ing
and the commanding officer saying "Ganghofer's here. The attack may
now begin!"

In Germany, however, as in France, at least during the first year of
the war, each correspondent, particularly a foreigner, was merely a
privateer, making his own fight for a chance to work, and pulling
what wires he could. After his brief excursion he returned to
Berlin, a mere tourist, so to speak, and had to begin the old
tiresome round--his own embassy--the German Foreign Office--the War
Office--all over again. There was no organization in which he could
enroll, so to speak, he had no permanent standing. This
drawback--from the correspondent's point of view--was met in
Austria-Hungary by the Presse Quartier, an integral part of the army
like any other branch of the service, whose function it was to
handle the whole complicated business of war correspondence.

The Austro-Hungarians, prepared from the first for a large number of
civilian observers, including news and special writers,
photographers, illustrators and painters, and, to handle them
satisfactorily, organized this Presse Quartier, once admitted to
which--the fakers and fly-by-nights were supposed to be weeded out
by preliminary red tape--they were assumed to be serious workmen and
treated as the army's guests.

The Presse Quartier--the Germans later organized one on somewhat
different lines--was in two sections; an executive section with a
commandant responsible for the arrangement of trips to the various
fronts and the general business of censorship and publicity; and a
second, an entertainment section, so to speak, also with its
commandant, whose business it was to board, lodge, and otherwise
look after correspondents when they were not on trips to the front.
At the time I visited the Presse Quartier the executive section was
in the city of Teschen, across the border of Silesia; the
correspondents lived in the village of Nagybicse in Hungary, two or
three hours' railroad journey away. In this village--the most novel
part of the scheme--some thirty or forty correspondents were living,
writing their past adventures, setting forth on new ones, or merely
inviting their souls for the moment under a regime which combined
the functions of tourists' bureau, rest cure, and a sort of military
club.

For the time being they were part of the army--fed, lodged, and
transported at the army's expense, and unable to leave without
formal military permission. They were supposed to "