unless comparison with other documents showed the suggested reading to have been obviously either correct or incorrect. In the latter case the text within parentheses has sometimes been replaced by an editorial insertion within brackets.
Translations as found in the files have been revised and corrected if found faulty by comparison with texts in the original language or other versions available, but care has been taken to avoid altering in any significant respect important texts that were acted upon or used as sources of information in their existing form.
The general principles governing the compilation and editing of these papers are stated in the preface to Foreign Relations, 1914, Supplement, pp. iii-iv.