Author's NoteOn approaching the task of writing this Note for Victory, the firstthing I am conscious of is the actual nearness of the book, its nearnessto me personally, to the vanished mood in which it was written, and tothe mixed feelings aroused by the critical notices the book obtainedwhen first published almost exactly a year after the beginning of thewar. The writing of it was finished in 1914 long before the murder of anAustrian Archduke sounded the first note of warning for a worldalready full of doubts and fears.The contemporaneous very short Author's Note which is preserved inthis edition bears sufficient witness to the feelings with which Iconsented to the publication of the book. The fact of the book havingbeen published in the United States early in the year made it difficult todelay its appearance in England any longer. It came out in thethirteenth month of the war, and my conscience was troubled by theawful incongruity of throwing this bit of imagined drama into thewelter of reality, tragic enough in all conscience, but even more cruelthan tragic and more inspiring than cruel. It seemed awfullypresumptuous to think there would be eyes to spare for those pages in acommunity which in the crash of the big guns and in the din of bravewords expressing the truth of an indomitable faith could not but feel theedge of a sharp knife at its throat.The unchanging Man of history is wonderfully adaptable both by hispower of endurance and in his capacity for detachment...