The Eighth Army. (H.M. Stationery Office. Is.) ONE expects much
from a book with this title. Yet after reading it a certain amount of disappointment is felt. The photographs are good and well reproduced and the diagrammatic maps are dear and valuable. The account of the Eighth Army's operations from its formation in September, 1941, to the fall of Tripod in January, 1943, is as well done as can be expected at this stage. But for a book of this kind, designed presumably to satisfy the public's appetite fur news about its Artily, there are two fundamental weaknesses. First, it is too inipersonaL We are given no real picture of the life of the Desert Army nor are we even given lively portraits of its commanders. Secondly, an official publication of this type seems hardly the place for the discussion of strategic questions which sometimes involve the passing of judgements on individual commanders. For the author has of necessity to leave much out of his story ; little, for example, is said of the all-important problem of supply. It is a pity that he did not concentrate on the more human side of his subject and leave the rest to an official historian with sufficient space to set-out the relevant evidence.
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