On Oct. 21 he launched the I Corps to an attack for the recovery of Bruges; and on the same day, whether before or after he had committed these troops to their offensive he does not tell us, he learned that the Germans had brought up four fresh Reserve Corps to break his line at Ypres. The strength of this reinforcement and the suddenness of its appearance came to him, as he confesses, like a bolt from the blue. Apparently the Intelligence Departments of the Belgian, French and British armies must all equally have been taken by surprise. Then the storm broke, and the projected offensive of the Allies became a stubborn, almost desperate, defensive. The story of the first battle of Ypres affords such numberless examples of British coolness and tenacity that it is hard to select any one of them as more conspicuous than the rest. Lord French dwells in particular upon the defence of Messines by the cavalry; and, though he may foster some natural prejudice in favour of the arm in which he was trained, we do not think that he is unduly partial here. He gives no instances of individual gallantry, and herein shows sound sense; but we can never read of those days without recalling Lieutenant Stewart, of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, who on Oct. 24 went out with two men only to parry a flank attack upon his battalion, and shot down seventy Germans, including the teams of two machine-gun detachments, with his own rifle. Lord French's account of the crisis of the battle on Oct. 31 is highly dramatic:

...

'As I passed through Ypres on the way to Haig there were manifest signs of unusual excitement, and some shells were already falling in the place. . . . I saw loaded vehicles leaving the town, and people were gathered in groups about the streets chattering like monkeys or rushing hither and thither with frightened faces. . . . I had not gone more than a mile from the town, when the traffic in the road began to assume an anxious and most threatening aspect. It looked as if the whole of the I Corps were about to fall back in confusion on Ypres. Heavy howitzers were moving westward at a trot-always a most significant feature of a retreat-and ammunition and other waggons blocked the road almost as far as the eye could reach. In the midst of the press of traffic and along both sides of the road, crowds of wounded came limping along fast as they could go, all heading for Ypres. Shells Vol. 232.-No. 461.

2 B

were screaming overhead and bursting with reverberating explosions in the adjacent fields.'

Sir John pursued his way on foot to the château of Hooge and found General Haig and his Chief of Staff, John Gough, anxious but cool, poring over their maps. They gave a bad account of affairs; and the Commanderin-Chief passed the worst half-hour of his life until a staff officer came galloping in with the news that the lost village of Gheluvelt had been retaken, and that the advancing Germans had been checked. Lord French's account of the reason for this sudden turn of the tide is the usual one-that Brigadier-General FitzClarence had on his own initiative summoned the Worcesters of the 5th Brigade and ordered them to counter-attack. But is it not the fact that the Worcesters had been held ready by the Divisional Commander for just such a contingency, and were brought into action according to his orders? This in no way detracts from the good service of General FitzClarence in the actual direction of the counter-attack; and it must not be considered derogatory to the fame of the Worcesters if we mention that the Berkshires also attacked Gheluvelt independently, and contributed not a little to the re-establishment of a favourable situation. A Commander-in-Chief has no time to trouble himself with such details; but we, who have leisure, can do justice to the good work of one of the finest battalions of the Old Army.

With the last phase of the famous battle we shall not concern ourselves further than to note that the II Corps, which had been withdrawn from the line, utterly exhausted, on Oct. 28, was gradually drawn into it again, brigade by brigade or battalion by battalion, until almost the whole of it had been absorbed into the I Corps. Even so Sir Douglas Haig had under him but a shadow of a corps, and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien was left with hardly a man under his command. Such was the price of the victory of Ypres-the destruction of the Old Army, probably the finest, for its numbers, that ever went forth to war.

We shall not follow Lord French into the rather controversial matter which concludes his volume. We agree heartily with him that it was a great mistake in

Lord Kitchener to raise new armies, instead of utilising the organisation for expansion of the Territorial Force which Lord Haldane had already prepared for him; but beyond that we shall not go. We have found too many inaccuracies in his book to permit us to accept any statement of his without the utmost caution; and, though this may seem to be a hard saying, we must warn our readers to follow our example.

It

Upon the whole we must pronounce this to be one of the most unfortunate books that ever was written. does not preach even sound military doctrine. There is some parade of commonplace military reading, but there is also the curious teaching that such a river as the Somme or the Oise would provide a military barrier, behind which a retreating army could rest and refit. Surely such a notion is hardly one which in these days should be put forward upon the authority of a FieldMarshal. But this is not the worst. It is the spirit of the whole work which really gives us pain. The author has descended to misstatements and misrepresentations of the clumsiest and most ludicrous kind in order to injure the reputation of a subordinate, who is forbidden to defend himself; and, coming from one in his high position, this brings shame and dishonour not only upon the Field-Marshal himself but upon the Army. A worse example to young officers than is to be found in this book we cannot imagine. We entreat them to avoid it, or, if they do read it, to study it for warning against what is wrong rather than for instruction in what is right. Lord French is, it is true, still the recipient of honours and rewards; but no accumulation of titles, bâtons, grants, orders or decorations can ever fit him to stand in the company of such men as Ralph Abercromby, John Moore, Rowland Hill and Thomas Graham. Let these, and not Lord French, stand before the youth of Britain as the models upon which to train themselves to be officers and gentlemen.

J. W. FORTESCUE,