The translation has been thoroughly revised for the sense as well as in regard to technical military terms and expressions. To the name of every German general officer mentioned in the text has been affixed, within brackets, his specific command, a liberty which the reader will perhaps not resent, since the interpolation is intended to facilitate his clearer understanding of a narrative condensed by the author with extreme severity.

In further aid of elucidation there has been occasionally inserted, also within brackets, a date, a figure, or a word.

A few footnotes will be found, which may perhaps be excused as not wholly irrelevant. In the Appendix have been inserted the "Orders of Battle" of both sides, as in the first period of the war.