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Updated: June 28, 2025
For a long time, owing to the hiding of the facts in England of the Zeppelin raids, even high German officials believed that immense damage had been done. The French acted more wisely. They allowed full descriptions of the aeroplane and Zeppelin raids in France to be published, and the result was discouraging to the Germans. I remember studying the British Zeppelin communiques with Germans.
When their organization was complete, they took care, before acting, to publish each day for a week in their communiques, little notes announcing that the enemy were "making wide use of this new method of warfare," a statement contrary to fact, and known by them to be so, but one that was calculated to mislead public opinion.
How could one believe those official communiqués which kept saying that the position of the French armies was favourable and then admitted that von Kluck had advanced another twenty miles? The heart of Paris stopped beating. Paris held its breath. Perhaps the reason there was no panic was that Parisians had been prepared for the worst. What silence!
Behind the mask of his face, God knows what sorrow lay, for he was fond of the boy, as he had been fond of so many boys who had gone up in the joy and pride of their youth, and had earned by the supreme sacrifice that sinister line in the communiques: "One of our machines did not return." He ranged the heavens that day seeking his man.
Nor had the French troops advanced beyond it as the communiqués seemed to say. They were beyond it on either side, to be sure, but the fort was in enemy hands. Yet from the communiqué everyone believed that the fort was half surrounded. The words did not explicitly say so, but "the press, as usual, forced the pace." Military writers concluded that the Germans would soon have to surrender.
As a man of the world, you will realise that though our general public here do not know that the English have captured many Germans lately, and the fact is never mentioned in the communiques, we have had a hint from Headquarters that the British prisoners may one day balance ours, and that hardship for these verfluchte Englander may result in hardship for our men in England."
This little affair, although too small to figure in the communiqués at home, was a great personal triumph for the Colonel. The enemy, having broken through the line and pushed his way almost to the banks of the river, had been driven back and the line straightened out, without, as far as the Subaltern could see, any loss whatever.
Our two officers pointed out in the misty autumn landscape spots where some of the fiercest and most famous fights had been. How the names they rattled off brought back anxious nights and mornings when our first and only thoughts had been the communiqués! "Desperate battle on the Meuse." "Splendid stand at Douaumont." "New attack on Morthomme." But nothing we saw helped out our imaginings.
On November 3rd we received the official announcement that an armistice had been signed, and that at 3 p.m. on November 4th hostilities on the Italian-Austrian Front would cease. That same day Trento, Trieste and Udine fell. One began to be aware of the completeness of victory. On this day and the days that followed the communiqués of Diaz were decisive and historical. "November 4th. Noon.
Now and again a name would creep into these communiques which after a glance at the map would give one a cold thrill of anxiety and doubt. Was it possible that the enemy had reached that point? If so, then its progress was phenomenal and menacing. But M. le Marquis de Messimy, War Minister of France, was delightfully cheerful.
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