[Illustration: MYRON T. HERRICK UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE From a hitherto unpublished drawing by Royer] PASSED BY THE CENSOR THE EXPERIENCE OF AN AMERICAN NEWSPAPER MAN IN FRANCE BY WYTHE WILLIAMS PARIS CORRESPONDENT OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, OFFICIALLY ACCREDITED TO THE FRENCH ARMIES ON THE WESTERN FRONT WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MYRON T. HERRICK FORMER UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO FRANCE NEW YORK E.P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE Copyright, 1916 By E.P. DUTTON & COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _TO VIOLA_ PREFACE Special correspondents in great numbers have come from America into the European "zone of military activity," and in almost equal numbers have they gone out, to write their impressions, their descriptions, their histories, their romances and songs. Other correspondents who are not "special," but who by the grace of the military authorities have been permitted to enter the forbidden territory, and by the favor of the censor have been allowed to tell what they saw there, have entered it again and again at regular intervals. These are the "regular" correspondents, who lived in Europe before war was declared, and who during many idle hours speculated on what they would do with that great arm of their vocation--the cable--when the expected hour of conflict arrived. Few of their plans worked out, and new ones were formed on the minute--on the second. For the Germans did not cut the cable, as some of the correspondents, in moments of despair, almost hoped they would do, and the great American public clamored insistently for the "news" with its breakfast. It is a journalist's methods in covering the biggest, the hardest "story" that newspapers were ever compelled to handle, that this book attempts to describe. Wythe Williams. Paris, October, 1915. AN ENDORSEMENT By Georges Clemenceau Former Premier of France. "In the crowded picture which this American journalist has presented we recognize our men as they are. And he pronounces such judgment as to arouse our pride in our friends, our brothers and our children. Such a people are the French of to-day. They must also be the French of to-morrow. Through them France sees herself regenerate. "Of our army, Mr. Wythe Williams says: "'It seems to me to be invincible from the standpoints of power, intelligence and humanity.' "Is there not in that something like a judgment pronounced upon France before the people of the world? Where I am particularly surprised, I admit, is that the eye of a foreigner should have been so penetrating, and that our friendly guest should have coupled the idea of an 'invincible' army with the supreme ethical consideration of its 'humanity.' "Mr. Wythe Williams is right to proclaim this, even though it is something of a stroke of genius for a non-Frenchman to have discovered it."--(From an editorial in _L'Homme Enchainé_.) LETTER TO THE AUTHOR FROM SENATOR LAFAYETTE YOUNG