AT THE FRONT. Imaginative War Correspondents. III.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume I, Issue 7, 1 April 1900, Page 487

AT THE FRONT.

Imaginative War Correspondents.

111.

L*§|j By Frederic Villiers. i^^J

(All Rights Reserved)

Keuiiuauy 6th. Vv-" °HE War has lately developed a new \CS type of journalism, which, as a member of the older school of war correspondents, I much deplore, for it is a difficult matter to keep pace with certain up-to-date members of the profession now in South Africa. First of all there is the "Snap-shot under fire" photographer, which I thought in this campaign, owing to the accurate shooting of the Boer, would not last long, but he is still as bold and rampant as ever. I was admiring the pluck and restlessness of a colleague in taking these snap-shots under bullet fire of the foe, especially one representing a section of the Dublin Fusiliers at the battle of Colenso. The men are blazing away into space from behind rocky boulders, and I was wondering how on earth the intrepid artist could get such good results under such exciting circumstances. The exact focus, distance, and, above all, the sun in the right place, while the Boers were blazing away at himself and his camera, and in spite of the men around him nursing cover, no doubt swearing and cursing at the artist who, by his bold attitude, was drawing an extra hail of nickel bullets. Eventually arriving in Natal, where most of these lovely pictures came from, I received a shock regarding the snap-shots in question. I was speaking to a young officer Vor,. L-r-No. 7.-38.

of the " Dubs " about those photos appearing in a weekly illustrated paper, when he laughingly told me that the special artist in question had asked him to pose a number of his men as " artists' models " behind a ridge of rocks at Frere, and, to his surprise, they came out in the papers as " The Dubs under fire at the battle of Colenso, by our special artist under lire." Travelling from Maritzburg to Durban, an officer of the Colonial Staff, who was, for a time, in charge of two guns at the front, told me that the same snap-shotter had asked him to pose his gun with men skirmishing round it, and this picture afterwards appeared as a snap-shot taken in the throes of a bloody battle. Then I was referred to a photo, " On board the armoured train," supposed to be taken under fire. Here the models distinctly gave the artist away. Many of the men are playing their parts, pulling their triggers at imaginary Boers, but others cannot resist turning towards the camera with a pleasant grin to have, as Tommy says, " their mugs struck." I simply mention these facts for the benefit of the public, who are apt to look upon photos as above suspicion. In fact, as a colleague of mine once said : " You know the camera can never lie." After all it depends on whether there is a liar at the back of the camera! Of course there is some excellent photographic work being

done on the battlefield, especially by Mr. Lynch, of the Illustrated London Neios. 'Rut the battlefield and the " fighting-line," in our days, are two different things. This heroic war artist is even beaten in audacity by a war correspondent who has lately enlightened his readers with a description of the battle of Magersfontein. Rut that this article appeared in a sedate London daily, and was copied in the colonial papers here, as by a " master-hand," I would not refer to it. One cannot help admiring the sangfroid of the writer. He does not hesitate for one moment, but lets his imagination run riot through three columns of the most soul-stirring blood-and-thunder —as Mr. Atlrin's would say — "tommy-rot." At the outset he starts in with, probably the most flagrant inaccuracy a correspondent can be capable of. This for instance : "At every point of vantage, Cronje, with consummate generalship, had posted his artillery," and, "At the bottom of the kopje, right under the muzzle of his guns." Now, for a fact, Cronje had no artillery at Magersfontein till many hours after the battle. I myself saw the first shot fired about 5.80 of the evening of the day of the battle from a solitary gun in the centreof hisposition. Then this correspondent rants on : " The Boer forces were estimated at from 15,000 to 22,000 men." Never did any sane man admit that there were more than 5,000 of the enemy. He is also just as much astray regarding the number of men on our side. Then comes the following drivel, I say drivel for it absolutely borders on insanity : " Our forces, estimated at about 11,000 men of all arms, including the never-to-be-forgotten section of the Naval Brigade, to whom England owes a debt of gratitude too deep for words to portray, for their steadiness, valour, and accuracy of shooting saved England from disaster on this blacker (sic.) day that Scotland has known since the Crimea " This surely can only be the ravings of a lunatic. We had one 4"7 naval gun, firing Lyddite, and, to this day, it is mere supposition regarding the damage to life that gun was capable of. Then comes the disaster to

the Highland Brigade, and death of Wauchope, which would be almost comical but for the sadness and seriousness of the incidents portrayed : " The best, the bravest, fell in that wild hail of lead. G-eneral Wanchope was down, riddled with bullets, yet gasping, dying, bleeding from every vein, the Highland chieftain raised himself on his hands and knees, and cheering his men forward," etc. Can the public for a moment believe a man riddled with bullets and bleeding from every vein could take any interest in passing events ? For a fact, not a soul knew what had become of the G-eneral for two whole days. Some were in hopes that he was a prisoner and only wounded. His body was eventually found far ahead of his men, dead and alone. He was the first man to carry out his own order, and he died in the van. For the love of sanity I hope the British public will not believe this idiotic trash — for one can hardly speak calmly of this folly. In speaking of the Guards, he says : " They got within hitting distance of the foe, swept through brisket and breast, bone. Out of their trenches the Guardsmen tossed the Boers, as men in English harvest fields toss the hay when the reapers' scythes have whitened the corn fields " The Guards may number some big men among them, but the Boers are not a puny people. The only trenches that the enemy vacated were two held by the Scandinavian Contingent, and there was "no tossing." Tlien followed this picture of Cronje : " Cronje knew the metal of our men, and an ironical smile played round his iron mouth, and still he stayed within his natural fortress, But death sat ever at his elbow, for our gunners dropped the Lyddite shell and the howling shrapnel " (I wonder if the writer has ever heard shrapnel. It never howls— nor does it barfc) " all along his lines until the trenches ran blood, and many of his guns were silenced." But Cronje had no guns, and I am afraid that metallic smile was too far off to be viewed by any one not possessing secondsight, at least. Then this interesting correspondent describes : "In the valley, behind his outer line of hills, his dead lay piled in

hundreds, and the slope of the hill was a chavnel-house where the wounded all writhed amidst masses of dead, a ghastly tribute to English gunnery." Of course, this is what we should have liked to have seen, but no binocular on that battlefield could show us what was hidden behind those hills, and not even that war correspondent would dare to go and see for himself. The stuff is all romance and very misleading. He finishes the lurid article with the bold statement: " We left nearly three thousand dead and wounded of grim old Cronje's men as a token that the lion of England had bared his teeth in earnest." General Methuen himself would doubt whether in all his four great fights at Belmont, Grasspans, and Modder River he had punished the enemy to the extent of half that number. It is letters of this description that are published seriously by London dailies, which create friction between the Press and the British commanding officers. The gross exaggerations, the lurid local colour, and the purely imaginative element as, for instance, au incident I was about to forget but which is perhaps the funniest thing of all in this phantasy of Magersfontein. In describing the Highland attack, he relates : "In a second, in the twinkling of an eye, the search-lights of the Boers fell broad and clear as the noonday sun on the ranks of the doomed Highlanders." The Boers had no search-lights whatever, the Highland Brigade advanced in a mist, and nothing was seen by many but the flash of the Mausers piercing the haze of early morning. How can British officers look on war correspondents aud war artists with any feeling but disgust when bogus descriptions and fictions like these I have just mentioned are seriously published in the English Press ? Both war artists and correspondents must depend on outside information and material for sketches sometimes, for they cannot be everywhere. But when it comes to the question of if the enemy had artillery or no, or if search-lights were used, or whether 300 or 3,'0U0 were killed and wounded, the correspondent who cannot glean better information ought to try

his hand at " shilling shockers." And the artist who poses his soldiers and guns in lino of battle, unless from the actual front, and palms them off as his heroic snap-shots under fire, is too smart and clover for his profession. Perhaps one may seoin rather bitter regarding these inventive members of one's profession, but lately the British authorities have not been courteous to war correspondents, and no wonder, for tho authorities seldom discriminate, and if one falls foul of them, we are all more or loss tarred with the same brush. As an instance of this, finding things hang fire in Cape Colony, I made my way to Natal, thinking I should bo in tiir.e for tho movement for the relief of Ladysmith, which eventually ended in Buller being compelled to recross the Tugela after the disaster at Spion Kop. It is during a reverse that tho less discreet correspondents are looked on with disfavour, for they aro liable to misconstrue a strategic retrograde movement into a retreat, and cause unnecessary alarm. I had the greatest difficulty in getting to the front, but at last, after much persuasion, I was granted a pass as far as Kail-head Camp but not to join my colleagues, because a sufficient number of correspondents wore already there. I left Durban at 4.50 in the afternoon, and on arriving at Maritzburg had my pass vised by the Stuff Officer for Chievely, and, to clinch the matter, a prominent official was courteous enough to allow me to proceed in his special carriage ; yet, under the wing of this officer, when I arrived at Estcourt at 3.30 a.m , I van fired out, and not allowed to proceed till my pass was countersigned by the officer in command at Estcourt. " Very well," said 1 ; " where is this officer ? " " Oh, you can't see him now, he's asleep." "But," I replied, "the train is about to proceed ! " " Well, you can't go ; you must remain until the pass is signed." It was a wet, disgusting morning, and I was about to roll myself up in my rug on the platform till dawn, when the Station Staff Officer was good enough to offer me his office to sleep in, and told me that I was not alone in my misery, for all passengers had to be

turned out of the train, there was no distinction. The order is very strict, from General Buller, to stop every one. " When will the commandant be ready to sign my pass ? " said I. "At 7.30, to-morrow morning, if you go to his tent you can get it signed, and proceed by a train leaving at eight." Well, I thought, this is not so bad after all. I shall be at the front by midday. So I went to sleep till 6 a.m., when I paced the station till the commandant should wake On arriving at his tent I found the officer had gone for his morning ride, and would not be back until eight. " But that won't do," said I ; "at eight the train leaves." " Can't be helped. He won't be back." I returned to the station and found some eight passengers bewailing their fate. One was a Colonial officer, in mufti, about to take command of a volunteer ambulance corps. Another was the chief detective of Durban, others were Jew sutlers, and, above all, one of General Buller's baggage-drivers, and a special su'ler, who was deploring the fact that he had fresh eggs and a case of apples for the General, and at least his eg^s might spoil. When I informed the little crowd of v the absence of the commandant,- to say the least of it they were furious. They were even more furious when the eight o'clock train rolled out of the station, and left us standing in the drizzling rain. Though we were all under martial law, we rather kicked at the behaviour of the commandant, who kept us waiting while he had his bath, breakfast, and the necessary cigar. The order came that we might see him at his his office at ten. Huddled under the verandah of a tin building, out of the rain, we stootj? for two hours waiting for the gentleman in office to attend to our wants. At last he arrived, and passed into his office, and evidently we poor wretches — for now a few. .Kaffirs 'had joinel our little crowd —

were too offensive for his official eyes, so he closed the door in our faces. Perhaps some of our indignant looks may have made him a little nervous, for when the door opened it was only ajar, and the slit was guarded by a sergeant, who ushered us in one by one. The whole scene reminded me of a police supervision of passports on the Russian frontiers. The sergeant, after securing the door — firmly, advanced to the table, at which sat the colonel in command, with a subordinate officer at his side, who received the piece of paper representing my pass from the sergeant, and, apparently suspicious of some contamination, held it gingerly between thumb and finger, read it, and theu passed it on to the colonel, who also read it, and though he could see perfectly well that it was signed and guaranteed to the front, he hemmed and hawed, and at last said ; " And what may your business be? " " Oh, don't bother about that,"' said the applicant, "I have been badgered about for the last six days getting this pass, and I am rather tired. Kindly make out a pass back to Durban. Thank you." The next train for Ohievely left at a little after one, and we had been kept by the commandant since three o'clock in the morning, some nine hours, waiting for his august signature. After all a war correspondent is not a Jew sutler nor a Kaffir, and might receive a little more attention while he is in the execution of his duty. Of course one does not always meet with a Jack-in-office of this description With General Lord Methuen's and General French's columns all officers are most courteous to correspondents bearing their credentials —at least, that is my own experience ; but, probably, when a few more letters are published after the fashion I have drawn attention to, our military friends will love us less.