THE WAR CORRESPONDENT, LIMITED.

Otago Witness, Volume 12, Issue 2639, 12 October 1904, Page 72

THE WAR CORRESPONDENT, LIMITED.

An article in Maemillan's on "The Rise and Fall of the War Correspondent" makes j timely reading. Henry Crabbe Robinson, ■ who was sept by The Times to th* Penin- j sula in 1808 as its special correspondent, to , report Hie progress of the British army under} Sir John Moore, was probably the firrt "war correspondent. Sobinson, however, did not witness the operations, but reported them from the shores of the Bay ' of Biscay. "The first journalist who best answers the description of a war cbrrespondaait as the term is now understood — that is to say, the representative of a newspaper who accompanies an army in tho field, ar.d sends his communications from the scene of hostilities — was Charles Lewis Gruncisen, who represented the Morning Post in. Spain during the Carlist war of 1837. The- citatom of newspapers sending repiesentatives with 1 armies in the field may be said to really date only from the - Crimean war, in the middle of the nineteenth century. Till then the public gained its information of the progress acd varying fortunes of a campaign from balated official despatches, supplemented by extracts? -f rom private ktters irom offi:«i-s engaged in the war, which were published by the news■papers. The first war correspondent to obtain renown was Mr (vow Sir) William Howard Russell, who represented The Times in ihe Crimea : and so it has-come to ( pass that he is popularly regarded as thef first of the war ccrrc-spondents. His position with the troops, being unrecognised by the military authorities, was attended by many discomforts nnd inconvenience?." Lord Raglan would not help him. though he did represent the "Thunderer." "'Throughout the campaign, therefore, Mr Russell had to victual and clothe himself and provide forage for his horse as best he could. A ham cost him £5, a turkey £5, a little pot of marmalade ss, a pair of -boots £6. But the trouble was not so much the high prices of provision and clothing as their meagre and uncertain supply. What a queer figure he must have presented; mounted on a- fiddle-headi?d, ewe-necked horse, dresed in" all sorts of odds and ends, including a commissariat' officers cap with - a broad gold bandi a rifleman's patrol jacket, breeches,* and Blucher boots'- with 'huge- brass^sspurs,, riding bere ancT there, as he, pleasedy^over the field of battle. The army viewed with mingled amusement and amazement the proceeding of this newspaper man, coolly writing in his notebook while shot" and shell were wlvlzzing and bursting round him."'

The first to s#e the possibilities -of the telegraph in the rapid despatch of war news and to sbartle ths breakfast tables of tho kingdom with the description of jresterday's battle was Archibald Forbes, of the Daily News. "He it was who recognised that it is no part of the duty of the war correspondent to describe in detail the tactical or strategical movements of tiie rival forces on ths field of conflict. Tha6. kind of work may very properly be left to military men in the service magazine®. What the" general public look for in the newspapers is not technical records of tho milita-ry operations, but bright, graphic, vivid pictures of the war; its thrilling episodes, its path-stic incidents, its glories', and its disasters, with interesting narratives of personal experiences and adventures. That is exactly what Forbes supplied.

"One of the finest achievements of a war correspondent was that of Holt White, a representative of tks New York/Tribune, in the Franco-Piussian war. He witnessed the battle of Sedan, from the Prussian headquarters on Thursday, September 1, 1870. At its conclusion h« rode to Brussels, but there the post-office authorities refused to transmit his despatch to London, and even threatened to arrest him for saying that the French had been defeated. He then went on to Calais, crossed to Dover by special steamer, and took a special train to London, where he arrived at 5 o'clock on day morning. Next day there was a description of the battle, six columns long, in the Tribune. It was not till Tuesday that the- London newspapers had accounts of the conflict fromtheir correspondents. But the most famous deeds of physical endurance in the race for news between war correspondents are told of Archibald Forbes. * In the Servian war of 1876, Semlin, the nearest telegraph station, was 120 miles distant from the scene of the battle. So soon as Forbes knew the result he rode off, and all night long he kept at a gallop, changing horses every 15 miles. At Seinlin he had one long drink of beer, and then at once sat down, to the task of writing, hour after hour, against time, the tidings of which he was the bearer. After he had written the story of the battle and put •it on the wires, he lay down in, his clothes and' slept 20 hours without waking. He had witnessed" the battle, which lasted six hours, ridden 120 miles, and written and despatched a telegraphic message four columns in length to the Daily News, all in the space of 30 hours. During the Grseco-Turkish war the Morning Post was first out with important news from the seat of war. This triumph was due to the use of the bicycle hj their special correspondent, Wilfrid Pollock. After the decisive battle of Domoko had been won by the Turks, the Greeks made no attempt to hold their strong position at the Phourka Pass, and all the English correspondents raced to Athens, straining every nerve to be the first to dlespatch the important news. They were all taken by a Greek steamer to Chalcis, where they arrived at midnight. Pollock had a bicycle, and while the others were engaged in bidding against each other for the speediest means of transit, he was well on his way to Athens, which he reached over six hours in adyaiico of his closest rivals^ so that his

[ paper had a full day's start with the j news."

The telegraphing of war news is the most costly form of newspaper enterprise. Even at the reduced press rates, "a newspaper often finds that its account for its own special news of the struggle between Russia and Japan amounts in the Meek to £1000 or £1200, irrespective of the cablegrams of the news agienciep, for which it has to pay also substantial sums. Besides, there is an amount of almo&t inevitable waste. Some of the costly cables sent to London by zealous correspondents cannot be used for one reason or another. A striking illustration of how money may be frasted 1 was furnished recently when tite special correspondent of a London paper cabled r long message from Tokio at a cost of £200, The message was an important one, .worth eyen this" great expenditure of money, and..;the., correspondent was perfectly justified intending ft, but the Very same message had previously been issued by the Japanese Legation ya. London, and consequently the £200 was literally thrown into the waste-paper basket. A leading paper ;will haYe-'-six ,or more special correspondents Mattered . over the area- of war, and each of these, in salary, travelling, and other personal expenses, represents an outlay of at v least £2000 a year.' The war correspondent is now recognised by all the Powers. He is regularly attached to tite army which he accompanies in the field 1 , takes Tatnk os am officer, is under military law, and is allowed to draw food for himself and his servant and forage for his horse from the Commissariat Department. Of course; he relies on his own resources, so far as possible, for his provisions and transport, and when circumstances compel him to resort to ths Army Commissariat he pays for what he receives." But the war has been officially recognised only to be officially censored. "It was impossible, of course, that the freedom of. comment allowed to Mr Russell in the Crimea should be continued to his successors. The war correspondent cannot be, in the nature of things, a welcome guest to the commanding officer, who naturally prefers to conduct the campaign in the dark, or at least to restrict the" public knowledge of affairs- to what he himself thinks fit tp say in, his own official despatches." The hospitality of the army is at the war correspondent's service,^ but he must not write, says Maemilia-n's. In the Boer war the correspondents suffered great inconvenienbe from the Censor, who would delay a message in order to suggest <some such alteration as "doubtless" for "no doubt" — aa alteration whose only effect, it seems to us, was to rob the telegraphs of the price of a word. "War corresjjondents went out in ' swarms .to Tokio, on the way, as they' thought, to the front; but they were left stranded, high and dry, in the Japanese capital. They were allowed to lea.m as little as possible of the progress of the war. **H-ere is an amusing despatch from The Times' representative : 'General Fukushima, of the* General Sta-ff, to-day informed the foreign correspondents here that yesterday a force began to land on j^he Liaotung' Peninsula. The correspondents asked the- General where_^and in what strength the landing was being effected. General Fukushima merely smiled, whereupon the correspondents asked again : 'Are they landing in the east, west, north, or south?' 'Out of the skies, from heaven,' * replied the General. The .silence of the Russo-Japa-nese war is really appalling, We are told by the,, correspondents that at one ■point the roar of the guns is heard in the distance, and that at another columns of smoke are seen ascending. That is all we learn until the bald despatches arrive from Tokis and) St. Petersburg. Does this denote the end of war correspondence by newspaper representatives? 'I was at its birth,' said Sir William Russell recently. 'Now lam at its graveside.' "