5 FEBRUARY 1927, Page 37

contemplation of the specialist. Captain Liddell Hart, breaking with academic

conVe.ntion; resolved to make Scipio known to -the ordinary reader and to interpret his campaigns againit Carthage in terms of -Modern politics- and strategy. The resnit is an intensely interesting book, soundly hived on Polybius and Livy and their recent commentators and yet thoroughly refined in treatment. The author's-account of the Spanish War, in which Scipio_ first surprised New Carthage and then ertished three hostile. armies in turn, is excellent ; and his critical narrative of Zama, where Scipio beat Hannibal. contains the first intelligible explanation that we have seen of the tactics employed by the great rivals in this decisive battle. Captain Liddell Hart accords pre-eminence to Scipio, even over Napoleon, because he looked beyond victory to the lasting peace, which is or should be the object of war, and he therefore strove to conciliate the beaten foe. It is is tenable view and its application. to our own day is obvious. The author's caustic remarks on,the Roman Senate treatment of the victorious general are equally topical. The politician and the soldier did not see eye to eye two thousand years ago any more than they do now. Captain Liddell Hart's vivid portrait of Scipio sets us thinking; and that is a great merit in a military biographer.