Modern war is fought in conditions to which history offers no parallel. Both the British and German Governments have maintained the strictest reserve in regard to every operation. When one reads the despatches it is quite obvious to the least instructed student of war, that their publication has been guided by the consciousness that within two or three days of issue the text would be in the enemy’s hands. Every atom of information, then, that could be of the slightest value to the Germans has been ruthlessly excised, with results to a great extent ruinous to lay comprehension of the events described. This being so, I wish it clearly to be understood that every opinion or judgment expressed in these chapters must obviously be subject to modification and revision when further information becomes available. Generally speaking, too, the plans I have included with the text have no pretence whatever to be authentic, but are presented simply as diagrammatic ways of making the text intelligible. No more can be claimed for them than that they should not be inconsistent with the information officially given. The plans of the Falkland Islands engagements are the only exceptions. These I believe to be substantially correct. In the destruction of _Koenigsberg_ the main interest is the solution of a gunnery problem in itself not very intricate, if once the means of carrying it out exist and the right method of procedure is recognized. But in the actual operations the men on the spot had to do an immense number of things before the problem could be tackled at all, and in the solution of the gunnery problem they had to learn from the beginning and so discover, from their failure at the first attempt, the method which was so brilliantly successful on the second. In this respect the story isolates a single and, as I have said, a simple problem in gunnery and illustrates what is meant by right technique. Apart from this, the story is full of human interest and exhibits the exceptional advantages which naval training gives to those who have to extemporize methods of dealing with circumstances and difficulties without the guidance of experience.