LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.]
SIR WILLIAM ROBER'RSON.
• [To TIER EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—It may be presumptuous on my part to submit my personal impressions of the C,I.G.S., but I cannot do otherwise than express my deep indignation and disgust, which I am sure is shared by all who have served under him, at the cowardly attacks to which my old chief is being subjected. I had the honour and pleasure of serving under Sir William Robertson for three years in the General Staff, War Office, and during that period I was daily in contact with him. He is by far the ablest man I have ever met. I know of none to compare with him. He would have been a brilliant success in whatever profession -he had adopted. A clear and rapid thinker, he has the gift of going straight to the heart of a matter at once and putting his finger on the spot. Never once did I know his sound and subtle judgment at fault. Never once have I known his prognosis unfulfilled. Cool, strong, and far-seeing. his favourite maxim, which he always used to impress. upon . us, was " Take the long view." Of tenaoious memory, he never forgot a paper he had once seen. Possessing an almost brutal common-sense, he had a thorough contempt for shams, verbiage, and mere rhetoric. Rightly severe and exacting as regards work, we valued a word of praise from him above all things. Twelve years ago he clearly foresaw the present struggle in all its bearings, while it was his despair that it was literally impossible to get anything done to prepare for it. Twelve years ago all those who worked under him saw in him a future C.I.G.S. And as for strategy and its practical application, he has forgotten more than his contemptible traducers have ever learned or even thought of. And now he stands a giant among pygmies, beset by the yapping curs of the gutter Press, unsupported by those whose
duty it is to support him. More power to his elbow am,
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