RIDE TO BATTLE By Sylvia Stevenson
First of all it should be explained that Ride to Battle (Iles, its. 6d.) has plenty of ride in it, but no battle. But Miss Stevenson felt, as she rode through the border country between Czecho-Slovakia and Hungary, last autumn, that battle was in the air. Anyway, one supposes that an ardent pacifist, which the author continually declares herself to be, may give her book a martial title if she likes. Nor is it surprising that she took the opportunity of accompanying the Third Hungarian Huszars into the territory seized by Hungary after Munich. Few women—pacifists or not—can have had the experience of riding at the head of an army of occupation. But it is sur- prising to find her so susceptible to the romantic appeal of dashing Huszars, and so overwhelmed by anti-Czech propaganda that she glorifies the whole episode into a sort of crusade. And it is amazing to find one who protests her impartiality so hotly accepting the Nazi estimate of the Czechs and their Government apparently without question, and view- ing the whole position of the Hungarian minorities through the eyes of the young lieutenant of Huszars who acted as her guide and interpreter. However, being an Englishwoman, she is entitled to express her views—just as those who know the countries better are entitled to deprecate them.
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