Excerpt from The History of the South African Forces in France IN the autumn of 1916 I was asked by the Union Government to undertake the official History of the South African Forces in Europe. At the time I was serving in France, and had therefore an opportunity to see something of the Infantry Brigade. For various reasons I was unable to begin the work until after the signing of the Armistice: since which date I have had at my disposal all official papers, and have received the assistance of many South African officers. I desire to express my gratitude to major-general Sir H. T. Lukin, brigadier-general Dawson, brigadier-general Tanner, and the various battalion and battery comman ders for the help they have given me. I would especially thank Major H. P. Mills of the Third Regiment, but for whose unwearying co-operation the book could not have been written. My aim has been to tell as simply as possible the story of a great military achievement, to my mind one of the finest in the whole history of the campaigns; and, at the same time, to provide a detailed account of the operations of the infantry and the other services, which, I trust, may be of interest as a war. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.