Watchwords. By Major-General J. F. C. Fuller. (Skeffington. 12s. 6d.)
INTO this volume General Fuller has collected fifty short essays, most of them written for the popular press. All of them are provocative and incisive and the collection is valuable because the author is probably the most brilliant thinker on military problems of this generation. Two fundamental ideas can be found running through the volume. General Fuller preaches the doctrine of economy of force and is consequently opposed to the view that wars can be won by sheer weight of material. Secondly, as one might expect, he advocates the dawn of a new cavalry age, an age "of men riding machines and not merely of machines fashioned into flying gun mountings." Few people, of course, will agree with everything General Fuller says, but in this fact will lie the book's main value, for it is likely to prove an excellent starting-point for thought and discus- sion. On the historical side there are a few doubtful judgements. For example, the defeat of the Armada and the victory of Trafalgar ought rightly to be regarded as demonstrations of a sea-power that was already in existence. And it is surprising that in the essay on Marl- borough there should be no mention of the passing of the Ne Plus Ultra lines.
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