We may not give the names of regiments and brigades until weeks after a fight, because that will tell the enemy what troops are engaged; we may not give the names of officers, for that is glorifying one when possibly another did his duty equally well.  It is the anonymity of the struggle that makes it all seem distant and unreal—­till the telegram comes from the War Office to say that the one among the millions who is dear to you is dead or wounded.  Otherwise, it is a torment of unidentified elements behind a curtain, which is parted for an announcement of gain or loss, or to give out a list of the fallen.

The world wants to read that Peter Smith led the King’s Own Particular Fusiliers in a charge.  It may not know Peter Smith, but his name and that of his regiment make the information seem definite.  The statement that a well-known millionaire yesterday gave a million dollars to charity, or that a man in a checked suit swam from the Battery to Coney Island, is not convincing; nor is the fact that one private unnamed held back the Germans with bombs in the traverse of a trench for hours until help came.  We at the front, however, do know the names; we meet the officers and men.  Ours is the intimacy which we may not interpret except in general terms.

Every article, every dispatch, every letter, passes through the censor’s hand.  But we are never told what to write.  The liberty of the Press is too old an institution in England for that.  Always we may learn why an excision is made.  The purpose is to keep information from the enemy.  It is not like fighting Boers or Filipinos, this war of walls of men who can turn the smallest bit of information to advantage.

Intelligence officers speak of their work as piecing together the parts of a jig-saw puzzle.  What seems a most innocent fact by itself may furnish the bit which gives the figure in the picture its face.  It does not follow because you are an officer that you know what may and what may not be of service to the enemy.

A former British officer who had become a well-known military critic, in an account of a visit to the front mentioned having seen a battle from a certain church tower.  Publication of the account was followed by a tornado of shell-fire that killed and wounded many British soldiers.  Only a staff specialist, trained in intelligence work and in constant touch with the intelligence department, can be a safe censor.  At the same time, he is the best friend of the correspondent.  He knows what is harmless and what may not be allowed.  He wants the Press to have as much as possible.  For the more the public knows about its soldiers, the better the morale of the people, which reflects itself in the morale of the army.

The published casualty lists giving the names of officers and men and their battalions is a means of causing casualties.  From a prisoner taken the enemy learns what battalions were present at a given fight; he adds up the numbers reported killed and wounded and ascertains what the fight cost the enemy and, in turn, the effect of the fire from his side.  But the British public demanded to see the casualty lists and the British Press were allowed to gratify the desire.  They appeared in the newspapers, of course, days after the nearest relative of the dead or wounded man had received official notification from the War Office.