The purpose of this paper is to put before you some of the difficulties encountered in compiling the branch of Military History which deals with campaigns, battles, and other operations in the field, difficulties as often as not insuperable.

And by the words “Military History” I do not mean only the larger works, such as those of Alison, Thiers, Lehautcourt, Hoenig, Fortescue, Oman, and others, but records of all kinds and sizes, such as the excellent monographs of the German General Staff (the Kriegsgeschichtliche Einzelschriften), and pamphlets; in short, all records whatever of war operations.

The difficulties to which I have referred are, however, not very great if the history is intended for general reading only. It is when it is intended for professional readers that they are encountered almost ab initio; and for soldiers this history is of ultra-importance and an absolute necessity. It is for the whole military profession, for the huge mass of men who have to do the fighting, that history has this importance; and why?

Look at the difference between learning to be a soldier and learning to be, say, a physician or a surgeon. The future physician begins by standing beside his elder in a hospital ward; he sees and hears him diagnose the disease of a human patient, notices the symptoms, reads the prescriptions, and watches the effect of the treatment; or in the operating theatre he watches some operation and follows it in detail, and can even practise his hand on flesh and bone, so that when he starts as physician or surgeon on his own account he has already seen, and to a small extent has perhaps already taken part in actual and real war against pain and suffering.