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‘Why, I have spent all my life in trying to guess what was at the other side of the hill.’

The Duke of Wellington, as quoted in Croker's Correspondence and Diaries (1884 edition), Vol. III, p. 275.

The German Army records, war diaries and reports, even reports of telephone conversations, are now lodged at Washington as the joint property of the American and British Governments. They are very complete and detailed except for the last months of the war when the machine was breaking down. Those relating to operations in which New Zealand troops were engaged have been translated by Mr. Denham Dawson, a member of the War History Branch staff, who spent two years in Washington on the task. For nearly every action we have the enemy story almost as fully as our own, the units engaged, their commanders (with the personal records of the latter), their orders, messages and reports. Occasionally a failure is glossed over, which happens in all armies, but on the whole they are accurate and reliable. It is not often that military historians have this advantage and it is being fully used in the campaign volumes under preparation.

The studies in this number were prepared by the War History narrators engaged in the preparation of these volumes. They give a good idea of what happened on the other side of the hill.