d their deadly hatred of G. H. Q.

He was very handsome as he sat behind a Louis XIV table, with General
Charteris--his Chief of Intelligence, who was our chief, too--behind him
at one side, for prompting and advice. He received us with fine courtesy
and said:

"Pray be seated, gentlemen."

There had been many troubles over censorship, of which he knew but
vaguely through General Charteris, who looked upon us as his special
"cross." We had fought hard for liberty in mentioning units, to give
the honor to the troops, and for other concessions which would free our
pens.

The Commander-in-Chief was sympathetic, but his sympathy was expressed
in words which revealed a complete misunderstanding of our purpose and
of our work, and was indeed no less than an insult, unconscious but very
hurtful.

"I think I understand fairly well what you gentlemen want," he said.
"You want to get hold of little stories of heroism, and so forth, and to
write them up in a bright way to make good reading for Mary Ann in the
kitchen, and the Man in the Street." The quiet passion with which those
words were resented by us, the quick repudiation of this slur upon our
purpose by a charming man perfectly ignorant at that time of the new
psychology of nations in a war which was no longer a professional
adventure, surprised him. We took occasion to point out to him that the
British Empire, which had sent its men into this war, yearned to know
what they were doing and how they were doing, and that their patience
and loyalty depended upon closer knowledge of what was happening than
was told them in the communiques issued by the Commander-in-Chief
himself. We urged him to let us mention more frequently the names of the
troops engaged--especially English troops--for the sake of the soldiers
themselves, who were discouraged by this lack of recognition, and for
the sake of the people behind them... It was to the pressure of the
war correspondents, very largely, that the troops owed the mention
and world-wide honor which came to them, more generously, in the later
phases of the war.

The Commander-in-Chief made a note of our grievances, turning now and
again to General Charteris, who was extremely nervous at our frankness
of speech, and telling him to relax the rules of censorship as far as
possible. That was done, and in later stages of the war I personally
had no great complaint against the censorship, and wrote all that was
possible to write of the