The Balkan Peninsula

han war operations. After getting through to Staff headquarters at Stara Zagora and to Mustapha Pasha, which was about twelve miles from the

would not be such a sad thing after all to be sent back to headquarters, takes a generous view of what a mile is. (Perhaps he has been used to Irish miles, which are of the elastic kind; short when you pay a car fare, long, very long, at other times.) But, supposing, with great energy and at dread risk of being sent back to headquarters a correspondent has walked one mile and one yard; or his horse, which cannot read notices, has unwittingly carried him on; and supposing that he has made

e, you can pass along the camp chatter, the stories brought in by Greeks anxious to curry favour, the descriptions of the capture of Constantinople by peasants whose first cousins were s

larly sad. There are so many precious observations being wasted, theories which cannot be expressed, sagacious "I told you so's" which are smothered. We are at the rear of an army, and endless trains of transport move on; and if we can by chance catch the sound of a distant gun we are happy

less than sympathy. It is their impression that they can beat the Turks; but that afterwards they may have to meet an attempt to neutralise their victory. So they are anxious to mask every detail of th

thin a generation reasserted their right to be a nation. They permit no Turkish names to remain on their maps. Not only do the Arabic characters go, but also the Turkish names. Eski Sagrah, for example, gives place to the title it has on the best English maps. "Sagrah" means in Turkish a

ural machinery. But in his city of Sofia, "the little Paris," as he likes to hear it called, and in his towns the Bulgarian has become keen and bustling. He rather aspires to be thought Parisian in manner. A "middle class" begins to grow up. The Bulgarian prospers mightily as a trader, and when he makes money he devotes his son to a profession, to the staff of the army, the law, to public life. Also the Bu

eption of Mustapha Pasha-where the Second Army had failed at its task and was set to work on a dull siege, and was consequently very bad-tempered-the famous censorship

to be despatched except the "Te Deums." It was an aggravation of the Japanese censorship, and if it is accepted as a model for future combatant States the "war correspondent" will become extinct. I am not disposed to claim that an army in the field should carry on its operations under the eyes of newspaper correspondent

riticised, but it cannot be held suspect. Throughout the campaign there was some favouritism, the Russians having first place, the French next, the English and Americans next, the Italians, Germans, Austrians, and others coming last. The differentiation between nations was comprehensible enough, in view of the political situation in Europe, but differentiations between different papers of equal standing of the same country cannot be defended. As I ended the campaign one of the three favoured English correspondents, I speak on this point without bitterness. Indeed, I found no valid grounds for abusing the

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oad from Com

be mentioned, would not allow photographs of reservists to be sent forward because they were not in full uniform, would not allow the fact that Serbian troops were before Adrianople to be recorded. Indeed, the censo

d to him to make sure that all heard. Thus we all learned how the other man's imagination was working, and telegraphing was reduced to a complete farce. Private letters had to pass through the same ordeal, and one correspondent, with a turn of humour, wrote an imaginary private letter full of the most

soldiers, had passed their pitiful little messages through the censor, those messages were not telegraphed, but posted on to the Staff headquarters and then censored again, sometimes stopped. Certes, the treasures of strategical obse

, and had to be prevented from knowing anything of what was going on. The courageous course would have been to have put them under a definite embargo for a period. That was not followed, and the same end was sought by a series of irritating tricks and evasions. The facts argue against the continuance of the war correspondent. An army really can never be sure of its victory until the battle is over. If it allows the journalists to come forward to see an expected victory and the victory does not come, then awkwa

icate with one's office to get instructions. One correspondent, arriving at Sofia at the end of the campaign, found that he had been recalled a

in a firm way at the outset. The Bulgarian enterprise against the Turks was so audacious, the need of secrecy in regard to equipment was so pressing, that there was no place for the journalist. Under the circumstances a nation with more experience of affairs and more confidence in hers

alists to see anything of their operations which might be useful to Austria or Roumania in a future campaign. Yet it would not have been proper to have allowed correspondents other than the Austrians and Roumanians to go to the front, because that would perhaps have created a diplomatic question, which would h

trian attaché to see anything of what went on. The attachés were even worse treated than the correspondents, because, as the campaign developed, the Bulgarians got to understand that some of us were trustworthy, and we were given certain facilities for seeing. But we were st

he position that it was able to exercise little check on its war correspondents; and the Bulgarians had everything which was recorded as being done in the Turkish army sent on to them. They said it was a great help to them. I think the outlook for war correspondents in the future is a gloomy one,

of the greatest achievements of the craft were in the Crimean War, the various Turco-Russian wars, and the Greco-Turkish struggle. It is an incidental proof of the po

ned to Kirk Kilisse from the Bulgarian lines at Chatalja, and had amused myself in an odd hour with burrowing among a great

ticular telegraph office was to forward telegrams to Sofia, a ten days' journey, by bullock wagon and railway, to give them time to mature. Now here, piping hot, were the stories of the war. There was the touching prose poem about King Ferdinand following his troops to the front in a military train, which

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n House of R

ut that King Ferdinand during the campaign lived in temporary palaces at Stara Zagora and Kirk Ki

for the purposes of the public it was a very good story of a battle. Those men who, after great hardships, were enabled to see the actual battle found that the poor messages which the censor permitted them to send took ten days or more in transmission

days after. But it would have been absurd to have waited, since "our special correspondent" had seen it all in advance, right down to the embrace of the Turkish delegate and the Bulgarian delegate, and knew that some of the conditions w

he "Attractive Occupations" series on "How to be a

neral appearance of officers and men. Also learn a few military phrases of their language. Ascer

graph communication with your newspaper. For the rest you may decide

. It will be handy also to have any books which have be

ard not to become enslaved by them. If, for instance, you wait for official notices of battles, you will be much hampered

ield, toasting your bacon at a fire made of a broken-down gun carriage with a bayonet taken f

which he accompanies. His despatches, published in his newspaper and telegraphed promptly to the other side, give to them at a cheap cost that information of what is going on behind their enemy's screen of scouts which is so vital to tactical, and sometimes to strategical, dispositions. To try to obtain that information an army pours

he leash to get to the front, waiting and fussing, he was working, reconstructing the operations with maps and a fine imagination, and never allowing his paper to want for news. I think that he was quite prepared to have taken pupils for his new school of war correspondents. Often he would come to me for a yarn-in hal

gh to allow fanciful descriptions of Napoleonic strategy to go to the outer world. But, in

r vexedly about one message

roach to a joke I ever got out of a Bulgarian, for t

ties of the war correspondent was further illustrated to me on another

am I to sen

the bulleti

ial account of week-old happenings which are sent

pondent. You can add to t

he wires, though the way was blocked for exact observation. An enterprising story-maker had not very serious difficulties at

to any mention of the all-pervading mud which was the chief item of interest in the town's life. Yet you might have lost an army division in some of the puddles. (Bu

precautions of a strict censorship and a general hold-up of wires until their military value (and therefore their "news" value) has passed. If your paper wants picturesque stories

f your imagination leads you too palpably astray? In that case do not venture to be a war corresponde

no hope of useful work there. The attacking army was at a stand-still, and a long, wearisome siege-its operations strictly guarded from inspection-was in prospect. I decided to get back to Staff headquarters (

ck wagon carrying my baggage, an interpreter trundling my bicycle, I riding a small pony. The interpreter was gloomy and disinclined to face the hardships and dangers (mostly fancied) of the journey. Beside the driver (a Macedonian) marched a soldier with fixed bayonet. Persuasion was necessary to force the driver to undertake the journey and a friendly transport officer

RAL

n driver some jam and some meat

erstood, grinned, and gave no great trouble thereafter, though he was always in a state of

hatalja. But by then what must be the final battle of the war was imminent. Every hour of delay was dangerous. To go by cart meant a journey of seve

e knees and I had to walk the earth ragged-and by train I got to Chorlu. There a friendly artillery officer helped me to get a cart (springless) and two

re was again no appearance of Bashi-Bazouks. But thought of another danger obtruded as we came near the lines and encountered men from the Bulgarian army suffering from the choleraic dysentery which had then begun its ravages. To one dying soldier by the roadside I gave brandy; and then had to leave him wi

li seemed to make a rough and sometimes perilous journey, which had extended over seven days, worth while. The Commander, an artillery officer, welcomed me to a little mess which the Bulgarian officers and non-commissioned officers (six

second range which held the Turkish defence. Over the Turkish lines, like a standard, shone in the clear sky a crescent moon, within its tip a bright star. It seemed an omen, an omen of good to the Turks. My Australian eye instinctively sought for the Southern

ent, showing the high courage and moral of these peasant soldiers at an anxious time. To have witnessed it, participated in it, was personal reward sufficient for a week of toil

reached London eight days later, a week after the battle had been fought, when London was interested no longer in anything but the armistice negotiations. The reason was that the single telegraph line

point of view all the expens

s service as war correspondent with the

es were keen that correspo

hip checked a full recor

often had still to pass a second censorship at

nother censorship there, and yet another in Austri

s yield precedence to military messages, and at the front this meant that Press messages w

nearer Fleet Street had been published, and the acc

are willing to incur the very great expense of sending out war correspondents not for the news, day by day, but for what observation and criticism they could supply after the campaign was over. To a daily newspaper such matter is almost valu