The most important work of the Military Monograph Subsection was the preparation of military handbooks which described, with almost incredible wealth of detail, the regions in which our forces were operating or in which they might operate at some future time, the volumes being by no means confined to Europe and Asiatic Russia. The method followed in the preparation of these small, pocket-sized, linen-covered volumes was as follows: From standard sources, such as Baedeker’s and Murray’s guides, the best possible description of a given region or route is compiled, or, should guide-books on the region in question be unobtainable, an account is obtained from some experienced and reliable traveller. This skeleton is then enlarged, improved, and brought up to date by the careful perusal of consular and other reports and of all sorts of confidential documents issued by our own and other governments, and by reference to reliable books of travel. An even more fruitful method of obtaining new and valuable information is through interviews with travellers, explorers, mining engineers, consuls, commercial travellers, sea-captains, and others who have had opportunities to familiarize themselves with the regions about which information is desired. If these men were asked to sit down and dictate accounts of their observations, the results would probably, in nine cases out of ten, prove highly unsatisfactory, but if a written account of the region under discussion is given them, it invariably acts as a great stimulus to their memories. Though a man may not be able to write as good an account from first-hand knowledge as the intelligence officer has prepared from material obtained in a library, he is easily able to point out errors, to suggest additions, and in other ways to improve the version placed before him. The last and potentially the most valuable of the methods used in gathering information for these handbooks is the employment of the Military Intelligence Division’s own agents, such as military attachés, diplomatic and consular officers, and other civilian agents who are sent to foreign countries with specific instructions as to the information which it is desired to obtain. I might add that this has shown itself to be the most satisfactory source of information for monographs and handbooks. It is no exaggeration to say that each of these handbooks—and already a score or more of them have been completed—represents the combined knowledge of from forty to a hundred people.