Raising and Training of the New Armies. By Captain Basil
Williams. (Constable and Co. 5s. net.)—The wonderful story which " Ian Hay " tells imaginatively in The First Hundred Thousand is here set down in plain prose and continued to the present time. Captain Williams gives a very full and lucid account of the training of the New Armies by new methods which have been evolved since the outbreak of war, as well as of the formation and rapid develop- ment of the Machine-Gun and Tank Corps. In his chapter on the Tanks he unveils part of the mystery attending the invention, which began, it seems, to be considered seriously in November, 1914, but was not embodied in a practical form till February, 1916. Two months later the " Heavy Armoured Section of the Motor Machine-Gun Service " was formed, but the officers and men had to wait some time for the new cars which were promised them. In two years the Tank Corps, which thus came into existence, has develo1ld into a powerful new branch of the Service, whose possibilities were revealed at Cambrai. It was from the first composed of picked men, and a Tank commission is now a much-coveted distinction. We may take pride in the inventive genius of the men who devised this new engine of war, and in the skill and bravery of those who use it to such good purpose on the battlefield.
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