On Oct. 21 he launched the I Corps to an attack for The recovery of Bruges; and on the same day, whether efore or after he had committed these troops to their ffensive he does not tell us, he learned that the Germans ad brought up four fresh Reserve Corps to break his line t Ypres. The strength of this reinforcement and the addenness of its appearance came to him, as he conesses, like a bolt from the blue. Apparently the Intellience Departments of the Belgian, French and British rmies must all equally have been taken by surprise. hen the storm broke, and the projected offensive of the llies became a stubborn, almost desperate, defensive. he story of the first battle of Ypres affords such numberss examples of British coolness and tenacity that it is ard to select any one of them as more conspicuous than Me rest. Lord French dwells in particular upon the fence of Messines by the cavalry; and, though he may ster some natural prejudice in favour of the arm in hich he was trained, we do not think that he is unily partial here. He gives no instances of individual illantry, and herein shows sound sense; but we can ver read of those days without recalling Lieutenant ewart, of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, who on Oct. 24 went it with two men only to parry a flank attack upon his ttalion, and shot down seventy Germans, including the ams of two machine-gun detachments, with his own rifle. Lord French's account of the crisis of the battle on t. 31 is highly dramatic:

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

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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 & 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.

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

J. W. FORTESCUE.