6 DECEMBER 1919, Page 25

With the Persian Expedition. By Major M. H. Donohoe. (Arnold.

16s. net.)—This well-written and interesting book describes the doings of the " Hush-Hush " Brigade, General Dunsterville's force, in Western Persia and on the Caspian last year. It was a romantic adventure, with an absurdly small force, in a wild country overrun by Turkish regul ars and Persian bandits, and the wonder is that any of the party returned. A British detachment of thirty men was sent to capture Zinjan, a town of twenty-four thousand people, with a garrison of several hundred Turks, and actually succeeded. A bold Captain with an armoured car and a few non-commissioned officers reconnoitred to the very gates of Tabriz. When the Turks advanced south- ward in force, three hundred British and Indian troops held them up for some hours at the pass south of Tabriz on September 12th, 1918, and retired in good order. Major Donohoe speaks with profound contempt of the Persian levies, who always ran away, and of the Persian notables, who secretly plotted against us, and who grew rich by cornering the grain market at a time when their poorer fellow-citizens were dying of starvation in hundreds. His description of the route from Baghdad by Hamadan to Resht and Enzeli on the Caspian is excellent, and is illustrated with some very good photographs.