The Desert Campaigns. By W. T. Massey. (Constable and Co.
6s. net.)—Mr. Massey, who was the official correspondent with our forces, was moved to write this highly interesting account of the campaigns in Egypt on being told by a colleague on the Western Front that the Army in Egypt should " come to. France to see what war is." He shows that the British, Australian, New Zealand, and South African troops in Eastern and Western Egypt hada very arduous experience of war, and that the battle of Romani in August, 1916, was a hard-fought and decisive victory, in which the Turks lost nearly half their strength. At first we were content to hold the line of the Canal, Leaving the Desert to the Turks. But this defen- sive policy involved grave risks. Mr. Massey reminds us that the Turks repeatedly tried to lay mines in the Canal, and once succeeded in damaging a ship, so that traffic was delayed for half-a-day. The true policy, afterwards adopted, of holding a line far to the east of the Canal, and then of clearing the Turks out of Sinai altogether, meant very hard work for the Army and the Labour Corps, but was completely successful. Mr. Massey describes at the close the re- markable little operations against the Senussi in Western Egypt.
Mr. McBey's water-colour drawings are reproduced in the book, but much of their charm is lost in black-and-white.
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