My collection of papers, which has proved a source of such interest to so many distinguished and highly placed people in this country, was minutely examined, and certain maps and other important documents, whose interest is rather military than journalistic, were temporarily taken from me. I was in a panic of anxiety. The minutes were passing, and the time for the Paris train to start was drawing near. I implored the authorities to telephone to Paris, and then it was that they played their trump card. They intimated that seeing I had come through Austria, and understanding that the Plague was prevalent in Hungary, they felt obliged to detain me for medical examination next morning. It was then midnight. Neither my expostulations nor my entreaties produced the least effect upon the impassively polite Frenchman. I verily believe that had there been no Plague in Hungary as an excuse for my detention, that they would have had me examined for foot-and-mouth disease, glanders, or rinderpest. One of the most anguishing moments of my life was when I heard the Paris express slowly moving out of the station. I, of all the passengers, being the only one left behind, and I of all the passengers the one in the greatest hurry to get to Paris.
Soon philosophy came to my aid, and I argued that how like life it was. After the many risks that I had run in enemy countries, where I had never been even detained by the officials, here was I, immediately on getting to what should have been friendly soil, being examined and cross-examined and re-examined again and again by officials whose every word spoke suspicion. I had been equal to every previous examination to which I had been subjected, and here was I stranded at the very moment of success in the country of one of the Allies for whom I had so great an admiration. “Gott im Himmel!” I muttered, “spare me from my friends.”
Within a few minutes of the departure of the train there came a reply by telephone from Paris guaranteeing my integrity, accompanied by a request that every possible facility should be given to me. This produced an official volte face. The courtesy remained the same, but there were full and adequate apologies. The French authorities seemed genuinely distressed at the inconvenience they had caused me. Indeed, nothing could be more kindly and courteous than the treatment I received at Pontarlier. In spite of the delay that these men had caused me, I respected them for their thoroughness. It is better in war time to err, if error there must be, on the side of caution.
I doubt if I could have written these friendly words at the time. I was feeling too irritated to recognise virtue in anyone, least of all in a French official. There was no train until five o’clock the next afternoon, and that, I was informed, was an omnibus train, stopping at every station between Pontarlier and Dijon.
By taking it rather than wait for the later express, I was informed, I should save two hours on the road to Paris. The Hotel de la Poste, at Pontarlier, had long since been asleep, but I aroused it, delighted at the opportunity of myself being able to inconvenience somebody else, and I spent a wretched night of chagrin and worry. Would there be further difficulties? Should I ever get to London? Should I for any possible reason be detained in Paris? It must be remembered that I had a great story burning in my brain. None but a journalist can understand that instinct which prompts a man who has obtained “good copy” to dash for the nearest point where that copy can be turned into print.
Only those who have moved about in war time with documents and maps in their possession have the least conception of the difficulties that arise with the authorities, who naturally have every reason to be suspicious.
It was at three o’clock in the afternoon on January 25th, exactly a week after the historic Banquet at Nish, that I reached London, and without a pause proceeded to the offices of The Daily Mail, where I had scarcely sufficient strength to write the account of my meeting with the Kaiser at Nish. I then made for my hotel, enjoyed a luxurious bath, and a long, long sleep. I was utterly exhausted.
It must be remembered that I had been travelling continuously for a week, that is, from the evening of the Banquet at Nish, January 18th, until three o’clock on the afternoon of the 25th. In Serbia and Austria all the sleeping-cars had been requisitioned by the authorities, which added greatly to the fatigues of travel; but I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had carried out my instructions, and had brought back what I had been told to bring back—a living story.
I have had the satisfaction of opening the eyes of the British public to the strange migration of Germans to the Near East. I can tell them with a conviction, that with me is almost passionate, that unless the Allies obtain a smashing victory, the German occupation of Asia Minor will threaten England’s hold on India, England’s hold on Egypt, the Russian security in the Caucasus, and will open up to Germany a vast granary that will completely destroy the effect of the British Blockade and alter the whole history of the world. I am not an alarmist, I am a journalist who has seen many strange things, things which no other man of either a neutral or Entente Power has seen, and being a journalist I understand to some extent the relation of cause and effect. “You will never convince England of her danger,” someone recently remarked to me. “But why?” I asked; “what possible object can I have in exaggerating or lying? I am not a politician, I am not even an Englishman, and certainly I feel very deeply the danger the Entente cause is running, owing to the spell of apathy that seems to have fallen upon certain sections of the public.” My friend’s reply was a smile.
It has been a great pleasure to me, too, to be the instrument of showing how a highly organised newspaper can act as an effective means of obtaining information for a nation at war. The police of this country have long since recognised the value of the Press in detecting crime, and I think the Government will now have an equal respect for the journalist as a secret service agent, albeit an honorary one. I know of at least one newspaper that has a most wonderful organisation in the enemy countries for securing information, and that organisation is not excelled by any Government of the Entente Powers.