PREFACE

In the early part of 1916 the Council of the Royal Colonial Institute decided to take in hand a work to be entitled The Empire at War', and in the autumn of that year an agreement was made with the Oxford University Press for its publication.

The design of the work was and is to trace the growth of Imperial co-operation in war time prior to the late War, to give side by side a complete record of the effort made in the late War by every unit of the Overseas Empire from the greatest to the smallest, and also to tell in what particular ways and to what extent the fortunes and the development of each part were affected by the War.

The scheme was warmly approved by the late Lord Grey, then President of the Institute, and, with his support, it was recommended to and secured the sympathetic interest of the Government Offices more especially concerned, of the Dominion Governments and their representatives, and of the Governors and Governments of the Colonies. In particular there is special reason to be grateful to the Colonial Office, at whose instance the fullest material has been forthcoming from the Colonies and Protectorates, endless trouble having been taken by the Governors and those to whom they entrusted the task of preparing narratives for the purpose of the book. The Chartered Companies and many other agencies and individuals have most cordially collaborated, and names will be given and due acknowledgment made as the different volumes appear. Here it is only possible to record in general terms the help which has been given, while at the same time emphasizing that the work is not,

and never was intended to be, in any sense an official publication. For the statements made and the views expressed I am, as General Editor, responsible.

The original scheme, as formulated in 1916, included six volumes: (i) a preliminary volume-the present volume-down to the 4th of August 1914; (ii) a Short History of the Great War; (iii) an American volume devoted to Canada, Newfoundland, West Indies, Bermuda, and Falkland Islands; (iv) an Australasian volume, including Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands; (v) an African volume, excluding Egypt; (vi) an Eastern and Mediterranean volume, including Egypt, India, the Far Eastern Colonies and Protectorates, and the Mediterranean Colonies. But in 1916 it was not contemplated that the War would be so prolonged as it actually was, still less was it foreseen how great, after the War, would be the expense and difficulty of publication. The publishers, authors, and editor found themselves faced with a far greater mass of material than had been anticipated, and with a cost of production which was little short of prohibitive. Further, the illness of the author who had undertaken the second volume, and his much regretted death at a time approaching the date when the volume should have been completed, supplied an additional reason for reconsidering the scheme. Accordingly, in view of the many general sketches of the War which have appeared and are still appearing, it was decided to omit the second volume altogether, and very largely to add to the contents of the four remaining volumes, which will be of much greater bulk than had been originally intended. Retrenchment on maps and illustrations, which would otherwise have been inevitable, will be largely avoided by the generous help of the Rhodes Trustees, who have given a grant more especially for this particular purpose.

This much has been said in explanation at once of the general scheme of the work and of the long time during