In January, 1915, the British Foreign
Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, received a letter
from the former American president, Theodore
Roosevelt. He warned Grey that the policy of preventing journalists
from reporting the war was "harming Britain's cause in the United
States." After a Cabinet meeting on the subject, the government
decided to change its policy and to allow selected journalists to report
the war. Five men were chosen: Philip Gibbs
(Daily Chronicle and the Daily
Telegraph), Percival Philips (Daily
Express and the Morning Post),
William Beach Thomas (Daily
Mail and the Daily Mirror)
Henry Perry Robinson (The
Times and the Daily News) and
Herbert Russell (Reuters News Agency). Before
their reports could be sent back to England, they had to be submitted
to C. E. Montague, the former leader writer
of the Manchester Guardian.
Over the next three years other journalists such as John
Buchan, Valentine Williams, Hamilton
Fyfe and Henry Nevinson, became accredited
war correspondents. To remain on the Western Front, these journalists
had to accept government control over what they wrote. Even the disastrous
first day of the Battle of the Somme was
reported as a victory. Later William Beach Thomas
admitted that he was "deeply ashamed of what he had written"
but Philip Gibbs defended his actions by claiming
that he was attempting to "spare the feelings of men and women,
who, have sons and husbands fighting in France".
After the war most of the accredited war correspondents were offered
knighthoods by George V. Some like Philip
Gibbs, Herbert Russell, Henry
Perry Robinson and William Beach Thomas,
agreed to accept the offer. However, others like Hamilton
Fyfe, Robert Donald and Henry
Nevinson refused. Fyfe saw it as a bribe to keep quiet about the
inefficiency and corruption he had witnessed during the war, whereas
Nevinson feared it might influence his freedom to report political issues
in the future.
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Accredited
War Journalists
(1)
In
the early months of the war the War Office tried to prevent journalist
in France from sending reports back to England. Philip
Gibbs was arrested at Le Havre on the way back to the Western
Front.
During
the early months of the war in 1914 there was a conflict of opinion
between the War Office and the Foreign Office regarding news from the
Front. The War Office wanted to black out all but the official communiqués,
and some innocuous articles by an official eye-witness (Ernest Swinton).
A friend in the War Office warned me that I was in Kitchener's black
books, and that orders had been given for my arrest next time I appeared
in France.
All was well, until I reached the port of Havre. Three officers with
the rank of lieutenant, whom afterwards I knew to be Scotland Yard men,
came aboard and demanded to see my papers which they took away from
me. I was arrested and taken into the presence of General Bruce Williams
in command of the base at Havre. He was very violent in his language,
and said harsh things about newspaper fellows who defied all orders,
and wandered about the war zone smuggling back uncensored nonsense.
He had already rounded up some of them and had a good mind to have us
all shot against a white wall.
He put me under house arrest in the Hotel Tortoni, in charge of six
Scotland Yard men who had their headquarters there. Meanwhile, before
receiving instructions what to do with me, General Bruce Williams forbade
me all communication with Fleet Street or my family. For nearly a fortnight
I kicked my heels about in the Hotel Tortoni, standing drinks to the
Scotland Yard men, who were very decent fellows, mostly Irish. One of
them became quite a friend of mine and it was due to him that I succeeded
in getting a letter to Robert Donald, explaining my plight. He took
instant action and, by the influence of Lord Tyrell at the Foreign Office,
I was liberated and allowed to return to England.
The game was up, I thought. I had committed every crime against War
Office orders. I should be barred as a war correspondent when Kitchener
made up his mind to allow them out. So I believed, but in the early
part of 1915 I was appointed one of the five men accredited as official
war correspondents with the British Armies in the Field.
(2) C.
P. Scott, recorded in his diary comments made by David
Lloyd George after he had heard Philip Gibbs
speak at a private meeting on 27th December, 1917.
I listened last night, at a dinner given to Philip Gibbs on
his return from the front, to the most impressive and moving description
from him of what the war (on the Western Front) really means, that I
have heard. Even an audience of hardened politicians and journalists
were strongly affected. If people really knew, the war would be stopped
tomorrow. But of course they don't know, and can't know. The correspondents
don't write and the censorship wouldn't pass the truth. What they do
send is not the war, but just a pretty picture of the war with everybody
doing gallant deeds. The thing is horrible and beyond human nature to
bear and I feel I can't go on with this bloody business.
(3)
In 1917, Lord Northcliffe, the owner
of the Daily Mail, wrote to Hamilton
Fyfe, who was reporting the war on the Eastern
Front.
Every article that is received from you is submitted to me;
but the censor "kills" an immense amount of matter. The articles
from you are "killed" I put before important members of the
Cabinet, either verbally or in your writing, so that nothing is wasted.
(4) After
the war William Beach Thomas wrote about his
report on the first day of the Battle of the
Somme in his book, A Traveller in News (1925)
I was thoroughly and deeply ashamed of what I had written, for the good
reason that it was untrue. The vulgarity of enormous headlines and the
enormity of one's own name did not lessen the shame.
(5) Philip
Gibbs, Adventures in Journalism (1923)
We identified ourselves absolutely with the Armies in the field. We
wiped out of our minds all thought of personal scoops and all temptation
to write one word which would make the task of officers and men more
difficult or dangerous. There was no need of censorship of our despatches.
We were our own censors.
(6) C.
E. Montague, Disenchantment (1922)
The average war correspondent - there were golden exceptions - insensibly
acquired a cheerfulness in the face of vicarious torment and danger.
Through his despatches there ran a brisk implication that the regimental
officers and men enjoyed nothing better than "going over the top";
that a battle was just a rough jovial picnic, that a fight never went
on long enough for the men, that their only fear was lest the war should
end this side of the Rhine. This tone roused the fighting troops to
fury against the writers. This, the men reflected, in helpless anger,
was what people at home were offered as faithful accounts of what their
friends in the field were thinking and suffering.
