I do not suppose it occurred to any of the many able newspaper managers in London that in dealing with a European war they would find a rival in an American journal. They knew there was an Atlantic cable but probably thought, if they thought about it at all, that the cable tolls would be prohibitive, for, as we shall see in a moment, they had not yet grasped the idea that the telegraph is only a quicker post. Putting the question of cost aside, it does not matter how a piece of news or a dispatch or a letter is transmitted; whether by rail or by steamship or by wire. What matters is that it should get there. To-day this is a truism. Forty years ago it was a paradox; in Europe if not in America. There had been great achievements in the transmission of news long before the telegraph was invented. It may be doubted whether they were not, some of them, greater than those due to the telegraph. But so far as the use of the telegraph is concerned we are dealing with the beginnings. The year 1870 is a year of transition if not of revolution. I think we are entitled to remember with satisfaction that in telegraphic news enterprise, even in Europe, it was an American journal which led the way, and that The Tribune was that journal.
In forming their war plans the managers of English journals, as I was saying, left American journals out of account. Perhaps they knew, in a dim kind of way, that The Tribune had an office in London. But the office had been there for three years and no other American journal had yet followed The Tribune's example. Important dispatches had been sent from this London office to the New York office by cable, but the London managers, if aware of the existence of the cable and of The Tribune office in London, had not co-ordinated these two pieces of knowledge. The area of all possible competition in war was news confined, in their view, to Fleet Street and Printing House Square.
They sat content, true Britons as they were, in their belief in their own supremacy; a supremacy often challenged, never overthrown. The Times was still The Times. The Morning Post was still a threepenny paper. The Daily Telegraph was still the organ of the small shopkeeper. The Daily News was the mouthpiece of Nonconformist Liberalism, with no great pretensions to any other sort of authority. The evening journalism was not supposed to be eager for news, except news of that peculiar description which offers its readers an afternoon sensation and is unaccountably omitted from the next morning's papers. The news journalism was yet to be born. The Daily Mail had never been heard of. Lord Northcliffe, the man who has done more than all others of his time toward the creation of a new journalism in England, and who is almost more a statesman than a journalist, was then just two years old.
Moreover, the outbreak of war was unexpected. Lord Granville was then Foreign Secretary and of an unshaken optimism. Lord Hammond, Permanent Under Secretary of the Foreign Office, had announced a fortnight before that never since he had held a place in that office had the sky been so free from clouds. M. Émile Ollivier has lately retold with skill in the Revue des Deux Mondes how the war was brought on, but there is nothing in his elaborate special pleading to show that any reasonable man ought to have expected the French Emperor, or even M. Ollivier himself, to follow the unreasonable, mad, arrogant policy they did follow. Nor can Downing Street or Fleet Street or Printing House Square be blamed for not being aware that the conduct of affairs in France was in the control of men who would play into Bismarck's hands. For, let M. Ollivier say what he will, Bismarck's opportunity would not have come had not France, after Prussia had withdrawn Prince Leopold's candidature for the throne of Spain, demanded a guarantee that it should never be renewed or never be supported by Prussia. Never had events moved so quickly. Prince Leopold was first heard of July 4th, 1870. On the 12th he renounced his claim. On the 13th Benedetti laid before the King of Prussia at Ems the demand of France for guarantees. On the 14th Earl Granville woke from his deep dream of peace and strove to bring France and Prussia to terms. On the 15th the Emperor declared war; the Chamber approving by an overwhelming majority.
There are in journalism two ways of dealing with a war crisis of this kind. One way is to send into the field everybody you can lay hands on to cover, tant bien que mal, as many points as possible, and so take your chance of what may turn up. The other is to choose the best two men available and send one to the headquarters of each army. I preferred the latter, perhaps because there was a difficulty in finding good men, and there were but two from whom I expected much good. These were Mr. Holt White, an Englishman, and M. Méjanel, a Frenchman. Mr. White was ordered to join the Prussians and M. Méjanel to accompany his own countrymen. The same instructions were given to both; very simple but I believe at that time quite novel in England. Each was to find his way to the front, or wherever a battle was most likely to be fought. They were to telegraph to London as fully as possible all accounts of preliminary engagements. If they had the good luck to witness an important battle they were not to telegraph, but, unless for some very peremptory reason, to start at once for London, writing their accounts on the way or on arrival. If they could telegraph a summary first, so much the better; but there must be no delay. The essential thing was to arrive in London at the earliest moment. They were to provide beforehand for a substitute, or more than one, who would take up their work during their absence.
These instructions were based on the improbability that any single correspondent could anticipate any very important news which Governments, the news agencies, and the Rothschilds would all three endeavour to send first. I reverse the order in which a Minister once said to me news of war or of high politics usually arrived. Such news, he said, comes to the Rothschilds first, next to the Press, and to the Government last of all. Besides, the mere fact never contents the public. It wants the full story. There was never much chance of sending the full story by wire from the battlefield or from any town hard by; nor, indeed, from any capital; even from a neutral capital. Only when once in London was a correspondent master of the situation.
Mr. Holt White carried out his instructions with an energy, a courage, an intelligence to which no tribute can be too high. In the first instance he witnessed the battle—not an important one except that it was the first—of Spicheren, and wired a column or so to London. It was I believe, the first battle story of any length ever sent by wire from the Continent to London. English journalism, as I said above, had not yet regarded the telegraph as anything but a means of transmitting results. The full account was to come by mail. I had told Mr. Robinson I meant to use the telegraph in this new way, but he was not ready to believe it could be done. So when I carried Mr. White's account to The Daily News office, after cabling a rewritten copy to New York, I took with me the original telegraph forms as well as the second copy. The dispatch as telegraphed by Mr. White was slightly condensed, had been carelessly handled, and was not in good shape for the printers. I handed my copy to Mr. Robinson. He looked at it with undisguised suspicion.
"It is your handwriting," he said.
I admitted that.