Since then the author has made a number of trips to the front, always under the escort of an officer of the Great General Headquarters Staff, and has seen practically the entire line of the French trenches, up to the moment of the autumn offensive in Champagne. He was the first American correspondent to foreshadow this offensive in a long cable to his paper at the end of August, in which he asserted that the attack would commence "before the leaves are red," that being the only wording of the facts permitted by the censor, but which exactly timed the date of the action. A few of the following chapters have been rewritten from the author's article published in the New York Times, to which acknowledgment is made for permission to use such material. The author however wishes alone to stand sponsor for the sentiments and opinions expressed throughout the volume.
THE HECTIC WEEK
PASSED BY THE CENSOR
THE DAY
A member of the Garde Republicaine, whose duty was to keep order in the court, was creating great disorder by climbing over the shoulders of the mob in the press section. He ousted friends of the white-faced prisoner in the dock, to make room for a fat reporter from Petit Parisien, who ordinarily did finance but was now relieving a confrère at the lunch hour. The case in court was that of the famous affaire Caillaux and all the world was reading bulletins concerning its progress as fast as special editions could supply them.
I was sitting in the last of the over-crowded rows allotted to the press, but filled with whoever got there first. I was one of the few Americans permitted to cover this important "story" first hand, instead of having to write my nightly cables from reports in the evening papers.