enlist for the
whole war," so to speak, and most of the Austro-Hungarian and German
correspondents had so remained--some had even written books
there--but a good deal of freedom was allowed observers from neutral
countries and permission given to go when they felt they had seen
enough.

Isolated thus in the country--the only mail the military field post, the
only telegrams those that passed the military censor--correspondents
were as "safe" as in Siberia. They, on the other hand, had the
advantages of an established position, of living inexpensively in
pleasant surroundings where their relations with the censor and the
army were less those of policemen and of suspicious characters than of
host and guest. To be welcomed here, after the usual fretful dangling
and wire-pulling in war office anterooms and city hotels was
reassuring enough.

Correspondents were quartered in private houses, and as there was
one man to a family, generally, he was put in the villager's room of
honor, with a tall porcelain stove in the corner, a feather bed
under him and another on top. Each man had a soldier servant who
looked after his boots and luggage, kept him supplied with cigars
and cigarettes from the Quartier commissariat--for a paternal
government included even tobacco!--and whack his heels together
whenever spoken to and flung back an obedient "Ja wohl!" We
breakfasted separately, whenever we felt like it, lunched and
dined--officers and correspondents--together. There were soldier
waiters, and on every table big carafes of Hungarian white wine,
drunk generally instead of water. For beer one paid extra.

The commandant and his staff, including a doctor, and the
officer-guides not on excursions at the moment, sat at the head of
the long U-shaped table. Anyone who came in or went out after the
commandant was supposed to advance a bit into this "U," catch his
eye, bow and receive his returning nod. The silver click of spurs,
of course, accompanied this salute when an officer left the room,
and Austro-Hungarian and German correspondents generally snapped
their heels together in semi-military fashion. All our goings and
comings, indeed, were accompanied by a good deal of manner. People
who had seen each other at breakfast shook hands formally half an
hour later in the village square, and one bowed and was bowed to
and heard the sing-song "habe die Ehre!" a dozen times a day.

With amenities of this nature the Quartier guests passed t