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The 30 August 1914 front page of The Times with the Amiens Dispatch highlighted in blue

The Amiens dispatch was a newspaper article written by Arthur Moore and published in The Times on 30 August 1914.


Arthur Moore, veteran war correspondent. Published in Times 30 August 1914. Describes the retreat from Mons on 23 August. Describes a "terrible defeat" that left "the broken bits of many regiments" whose soldiers were "battered with marching". Was a challenge to the British public's perception that the war would be short and victorious. The dispatch shocked the public. In response Winston Churchill the first lord of the Admiralty wrote to the publisher of the Times complaining about Moore. PM Asquith also directed Churchill to draft a special communique to reassure the public that the war was going well and the retreat was strategically advantageous.[1]

Was originally self-censored by Times staff but when sent to censor FE Smith at the Press Bureau he reinstated the deleted content and rewrote the ending as a call for reinforcements before approving for publication. Smith intentionally left the report disjointed with ellipses to indicate missing content which he thought the public would take as an indication that the censor had deleted content that indicated the situation on the ground was even worse than reported. Official reports painted a brighter picture than Moore's and the Press Bureau published a note that "no correspondents are at the Front, and their information, however honestly sent, is therefore derived at second or third hand from persons who are often in no condition to tell coherent stories" to defend the official accounts. The dispatch showed the Press Bureau was witholding bad news from the public. Also highlighted the governments refusal to accredit official war correspondents, many of whom were still waiting in London for permission to travel abroad. Sir Philip Gibbs was also at the front with fellow reporters William Thomas Massey and H. M. Tomlinson. Gibbs reclalled reading the "terrible dispatch" and misattributed it to Hamilton Fyfe. Gibbs considered that his, Massey and Tomlinson's more optimistic reports of the retreat "helped to restore confidence in England and Scotland when they appeared on Monday morning".[2]

Gibb's report was headlined "the 100 Hours Fight, Full Story of Mons" and was confident in tone "our main forces ... succeeded in withdrawing in good order without having their lines broke, while inflicting great casualties on the German right". He also admonished those who considered the retreat a disaster, noting "retreats which seem fatal when seen close at hand and when described by those who belong to their broken fragments of extended sections are not altogether disastrous in their effect when viewed in the right perspective. The writer G. K. Chesterton, a friend of Gibbs characterised characterised the dispatch as "pessimist hysteria". He regarded it as "one of the blackest marks upon our history that during the strained and difficult operations after Mons the end of the British Army was practically announced in a British newspaper".[3]

Published as an extra in a special Sunday edition. Had been sent in a lengthy telegram by Moore. Moore was one of a number of journalists who tried to report on the war from the front despite the lack of official credentials. Headlined "Broken British Regiments Battling Against the Odds, More Men Needed". Reported that despirte the retreat Moore "saw fear in no man's face. It was a retreating and broken army, but it was not an army of hunted men".[4]

"let me repeat that there is no failure in discipline, no panic, no throwing up of the sponge". The last paragraph written by censors stated "to sum up, the first great German effort has succeeded. We have to face the fact that the British Expeditionary Force, which bore the great weight of the blow, has suffered terrible losses and requires immediate and immense reinforcements. The British Expeditionary Force has won indeed imperishable glory, but it needs men, men and yet more men". Discussed at length in the House of Commons. Dispatch also published in The Globe, which also published erroneous reports and was briefly censored. The dispatch and its effect on the British public is mentioned in H.G. Wells' 1916 novel Mr. Britling Sees It Through.[5]

Moore arrived at the line of march of the 4th Division on 28 August and witnessed fragments of units on the retreat. Failure of the German Army to pursue II COrps have the BEF chance to reorganise on a stable front. Smith was head of the Press Bureau. War Office issued two statements in response on 31 August to "restore the necessary perspective to the recent operations" and warning that the report of Moore "should be received with extreme caution". The Daily Express noted that the dispatch had "made hearts stand still". On 31 August Smith accepted responsibility during an angry adjournment debate in the HoC. Smith intended the concluding passage to help Kitchener's recruitment drive and it did indeed help to do so.[6]

Moore was one the the times' most experienced correspondents. Historian Bernard Ash: "broke like a thunderclap on a blissfully confident nation that had been awaiting news of famous victories, and it created consternation in a Cabinet tha twas already alarmed by its lack of hard news from the front". 

The same day as the report ran the government doubled an order for 162,000 shrapnel shells, placed only 12 days earlier.[7]

Another negative report of the retreat was published by another Northcliffe publication, the Weekly Dispatch, the same day. Both WD and Times had expected the censor to prohibit their publication. Frederick Edwin Smith had been appointed chief censor at the outbreak of the war, he was considered unsuccessful and replaced after a few weeks.[8]

Mentioned in the 1961 novel Covenent with Death by John Harris (novelist) as the inspiration for the main character, newspaper reporter Mark Fenner, for enlisting.[9]

Teh original dispatch with changes made by SMith is held in the archive of The TImes.[10]

Shortly after writing his dispatch Moore was captured by a German cavalry patrol, but afterwards released.[11]

Kitchener had ordered the BEF to follow the French policy of excluding the media from teh field and had no attached journalists, any found were liable to arrest and confiscation of their passports. Moore had been bound for the Serbian front but reported on the BEF as the Western Front opened while he was passing through France. The content of the Amiens Dispatch was denied, wrongly, by Kitchener and the Times was criticised by the rest of the press for the perceived inaccurate and alarmist reporting. The incident risked the freedom of the british press. Afterwards an army officer Colonel Ernest Swinton was employed to write accounts for publication in the press, a situation which lasted until mid-1915 when the public tired of the censored content provided and teh army relented and allowed reporters access to the field.[12]

Published in US by News Record who had obtained it throught the United Press cable service.[13]

Asquith described the dispatch as a "very regrettable exception" to the patriotism shown by the British press and in response announced that the BEF would make new arrangements for providing information to the public. In parliament Smith noted "I never sought the office that i hold" and noted taht as no correspondents were permitted access to the front there was a great demand for reports of the progress of the war. He stated that his additions about recruitment were what he saw as carrying out the policy of the War Office. Smioth resigned at his own requuest at teh end of September.[14]

Appeared on the front page of the speical edition, a portion of the paper usually filled with advertiseents.[15]

Publication and special edition approved by Northcliffe.[16]

Relatively few men flocked to the colours at the outbreak of war but a significant number enlisted after the publication of the dispatch. SOme 176,922 enlisted beween 4 and 30 August but 301,971 enlisted between 30 August and 12 September.[17]

The dispatch revealed to the public that either the War Office was unaware of the vulnerable position of the army on the Western Front or else was deliberatlely witholding news of such from the public.[18]

Smith's reply: "I am sorry to have censored this most able and interesting message so freely but the reasons are obvious. Forgive my clumsy journalistic suggestions but I beg you to use the parts of this article which I have passed to enforce the lesson – re-enforcements and re-enforcements at once." Moore wrote it on 29 AUgust in AMiens. Arrived London that evening. acting Editor George Sydney Freeman and Henry Wickham Steed, the Foreign Editor, self-censored the dispatch before sending it to Smith who returned it two hours later.[19]

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41555521

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/apologies-and-withdrawals-nt2x0m2rv7j

https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/propaganda-and-conflict-war-media-and-shaping-the-twentieth-century/ch1-strategy-and-propaganda-lord-kitchener-the-retreat-from-mons-and-the-amiens-dispatch-august-september-1914?from=search

Front page: https://www.newspapers.com/image/32766412/

Letter to SMith: https://web.archive.org/web/20191230065251/https://postalheritage.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/image-3.jpg

  1. ^ Tucker, Spencer; Roberts, Priscilla Mary (2005). World War I: Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-85109-420-2.
  2. ^ Kerby, Martin C. (16 March 2016). Sir Philip Gibbs and English Journalism in War and Peace. Springer. p. 80. ISBN 978-1-137-57301-8.
  3. ^ Kerby, Martin C. (16 March 2016). Sir Philip Gibbs and English Journalism in War and Peace. Springer. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-137-57301-8.
  4. ^ Bleiler, Richard J. (1 June 2015). The Strange Case of "The Angels of Mons": Arthur Machen's World War I Story, the Insistent Believers, and His Refutations. McFarland. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-7864-9867-3.
  5. ^ Bleiler, Richard J. (1 June 2015). The Strange Case of "The Angels of Mons": Arthur Machen's World War I Story, the Insistent Believers, and His Refutations. McFarland. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7864-9867-3.
  6. ^ Simkins, Peter (30 August 2007). Kitchener's Army: The Raising of the New Armies 1914 - 1916. Pen and Sword. p. 64. ISBN 978-1-84415-585-9.
  7. ^ Gilbert, Martin (5 June 2014). The First World War: A Complete History. Rosetta Books. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-7953-3723-9.
  8. ^ Asquith, Margot (2014). Margot Asquith's Great War Diary 1914-1916: The View from Downing Street. Oxford University Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-19-822977-3.
  9. ^ Sokołowska-Paryż, Marzena (15 March 2012). Reimagining the War Memorial, Reinterpreting the Great War: The Formats of British Commemorative Fiction. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-4438-3845-0.
  10. ^ Thompson, J. Lee (1999). Politicians, the Press, & Propaganda: Lord Northcliffe & the Great War, 1914-1919. Kent State University Press. p. 252. ISBN 978-0-87338-637-1.
  11. ^ Best, Brian (30 November 2014). Reporting from the Front: War Reporters During the Great War. Pen and Sword. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-4738-2117-0.
  12. ^ Young, P.; Jesser, P. (13 October 1997). The Media and the Military. Springer. pp. 32–33. ISBN 978-0-230-37680-9.
  13. ^ McKegney, Pat (1991). The Kaiser's Bust: A Study of War-time Propaganda in Berlin, Ontario, 1914-1918. Bamberg Press. p. 78. ISBN 978-0-9695356-0-7.
  14. ^ Connelly, Mark; Fox, Jo; Schmidt, Ulf; Goebel, Stefan (26 November 2020). Propaganda and Conflict: War, Media and Shaping the Twentieth Century. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-350-19445-8.
  15. ^ Macdonald, Lyn; Seaton, Shirley (1991). 1914-1918: Voices & Images of the Great War. Penguin. p. 25. ISBN 978-0-14-014674-5.
  16. ^ Palmer, Alan (15 August 2013). The Salient: Ypres, 1914-18. Little, Brown Book Group. p. 37. ISBN 978-1-4721-1278-1.
  17. ^ Sheffield, Gary (4 September 2014). Short History of the First World War. Simon and Schuster. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-78074-512-1.
  18. ^ Fuller, Gavin (30 October 2014). The Telegraph Book of the First World War: An Anthology of the Telegraph's writing from the Great War. Aurum. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-78131-382-4.
  19. ^ "The Thin Red Streak: the Histories of The Times' War Correspondents". The British Postal Museum & Archive blog. 18 February 2014. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
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