A Popular History of The Great War/Volume 1/Page 3


A Popular History of The Great War   ·   Volume 1: The First Phase: 1914


EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION


Throughout the years 1914-1919 the present Editor, in association with Mr. H. W. Wilson, the eminent authority on naval and military subjects, was responsible for the compilation of the most extensive body of contemporary annals of the war that has been published in this country. The work in question contained no fewer than 7,000,000 words and some 12,000 pictorial documents. Although it remains a storehouse of information for future students of the period, "The Great War," as that set of thirteen massive volumes was called, would now require to be largely re-written in the light of later knowledge : a task beyond the means of private enterprise and of doubtful value to the ordinary reader today.

But a real need exists for a new history of the war embodying the gist of post-war revelations and official documents, and sufficiently detailed to provide accurate information on any aspect, and almost on any point, of the war concerning which the present-day reader might desire to be informed.

The six volumes comprising this new work are designed to meet that want, which is felt especially by two classes of the reading public. One consists of those, now in middle life or rapidly approaching it, who played a personal part, were "on active service," to use the official and suggestive phrase, in that tremendous struggle and who, after the lapse of some fifteen years, would like to refresh their memories about the events in which they took part, on land, on the sea, or in the air. The second class comprises those who were schoolboys and schoolgirls when the worldwide conflict began and whose knowledge of it is for the most part fragmentary, disjointed, and impersonal, much as it is of the American Civil, or the Franco-Prussian War.

In planning and preparing this work the Editor has made some use of the abundant literary material existing in the monumental work above mentioned, but this POPULAR HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR is to be regarded as an original narrative of the most astounding events in the history of the modern world, newly compiled and written by a large staff of expert contributors fully conversant with all the post-war revelations and rectifications of war-time opinion. No efforts have been spared to ensure the accuracy of the many thousands of statements made in these volumes, and throughout the compilation of the work our

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