We who are now actually living through the terrible hours of this Great War will never be in complete and accurate possession of all its details. These will be truly known only to the generations who come after us, long after we have passed away. For we, of French race, who will have suffered and endured every anguished hour of the brutal invasion, and will have felt it so poignantly in our hearts and lives, will have lived not only in too close proximity to the war, but will have been part of it ourselves, so that its influence will have touched us too keenly for us to be able to judge the diverse facts of it with sufficient aloofness.