great victory was thus achieved and a great service rendered by the correspondents to the country and the Press.
Until Nov. 1917 the censorship was controlled by the In- telligence Department at G.H.Q. At that date it was transferred to a department known as Staff Duties. The difficulties were accentuated by the lack of association between the correspon- dents and the real head of the censorship at G.H.Q. The man who gave the orders did not censor the " copy," and was not in continuous and direct touch with those who did. The censors worked under great pressure, and the complaints were due chief- ly not to their decisions, but to the principles laid down by those in command at G.H.Q. A minor difficulty was due to the neces- sity for making the despatches correspond with the daily offi- cial communique the official account of the day's fighting. Nothing could be said by the correspondents that differed from the communiques, which usually came out after the despatches had been written. The head of the Intelligence Department until Nov. 1917 was Gen. Charteris. During the whole of the war the chief cause of complaint was the refusal of the authorities to permit the correspondents to identify the units taking part in particular operations, or, in other words, to name the troops engaged. Where the unit was mentioned, neither the date of the event nor the locality in which it occurred was to be specified. The regulations in this respect were meticulous. Even obituary notices were censored. In the later phases of the war the rule was occasionally relaxed, but generally speaking it held until the Armistice.
At other military fronts than France the system adopted was similar, but special difficulties occurred in regard to the des- patches from Mesopotamia, which were censored at the Front, in India and at home.
The Naval Censorship. The navy had its own censorship department at the Admiralty, under the superintendence of Sir Douglas Brownrigg. This department worked partly through the Press Bureau and partly by direct relations with the Press. Generally speaking, the policy adopted was to suppress all in- formation concerning the doings of the navy and allied forces and in particular events of an unfavourable character. Very little information was published concerning the mercantile tonnage sunk by the enemy. There was, however, much to be said for the suppression of these figures, the publication of which would have put fresh heart into the enemy and given them valuable information as to the effect of the submarine campaign. In many instances the German submarine crews were unaware of the effect of their operations.
The Home Front. A rigid censorship was exercised concerning the publication of information as to the production of munitions, measures of defence, bombardments, air raids, arrests, trials and executions of spies, etc.
Books, Magazines, etc. These were subject to censorship on the same principles as newspapers. In many cases the authorities refused permission to reproduce matter which had already ap- peared in American and other publications, whether true or not, the contention being that publication in England would tend to confirm and increase belief in the statements made.
General Comments. As a method of suppression the censor- ship during the war may be regarded as having been a complete success. The vast task was well and efficiently done, but the authorities displayed little imagination, and during the first two and a half years failed to realize that the war was a conflict between nations, not armies. They did not fully appreciate that the united effort of all classes was essential to victory, and that such effort could be secured only by telling the people the facts and letting them know that the war was a matter of life or death to the nation (see PROPAGANDA). Experience showed that in dark days the country always rose to the occasion. The authorities also failed to appreciate the necessity for telling other peoples, and in particular the Overseas Dominions and America, what Great Britain was doing. When the war commenced the War Office and the army were full of explosive and inaccurate ideas regarding the Press. Lord Wolseley had said that the special correspondent was the curse of the modern army. This spirit
pervaded the services during the earlier stages of the war, not- withstanding the voluntary action of the newspapers in suppress- ing naval and military information in July and Aug. 1914.
Maj.-Gen. Sir C. E. Callwell, who was the head of the In- telligence Department at the War Office when the war started, says in his Experiences of a Dug-Out (1920): "It speedily became apparent that the ' Powers-that-Be ' did not mean to be expansive in connexion with incidents where our side was getting the worst of it." He also acknowledges that the Press was badly treated by the War Office and G.H.Q. at the outset and that he was placed in the uncomfortable position of administering a policy which he disliked and which he believed to be entirely mistaken. In short, the Press was regarded with distrust and suspicion. These feelings were gradually removed after constant protests, but not until the war had been in progress for nearly three years was a system evolved which by degrees gave the correspondents a reasonable amount of freedom. The rule pro- hibiting them, except in rare cases, from describing the achieve- ments of the different units, who were thus robbed of the glory to which they were entitled, had most unfortunate results. The public yearned to know what the soldiers and sailors were doing, and the information was withheld from them. The Austra- lian, Canadian and New Zealand censorships adopted a different system, so that the exploits of these troops were and are well known throughout the world. This led to the circulation of malicious stories to the effect that Great Britain was not doing her share, and that she was preserving her soldiers at the expense of those furnished from overseas. A reference to the terrible weekly casualty lists would at once prove the falsity of this statement. The truth is that so far as the British effort is con- cerned, the main burden was borne by troops furnished from Great Britain. Owing to the action of the British censorship, this fact is still imperfectly understood in other countries. The effects of the policy of silence were not confined to the war. Great Britain suffers from them permanently. In America and elsewhere the stupendous character of the British performances and sacrifices has been inadequately appreciated because they were not made known at the time. It is doubtful whether the people in Great Britain have fully realized themselves what they accomplished. During the war the Press was engaged in a con- tinuous battle with the departments for more information. It was rarely possible to ascertain who was responsible for the policy of silence. The motives were laudable. What the author- ities lacked was vision. The Press fully understood the necessity for secrecy in regard to forthcoming naval and military move- ments and also in reference to many naval and military opera- tions. But there were other matters which might have been described had the authorities recognized the necessity for giving due publicity to what the nation was d6ing in the war. As already explained, the policy of secrecy was not confined to naval and military operations. It was only after continued pro- tests by the Newspaper Proprietors' Association that publicity was given to the gigantic achievements of the Ministry of Muni- tions, and the manufacturers and millions of workers associated with it. Nothing was published about the marvellous working of the railways, one of the most remarkable feats in history. The Admiralty was a great offender. It was stated officially that " the Navy did not wish for publicity." The result was that the wonderful British seamen, including the mercantile marine, mine-sweepers and fishermen, did not receive adequate recogni- tion of their services to the Allies. After continued representa- tions by the newspapers, more publicity was given to their doings in the later stages of the war.
It must, however, be recognized that the censorship bristled with difficulties. It was necessary to prevent the enemy from receiving information; it was necessary to avoid publishing information that would unnecessarily alarm British people or their Allies, or mislead neutrals as to the progress of the war; and it was also necessary for British censors to pay due regard to the censorship policies of other countries with whom Great Britain was rssociated. The authorities may be excused for their inability in the early days of the war to grasp the essential facts
