As I was on the point of starting to pay a long-promised visit to the Commander-in-Chief of our Army of the Rhine, a cabled message from the Government of New Zealand was put into my hands--a message asking me to write a Preface to the Gallipoli volume of the History of New Zealand's Share in the Great War. This preface was to be written and posted to Wellington without loss of time, as the work had already gone to press. When I set out for the Dardanelles on Friday, March 13, 1915, to command an unknown army against an unknown enemy, in an unknown country, that was an original undertaking. To write a preface to an unknown book being printed in another hemisphere--to write it from memory--in the train and in a hurry, that also is an original undertaking, and it is necessary to begin by setting forth these facts in order that my many omissions and shortcomings may have a better chance of forgiveness. Crossing the German frontier, with the edict of the New Zealand Government still in my pocket, I got out to stretch my legs at the first stop. The name of that railway station was Düren. Hardly had I alighted when my eyes fell upon the letters, "N.Z.M.R.," quite unmistakably affixed to the shoulder-strap of an officer also standing on that platform. Since the year 1915, this particular combination of capital letters has exercised upon me a certain fascination--I have to go right there. So I went, and asked the wearer of the shoulder-strap if he had been at the Dardanelles. "I have, indeed," he said. "I am Lieut.-Colonel John Studholme. I served in the Dardanelles under you, and now I am the last New Zealander in Germany." "You speak figuratively," said I. "You mean you are one of the last." "Not so," he replied. "I am not one of the last; I am the last one." Now here, thought I to myself, is a queer thing! I am told to write a preface to a history of an Army, and I meet the last item of that Army which did so much to win the Rhineland, in Rhineland; the last man of that superb band who were raised from a population of one million and lost fifteen thousand killed; whereas, to take other standards, the Belgians, justly famous as having fought so long and so valiantly for the freedom of Europe, lost thirteen thousand killed out of a population of seven millions. Once again, too, there came to me the thought of their losses at the Dardanelles:-- Total strength landed 8,556 all ranks Casualties in killed and wounded (excluding sickness) 7,447 These thoughts and the coincidence of meeting Colonel Studholme, gave me courage. I had been thinking I could not do justice to my theme, and that I must regretfully decline. Now I resolved to take my courage in both hands and go ahead; so here, with the help of my personal diary, I revive memories of my meeting with the first New Zealander.