," he said, "in which the whole civilized world is interested.
If it is true you have made it possible for man to fly, that discovery is
more important than your personal wishes. Your secret is too
valuable for you to keep to yoursel