BOOKS ON THE WAR.*
THE Australian Government has undertaken the publication of an official history of Australia in the Great War, which is to be comprised in twelve volumes, under the general editorship of Mr. C. E. W. Bean. The first of these' is a most promising piece of work. Mr. Bean, who was the official correspondent with the Australian Forces throughout the War, has had unique opportunities for obtaining first-hand information, alike from official records and from the survivors of the battles. " The more ho saw and knew of the men and officers of the Australian Imperial Force the more fully did the writer become convinced that the only memorial which could be worthy of them was the bare and uncoloured story of their part in the War." In this first volume Mr. Bean describes the genesis of the Australian Imperial Force, the despatch of the first two divisions overseas, and the opening of the campaign in Gallipoli. He has done a service to the Empire by recording the whole-souled enthusiasm with which Australia endorsed Mr. Fisher's declaration that, if war came, " Australians would stand beside the mother country to help and defend her to our last man and our last shilling." The actual contribution of the Commonwealth was 413,453 men and £385,760,402. Mr. Bean devotes nearly 400 pages to a description in minute detail of the landing at Anzac and the first nine days of the fighting. Like Inkezman, it was a soldiers' battle, and for the first time the reader here gets a vivid conception of the murderous fighting in the scrubby ravines, where the gallant Anzacs " hung on by their eyelids " till the position was incredibly established. Mr. Bean's admir- ably simple narrative bears the mark of truth on every page, and entitles him to a high place amongst the historians of the Great War.-Along with it we may heartily commend Major Waite's briefer account2 of the New Zealanders' part in the Gallipoli campaign, the first of four volumes being prepared under the auspices of the Dominion Government " to present • (1) The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918. Vol. I. By C. E. W. Bean. Sydney : Angus and Rote.rtson. [21s. net.]-(2) The New Zealanders at Gallipoli. By Major F. Waite, D.S.O. Wellington : Whitcomb° and Tombs. (12s. 6d. net.]-(3) The 18th Division in the Great War. By Captain G. H. F. Nichols. London : Blackwood. [36s. net.]-(4) The History of the 2nd Division, 1914-1918. Vol. I. By Everard Wyrall. London : Nelson. [21s. net.]-(5) The 33rd Division in France and Flanders, 1915-1919. By Lieut.-Col. G. B. Hutchison, D.8.0., M.C. London : Waterlow. (52s. 6d. net.] -(6) The 34th Division, 1915-1919. By Lieut.-Col. J. Shakespear, C.M.G., C.I.E., D.S.O. London : Witherby. [12a. 6d. net.] -(7) The History of the 20th (Light) Division. By Capt. V. E. lnglefleld. London : Nisbet. (18s. net.] -(8) The Territorial Divisions. By Major J. Stirling. London : Dent. [Gs. net.]-(9) The Work of the Royal Engineers in the European War, 1914- 1919. Water Supply (France). Chatham : W. and J. Mackay. [15s. net.]- (10) The Royal Fusiliers in the Great War. By H. C. O'Neill, O.B.E. Landon : Heinemann. 121,. net.]-(11) The Story of the Royal 1Varwic.kshire Regiment. By C. L. Kingsford. London : " Country Life." (12a. 6d. net.]-(12) The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry. By Major D. D. Ogilvie. London : Murray. (90. net.]-(13) A Record of the West Somerset Yeomanry, 1914-1919. By Capt. It. C. Boyle, M.C. London : The St. Catherine Pleas, Stamford Street, 8.E. [53. net.]-(14) With the Cornwall Territorials on the Western Front. By E. C. Matthews. Cambridge : Spalding. [25a. net.]-(15) The Escaping Club. By Major A. J. Evans. London : Lane. [7s. 6d. net.]-(16) From the Somme to the Rhine. By 8. Ashmead-Bartlett. London : Lane. [7s. 6d. net.]- (17) Letters from France. By A. J. Smola. Emden: Melrose. [7s. Cod. net.)
to the people of New Zealand the inspiring record of the work of our sons and daughters overseas."
We are glad to welcome several excellent additions to the divisional histories, which by this time fill a fairly long shelf in our war library, and which, when they are complete, will form probably the fullest account of the infantry fighting that we are likely to see. Among the best of all is the history of the 18th Divisions by Captain Nichols, already known, under his pseudonym of " Quex," as the author of one of the most vivid accounts of the German push in 1918. The 18th was commanded for its first two years by Sir Ivor Masse, who made a great reputation as a trainer of fighting men. Its achievement in its first big battle is noted by Captain Nichols as " a typical Masse success-a triumph first of preparation and construction and then of grit and determination." It was one of the battalions of this division-the 8th East Surreys- who went over the top on the 1st of July, 1916, kicking footballs. Later, the division distinguished itself by the capture of Trones Wood, and then of Thiepval, led in each case by the gallant Colonel Maxwell-" my best platoon commander," as General Masse called him-who concealed " a burning forcefulness beneath an ice-cool exterior." Captain Nichols has a happy gift for thumbnail sketches of the personalities who cross his vivid pages. Unforgettable is that of Dr. Ackroyd, the Cambridge Don who was recommended by 23 separate units for the V.C., whioh he earned in the inferno of Clapham Junction on the 31st of July, 1917. " Ackroyd's own battalion, the 6th Royal Berks, were accustomed to the bravery always shown by this -middle-aged man of science, and they did not ask for a V.C. to be awarded to him." As too often happened, Ackroyd was killed before the award was gazetted. Captain Nichols's account of the fighting in 1918 is full of picturesque detail, and his division has been as fortunate in its historian as in its corn- manders.-Mr. Wyrall's history of the 2nd Division,* which this first volume brings down to the end of 1916, labours under the disadvantage that the author does not appear to have had any personal experience of the incidents which he relates. He has, however, done his task of compilation from official despatches, diaries, operation orders, &c., with conscientious care. As Lord Haig says in his preface, "there must always be a peculiar interest attaching to the War histories of the divisions that composed the original Expeditionary Force. . . . Those divisions were not merely the advance guard to the far mightier forces that followed them to France, they were also their example, and set the standards to which tho younger divisions of our Army afterwards lived up so worthily." Lord Haig singles out the holding of the line at Bourlon Wood on the 30th of November, 1917, as perhaps the finest single achievement of the 2nd Division.-The most striking features of Colonel Hutchison's history of the 33rd Division' are the author's coloured drawings of scenes and incidents at the front. The artist asks the critic to bear in mind " that master- pieces cannot be painted, oft as not, with the aid of an old toothbrush and Ordnance enamel." It will be enough to say that Colonel Hutchison's drawings are extremely spirited and faithfully reproduce many sights which are not likely to be visible again in our days. The story of the division's share in the battles of the Somme and Arras, Third Ypres and the Hundred Days, is excellently told. -Colonel Shakespear has written a cheery and readable account of the doings of the 34th," a " typical New Army division." He went to France with the division at the beginning of 1916 ; by the end of that year the casualties amounted to 18,000, or more than 80 per cent. of the full paper strength at which the division crossed the Channel. In 1917 they exceeded 19,000. There is nothing exceptional in these figures, and Colonel Shakespear's narrative shows that the division gave good value for its losses.- Captain Inglefield's history of the 20th Division7 is an unpre- tentious piece of work, which illustrates Lord Cavan's remark that " the 20th Division never failed me, and never failed its neighbours."-Major Stirling's little book" brings together in a handy form extracts from the despatches relating to the twenty-two Territorial divisions which were sent overseas during the War, with a useful appendix showing the battles in which each of them took part.
We can only call attention to the technical treatise on Water Supply,g as part of the work of the R.E. in the Great War, which is published for the Secretary of the R.E. Institute, Chatham, and is a simply invaluable compendium of the work done in this vital respect on the Western Front. A large number of maps show the distribution of the water organization in detail..
Among regimental histories a very interesting book " has been devoted to • the Royal Fusiliers, whose history is almost conterminous with that of the War, as one or other of their forty-six battalions fought in every theatre except Mesopotamia. Mr. O'Neill has made .skilful use of the wealth of material at his disposal, but the gem of his book is the handful of vivid first-hand documents which he has published in an appendix. —Mr. Kingsford's history of the Warwicks" begins with the regiment in the Dutch service which afterwards became the 6th Foot, and traces its history through all our wars down to the last Armistice.—We can only mention the excellent work done from first-hand knowledge by Major Ogilvie," Captain R. C. Boyle," and Mr. E. C. Matthews " in their accounts of the units with which they served and which they evidently loved.
The three Last books on our Hat are personal narratives. Few more entertaining books of its kind have been written than The Escaping Club," in which Major Evans, the well- known Hampshire cricketer, describes his successful efforts to escape, first from the Germans and afterwards from the Turks. It is written with a genial gusto that captivates the reader, and is as thrilling to read as it must have been to live.—Major S. Burdett-Coutts (formerly Ashmead-Bartlett) has published the full and entertaining diary" which he kept during the last three months of the War, when he was acting as an intelligence Officer. It contains some vivid pictures of scenes in the rear of an advancing army.—Mrs. Sansom's collection" of her husband's letters from France in 1915-17 gives many vivid sketches of the actual fighting, and incidentally draws a full-length picture of a very remarkable and gallant specimen of the schoolmaster turned soldier.
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