CHAPTER XXV

GREAT EXAMPLES OF WAR CORRESPONDENCE

But Sedan from the Prussian point of view was one thing; from the French it might be, and must be, quite another. M. Méjanel, had things gone otherwise, might have been expected to give us the French version, but since he was with the French headquarters in Sedan he was presumably a prisoner of war, and nothing was to be hoped for from him. Mr. Holt White, fresh from the field, thought there was little or no chance. No one except Mr. White had got through from either army. The English papers of Monday morning were a blank except for a few rather ragged telegrams. Mr. Robinson at _The Daily News_, had nothing. There was a lull. I am speaking of war news proper, for there was, of course, the one great event of Saturday in Paris, and there was no certainty whence the next flash of light, or lightning, would come. Sedan had been fought on Thursday, and it was now Monday afternoon.

While I sat in _The Tribune_ office in Pall Mall brooding on these difficulties and almost despairing of further good fortune the door opened, and in walked Méjanel. He had not telegraphed. {244} He had a Gallic indifference to time and to the technique of journalism. He had just come as soon as he could. An angel from heaven would have been less welcome.

"Were you in Sedan during the battle?"

"Yes, and outside with the army."

"Were you taken prisoner?"

"Yes."

"You were released?"

"Well, I forget whether I was released or whether I escaped."

To escape meant that he had taken his chance of being shot by a Prussian sentry, and also of being rearrested and tried by court martial should he fall again into Prussian hands. Released, therefore, seemed the better word of the two.

"Have you written your account?"

"No. I had no means of writing while a prisoner, and I have since been doing my best to get to London."

As in White's case, there was time enough. Méjanel had an English side to him--his mother was English--and that half of him was imperturbable. Neither the danger he had passed nor the task that lay before him, all inexperienced as he was, shook his nerves. He was quite ready to sit down and write at once. As in White's case, I copied sheet by sheet. Méjanel's English was here and there at fault but was, on the whole, good. What was more important, his memory was precise; he knew how to tell his story clearly, and he gave us a picture of the battle-horrors {245} from within the beleaguered town or from within the French defence, which he made the reader see as he himself had seen them. He wrote on till he had filled four columns, modestly wondering as he wrote whether he was not too diffuse; wondering that it should be thought worth cabling; wondering whether his English was good enough; and wondering whether the military part of it was not all nonsense. Reassured on all these points, he wrote fluently and joyfully, at midnight laying down his pen with the remark: "_Enfin, j'ai vidé mon sac_."

M. Méjanel's dispatch appeared in _The Tribune_ complete on Tuesday morning. Neither Mr. Weaver nor the Newfoundland lines were out of order this time. _The Tribune_, had, therefore, within less than three days of the first coming of the news of the battle of Sedan, given to the American public complete accounts--ten columns altogether--of the battle from the Prussian side and from the French side; a unique performance.

Nor was this all. The revolution in Paris and the declaration of the Republic, September 4th, were dealt with not less fully, and of course by cable. During four days the number of words cabled was a little over sixteen thousand, at a cost of as many dollars. If we never rose again to quite those heights it was because never again was there such a quick sequence of great events. But for a long time the daily average was high, and not long after this _The Daily News_ service {246} became efficient, and, as I have said before, _The Tribune_ in the end profited by it.

Before, however, the full advantage of that accrued came the surrender of Metz, October 27th, and the remarkable narrative, including a visit to Metz, published simultaneously by _The Daily News_ and _The Tribune_. It was supposed in London that Mr. Archibald Forbes was the author of this narrative, and it was reckoned among his best performances. _The Daily News_ never thought it worth while to state the truth; nor was it bound to make any statement. The real author was Mr. Gustav Müller, a correspondent in the employment of _The Tribune_. As in the other cases I have described, Mr. Gustav Müller came to London and wrote his account in _The Tribune_ office. It was cabled forthwith to New York, and a copy handed to _The Daily News_. It was the first to be published in London, and the first to be published in New York. So far as London is concerned, it is enough to say that _The Times_ on the following morning copied it from _The Daily News_, crediting it to _The Daily News_, with a deserved compliment, and saying:

"We congratulate our contemporary on the energy and enterprise of its correspondent."

Still, Mr. Robinson did not think it needful to explain that it was in fact a _Tribune_ dispatch, and that it was a _Tribune_ correspondent who had wrung from _The Times_ this testimony.

The tale has a tragic end. For a long time I thought it a tragedy of death. I sent Mr. Gustav {247} Müller back to the field at once, with a large sum of money. I never heard from him again. Inquiries in every possible quarter brought no tidings of him. It seemed plain that he had fallen in battle or had been murdered and robbed by some of the bands that hang on the outskirts of every army. Some years after I told the whole story in _Harper's Magazine_, leaving the mystery unexplained otherwise than by conjecture. When, lo! it appeared that Mr. Gustav Müller had not fallen by a French bullet or a brigand's knife, but was alive in New York and ready to submit to an interview. If he were truly reported, he seemed to think his conduct in no need of defence. He had changed his mind, and instead of returning to the field had gone home. Why he never wrote to me or communicated in any way with _The Tribune_ he omitted to say.

As I have stripped one leaf from Mr. Forbes's laurels, I will add that two of the most brilliant news exploits in all the history of war journalism are to be credited to him. One was his night ride of 110 miles alone through a hostile country, after the British victory of Ulundi, July 4th, 1879. Lord Chelmsford, commanding the British forces, had refused Forbes leave to start and given orders for his arrest. He risked the British bullets and the Zulu assegais, and got through. The other was at the Shipka Pass, in August, 1877. It was the crisis of the Russo-Turkish War. General Gourko was holding the Pass. Suleiman Pacha day after day was flinging his whole force against {248} the Russian entrenchments. The world was waiting. No news came. The Russians and Turks were not people who concerned themselves much about public opinion. Forbes was at Bucharest. Tired of expecting messages from the scene, he rode to the Pass, made his way through the Turks and into the Russian lines, stayed in the trenches till he had satisfied himself--and he was a competent judge--that Suleiman's effort was spent and that Gourko could hold his own, and then made his way out again, hoping to reach Bucharest in time for a dispatch that night to_ The Daily News_. At or near Tirnova he was stopped by the Russians and taken before the Czar.

The Czar, like the rest of the world, was without news. He had sent one aide-de-camp after another to the Pass; not one had returned. Forbes used to say that the Czar treated him very well. He asked if it was true that Forbes had been with General Gourko, and, when told it was, desired that the exact situation should be explained to him. Forbes set it forth with that military clearness and precision which made his work in the field invaluable. The Czar asked him if he could draw a plan. He drew it. All sorts of questions were put to him. He answered all. He was asked for his opinion.

"I told His Imperial Majesty that I had been a soldier, that I had had much experience of battles as a correspondent, and that I had no doubt General Gourko would hold the Pass."

The interview lasted an hour or more.

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"At the end I besought His Majesty's permission to continue my journey, saying I thought nothing was known in Europe, and that it was for the interest of Russia that the facts which I had had the honour to lay before His Imperial Majesty should be made public. The Czar thanked me for the information I had given, declared himself convinced it was true and my judgment well founded, and dismissed me."

So Forbes rode on, arriving at Bucharest, the first point from which it was possible to telegraph, at eight o'clock in the evening. It was Forbes himself who told me the story:

"I had been in the saddle or in the trenches and under fire for three days and nights, without sleep and with little food. When I walked into the hotel at Bucharest I was a beaten man. I felt as if I could not keep awake or sit in my chair, much less write. Yet it was an opportunity which does not come twice in a man's life. I had, and nobody else had, the news for which all Europe was hungering; the most momentous news since Sedan; but not one word written, and not an ounce of strength left."

"Well, what did you do?"

The answer was curious indeed.

"I called the waiter and told him to bring me a pint of champagne, unopened. I uncorked it, put the neck of the bottle into my mouth before the gas had time to escape, and drank the whole of the wine. Then I sat up and wrote the four {250} columns which appeared next morning in _The Daily News_."

I remember that narrative well. There was not in it from beginning to end a trace of fatigue or confusion. It was a bulletin of war, written with masterly ease, with the most admirable freshness and force. Nothing better of the kind was ever done. It rang from one end of Europe to the other, and across the Atlantic. The Hour and the Man in this case had come together, and if Forbes had done nothing else this would entitle him to the immortality which is his.

All the same, the pint of champagne was a hazardous experiment. Forbes knew it but, as he said, it was that or nothing. The next man who tries it ought to be very sure that he has both the intellectual elasticity Forbes had, and his physique.

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