Over the Front in an Aeroplane, and Scenes Inside the French and Flemish Trenches

by Ralph Pulitzer

When an eager newspaper man has come over all the way from California, let us say, for such a trip, has waited in Paris a month or six weeks for such a trip and has seen colleagues favored above other men start off with enthusiasm and return with hauteur from such a trip, the transcendent importance of Monsieur P—— in that craving correspondent's eyes verges on the pitiful.

When you think of this hungry horde of newspaper men collected from the ends of the earth on this one assignment, receiving curt cables and telegrams every few days from their papers asking where their stories are, all as suspicious and jealous of each other as prima-donnas, each trying to "put over a beat" on the other, and each terrified lest some other "put over a beat" on him, you can perhaps imagine that Monsieur P——'s official duties do not constitute a sinecure.

Behind the back of Monsieur P—— they grouch; before his face they grovel. They try on him all the arts and practices of their profession, from bluff, through blandishments to supplication. And Monsieur P—— sits and smiles at them with tender sympathy and gives them their trips fairly and squarely without fear or favoritism. The room echoes with their pleas and protests, the telephone buzzes with their wheedlings and reproaches; but Monsieur P—— deals out even-handed justice among them and never turns a hair. There is probably not an hour of the day or night that some war correspondent in any language from English to Japanese is not calling down very horrible curses upon this autocrat's head. And yet they all cherish for him the most sincere affection and respect.

I myself was fortunate enough to be introduced to Monsieur P—— within a couple of hours of reaching Paris, my special trip to the front having already been arranged for the following morning. Its machinery was the same as that of the regular trips. Monsieur P—— got out an official printed form of military pass for war correspondents. My photograph was pasted on its cover. I was asked to write my signature on the next page, which was devoted to this trip. There were several more pages for possible other trips. On this first page was written the name of Epernay, the city behind the front to which I was to go by train the following morning. It was specified that the trip was to last three days. The name of the staff-officer who was to accompany me was written in, and subsequently his signature was appended. The whole thing was signed, stamped by Monsieur P—— and handed over to me to carry with me on the trip, to be handed back to him immediately upon my return, and to be used again should I later make other trips.

Then the staff-officer who was to be my chaperon came in and we were introduced. In private life he happened to be a prince. In the army he was at present plain Captain d'A——. Incidentally, he proved to be a fine fellow and a very pleasant companion.

Following his instructions, I was at the railroad station the following morning at eight o'clock, together with Lincoln Eyre, whom I had been permitted to invite on the trip. I presented my military pass to the ticket-seller, who scrutinized it closely before selling me a railway ticket to Epernay. It is the rule in France that correspondents must pay for their railway tickets themselves, so that the Government cannot be accused of paying their way for propagandist purposes. After you reach the front the military authorities furnish army motors, and themselves take care of your meals and bedrooms.

On the train was one of the regular personally conducted correspondents' caravans, consisting of about eight correspondents. There were three Americans, a couple of Frenchmen, a couple of Scandinavians, and, I think, a Russian. Their cicerone was a very tall staff-officer who looked slightly worried by his cosmopolitan responsibilities. Their party was going on to Verdun.

After a comfortable two-hour trip we got out at Epernay. There we were met by Captain F——, a staff-officer belonging to the General Staff of the 5th Army, which we were to visit. Thus Captain d'A——, from the Staff of the Paris War Office, had general responsibility for the trip, while Captain F——, who also was to accompany us, was responsible for the detailed military arrangements during our stay with the 5th Army.

Captain d'A——'s orderly (who before mobilization had been the wealthy young proprietor of a steamship line to South America) having taken our bags to the hotel, where we were to return to spend the night, we immediately started off on our schedule.