Passed by the censor - 1 - Wythe Williams

MYRON T. HERRICK
UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE
From a hitherto unpublished drawing by Royer

PASSED BY THE CENSOR

THE EXPERIENCE OF AN
AMERICAN NEWSPAPER MAN IN FRANCE

WYTHE WILLIAMS

PARIS CORRESPONDENT OF THE NEW YORK TIMES,
OFFICIALLY ACCREDITED TO THE FRENCH
ARMIES ON THE WESTERN FRONT

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

MYRON T. HERRICK

FORMER UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE

NEW YORK

E.P. DUTTON & COMPANY

681 FIFTH AVENUE

By E.P. DUTTON & COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO VIOLA

PREFACE

Special correspondents in great numbers have come from America into the European "zone of military activity," and in almost equal numbers have they gone out, to write their impressions, their descriptions, their histories, their romances and songs.

Other correspondents who are not "special," but who by the grace of the military authorities have been permitted to enter the forbidden territory, and by the favor of the censor have been allowed to tell what they saw there, have entered it again and again at regular intervals.

These are the "regular" correspondents, who lived in Europe before war was declared, and who during many idle hours speculated on what they would do with that great arm of their vocation—the cable—when the expected hour of conflict arrived.

Few of their plans worked out, and new ones were formed on the minute—on the second. For the Germans did not cut the cable, as some of the correspondents, in moments of despair, almost hoped they would do, and the great American public clamored insistently for the "news" with its breakfast.

It is a journalist's methods in covering the biggest, the hardest "story" that newspapers were ever compelled to handle, that this book attempts to describe.

Wythe Williams.

Paris, October, 1915.

AN ENDORSEMENT

By Georges Clemenceau

Former Premier of France.

"In the crowded picture which this American journalist has presented we recognize our men as they are. And he pronounces such judgment as to arouse our pride in our friends, our brothers and our children. Such a people are the French of to-day. They must also be the French of to-morrow. Through them France sees herself regenerate.

"Of our army, Mr. Wythe Williams says:

"'It seems to me to be invincible from the standpoints of power, intelligence and humanity.'

"Is there not in that something like a judgment pronounced upon France before the people of the world? Where I am particularly surprised, I admit, is that the eye of a foreigner should have been so penetrating, and that our friendly guest should have coupled the idea of an 'invincible' army with the supreme ethical consideration of its 'humanity.'

"Mr. Wythe Williams is right to proclaim this, even though it is something of a stroke of genius for a non-Frenchman to have discovered it."—(From an editorial in L'Homme Enchainé.)

LETTER TO THE AUTHOR FROM SENATOR LAFAYETTE YOUNG

My Dear Williams:

I am glad to know that you are going to write about the war in book form. In doing this you are discharging a plain duty. You have been in the war from the start. You have studied the soldier in the trench, and out. You have witnessed every phase of battle. The war is in your system. You are full of it. Therefore, you can write concerning it with inspiration and fervor.

I remember our long marches in and near the trenches in Northern France in April and May, last. I know how deeply you are interested; therefore, I know how well you will write.

A thousand historians will write books concerning the present great conflict, but the real historians will be the honest, independent observers such as you have been.

Newspaper reports will be the basis of every battle's history.

Take the battle of the Marne, for instance. Who knows so well concerning it as men like yourself, who were in Paris or near it during the seven days' conflict?

The passing years may bring dignified historians who will compose sentences which shall sound well, but none of them will be so full of real history as your volume if you write your own experiences.

I never knew a man freer from prejudice, and at the same time fuller of enthusiasm than yourself. I want you to write your book with the same free hand you write for the New York Times. Forget for the time that you are writing a book.

I am pleased to know that you have been with the army several times since I parted company with you. This, with your experience as an ambulance driver, when the first hostilities were on, has certainly made you a military writer worth while.

I count you to be one of the three best and most truthful American correspondents who have been in the war from the start.

I am hoping the time will come when these wars shall end, when bright men like yourself shall return to the work of journalism in America.

With greatest affection, I subscribe myself,

Lafayette Young.