Thanks are due to several persons and institutions for their assistance in the preparation of this book: to Ray Duplain of Deakin University, Australia, for drawing the maps; to Carolyn and Lisa, who did most of the typing; to John Moses, for useful suggestions regarding the translation; to Hazel Blumberg-McKee, for the indexing; to Tim McMullin and the editors of Teaching History, for permission to use, in the introduction, some of the material and ideas which first appeared in ‘Germany and the 1914 Question: An Epilogue to the Fischer Thesis’ (in volume 18, number 4 of this journal). The publishers, Chatto and Windus, of London, UK and W. W. Norton, of New York, USA, have kindly agreed to the use, again in the introduction, of a rather long extract from Professor Fischer’s Germany’s Aims in the First World War, and for this, too, we are most grateful.