Pen and Sword: American War Correspondents, 1898-1975

3. Censorship During the World Wars

40 3 Censorship During the World Wars The legal roots of state-administered censorship predate the world wars of the twentieth century. However it is in the world wars that administration of censorship becomes entrenched in bureaucracy. By World War II it is comprehensive and thoroughgoing. This chapter examines the growth of censorship during these epochal wars. World War I American war correspondents tried to cover the war in Europe from the beginning in August 1914 until the end in 1918. During this time they experienced four kinds of communications environments (the first three before the United States joined the Allies to defeat the Central Powers): (1) freelancing and happenstance consisting of roaming the countryside in search of military action; (2) total exclusion from the zone of the armies; (3) limited access to the front under the supervision of allied military authorities who gave guided “tours”; and (4) accompanying American troops once the United States entered the conflict. This is, of course, a roughly chronological ordering of the situations with which American journalists had to contend. However, in all periods except that of total exclusion from the front, American journalists were aware of the propaganda dimension of what they were witnessing firsthand. U.S. journalists covered both sides of the war in Europe beginning in 1914. Almost from the very beginning, reporters with the armies of the Central Powers were given limited access to the front. Those covering Censorship During the World Wars 41 the Allied forces had a more difficult time beginning with the freelance period in August and early September 1914. During these few weeks, a reporter could successfully cover the advance of the German army from behind Allied lines, but only if he steered clear of the military command on both sides.1 When the armies mobilized on the continent in early August 1914, Richard Harding Davis agreed to go to Europe for the Wheeler Syndicate. He boarded the Lusitania for England on August 4, the day Germany invaded Belgium. When he and other correspondents finally reached Brussels , they were issued laissez-passers, permits entitling them to go anywhere within the stated environs. Each morning, Davis rented a yellow, Gatsby-like roadster, bedecked with the flags of several countries, and followed his leads.2 “In those weeks,” he wrote, “during which events moved so swiftly that now they seem months in the past, we were as free as in our own home town to go where we chose.”3 In these early days, the chief problem journalists faced was not the blue pencil, nor was it ducking bullets. Their problems included having to bribe various minor officials to get through the lines, getting arrested for not being where they were supposed to be, and getting released once it was determined they were reporters from a neutral country.4 At night they returned to their hotels where they had a meal washed down with good wine or champagne.5 Until the German army swallowed Brussels, correspondents followed this routine. Such heady adventures came to an end on the night of August 18 when refugees began to trickle into Brussels with news that the Germans had taken Louvain. With Brussels facing occupation by the German army, the seat of the Belgian government moved to Antwerp—in effect leaving any reporter who stayed behind without credentials. General Von Jarotsky, the newly appointed German military governor of Brussels, issued laissez-passers to Davis and others. On August 23, several reporters commandeered a taxi and set out to find the Allied forces. Some turned back for fear of arrest. Davis continued on, but took a wrong turn at Enghein and came upon a column of General Alexander Von Kluck’s army executing a surprise attack on one of the English flanks.6 The Germans interrogated him as a spy. He was under suspicion for a number of reasons, the most important being that his passport was issued in London, not Washington, and his photo showed him wearing a British officer’s uniform. The matter was serious enough for the Germans to have imprisoned or even executed him. Eventually he was released and returned to the United States. To his wife, Davis wrote he had a “falling out with the mad dogs.”7 42 pen and sword The experience of being taken for a spy was not an unusual one for journalists early in the European war. Nor was the German...