[1] The novel is an unusual blend of fiction narrative and historiography, and has given rise to extensive and often bitter controversy, both from the literary as well as from the historical point of view.

A famous episode in the earlier version of the novel narrates the state of mind of General Samsonov, the Russian commander, after his disastrous defeat in what came to be known as the Battle of Tannenberg.

Samsonov, tormented by the scale of the defeat and his fear of reporting this failure to the Tsar, eventually commits suicide.

He was able to publish chapters that had been suppressed while he was still living in Russia, given the Soviet censorship of literature, and to add material based on his extensive research at the library of the Hoover Institution.

BBC Cymru Wales produced a two-hour radio version of the book for broadcast in August 2014, as part of the national observations of the centenary of the First World War.