The man who wants to film a fight, unlike the man who wants to describe it, must be really on the spot. A comfortable corner in the Hôtel des Quoi, at Boulogne, is no use to the camera man.
"Is it possible to film actual events with the French troops in the Vosges and Alsace?" I was asked when I got back after my last adventure.
"If the public wants those films," I replied, "the public must have them." And without any previous knowledge of the district, or its natural difficulties, apart from the normal military troubles to which by that time I was hardened, I set out for Paris, determined to plan my route according to what I learned there. And for the rest I knew it would be luck that would determine the result, because other camera men had attempted to cover the same district, men who knew everything there was to be known in the way of getting on the spot, and all had been turned back with trifling success.
For various reasons, among them the claims of picturesqueness, St. Dié struck me as the best field, and to get there it is necessary to make a detour into Switzerland. From Geneva, where I arranged for transport of my films in case of urgent need, much as an Arctic explorer would leave supplies of food behind him on his way to the Pole, I arranged in certain places that if I was not heard from at certain dates and certain times, enquiries were to be made, diplomatically, for me.
From Basle I went to the Swiss frontier, and had a splendid view of the Alsace country, which was in German possession. German and Swiss guards stood on either side of the boundary, and they made such a picturesque scene that I filmed them, which was nearly disastrous. A gendarme pounced on me at once, took me to general headquarters and then back to Perrontruy, where I was escorted through the streets by an armed guard.
At the military barracks I was thoroughly examined by the chief of the staff, who drew my attention to a military notice, prohibiting any photographing of Swiss soldiery. He decided that my offence was so rank that it must go before another tribunal, and off I was marched to Delemont, where a sort of court-martial was held on me. My film, of course, was confiscated; that was the least I could expect, but they also extracted a promise in writing that I would not take any more photographs in Switzerland, and they gave me a few hours to leave the country, by way of Berne.
That didn't suit me at all. Berne was too far away from my intended destination, and, after a hurried study of the map, I decided to chance it, and go to Biel. I did. So did the man told off to watch me. And when I left the train at Biel he arrested me. I am afraid I sang "Rule Britannia" very loudly to those good gentlemen before whom he took me, claiming the right of a British citizen to do as he liked, within reason, in a neutral country.
In the result they told me to get out of the country any way I liked, if only I would get out, and, as my opinion was much the same, we parted good friends.
I had lost a week, and many feet of good film, which showed me that the difficulties I should have to face in my chosen field of operations were by far the greatest I had up to then encountered in any of my trips to the firing line. I pushed on through Besançon on the way to Belfort.