War correspondents regard war very much as a doctor regards sickness.  I don’t suppose that a doctor is actually glad that people are sick, but so long as sickness exists in the world he feels that he might as well get the benefit of it.  It is the same with war correspondents.  They do not wish anyone to be killed on their account, but so long as men are going to be killed anyway, they want to be on hand to witness the killing and, through the newspapers, to tell the world about it.  The moment that the war broke out, therefore, a veritable army of British and American correspondents descended upon the Continent.  Some of them were men of experience and discretion who had seen many wars and had a right to wear on their jackets more campaign ribbons than most generals.  These men took the war seriously.  They were there to get the news and, at no matter what expenditure of effort and money, to get that news to the end of a telegraph-wire so that the people in England and America might read it over their coffee-cups the next morning.  These men had unlimited funds at their disposal; they had the united influence of thousands of newspapers and of millions of newspaper-readers solidly behind them; and they carried in their pockets letters of introduction from editors and ex-presidents and ambassadors and prime ministers.

Then there was an army corps of special writers, many of them with well-known names, sent out by various newspapers and magazines to write “mail stuff,” as dispatches which are sent by mail instead of telegraph are termed, and “human interest” stories.  Their qualifications for reporting the greatest war in history consisted, for the most part, in having successfully “covered” labour troubles and murder trials and coronations and presidential conventions, and, in a few cases, Central American revolutions.  Most of the stories which they sent home were written in comfortable hotel rooms in London or Paris or Rotterdam or Ostend.  One of these correspondents, however, was not content with a hotel window viewpoint.  He wanted to see some German soldiers—­preferably Uhlans.  So he obtained a letter of introduction to some people living in the neighbourhood of Courtrai, on the Franco-Belgian frontier.  He made his way there with considerable difficulty and received a cordial welcome.  The very first night that he was there a squadron of Uhlans galloped into the town, there was a slight skirmish, and they galloped out again.  The correspondent, who was a sound sleeper, did not wake up until it was all over.  Then he learned that the Uhlans had ridden under his very window.