List of Illustrations (etext transcriber's note) |
SOLDIERS’ STORIES
OF THE WAR
[Frontispiece.
L BATTERY’S HEROIC STAND.
“Another battery of horse-gunners was dashing to the rescue” (p. 130).
SOLDIERS’ STORIES
OF THE WAR
EDITED BY
WALTER WOOD
AUTHOR OF
“MEN OF THE NORTH SEA,” “SURVIVORS’ TALES OF GREAT EVENTS,”
“NORTH SEA FISHERS AND FIGHTERS,” ETC.
WITH TWENTY FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
BY A. C. MICHAEL
LONDON
CHAPMAN AND HALL, Ltd.
1915
Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
brunswick st., stamford st., s.e.,
and bungay, suffolk.
INTRODUCTION
All the stories in this volume are told by men who were seen personally,and who, with one or two exceptions—cases of soldiers who had returnedto the front—read the typescripts of their narratives, so that accuracyshould be secured. The narrators spoke while the impressions of fightingand hardships and things seen were still strong and clear; in severalcases full notes had been made or diaries kept, and reference to theserecords was of great value in preparing the stories. When seeing aninformant I specially asked that a true tale should be told, and Ibelieve that no unreliable details were knowingly given.
I have been fortunate in getting a good deal of exclusive matter—thefull record of the noble achievement of L Battery, Royal HorseArtillery, for example, has not been given anywhere in such detail as ispresented here, and the same remark applies to the story of the threetorpedoed cruisers.
During the earlier periods of the war British soldiers told me tales ofbarbarities and outrages committed by German troops which were soterrible that it was impossible to believe them, and I omitted many ofthese details from the finished stories; but I know now, from readingthe Report of the Committee on Alleged German Outrages, presided over byViscount Bryce, formerly British Ambassador at Washington, that eventhe most dreadful of the statements did not do more than touch thefringe of the appalling truth.
Though much has been already published in the form of tales and lette