Produced by Brian Sogard, Diane Monico, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net FIGHTING FRANCE BY STEPHANE LAUZANNE LIEUTENANT IN THE FRENCH ARMY, CHEVALIER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR EDITOR IN CHIEF OF THE "MATIN," MEMBER OF THE FRENCH MISSION TO THE UNITED STATES WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JAMES M. BECK, LL.D. LATE ASSISTANT ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES TRANSLATED BY JOHN L. B. WILLIAMS, A.M. SOMETIME FELLOW OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1918 Copyright, 1918, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Printed in the United States of America TO MY CHIEFS MY COMRADES MY MEN WHO ARE FIGHTING FOR THE GREAT CAUSE OF LIBERTY AND CIVILIZATION THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED FOREWORD To be Editor-in-Chief of one of the greatest newspapers in the world at twenty-seven years of age is a distinction, which has been enjoyed by few other men, if any, in the whole history of journalism. There may have been exceptional instances, where young men by virtue of proprietary and inherited rights, have nominally, or even actually, succeeded to the editorial control of a great metropolitan newspaper. But in the case of M. Stephane Lauzanne, his assumption of duty in 1901 as Editor-in-Chief of the Paris _Matin_ was wholly the result of exceptional achievement in journalism. Merit and ability, and not merely friendly influences, gave him this position of unique power, for the _Matin_ has a circulation in France of nearly two million copies a day, and its Editor-in-Chief thereby exerts a power which it would be difficult to over-estimate.