dents were largely English , the war news given was almost in evitably colored by English sympathies. In wars of aggression , like the recent war, where the censorship rules are most rigorous, war correspondence becomes active propaganda for the aggres sor,102 or, on the other side, sympathetic descriptions of the
harrowing results of aggression . The type of war, whether civil war, rebellion against a home country, or a war of aggression , must always affect the type of war correspondence and therefore its authoritativeness. As wars differ among themselves, so also do countries and readers differ , and the opinion has been expressed that war
correspondence influences public opinion far more in England than it does in France or in Germany.103 These facts in regard to the war correspondent have been
suggested to indicate that the historian is not only concerned with the authoritativeness of the material he presents but he is concerned with the character of the material. Fortunately ,
the future historian will not have to depend exclusively on the war correspondent for information concerning the actual con
duct of wars, — " the last thing the historian wishes to know through war correspondence is the events of war” — these can be learned later from official documents.104 But these documents
will not give the impression the war makes on the public, or the influences that are at work for and against war. This the
newspaper must give as well as the lights and shades of war. The effect of war on daily life, on business , on industry, on education , on manufactures, on social conditions, - all of this comes best, and indeed perhaps comes only , through the press.
The real success of the war correspondent to -day depends on his ability to reconstruct these conditions rather than on his opportunity to give information in regard to military action .
If the place of the war correspondent seems somewhat less 102 Sven Hedin , With the German Armies in the West. 103 Viscount Melgund, “ Newspaper Correspondents in the Field ,” Nine teenth Century , March , 1880, 7 : 434 - 442. 104 An important discussion of the relation that the accounts of war correspondents bear to other forms of historical material relating to wars
is given by A British Officer , “ The Literature of the South African War ," American Historical Review , January, 1907, 12: 302– 321 .
