The rigid censorship placed on journalism upon the declaration of war in Europe brought the representatives of the American press into close relationship with the Embassy. The news which they brought to the Embassy and such news as they received there, required unusual discretion, frankness and confidence on the part of all concerned in order that the American public should receive accurate information, while avoiding the commission of any improprieties against the countries involved in the great conflict.
In this supreme test the American newspaper representatives appreciated that they were something more than mere purveyors of news; they arose to the full comprehension of their responsibility, and were of invaluable assistance to the Embassy, and through it to the nation.
While there has been no opportunity to read the advance sheets of this book, my confidence in the character and ability of the author, begotten in those days when real merit, and demerit as well, were revealed, makes it a pleasure to write this foreword, and to commend this volume unseen.
(Signed)
Myron T. Herrick
Cleveland, Ohio, October 19th, 1915.
A FOREWORD
At the outbreak of the European war, the author, who was then stationed in Paris as the correspondent of the New York Times, was refused, with all other correspondents, any credentials permitting him to enter the fighting area. He entered it later, immediately after the battle of the Marne, with what were in Paris considered sufficient credentials. But he was arrested, returned to Paris as a prisoner of war and lodged in the Cherche Midi prison, the famous military prison, where Dreyfus was confined. He was released upon the intervention of Ambassador Herrick, but still baffled in getting to the front as a war correspondent, he volunteered for service in the Red Cross as an orderly on a motor ambulance. A few of the descriptions in the following pages are written from notes made during the two months he remained in that service.
At the beginning of 1915, the author was officially accredited as a correspondent attached to the French army, and at the beginning of February sent to his paper the longest cable despatch permitted to pass the censor since the beginning of the war, and the first authentic detailed description of the French forces after the battle of the Marne.
The following spring, at the height of the first great French offensive north of Arras, the famous ground, every yard of which is stained with both French and German blood, the author was selected by the French Ministry of War as the only neutral correspondent permitted there. The first description given to America of the battle of the Labyrinth was the result.