Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from History of the War in South Africa, 1899-1902, Vol. 2: Compiled by Direction of His of Majesty's Government
In sending round these proofs for comment, I am anxious to appeal to all who can throw light upon any points within their knowledge to do so. Now that the first volume has been published, it must, I think, be clear to all that our only object has been to state the true facts as far as we are able to get at them. This seems to have been generally recognised but our success entirely depends on our obtaining all the criticism and evidence we can. The first drafts of the first volume were very different from the text as published; but, though this was due to the evidence we subsequently obtained from those to whom they were sent, yet in many instances the corrections were furnished with ex pressions of great indignation that the account was not in accord ance with facts known to the writer, but not previously supplied to us. We cannot make bricks without straw; and though the mass of material to be dealt with is very great, it often fails us at important points. It is to fill in these deficiencies that we submit the story as we have it, to those who can give us better evidence. On one point a fiction has gone abroad which may much interfere with this. It has been freely stated that the volume was much 'sub-edited' in the interest of Departments concerned. There is not one word of truth in this. We have held no brief for anyone and no Department or Office has asked us to modify one word in their own interest. The only subject on which any Office asked for change was that mentioned on page 1, Volume I., viz., any phrase that might affect our relations with our Boer fellow-subjects. Otherwise the narrative has been written exactly as we should have written it if we had been pub lishing a volume on our own account, except that under no other circumstances whatever could we have had complete evidence as to the truth.
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.
