In England, as in France and Germany, the main characteristics of the last fifty years, from the point of view of the student of history, has been that new material has been accumulating much faster than it can be assimilated or absorbed.
Often some one precious detail of war lurks in the moiddle of a book of the most unlikely description. After turning over tens of thousands of leaves in Latin, French, Italian, German, English, Spanish and Dutch print, one is left with an accumulation of observed phenomena.