compelled to retreat before Paris, and I can now see why that was so:
as it turned to envelop the Allied line, a great reserve within the
fortified zone of Paris threatened it, and forced it back."

These main lines, and these only, are attempted in the present book,
and in those that are to follow it in this series.

The disadvantage of such a method is, of course, that the reader must
look elsewhere for details, for the notices of a particular action,
and the records of particular regiments. He must look for these to the
large histories of the war, which will amply supply his curiosity in
good time. But the advantage of the method consists in that it
provides, as I hope, a foundation upon which all this bewildering
multitude of detailed reading can repose.

I set out, then, to give, as it were, the alphabet of the campaign,
and I begin in this volume with the preliminaries to it--that is, its
great political causes, deep rooted in the past; the particular and
immediate causes which led to the outbreak of war; an estimate of the
forces engaged; and the inception of hostilities.


PLAN OF THIS BOOK.

This first volume will cover three parts. In Part I. I shall write of
The Causes of the War. In Part II. I shall Contrast the Forces
Opposed. In Part III. (the briefest) I shall describe the First Shock.

In Part I., where I deal first with the general or historical causes
of the war, later with the particulars, I shall:--