Produced by Charles Bowen, from scans obtained from The Internet Archive. Transcriber's notes: 1. Source is Web Archive "http://www.archive.org/details/jenorsedan00beyerich." 2. [oe] is the diphthong oe. 'JENA' OR 'SEDAN'? FROM THE GERMAN OF FRANZ ADAM BEYERLEIN LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1905 _All rights reserved_ Publisher's Note _The German original of this novel had a larger circulation in the first year of its career than any novel of our days, close upon one quarter of a million copies having been sold. It was praised by some as a superb piece of imaginative literature of the realistic school: by others it has been anathematised as a libel on the great army that made Modern Germany. The truth about it is probably best summarised in the words of a reviewer of the_ "_Daily Mail_": "_The author holds up the mirror with impartiality, without fear or passion, and with an unmistakably friendly intention, and asks_, '_Where art thou going? Towards Jena or Sedan?_'" _It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the English reader in explanation of the title that Jena stands for French supremacy and German defeat--Sedan for German victory and a French débâcle; but he should be warned that in this truthful mirror of life there may be details liable to shock insular notions. The author could not shrink from such in the fulfilment of his task, which was to give the truth--the whole truth and nothing but the truth. His work must be judged not only as a novel (and assuredly as such it is a most admirable and artistic piece of work), but it must be regarded also as the cry of a patriot who loves his country above anything in the world. This is most completely realised in the following opening sentences of a long and careful review given to the original by the_ "_Spectator_":-- "_The Englishman who is acutely distressed by the report of shortcomings in the German Army can hardly be human. The frank pleasure which the Germans took in our troubles is too recent to be quite forgotten, even by a people so forgetful as we are. But for all that, only those who crave for the_ '_wicked joys of the soul_,' _which grow, the poet tells us, near by the gates of hell, can lay down Herr Beyerlein's story without a sense of sadness. In spite of its freshness and its humour, there breathes through it that note of disappointment, almost of lassitude, which is not seldom audible in Germany to-day. If is as though the nation, which has travelled such an astonishing distance in the last thirty years, were pausing to ask_, '_Is this all that has come of it?_'