The Retreat from Mons

The Operations of the British Army in the Present War
THE RETREAT FROM MONS
WITH A PREFACE BY FIELD MARSHAL LORD FRENCH
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1917
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published July 1917
PREFACE
I am told that it has been thought advisable to publish short accounts in pamphlet form of prominent and important operations which have been carried on during the course of the war which is still raging.
Such war stories may undoubtedly be beneficial, and in the belief that such propaganda is productive of more good than harm I have consented to indite this very brief preface to The Retreat from Mons .
Any hesitation I may have felt arises from my profound conviction that no history of a war or any part of a war can be worth anything until some period after peace has been made and the full facts are known and understood.
This pamphlet however, is not so much a history as an interesting summary or a chronology of leading events, and the writer carefully avoids according praise or blame in connection with any event or group of events which can ever become the subject of controversy.
In a Preface to so brief and so unpretentious a military work as this, it is impossible to put before the reader more than a glimpse of the situation in regard to which plans had to be conceived and put into execution as suddenly and speedily as the demand for them was unexpected.