THE FIGHTING TROOPS.*
* (1) The Grenadier Guards in the Great War of 1914-1918. By Lieut.-Colonel the Right Hon. Sir Frederick Yonsonby. 3 'Vols. London : Macmillan. [CS Si. net.]—(2) History of the Welsh Guards. By 'C. H. Dudley Ward, D.8.0.. M.C. London : Murray. [12 2s. net.)—(3) The Canadians in France. By Captain Harwood Steele. M.C. London : [21s. net.j-,—(4) The West Riding Territorial: in the Great War. By Major Laurie Magnus. London : Regan Paul. [13s. net.1-15) A Border Battaltort : the History of the 718th (Service) Battalion E.O.S.B. Edinburgh: T. N. Foul's. [109. Od. net.1—(0) The 10th Royal Hussars and the Essex Yeomanry during the European War. By Lieut.-Colonel
F. IL D. C, Whitmore. D.8.0. Colchester: Benham and Co. [21s. net.] --(7) Average Americans. By Lieut.-Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. London :
G. P. 'a Bona. [10s. net.]
Ia we were to review the various records of the fighting troops in the late war at a length proportionate to their interest, we should want a whole number of the Spectator to do justice to the pile of volumes now lying before us. Fortunately, we need only direct attention to their appearance, for no words of ours could enhance the plain story of heroism and endurance which they tell so admirably. In their simple but thrilling pages is raised "a monument to the soldiers whose brave hearts only kept the ranks unbroken and met death—a monument to the faithful who were not famous, and who are precious as the continuity of the sunbeams is precious, though some of them fall unseen and on barrenness." These records are mostly based on diaries and letters written immediately after the events by those who participated in the fighting which they chronicle. Their value to the historian is only inferior to their immediate interest for the reader who wishes to follow the fortunes of a 'particular unit or to know at first hand what happened in the very fore- front of the battle.
.Sir Frederick Ponsonby's elaborate history of the Grenadier Guards1 is substantially the work of the officers of the Regiment themselves. It is based on the war diaries of the four Battalions, supplemented by private narratives and the mass of information which Colonel Sir H. Streatfeild collected during the war. It covers the whole period of the fighting in France. The 2nd Battalion, as part of the original Expeditionary Force, was in the retreat from Mons and the battles of the Marne and Aisne. The 1st Battalion went out in October with the 7th Division, just in time for the first battle of Ypres. After the three weeks' fighting in which the flower of the German Army withered before our thin khaki line, this battalion was reorganized as a single weak company, with five officers left out of the twenty-nine who had railed from England a menth before. The 3rd Battalion wa left in England until July, 1915, much to its disgust, in spite of the fact that it made history of a kind by appearing in London streets in service dress ; we are told with a pleasant particularity that "on the 27th of August, 1914, the King's Guard, under Captain de Crespigny, mounted for the first time in khaki." The 4th Battalion was formed in July, 1915, and at once sailed for France to receive its baptism of fire in the mismanaged combat of Loos. From this time to the spring of 1918 the history of the Grenadiers coincides with that of the newly formed Guards Division. Their records take us through the fighting on the Somme, the Passchendaele campaign, in which the advance of the Guards up to the edge of Houthulst Forest was cheaply achieved by good staff work as well as great courage, the recap- ture of Gouzeaucourt, the holding of our line at its pivot south of Arras through the early months of 1918—a task which, contrary to all expectations, turned out to be comparatively a soft one—and the brilliant advance from August 8th to the Armistice. Perhaps the most glorious page in all the history of the Grenadiers, however, is that of the 4th Battalion, which left the Guards Division when all brigades were reduced in February, 1918, and immortalized itself by its stand against the German onrush at Vieux Berquin, when its tattered remnants, along with those of the 3rd Coldstream and 2nd Irish Guards, surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, held off the enemy long enough for the Australians to detrain in the rear and thus saved the British line from breaking. Many men died in the war, butt none with more glory.
Major Dudley Ward's excellent history of the Welsh Guards2 appears at a timely moment, when that gallant regiment has just been saved from extinction. It was raised in February, 1915, by a happy thought of Lord Kitchener, who was anxious
that the Guards "should be both comprehensive and charac- teristic of the very best types of British manhood, and could not tolerate any exclusion of Wales." The 1st Battalion went to France in August, 1915, and was placed in the 3rd Brigade of the newly formed Guards Division, just in time to be blooded at the battle of Loos. Thereafter it took part in all the fighting of the Guards Division down to the Armistice. Major Dudley Ward, who joined with a draft soon after Loos, served with the battalion successively as platoon commander, signalling officer company commander and second-in-command. The most vivid and interesting parts of the book are taken from his own diaries, and it has throughout the personal touch which can only be supplied by actual experience. The book is in every respect a worthy memorial of a great battalion.
The fine achievements of the Canadians in France have found a painstaking historian in Captain Harwood Steele, who served with them for three years. We have nothing but praise for this detailed though entirely unofficial" history,3 which begins with the immortal achievement of the 1st Canadian Division at the second battle of Ypres. When the Germans used gas for the first time, the French broke in panic and left a five-mile gap in the Allied line, but the raw Canadian levies, who had scarcely heard a shot fired till then, clung to their posts in the choking chlorine fog and drove back the thronging Germans with bullet and bayonet till the gap could be filled. In that terrible week the Division lost 250 officers and 6,000 men, but it burnt its mark into the soul of the enemy, and earned a reputation which could hardly be heightened by the scamper over the Vimy Ridge, the struggle in the bloody mud of Passchendaele, the dashing advance of the 8th of August, 1918, or the smashing of the Drocourt- Queant line. Captain Steele's book is admirably written and full of vivid detail ; we have never seen the peculiar difficulties of Passchendaele better described than they are in his 11th chapter.
Although Major Laurie Magnus had not the luck to share in the exploits which he chronicles, his practised pen has turned to great advantage the first-hand documents which he had at his disposal. His book4 is in the main a history of the 49th and 62nd (Territorial) Divisions in France. The first two chapters deal with the rise and growth of the Territorial movement in the West Riding, and the third with mobilization. The 49th Division went to France in April, 1915, and the 62nd in January, 1917. It is worthy of note that their casualties up to the end of the war amounted to nearly 3,000 officers and 65,000 other ranks, almost double the numbers which originally proceeded abroad. Their record shows that these losses were not in vain.
Finally, we desire to praise the simple and straightforward accounts of the 7th and 8th (Service) Battalions of the Border Regiment& which were afterwards amalgamated in conse- quence of losses, and of the 10th Hussars and Essex Yeomanry,6 which were commanded in turn by Lieut.-Colonel Whitmore. Nor can we do more than commend the entertaining and brief narrative of his command which Lieut.-Colonel Roosevelt has written under the title of Average Americans? Alike in manliness, sympathy and humour the author shows himself to be a worthy chip of the old block.
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