At the beginning of the war, England permitted no correspondents at all at the front, and while a group was chosen, it was well into 1915 before they were even allowed to cross to France. Once they reached their headquarters they saw a good deal. They lived at or near the front instead of merely shooting up and back for a glimpse of it. They met many officers more or less intimately, saw the life behind and in the trenches; occasionally they were taken to observation stations from which they saw the effect of artillery fire, and even, perhaps, in the distance, charging infantry. Yet the number who had even these privileges was so limited that it included but one American. Mr. Frederick Palmer was thus chosen to act as a sort of correspondent at large for the American press. Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, an English journalist, acted in a similar capacity for the English press and, indeed, for the rest of the world, at the Dardanelles. He saw a great deal, as much, perhaps, as any reporter has seen of any campaign, but he was almost alone in his glory, and so far as the distribution of such privileges is concerned, the English have been more cautious than any of the belligerents. The French military authorities were more open minded, yet, while a few favored sons or the head of some press association whose position in Paris was almost as secure as that of an accredited diplomat, were quietly taken up to the trenches from the first, several months had elapsed before a group of correspondents went to the front. The desirability of publicity was better understood later, many neutral correspondents visited the trenches, and a few specially favored individuals spent some time at or near the front, but, even here, permission was obtained as a result of individual effort rather than as a part of a general scheme for handling, more or less impersonally, all applicants in good standing. In Germany, correspondents were rather freely taken to the various fronts from the first. One reason for this, was, perhaps, that the Germans, with their thorough organization of everything, including censorship and secret service, may have known better just how far they could go. They were not afraid of what might get through the wall, because the wall was tight, and they knew just what could get out and what couldn't. At any rate, many reporters, both native born and foreign, were getting glimpses of the various fronts while the English group were still eating their heads off in London. Once there, however, they saw less, as a rule, than the English correspondents finally did, for their trips were generally mere visits--a sort of Cook's tour in war time. A quotation from an article of mine in "Collier's" written after a trip through Belgium and down to the first-line German trenches at Givenchy will suggest the nature of these excursions: