Page:Military Operations, France and Belgium, 1914.djvu/17

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION ix records dealing with operations overseas. This latter part of its work absorbed most of its energy and time until well on into 1921. The Branch did not obtain a permanent home until October 1919; thus a large amount of important material did not become available until it was unpacked and sorted after this date, and it was then found necessary to re-write an account of the initial operations already partly drafted.

The British Expeditionary Force in France in 1914 was not acting independently, and formed only a small part of the Allied Armies engaged; it has therefore been necessary to include an account of the action of the French and Belgian forces sufficient to provide a proper framework for the British operations. As regards the Belgian Army, ample material for this purpose has been published by the Belgian General Staff. The French General Staff has not yet issued any history, but much information with regard to the French plans and operations has already been made public: officially in the reports of Parliamentary Enquiries, semi-officially by historians like M. Hanotaux, M. Engerand, M. Madelin and General Palat {Pierre Lehautcourt), and in the form of reminiscences and memoirs by actual participants, such as Generals Lanrezac, Gallieni, Dubail and Mangin. It was not, therefore, thought necessary to trouble the French General Staff except as regards the incident of the assistance rendered by General Sordet's Cavalry Corps at the battle of Le Cateau, when a copy of the war diary of the troops concerned was very courteously furnished. With this exception, it must be understood that for the French operations the only absolutely authoritative statements quoted are the orders, instructions, intelligence reports, etc., received officially by G.H.Q. from the French Grand Quartier General.

The published German accounts of the early part of the war are very numerous, and they deal both with the decisions and orders of the higher commanders and the operations of many corps and even smaller fighting units. The most notable are the books of the three Army