EDITOR’S PREFACE
facts of national history could be ascertained, it would be impossible
to proceed with comparative analysis; and the different national
histories were themselves of almost baffling intricacy and variety.
Consequently the former European Committee of Research was dissolved,
 and in its place it was decided to erect an Editorial Board
in each of the larger countries and to nominate special editors in
the smaller ones, who should concentrate, for the present at least,
upon their own economic and social war history.
The nomination of these boards by the General Editor was the
first step taken in every country where the work has begun. And if
any justification were needed for the plan of the Endowment, it at
once may be found in the lists of those, distinguished in scholarship
or in public affairs, who have accepted the responsibility of editorship.
 This responsibility is by no means light, involving as it does
the adaptation of the general editorial plan to the varying demands
of national circumstances or methods of work; and the measure of
success attained is due to the generous and earnest cooperation of
those in charge in each country.
Once the editorial organization was established, there could be
little doubt as to the first step which should be taken in each instance
toward the actual preparation of the History. Without documents
there can be no history. The essential records of the War, local as
well as central, have therefore to be preserved and to be made available
 for research in so far as is compatible with public interest. But
this archival task is a very great one, belonging of right to the Governments
 and other owners of historical sources and not to the historian
 or economist who proposes to use them. It is an obligation of
ownership; for all such documents are public trust. The collaborators
 on this section of the War History, therefore, working within
their own field as researchers, could only survey the situation as they
found it and report their findings in the forms of guides or manuals;
and perhaps, by stimulating a comparison of methods, help to further
 the adoption of those found to be most practical. In every country,
 therefore, this was the point of departure for actual work; although
 special monographs have not been written in every instance.
The first stage of the work upon the War History, dealing with
little more than the externals of archives, seemed for a while to
exhaust the possibilities of research, and had the plan of the History
been limited to research based upon official documents, little more

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