It is inevitable, perhaps, that a rather time-honoured War Office hand--thirteen years of it, covering different periods between 1887 and 1918--should entertain somewhat mixed feelings with regard to the Press. As long as I can remember, practically, the War Office has provided a sort of Aunt Sally for the young men of Fleet Street to take cock-shies at when they can think of nothing else to edify their readers with, and uncommonly bad shots a good many of them have made. Assessment at the hands of the newspaper world confronts every public department. Nor can this in principle be objected to; healthy, well-informed criticism is both helpful and stimulating. But although many of the attacks delivered upon the War Office by the Fourth Estate, in the course of that perpetual guerilla warfare which is carried on by journalism in general against the central administration of the army, have been fully warranted, the fact remains that no small proportion of them has been based upon misapprehension, and that a good many of them can be put down to pure ignorance. Never has this been more apparent than during the progress of the Great War. But a reason for this suggests itself at once; many newspapers, no doubt, for the time being lost the services of members of their staff who possessed some qualification for expatiating upon military questions. It has to be acknowledged that the Press was badly treated by the War Office and G.H.Q. at the outset. This circumstance may have contributed towards setting up relations during the contest between us in Whitehall and the world of journalism which were not always too cordial. The question of correspondents in the war zone naturally cropped up at a very early stage, and the decision arrived at, for better or for worse, was that none of them were to go. The wisdom of the attitude taken up by the military authorities in this matter is a question of opinion; but my view was, and still is, that the newspapers were treated injudiciously and that the decision was wrong. I was, indeed, placed in the uncomfortable position of administering a policy which I disliked, and which I believed to be entirely mistaken. It, moreover, practically amounted to a breach of faith.