"
CONCERNING THIS BOOK
It would be futile to publish one more war-book, unless the writer had
been an eye-witness of unusual things. I am an American who saw
atrocities which are recorded in the Bryce Report. This book grows out
of months of day-by-day living in the war zone. I have been a member of
the Hector Munro Ambulance Corps, which was permitted to work at the
front because the Prime Minister of Belgium placed his son in military
command of us. That young man, being brave and adventurous, led us along
the first line of trenches, and into villages under shell fire, so that
we saw the armies in action.
We started at Ghent in September, 1914, came to Furnes, worked in
Dixmude, Pervyse, Nieuport and Ypres, during moments of pressure on
those strategic points. In the summer of 1915, we were attached to the
French Fusiliers Marins. My wife's experience covers a period of twelve
months in Belgium. My own time at the front was five months.
Observers at long-distance that are neutral sometimes fail to see
fundamentals in the present conflict, and talk of "negotiations" between
right and wrong. It is easy for people who have not suffered to be
tolerant toward wrongdoing. This war is a long war because of German
methods of frightfulness. These practices have bred an enduring will to
conquer in Frenchman and Briton and Belgian which will not pause till
victory is thorough.
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