For instance, from every single trench which also contains an artillery observatory the exact distance is recorded to every other trench, to every house, hillock, tree, and shrub behind which the enemy might advance.  In fact, the German organization which threatened to rule the world seems overtaken by French organization which became effective since the war began.

All through the trip it was this new spirit of organization that impressed me most.  I have sent you many cables on the new spirit of the French, but never before dared to picture them in the role which to my mind they never before occupied—­that of organizers.  I started the trip to see the real French Army in the most open but unexpectant frame of mind.  For weeks I had read only laconic official communiques that told me nothing.  I saw well-fed officers in beautiful limousines rolling about Paris with an air that the war was a million miles away.  The best way now to explain my enthusiasm is to give the words of a famous English correspondent, also just returned from a similar trip, (he is Frederic Villiers, who began war corresponding with Archibald Forbes at the battle of Plevna, and this is his seventeenth war,) who said: 

“In all my life this trip is the biggest show I have ever had.”

The first point on the trip where the French intelligence proved superior to the German was that I was allowed to pay my own expenses.  With the exception of motor cars and a hundred courtesies extended by the scores of French officers, I paid my own railroad fare, hotel and food bills.

“This army has nothing to hide,” said one of the greatest Generals to me.  “You see what you like, go where you desire, and if you cannot get there, ask.”

This General was de Maud’Huy, the man who with a handful of territorials stopped the Prussian Guard before Arras shortly after the battle of the Marne and who since then has never lost a single trench.  His name is now scarcely known, even in France, but I venture the prophecy that when the French Army marches down the Champs Elysees after the war is over, when the vanguard passes under the Arch de Triomph, de Maud’Huy—­a nervous little firebrand—­will be right up in the front rank with Joffre.

While our party did all the spectacular stunts the Germans have offered the correspondents in such profusion, such as visiting the trenches, where in our case a German shell burst thirty feet from us, splattering us with mud, also where snipers sent rifle balls hissing only a few feet away, almost our greatest treats were the scientific daily discourses given by our Captain concerning the entire history of the first campaign, explaining each event leading up to the present position of the two armies.  He gave the exact location of every French and allied army corps on the entire front.

On the opposite side of the line he demonstrated the efficiency of the French secret service by detailing the position and name of every German regiment, also the date and the position it now holds.  Thus, we were able to know during the journey that it was the crack Prussian Guard that was stopped by de Maud’Huy’s Territorials and that the English section under General French was opposed by Saxons.