Not long after our arrival at Creisau, early in 1887, I
repeated my suggestion. In reply to my request that
he would write an account of the Campaign of 1870-1,
he said: "You have the official history of the war.
That contains everything. I admit," he added, "that
it is too full of detail for the general type of readers,
and far too technical. An abridgment must be made
some day." I asked him whether he would allow me
to lay the work on his table, and next morning he
began the narrative contained in this volume, and
comparing it as he went on with the official history,
carried it through to the end.

His purpose was to give a concise account of the
war. But, while keeping this in view, he involun-
tarily--as was unavoidable in his position--regarded
the undertaking from his own standpoint as Chief of
the General Staff, and marshalled results so as to agree
as a whole with the plan of campaign which was known
only to the higher military authorities. Thus this
work, which was undertaken in all simplicity of pur-
pose, as a popular history, is practically from beginning
to end the expression of a private opinion of the war
by the Field-Marshal himself.

Appendix: "On a pretended Council of War in
the Wars of William I. of Prussia," was written in
1881. In a book by Fedor von Koppen, "Männer
und Thaten, vaterländische Balladen" ( Men and Deeds:
Patriotic Songs), which the poet presented to the Field-
Marshal, there is a poem, entitled, "A German Council
of War at Versailles" (with a historical note appended),
describing an incident which never occurred, and
which, under the conditions by which the relations
of the Chief of the Staff to his Majesty were regulated,
never could have occurred. To preclude any such
mistakes for the future, and to settle once and for all
the truth as to the much-discussed question of the
Council of War, the Field-Marshal wrote this paper,
to which he added a description of his personal experi-

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