ice
paper,68 to his successful co -operation with his co -workers on other
papers and to their organization of the entire field of war corres pondence.69 He insists that he realizes the costliness of war cor of the Tribune. It was at once cabled to New York , and a copy given to the Daily News. - Anglo - Saxon Memories (1911) pp . 216 – 217.
Viscount Melgund speaks of Forbes' Plevna telegram as “ a personal triumph , ” while Forbes himself says of it that he neither spared blame nor stinted praise. It was accepted by the Russian military authorities
and its publication authorized in the Russian papers. — " Newspaper Cor respondents in the Field ,” Nineteenth Century, March , 1880 , 7 : 434 - 442,
and A . Forbes, “ War Correspondents and the Authorities,” January , 1880, 7 : 185 - 196 .
Forbes later writes to a friend that “ The mere writing of war letters
and war telegrams is by no means the 'be-all-and-end -all' of the war cor respondent's work . . . . A man does not do much good , however well and copiously he writes, if he has no means of getting his written or wired matter onto his editor's desk .
The accomplishment of this , by dint
of a priori organization , by sedulous arrangement, by constant watchful ness , and by frequent, severe, and prolonged personal exertion — that is the real material and effective triumph of the war correspondent. . . .
I consider that in the Russo- Turkish war I went far to make something like a real science of the prompt forwarding of war correspondence.” Letter to W . H . Rideing, January 4 , 1894 , Many Celebrities and a few Others, p . 272 .
G . W . Smalley gives many important illustrations in Anglo- American Memories (1911), chaps. XXIII-XXV. Excellent general articles on war correspondence are those by Charles
Rieben, “ Les Journaux et la guerre,” Bibliothèque universelle et revue suisse, November , December, 1919, 96 : 241– 258, 408 -428 . 68 In the war correspondence of the Daily News during the Franco
Prussian War, there is nothing to indicate the name of the “ special cor respondent ” sending the letter , and in the letters themselves there is apparently only one letter where other correspondents are by name men tioned by their colleagues . In the war between Russia and Turkey , the Daily News had several correspondents in the field . No name was attached to any letter, each appearing with a different conventional sign or symbol
(eight in all were used ), although the title page states that the volume includes “ the letters of Mr. Archibald Forbes , Mr. J . A . MacGahan , and many other special correspondents in Europe and Asia . ”
69 An excellent account of the present organization of war correspondents is given by H . P . Robinson who, in commenting on the war front that is
now so vast that no single man can cover it, says that all correspondents must collaborate and work in harmony , " each exchanging daily his news
with all the others,” thus securing substantial agreement of the despatches
on all points and presumptive evidence in favor of their truth . “ For the public good ' we have stifled that primitive instinct of the journalist to
beat' the other man .” Correspondents are now well informed of impending
operations and they decide among themselves the best point of view from which to see them and after the attack is over, all meet at the press head quarters and exchange notes. “ All that each man has learned is common property ; each in rotation telling his story, generally from north to south
of the battle -line; " then each writes his despatches. “ It has taken us some time to
organize this system . . . . And
it has one transcendent ad
