Copyright © 2022 by Michael Walsh

Cover by Michael Walsh

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to: photocopying, scanning, recording or information storage and retrieval, without permission in writing from the author.

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Although this is a piece of fiction, most of the geographic and historical backgrounds are real, as are some of the characters. Through this series of novels, I have taken the liberty of weaving a fictitious plot around such historical figures as: Conrad Kain; Ambassador Sir Evelyn Grant Duff and his wife, Dame Edith Grant Duff; Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Picot; John Wallinger; George Skipworth; Secret Service Bureau operative, R; Lieutenant-Colonel Stenning; King Geroge V; Captain Doctor Arthur Martin-Leake, VC; Auguste Escoffier; W Somerset Maugham; Hans Wilsdorf; David Lloyd George, H H Asquith, Edith Cavell, and others. They are depicted in the settings, at the times and with the appointments and positions shown in the historical records, though most of their interactions in this story are fiction.

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Dedication

To the more than twenty million
dead and wounded in World War One
while defending us against aggression.

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In 1914, Europe was divided into two alliances and a few neutral countries. After Germany had marched into Belgium and Luxembourg, only Spain, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Switzerland remained neutral. 

The story is set in Switzerland, France and Germany, with a lot of the activity coordinated from Sonnenhang at the western edge of the strange bulge Swiss Schaffhausen makes into southern Germany.