Passed by the censor

5–12 September 1914

First Battle of the Marne

LETTER TO THE AUTHOR FROM SENATOR LAFAYETTE YOUNG

Take the battle of the Marne, for instance. Who knows so well concerning it as men like yourself, who were in Paris or near it during the seven days' conflict?

PART FIVE

At the outbreak of the European war, the author, who was then stationed in Paris as the correspondent of the _New York Times_, was refused, with all other correspondents, any credentials permitting him to enter the fighting area. He entered it later, immediately after the battle of the Marne, with what were in Paris considered sufficient credentials. But he was arrested, returned to Paris as a prisoner of war and lodged in the Cherche Midi prison, the famous military prison, where Dreyfus was confined. He was released upon the intervention of Ambassador Herrick, but still baffled in getting to the front as a war correspondent, he volunteered for service in the Red Cross as an orderly on a motor ambulance. A few of the descriptions in the following pages are written from notes made during the two months he remained in that service.

PART FIVE

At the beginning of 1915, the author was officially accredited as a correspondent attached to the French army, and at the beginning of February sent to his paper the longest cable despatch permitted to pass the censor since the beginning of the war, and the first authentic detailed description of the French forces after the battle of the Marne.

CHAPTER IV

The prediction was nearly right. It took longer than two weeks to clear the ways; but when the battle of the Marne began, almost the last batch of tourists were at Havre, awaiting their boat.