Mastery of Warfare
Ordeal by Battle. By Captain Cyril"Falls. (Methuen. 6s.)
Too often a reviewer has to complain that authors without know- ledge and without even experience are exploiting the present demand for military books. It is therefore a pleasure to praise a work which is likely to be of permanent value and which is written by one whose qualifications are outstanding. Every student of war- fare should read and ponder Captain Falls's volume. The paper shortage does not permit the detailed review which the book deserves ; it seems best to use the limited space to deal with two general points suggested by a careful reading of it. First of all, Captain Falls is an advocate of the serious study of war, not merely of this present war, but of " the art of war as a whole." " Mastery of warfare," in the sense in which he uses the term—the salvation of the world from the chaos into which it can be thrown by the disruptive strength of war—requires a knowledge of warfare as wide and as deep as possible. In a democratic State this knowledge shculd be widely disseminated so that the people, who control policy in the last resort, can appreciate the power factor which is of importance in practically every political issue. The truth has been obscured in this country and in the United States partly by a sentimentalism of recent growth, but mainly by a traditional antipathy towards " militarism," an antipathy whose real roots are economic. In peacetime there are hardly any facilities for anyone who wishes to undertake a serious academic, as distinct from a professional, study of war. It is to be hoped that the universities will keep in mind this point when they consider post-war developments, and that generous funds will be available as an endowment for the much-needed research into what Captain Falls describes as a " deeply engrained activity of the human race."
My second point proceeds from the first. If war is to be studied, it must inevitably be studied historically' it can never be a laboratory subject. Military history is a record of a particular type of human activity, and must be the basis of any more philosophical study of warfare ; the line of advance must be by induction rather than deduction. Captain Falls, by his own practice, also seems to hold this view, but I must confess to a little trepiaation caused by his obvious partiality for Clausewitz. Clausewitz was equipped with a very limited knowledge of military history, and there is a distinct. tendency towards the use of the deductive method in the posthumous work on which his reputation depends. My estimate of Clausewitz, in fact, is completely at variance with that of Captain Falls. He sees in him the "one philosopher of war," while my sympathies lie with Colonel Burne, who, in a recent number of The Army Quarterly, " debunked" Clausewitz, 'claiming that his " profundity " was really obscurity and his " penetration " triteness.
At any rate, there /is neither obscurity nor triteness in Captain Falls's book. It is indeed written with admirable clarity, and practically every page will provoke the careful reader to thought. It should be of, especial interest to those whose minds are being turned to the study of war by the grim reality of the present ; they will find in it the skilful interweaving of " this war " and " war'
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