The writer desires to express his acknowledgments to his friends, Major
E.A. Wallinger, Major F.C.T. Ewald, D.S.O., and Captain W.A. Wallinger,
for their kindness in reading the proofs of some one or more of the
chapters in this book. Nor would his acknowledgments be complete
without some word of thanks to that brilliant soldier, Colonel E.D.
Swinton, D.S.O., with whom he was closely associated during the
discharge of the official duties at G.H.Q. of which this book is the
unofficial outcome. Most of these chapters originally appeared in the
pages of the _Nineteenth Century and After_, under the title to which
the book owes its name, and the writer desires to express his
obligations to the Editor, Mr. Wray Skilbeck, for his kind permission to
republish them. Similar acknowledgments are due to the Editor of
_Blackwood's Magazine_ for permission to reprint the short story,
"Stokes's Act," and to the Editor of the _Westminster Gazette_ in whose
hospitable pages some of the shorter sketches appeared--sometimes
anonymously.

The reader will observe that many of these sketches appear in the form
of what, to borrow a French term, is called the _conte_. The writer has
adopted that form of literary expression as the most efficacious way of
suppressing his own personality; the obtrusion of which, in the form of
"Reminiscences," would, he feels, be altogether disproportionate and
impertinent in view of the magnitude and poignancy of the great events
amid which it was his privilege to live and move. Moreover, his own
duties were neither spirited nor glorious. But the characters pourtrayed
and the events narrated in these pages are true in substance and in
fact. The writer has not had the will, even if he had had the power, to
"improve" the occasions; the reality was too poignant for that.
"Stokes's Act" and "The Coming of the Hun" are therefore "true"
stories--using truth in the sense of veracity not value--and the facts