My Year of the War | Page 2

military power was the visit to
the British Grand Fleet; most humanly appealing, the time spent in
Belgium under German rule; most dramatic, the French victory on the

Marne; most precious, my long stay at the British front.
A traveller's view I had of Germany in the early period of the war; but I
was never with the German army, which made Americans particularly
welcome for obvious reasons. Between right and wrong one cannot be
a neutral. In foregoing the diversion of shaking hands and passing the
time of day on the Germanic fronts, I escaped any bargain with my
conscience by accepting the hospitality of those warring for a cause and
in a manner obnoxious to me. I was among friends, living the life of
one army and seeing war in all its aspects from day to day, instead of
having tourist glimpses.
Chapters
which deal with the British army in France and with the British fleet
have been submitted to the censor. Though the censor may delete
military secrets, he may not prompt opinions. Whatever notes of praise
and of affection which you may read between the lines or in them
spring from the mind and heart. Undemonstratively, cheerily as they
would go for a walk, with something of old-fashioned chivalry, the
British went to death.
Their national weaknesses and strength, revealed under external
differences by association, are more akin to ours than we shall realize
until we face our own inevitable crisis. Though one's ancestors had
been in America for nearly three centuries, he was continually finding
how much of custom, of law, of habit, and of instinct he had in
common with them; and how Americans who were not of British blood
also shared these as an applied inheritance that has been the most
formative element in the American crucible.
My grateful acknowledgments are due to the American press
associations who considered me worthy to be the accredited American
correspondent at the British front, and to Collier's and Everybody's; and
may an author who has not had the opportunity to read proofs request
the reader's indulgence.
FREDERICK PALMER. British Headquarters, France.

My Year Of The War

I "Le Brave Belge!"

The rush from Monterey, in Mexico, when a telegram said that general
European war was inevitable; the run and jump on board the Lusitania
at New York the night that war was declared by England against
Germany; the Atlantic passage on the liner of ineffaceable memory, a
suspense broken by fragments of war news by wireless; the arrival in
England before the war was a week old; the journey to Belgium in the
hope of reaching the scene of action!--as I write, all seem to have the
perspective of history, so final are the processes of war, so swift their
execution, and so eager is everyone for each day's developments. As
one grows older the years seem shorter; but the first year of the Great
War is the longest year most of us have ever known.
Le brave Belge! One must be honest about him. The man who lets his
heart run away with his judgment does his mind an injustice. A
fellow-countryman who was in London and fresh from home in the
eighth month of the war, asked me for my views of the relative
efficiency of the different armies engaged.
"Do you mean that I am to speak without regard to personal
sympathies?" I asked.
"Certainly," he replied.
When he had my opinion he exclaimed:
"You have mentioned them all except the Belgian army. I thought it
was the best of all."
"Is that what they think at home?" I asked.

"Yes, of course."
"The Atlantic is broad," I suggested.
This man of affairs, an exponent of the efficiency of business, was a
sentimentalist when it came to war, as Anglo-Saxons usually are. The
side which they favour--that is the efficient side. When I ventured to
suggest that the Belgian army, in a professional sense, was hardly to be
considered as an army, it was clear that he had ceased to associate my
experience with any real knowledge.
In business he was one who saw his rivals, their abilities, the
organization of their concerns, and their resources of competition with
a clear eye. He could say of his best personal friend: "I like him, but he
has a poor head for affairs." Yet he was the type who, if he had been a
trained soldier, would have been a business man of war who would
have wanted a sharp, ready sword in a well-trained hand and to leave
nothing to chance in a battle for the right. In Germany, where some of
the best brains of the country are given to making war a business, he
might have been a soldier who would rise to