nobles were deliberately slaughtered because their spoil as prisoners had already been discounted by the seques tration of their lands. Of the lust for indiscriminat killing we find an example in the Swiss pikemen of th 14th and 15th centuries. The fervour of the nobles self-sacrifice was at first, combined with an appallin ferocity and a cynical disregard for the rights of a neighbours, the ferocity remaining, without the patriot motive, in the hired mercenaries of the 16th century.

the

These are only typical of much valuable materi which has been disinterred from obscure sources, weigh in the balance, and collated for the benefit of the gener historian and student. Considerations of space do n permit the inclusion of detailed reference to the mar lessons of a more technical nature which are still value to those charged with the conduct of milita strategy and tactics. In strategy, the inestimable val gener of the time factor, now reduced to a fine art, was a estud parently first recognised by Edward IV, and applied him in 1461. The importance of the mobility of armieu and the influence thereon of the supply problem, stan out in nearly every chapter, and with it the importan of sea command to armies operating in the neighbou hood of a coast-line, as the crusaders under Richard did in the twelfth century." The influence of financi considerations upon strategical plans is exemplified Prince Edward's campaign (1467) of Navarette, and the are many other subjects of interest to the student strategy.

and ge

.

r read

of

reaso of

alrea

telli

On the tactical side we find again the importance mobility, conferred in former days by the horse, a some day, perhaps, by the internal combustion engi combined with caterpillar' traction. We trace the val of armour as long as it gave immunity against to weapon of the day, and its subsequent decline as missi weapons became more formidable and immunity again them could only be maintained by sacrificing mobili to weight of protective plating. We realise the influen of national characteristics, of class prejudice, and social conditions upon the use to the best advantage such weapons as the English long-bow and the Swit

Compare Allenby in 1917-18, and Kuroki in Corea in 1904.

aire

For the

te.

We learn the importance to military leaders of ting account of such matters, and, 'above everything e, of studying the attributes of all arms and of coming their action on the field of battle so as to get the 1 value out of each. We are once more struck with danger of standardising experience into rigid tems, which lead inevitably to disaster when the ditions upon which they have been built have radily been changed.

Such are some of the points of interest, to the civilian the one hand and to the soldier on the other, that y be learned from a book of this nature. Admirals generals who have been charged with the conduct naval and military operations have, one and all, mowledged the value of historical study to guard m against certain errors which have led to failure in past. The general strategy-the question whether ws are to be struck or to be awaited, by sea and land, d where, the timing of the blows, and the distribution forces for the purpose-is not in these days decided admirals and generals, but by civilian statesmen. ey, in their turn, depend for their power upon public nion, which is influenced, partly by knowledge acquired education or reading by members of the public, partly the writings of historians, publicists, and press-men, gely by unreasoning impulse. In the recent paper * the study of military history in America, to which erence has already been made, we read:

'The voter must some time decide whether or not he ours a specific demand upon some foreign Power. His ther is criminal, if that voter has not been given fairly see how such demands may lead to war; to understand nature, the cost, and the possible consequences of war, the may intelligently decide whether he is ready to back demand with war if necessary; and to know something low war is conducted that he may judge the conduct of representatives, civil and military. He should not bee is in the position of meeting each situation as a novel adopting the first solution that presents itself, and never ing out whether or not it was the best one.'

It may be advanced that this warning is far-fetched

'American Historical Review,' Vol. XXVIII, No. 4, July 1923.,

and unnecessary, if applied to Great Britain. We co tend that it is not. When lecturing some time ago the University of Wales at Aberystwyth, I attended Sunday evening service in the largest chapel. Befo the sermon the minister announced that he had receiv a request to send a telegram to Downing Street, in t name of the congregation, urging the Government turn the Turk out of Constantinople. The resoluti was passed in fervour, and the telegram was sent. the next day I addressed a public meeting, which w attended by many of the members of the congregati and by others. After congratulating the audience up their interest in foreign policy, I ventured to add tha I assumed they knew that this recommendation wor mean war with the Turks. Success in great caus depended upon sacrifice, so I hoped that I might a assume that they were willing to give their own livet to send their sons to fight, or to pay for the heavy come of such a war. It was at once evident that that asp of the question had not been weighed by the audier Since undergoing that experience I have come acr the following note, from the pen of Mr Kingsley Marti on the process by which public opinion was handled order to bring about the war in the Crimea :

by

yare

could

Roman

e resp

east a

'It is a curious picture. In a palace on the Bosporus mer the Sultan, a fleshy and irascible debauchee, usually intoxica ital and always lethargic, surrounded by a group of Mahome fanatics of whose plots to supplant him he was dimly aw and whose ability to rouse the fury of a priest-ridden kept him in abject terror and peevish submission.' And then follows a curious parallel with my perience in Wales, with the policy reversed:

with

the

he late

'In England were public halls, crowded with respecte d shopkeepers, evangelical maiden ladies, and stolid artis Hea enthusiastically proffering their lives and money in service of this obese little tyrant in a fez, whose name to S

could not pronounce and whose habits of life were as unkning

to them as those of a prehistoric monster.'

These two stories add force to the plea that academic and educational system of the country ou

*

1924),

ber

'The Triumph of Lord Palmerston': Kingsley Martin (Allen & Unew

prevent such methods of trading upon the emotions an ignorant electorate.

This leads us again to the study of war. A committee recently under the chairmanship of Lord Haldane deal with the education of officers of the Army. The ect of the recommendations of that Committee when tried out will be to improve the general education of my officers, and to keep them more in touch with ilian thought. Officers who, in the past, have entered Army through a University or through the Militia Special Reserve, have been credited with being perior in this respect to those who entered the Army rough Woolwich and Sandhurst, which fact, if estabhed, supports the Committee's proposed policy. It seems, a corollary, highly desirable to take a further step, to sure the better understanding by the civilian of the ture and conduct of warfare and of the soldier's point view, the same applying to the views of the other vices. Every one should learn enough about the hting forces, by sea, land, and air, to understand at st what they are, and under what limitations they ve and fight. In my day there were a hundred idents who could describe in detail the equipment of Greek or Roman soldier to one who knew anything out the equipment of a British soldier. These, it may said, are details of more immediate importance to se who are responsible for handling soldiers in battle. may be so, but the general student of war history uld at least acquire a working knowledge of the ditions of organisation and of movement of armies, not of their weapons. I recall, in this connexion, a Iversation with an historian for whom every one ertained the deepest reverence and regard, the late rd Bryce. He astonished me by stating that we could ve won the late war more quickly by sending the bulk our army to Salonika than by sending it to France. y one holding the same opinion would do well to dy the communications between Salonika and the tlefields where the issue would have been determined, I the network of railways behind the hostile armies ich would have been encountered.

Only a few weeks ago, a learned friend called my ention to the stupidity of the British Government in

August 1914, because they did not save time by dispate ing to Liége the British soldiers who happened to serving with the colours (without waiting for mobiliso tion), in order to seal up for good and all what he call the narrow defile there, and thus prevent the Germ invasion of Belgium. My friend was a student of histoir A vague impression of the precedent of Thermopyl may have lingered in his mind; but I do not think st knowledge would have been of much value to him if th had been in charge of the conduct of the war in 1914

s I am pleading for the avoidance of 'sloppy' thouqu in connexion with operations of war. This can only riole cured by a grounding in the practical conditions whe; govern movement, supply, topography, and strate retu These render some operations not only difficult, en impossible. It is also essential to know the differe between a herd of soldiers-say 100,000-and an ar but fo of the same number. There is plenty of scope for geral ord in connexion with these matters, but there are certs

syster

physical impossibilities which even a genius can prob

accomplish, as Napoleon discovered in 1812. In a reche report on the teaching of history,* I find this sentences

'The astronomer might as well lose himself in the gla of the starry heaven or attempt to trace the history of the rela spiral nebulæ without the mathematical exactness requ standa in his science, as the teacher of history to dispense with fan measured framework by the aid of which mankind has chang up his ordered conception of the past, and without which student in the present will lose himself in a maze of persons impressions and vague generalisation.'

symy

pment

The analogy with war history is exact. It is the p practice with students of general history to stalth, political, social, and economic developments on t lines. Is it not important to study war developmity with equal thoroughness? Not long ago the Deall St Paul's announced that historians must be more pow ful than the Almighty, because they do what eventer Almighty cannot do. They alter the past. The sade applies to many war historians.

GEORGE ASTO

* Board of Education, Educational Pamphlet, No. 17, June 1923.

er of