GENERAL ROWAN-ROBINSON has already written two useful books on the
present war—Wavell in the Middle East and Auchinleck to Alexander. This, the third in the series, conforms to the same general plan. He takes up the story in the winter ,of 1942 and carries it down 'to the landing in Normandy. His method of treatment is to combine narrative .and comment, and he deals in a sensible and scholarly way with every theatre. Perhaps the most valuable part of the book is that dealing with the somewhat neglected Italian campaign ; his discussion of the Anzio landing is the most satisfactory I have seen so far. At the end of the book are some general chapters on tactics, reconstruction and post-war defence policy. These deserve careful reading, for they are the product of a mind that has devoted long and deep thought to these problems. In particular, his defence of the cadet movement merits attention at a time when the attack on that movement has already begun froth different quarters. Incidentally, his short paragraph on rocket weapons con- tains a repetition of the legend that rockets were used in the siege of Copenhagen in 1807. As far as I am aware, their first use in action was three years later during the Walcheren expedition.
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