After the conclusion of the International Congress of Historical Studies in April last, in the scheme of which a Naval and Military Section was included for the first time, it seemed desirable to some members of the Committee in charge of the new Section that the papers read should be published in book form. The authorities of the Congress having decided in due course that they were unable themselves to make provision for such publication, it was suggested that the papers in question might appropriately be collected to form a volume in the Naval and Military Series which had recently been announced by the Cambridge University Press. The suggestion was readily accepted by the Editors of the Series and the Syndics of the Press.

The present volume contains, in full text or in summary (where, for one reason or another, the full text was not obtainable), the papers on Naval and Military subjects read at the Congress. The full text of Sir John Laughton's paper appeared in the July number of The Cornhill Magazine; that of Dr Holland Rose's paper in the October number of The Edinburgh Review; and Mr Atkinson's paper, of which a summary is here given, formed the subject of a lecture delivered by him at the Royal United Service Institution on 29th October last.