I suppose you would call this a war book, but it is unlike any other war book that I, at least, have met with. Its defined and realized scope, its fidelity and entire freedom from meretricity make it a singularly individual piece of work. And that brings me to its form--the chief reason for this short preface. “The Spanish Farm” is not precisely a novel, and it is not altogether a chronicle; and here the interest comes in--quite clearly the author did not mean it to be a novel, and fail; nor did he mean it to be a chronicle, and fail. In other words, he was guided by mood and subject-matter into discovery of a new vehicle of expression--going straight ahead with that bold directness which guarantees originality. Easy enough to find fault with “The Spanish Farm” if you judge it strictly as a novel, or strictly as a chronicle, in fact if you take it strictly for what it is not--that pet weakness of hasty criticism. The book has its imperfections;--what book has not?--but I do not think the serious critic can miss the peculiar unforced feeling of novelty its form has given me. You do not put it down saying: “I see perfectly what form the fellow was trying for, but he didn’t bring it off.” You put it down thinking: “The fellow didn’t seem to be trying for any form, but he did bring it off.” We know the self-conscious chronicle in fiction, and its--as a rule--artificial effect. “The Spanish Farm” is as far from that as it is from the dramatic novel. It just goes its own way, and quietly defeats the search for parallels. One might perhaps best call it highly humanized history. It is, anyway, a very interesting book, with a just--if unexpected--title, for one never loses consciousness of Madeleine’s home, that solid old farmstead of French Flanders, named in the Spanish wars of centuries ago, and still in being, after the greatest war of all time. JOHN GALSWORTHY. CONTENTS PAGE _Preface: by John Galsworthy_ vii _Part I: La Patrie est en danger_ 3 _II: “On les aura”_ 115 _III: La Galette_ 213 _PART I_ LA PATRIE EST EN DANGER PART I _La Patrie est en danger_ A farmer stood watching a battalion of infantry filing into his pasture. A queerer mixture of humanity could not have been imagined. The farmer wore a Dutch cap, spoke Flemish by preference, but could only write French. His farm was called Ferme l’Espagnole--The Spanish Farm--and stood on French soil. The soldiers were the usual English mixture--semi-skilled townsmen, a number of agricultural and other laborers, fewer still of seafaring and waterside folk, and a sprinkling of miners and shepherds, with one or two regulars.