With our army in Flanders

From the drawing by Georges Scott. Reproduced from “L’Illustration” by kind permission. Silent Ypres.
G. VALENTINE WILLIAMS
LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD 1915
All rights reserved
THE BRITISH SOLDIER
In the words of the Chief of the Italian General Staff, the war correspondent is the link between that part of the nation that fights and that part which is watching—“a noble and fertile mission, as great as any mission ever was, and as necessary, too, for no army can long and resolutely march to victory if it has not the support and enthusiasm of the whole country behind it.”
As the accredited correspondent of the Daily Mail at the General Headquarters of Field-Marshal Sir John French, I have spent the greater part of the past six months with the British Army in Flanders. I have seen for myself the life and work of our army in the field. I have visited in person the trenches along practically our whole front. I have talked with our organizers of victory from the Commander-in-Chief downwards to the man in the saphead ten yards from the enemy.
This book is the result. It was written in the field, under the Censorship. That familiar phrase, “Passed by Censor,” stands at the foot of every chapter in the manuscript, as it will stand at the foot of this preface. To that part of the nation which is watching at home I could, in fulfilment of my mission, have offered a more detailed narrative of the life of that other part that is fighting in Flanders, did not considerations of military necessity stand in the way. But, apart altogether from the question of patriotism, the large measure of trust which the army has, in most instances, extended to the writer has made me the more anxious to respect a privileged position, and to eschew anything calculated to afford to the enemy the least information of value. My endeavour has rather been to present a picture of the life of our army in Flanders built up out of a series of impressions, to reveal the soul of the army as it has been unbared to me in the actual conditions of warfare.