20 FEBRUARY 1915, Page 22

THE SEVEN YEARS' WARt

Tan campaign of 1757, which included the battles of Prague, Rossbach, and Lenthen, has been pronounced by such diverse authorities as Jomini and Brackenbury to be "one of the most brilliant episodes in Frederick's career, and, as an exhibition of character and military talent combined, one of the most remarkable in history." That campaign has been once for all described by Carlyle, from the Prussian stand- point. An interesting contemporary account of it, from the pen of an English officer in the Austrian service, is now for the first time published, with the addition of a large number of contemporary plans and battle-sketches which help greatly in the understanding of the various movements of troops—a matter which even Carlyle does not always make as clear as the military student could wish. Horace St. Paul, whose " war journal" has been carefully and competently edited by Mr. G. G. Butler, was forced to leave his native country at the • SamuelMorse: his Idlers and Journals. Edited by Edwar net.d Lind Norse. Illusttuted. 2 cols. London Constable and Co. 31. fkL ] t A Journal of the First 7 wo Campaigns of the Berm Years War. By Horace Bt. Paul. Edited by G. G. Butler. Cambridge: at the University Press. [LS 3a. not.] age of twenty-two through killing his antagonist in a duel. After some wanderings on the Continent,he entered the Austrian service at the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, and was speedily appointed aide-de-camp to Prince Charles of Lorraine, from whom he passed in the same capacity to Marshal Daum He went through the campaigns in which these chiefs took part without being absent from the army for a single day, and in all their battles was engaged in carrying orders to the various subordinate generals. He formed the habit of jotting down notes of the transactions of each day, and devoted his leisure in winter quarters to revising and transcribing these notes. Unfortunately he only completed his work for the years 1756 and 1757, and it is this revised and amplified journal, written in clear though not very polished French, which is now given to the world, in fulfilment of a promise made some time ago in the Cambridge Modern History. St. Paul remained in the Austrian service for several year after the close of the Seven Years' War, was afterwards appointed Secretary to the British Embassy in Paris, and spent the last years of a long and honourable life on his estate in Northumberland. His journal shows him to have been a thoughtful and clear-sighted student of military affairs, and it will be held a valuable addition to the contemporary docu- ments illustrating the piratical exploits of the Kaiser's most famous predecessor.