France issued no licenses to correspondents, and for a long time England permitted but 12 American correspondents to remain in London! Newspaper men found soon after the out brealc of war that the day of glory for corre spondents had passed. Belgium was the only country that made any exceptions in this matter, but the part of Belgian territory that remained unoccupied by the enemy was so small that this action afforded comparatively little relief.
With countries like England and the United States having numerous routes of trade and communication always open, the task of the censor was not as simple as in France and Ger many; yet England moved 100,000 men to the Continent without any news of it reaching the public. To the press itself belongs the credit for this silence. The government was then un prepared for the exercise of censorship and the press itself was the governing factor in the mat ter. Later the British censorship was devel oped to a high state of efficiency and rendered excellent service demite many tactical blunders. In this connection, it may be noted that news of the heroic stand of Britain's troops at the first battle of Ypres was not permitted to reach the public for four months after the event, and then its appearance was due to the patriotism of Lord Northcliffe who was willing to incur the displeasure of Kitchener and the War Office that England might learn of the heroic conduct of her sons.
American military censorship in France and other countries in which American troops op erated was exercised by a department ef the army's secret service and the little manual en titled 'Field Service Regulations,' defined the rights and limitations of war correspondents as guaranteed and decreed by the War Department. The American system worked great hardships on the correspondents; the personnel of the mil itary. censorship bureaus often comported them selves in a vindictive manner toward certain correspondents who had ventured a protest against the methods of the censor. At home, the Committee on Public Information headed by George Creel, was in effect a boarci of cen sors without a censorship, since its control of the press through its control of the news sources was as complete as that of any censor in any of die warring nations. The American press, however, imposed upon itself a voluntary cen sorship in agreeing to the suppression of all matter which !night be of aid to the enemy. The committee above named was designated to advise with publishers and writers in the ad ministration of this voluntary censorship.
WAR, Civil. See UNITED STATES - CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR, MILITARY EVENTS OF THE CIVIL WAR, POLITICAL EVENTS OF THE CIVIL WAR, Erc.