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Preface.

The decision which determined the publication of this Volume found equally its inspiration and its purpose in the desire to place on permanent record the part borne by the Otago Infantry Regiment in the Great War which desolated the World during the years 1914 to 1918, and to give it an honoured and enduring place on the crowded roll of fame among the organised forces that stood for Liberty in those dark days of tragedy and suffering, of heroism and sacrifice hitherto unknown in the armed conflict of nations.

When the compilation of the History was entered upon it became clear that the task of placing on record merely the operations with which the Regiment, in its varying strengths of Battalions, was concerned over a period of four years demanded lengthened, careful and extensive research and inquiry; but to attempt anything approaching a detailed record of the numerous examples of individual valour and sacrifice, of gallant deeds and brilliant service at the cost of suffering and death, would form in itself a monumental epic far exceeding the limits assigned this Volume. In neither instance do official diaries or records, inevitably sparse and sterile in material, always afford the amount of information essential to the requirements of reliable historical accuracy and fulness of incident.

Allowance having been made for shortcomings due to these and other circumstances, it is hoped that the operations of the Otago Regiment, as part of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, have been invested with some appearance of historical sequence and form, and that a permanent setting has been given to the fame which the sons of Otago and Southland achieved at Anzac and Helles, on thepage break Gallipoli Peninsula; at Armentieres, the Somme, Messines, Passchendaele, Picardy, Bapaume, and Mormal Forest—the battlefields of France and Flanders. If the History succeeds in keeping fresh the memory of their unconquerable spirit, and if future generations are inspired by the story its chapters unfold, then something will have been accomplished.

It is appropriate at this point that grateful acknowledgment should be made of the generous assistance given by the Senior Officers of the Regiment towards the successful completion of the History, and of the ready response met with on all sides in the search for information bearing on obscure situations, thereby clearing the ground of much that would otherwise have made the work more difficult and less comprehensive.