14 JANUARY 1922, Page 25

Ypres to Verdun. (Country Life, Ltd. 15s. net.)—Under this title

Sir Alexander Kennedy has collected a large number of photographs of the war areas in France and Flanders that will bring back grim memories to many of us, though his pictures mostly show how the country appeared after the end of the fighting and when " cleaning up " and the growth of weeds had to some extent softened the jagged rawness of the devasta- tion. Many villages are little more than a name or a notice board—possibly a few stumps of trees or stumps of walls may remain to give a clue. Take the names on one random page- Mametz, Trones Wood, Delville Wood, Combles—there is now something of anguish in the very sound of them. If it is well to recall what we have suffered and sacrificed, if it is well to be reminded what war must mean to-day, and in what state the retreating Germans left Northern France, then Sir Alexander's book fulfils a useful function.