humble rank of colonel. According to Lord Esher (1, 171), his prescience never failed. In that darkest hour, he is recorded to have said, "The Germans are over hasty. They are bound to make a big mistake. The whole thing is overdone." Already he had divined the battle of the Marne.' Divination was not enough. He had taken the proper measures to ensure victory by instructing the French in the tactics and strategy proper to the occasion. As early as Aug. 24, General Lanrezac made a proposal for attack (1, 168). Wilson saw at once that the thing is ridiculous, and is done to save his face.' On the 27th, he transmitted to the French commander-in-chief a clear expression of his own views: 'I told him how useless the present plans were. I told him to get all five corps up from Alsace' (1, 170). It was equally sure that his own chief, Sir John French, had taken up 'a ridiculous position.' On Sept. 4, he went to see Franchet d'Esperey, who had succeeded Lanrezac, 'and it was agreed between them' what the plan for the battle of the Marne should be. When he returned that night he wrote in his diary (1, 174), The above scheme seemed a good one, and I was all in favour of it, in fact it was, I think, my idea.' But he found the conduct of Sir John French 'simply heart-breaking.' He spent a miserable night,' but at seven in the morning he 'went to see him, and he too agreed.' The battle of the Marne was won. But the full immensity of the victory was only apparent on Sept. 12. The single point in dispute between Wilson and the French was the date of entry into Germany. He thought four weeks; Berthelot three. Wilson then submitted the proposal proper in the event of the Germans being bold enough to stand on the Namur-Meuse-Thionville line, a rather vague proposal, it is true, 'to attack everywhere. They agreed after much argument, and allotted the task to Foch.'

In this happy interlude, Colonel Wilson might well look back with complacency upon his labours during the first week of August, not only in dispatching the Expeditionary Force to France but, what was much more difficult, persuading and compelling the Government to send it at all. The record of those activities also is singularly full and clear. On the night of July 31, he began to suspect that the Cabinet was

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going to run away' (1, 152). Accordingly, he had Johnnie Baird write to Bonar Law begging him to come up and see Asquith.' In the morning of Saturday Aug. 1, at seven o'clock, he went with Sir Arthur Nicolson to see Sir Edward Grey. The Foreign Secretary was in bed, and could not be seen. On his return to breakfast, he found a company of two young ladies, whose names are mentioned, the editor of an important monthly magazine, and General Rawlinson. Late the night before, Wilson had telephoned to this editor the fatal message, 'We are in the soup' (1, 153), and that would account for his presence at breakfast. They constituted themselves into an informal "pogrom,' under the inspiration of the General.' The personnel of this pogrom seems hardly imposing enough for events so important; but at any rate, they got into touch with '-various persons. In addition to all these activities, which were not exactly pertinent to his duties as Director of Military Operations, he went the day before to see General Vicomte de Panouse, the French Military Attaché, 'and advised him to get Cambon to go to Grey to-night and say that, if we did not join, he would break off relations and go to Paris' (1, 153). This does not seem to have been very wise counsel. To break off relations is a serious threat, and is a new method of diplomacy in seeking an ally. England was not at that time accustomed to being threatened by her friends. In any case, M. Cambon and Sir Edward Grey arrived at a decision by a less unusual course. But Colonel Wilson was overwrought. The strain had been too great: 'an old friend found him in a passage in the Admiralty building in tears.' The last entry in the diary for the day reads, 'Grey's delay and hesitation in giving orders is sinful.' It is well known, however, that Sir Edward Grey in a published work gives rather a different account of his action. But the British Expeditionary Force sailed for France.

Such is the splendid figure that would have remained -Knight, Baronet with ten thousand pounds, FieldMarshal, the power that compelled and enabled England to do her duty, the Saviour of France and Russia—had it not been for the publication of these diaries. That figure would have remained for this generation at least,

for the historians are slow and patient in their discovery of the truth. The book is a cruel book. The cruelty lies not in publishing what Sir Henry Wilson says about others but in what he says about himself. What he says about others will be disbelieved or believed according to the taste of the reader; what he says about himself will be accepted as true; and the melancholy truth is that, whilst he says much of his greatness, he says little that is admirable. If, on his behalf, the wise rule had been observed, that a soldier's diary may not be published without the consent of the War Office, any intelligent corporal-clerk would have saved him from himself. It is cruel also because he has been permitted to expose to the world the foundation from which that greatness arose, and transform current surmise into posthumous certainty. Sir Charles Callwell may plead that if he had placed himself and his hero under this self-denying ordinance, the diary would have remained unpublished; but that is a contingency to be deplored less by his friends than by his enemies, for he must have had other enemies than those who struck him down. If an enemy had done this publication, it might fairly be alleged that any man's furtive scribbling, if wholly published, would do him discredit. This is precisely the kind of book the Patriarch yearned for, as emanating from an enemy for his own hurt.

It also should have been calculated how many neutral or ignorant readers might be converted into enemies by reading the book. The historian alone is oblivious to that risk. Sir Charles Callwell was under no vow to write history; yet in his voluntary work of piety in publishing these diaries, he has handed over the subject of them to the historians to be anatomised. It is upon them the duty falls. The book-reviewer also has his own humble office. In his own defence, he may urge that he never reviews a book unless it is thrust under his notice by publication; often, not even then unless people are talking foolishly and falsely about it. And there has been much false and foolish talk about these diaries, especially by persons who have not read them. They have been used in detraction of the civil government, and as proof that soldiers consider themselves superior to the State, and the military force an enemy

of the civil power. That is not true, nor is it true that soldiers are at enmity one with the other, the officers of the staff conspiring against the men fighting on the field. It is equally false that the army assumes a prearranged attitude of hostility to any race or people of His Majesty's subjects before they have declared themselves in open rebellion, which it proceeds to suppress without rancour, without civil hate. It is quite true that these diaries give colour and body to all these accusations, but that is personal to the writer and not of general validity. The essence of the British Army is loyalty to the King, support of His Majesty's Government, fidelity to comrades, submission of self to the common good, resolution in face of the enemy. If in any degree the contrary qualities helped to procure for Sir Henry Wilson his high place, that was the result of adscititious circumstances which rarely occur, and may never occur again. There is in the editing a certain amount of sophistication by which the worse is made to appear the better. That may be forgiven to a friend, but by a reviewer the sophistry must be stripped away. And yet in midst of the sophistry the soldierly candour of the editor shines through; by comment and foot-note he shows how mistaken the diarist was in his observation and deductions.

Lord Stamfordham was right in his statement that Sir Henry Wilson was more responsible than any other single man for England's going to war; but it was by the eternal force of events England was driven to war; the power of any man to accelerate or retard was very slight. In any case, such a claim in itself, even if it were true, is not now held in high esteem. The man who can justly claim that he was the one most responsible for keeping his country from war is entitled to a hearing. The credit so glibly given to Sir Henry Wilson is precisely the charge that is laid against the German Kaiser in respect of his country. Arising out of the convention between the British and the French governments formulated by Lord Lansdowne, of which Viscount Grey of Fallodon has written with passionate approval, there was bound to be a discussion of strategy between the military staffs. In January 1906, M. Cambon thought the moment opportune in view of certain possibilities,

and Mr Haldane authorised a definite correspondence, with the clear understanding that no action was involved. All was vague until the year 1911 when the Agadir crisis gave point to the military discussions. In July of that year, Colonel Wilson went to Paris where he spent a day with the French High Command, and these mutual visits were exchanged at irregular intervals during the next three years. It was not unnatural that the French were willing to believe the best, that the British Expeditionary Force would be instantly at their disposal, and that England would be automatically committed to war at their discretion. It was natural, too, when war broke out, that they stood aghast, as they discovered that the military conversations were unofficial,' and that the documents were all in order against their assumptions. On Aug. 1, at 11.30 a.m., Mr Asquith was free to write formally reminding the War Office that the Government had never promised the French an Expeditionary Force. Whilst it is quite true that Mr Asquith and the Cabinet as a whole were ignorant of these military manoeuvres, Lord Haldane and Sir Edward Grey were more fully aware. On Aug. 9, 1911, Colonel Wilson, after his return from Paris, presented to them three points: 'that we must join the French; that we must mobilise the same day; that we must send all six divisions. These were agreed to, but with no great heartiness' (I, 99).

In all this conference with the French there was inevitable silence. It had been necessary throughout to perform the work with utmost secrecy. The fact that Wilson and some of his staff were in communication with the French had to be concealed. About half a dozen officers alone in all the War Office knew of what was in progress' (1, 149). At this point the diary fails us; but upon the fateful alliance with France and the consequent withdrawal of the Fleet from the Mediterranean the diary is brilliantly clear. The decision to withdraw was made without permission of the Foreign Office, or Cabinet, and without discussion by the Committee of Imperial Defence' (1, 113). When war really did break out the Expeditionary Force was ready, although the field-guns were obsolete, as they were not designed for high explosives. The ominous question

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