Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 182, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1920 — MANY HAVE WRITTEN OF WAR [ARTICLE]

MANY HAVE WRITTEN OF WAR

From Homer to the Present Day Correspondents Have Accompanied the Armies In the Field. War correspondents, who have a distinguished place In the latest honors list, form an ancient tribe if we reckon Homer as one of them, remarks the Manchester Guardian. Sutherland Edwards maintained that the editor of a Greek paper entitled Chronos sent Homer out to Troy to describe the Incidents of the siege, which really lasted only about seven weeks. But when It was at an end the Greek chiefs had no desire whatever to go home; and as Homer (or “O’Maher” —to give his name In its original un-Hellenized form) was a very good fellow and draw a large salary with an abundant allowance for expenses, he readily accepted the idea proposed by the wise Ulysses—to keep the war going in the columns of his paper as long as he could manage to write about it. His correspondence was too good not to publish; and meantime the Greek chiefs went about amusing themselves.

There were no newspaper • correspondents in the peninsular war, nor in the Waterloo campaign—though Rothschild, in 1815, had a correspondent of his own who kept dose to Wellington's army and supplied his employer with news of high Ananda) value. After the peace of 1815 the first war of importance in Europe was the one between the Carlists and the Christtnos In Spain, which, beginning tn 1881, dragged on In desultory fashion until 1837, when, a British legion having been formed to assist the Christines, It attracted much attention In this country. British opinion was divided. Queen Christina finding support among the whigs, Don Carlos among the tories. Both armies were accused of committing atrocities, so the Times and the Morning Post sent correspondents to the Carlist camp with instructions to find out how the war was really being carried on. Capt Henningsen, who represented the Times, was an admirable writer and a professional soldier, whereas Charles Gruneisen, who went on behalf of the Post, possessed no military experience. Still, he proved the more successful of the two, for Henningsen’s letters never reached the Times. Grunelsen’s. on the other hand, appeared in the Morning Post and on this rests the cialm put forward, not by Gruneisen emself but by his friends, f^n - dassg him as the earliest of our war correspondents.