True, we correspondents knew what a powerful machine it was. We knew it was getting stronger every day. But America did not, and Germany meanwhile was granting interviews, taking correspondents to the trenches and up in balloons and aeroplanes in their campaign for neutral sympathy. Now France, or rather General Joffre--for his was the first and last word on the subject of war correspondents--had decided to combat the German advertising. Captain Blank was still waiting in Paris for my copy--cable copy marked "rush"--which I dictated in bed. "This army has nothing to hide," said one of the greatest generals to me, during the trip. "You see what you like, go where you desire and if you cannot get there, ask." While our party did all the spectacular stunts the Germans had offered the correspondents in such profusion, such as visiting the trenches, where once a German shell burst thirty feet from us, splattering us with mud, where also snipers sent rifle balls hissing only a few feet away, our greatest treats were the scientific daily discourses given by Captain Blank, touching 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 giving full details of the position and name of every German regiment, even to the date of its arrival. Our Captain explained the second great German blunder after their failure to occupy Paris. This was their mistake in not at once swinging a line across Northern France, cutting off Calais and Boulogne, where they could have leveled a pistol at England's head. He explained that the superior French cavalry dictated that the line should instead run straight north through the edge of Belgium to the sea. And he refuted by many military arguments the theory that cavalry became obsolete with the advent of aeroplanes. Cavalry formerly was used to screen the infantry advance and also for shock purposes in the charges. Now that the lines are established, it is mostly used with the infantry in the trenches; but in the great race after the Marne to turn the western flanks it was the cavalry's ability to outstrip the infantry that kept the Germans from possession of all Northern France. In other words, the French chauseurs, more brilliant than the Uhlans, kept that northern line straight until the infantry corps had time to take up position. Once, on passing from the second line to a point less than a hundred yards from the German rifles, I came face to face with a general of division. He was sauntering along for his morning's stroll, which he chose to take in the trenches with his men rather than on the safer roads at the rear. He smoked a cigarette and seemed careless of danger. He continually patted his soldiers on the back as he passed and called them "his little braves."