BOOKS.
THE POMP OF POWER.* THIS is a very amusing, cleverly written book, with a great air of actuality about it and many hints in the " I could an I would " style. It is not, however, in any sense a serious con- tribution to history. Owing to it being anonymous, none of the statements is capable of verification. If a person who is known to have occupied a particular post, such as, for example, Mr. Lansing, makes a statement, one is able to say : " His position enabled him to know the facts and therefore an allega- tion that certain things were done, or certain things said, must be regarded as of importance." When an anonymous writer tells you similar things one can only say : " I wonder if that is a fact or whether the author is only guessing." No one with any knowledge of public affairs, or, indeed, with any experi- ence of private life, will be very much impressed by such declara- tions as : " Blank (Cabinet Minister or great soldier) rang me up as soon as I got back to London and asked me what I thought of What makes one inclined to think that the book was written by 'somebody who only saw the fringe of things and was never really behind the scenes is the fact that, in spite of the atmosphere of mystery and the assumption that great disclosures are being made, there are few—we had almost said no—revelations. There is little or nothing in the book which could not have been compiled by a careful study of the public documents and books already published, together with a certain amount of skilful ratiocination and bold conjecture.
Nevertheless, when these deductions have been made, the book is undoubtedly not only readable, but contains clever piecings together of scraps of information gathered from many sources little known to the ordinary man or, indeed, even to fairly close students of contemporary history. This is specially true of the French documents, for the book, though possibly not written by a Frenchman, is evidently written by some- one who has lived a great deal in France, known a great many French people, and who also has very strong French leanings. These leanings are not forced upon the reader, but, taken as a whole, the intention behind the book is to put the French case.
The second chapter of The Pomp of Power, entitled "Plan XVII.," is curious and ingenious, and will be read with great interest by those who followed closely the early stages of the War. It should be studied in connexion with the chapter on " The Fall of Jam." But, though these chapters are very good reading, they do not solve the question as to what really happened in the last days of August and the first days of Sep-
! The Pomp of Power. Anonymous. London; Hotel:Upson and Co. (18a.]
tember. Did General JOffre despair of the Republic, or was he acting according to plan and, in effect, if not actually, con- sciously luring the Germans on to their doom ? In other words, was Joffre's stand a happy accident or the result of the strong pressure of the men behind Joffre, or, again, was it according to the plan of a master in the art of strategy ?
It has been suggested that the enigma will be solved if and when the letters that passed between the heroic Gallieni, who commanded the troops in Paris, and General Joffre are ever made public. It does, indeed, seem likely that those letters would tell the story ; but it must not be supposed that we suggest their publication out of any hostility to General Joffre. In any case it is clear that he did his best according to his lights, and was a loyal and patriotic man. What one wants to know in the interest of history is, was he master of the situation and did he understand what he was doing, or was he moving about in worlds unrealized till circumstances, which, at any rate, he did not control, saved France and the world and produced the victory of the Marne ?
If the mystery of the Marne is a mystery which is not solved by the anonymous writer, still less is the other strategic mystery. How came it that the French General Staff left unsecured the great gap in the French defences opposite the Belgium frontier, that is, between Le Coteau and the Channel—the gap through which General Von Klock poured his Divisions ? The 8.0 French Staff must have known that it was through this open door that the attack would come, whatever line Belgium took. Yet they elected to guard the long route to Paris, rather than the short route. The result was that the English Army, when it took up its assigned position on the left of the French line, had its left in the air. Probably there is no case in history in which the most learned and scientific strategists in the world—that is, the French General Staff—committed so extraordinary a piece of folly. No doubt the apparent explanation is simple. The French had not enough troops to hold the long line from Basle to the sea, and they had to have a weak spot somewhere. That, no doubt, is true ; but it is equally true that the line Mons— Dunkerque was the last place where the front should have been weak. Remember the French had not even put a chain of entrenched positions on what would be the flank of any army invading through Belgium—positions which might have given the Germans a great deal of trouble to carry.
We believe the explanation to be that the French Staff, as, indeed, is hinted by the anonymous writer, were obsessed, and therefore demoralized, by a fixed plan. Partly through their logical training and partly through a system of political argu- ment, they got the idea fixed in their minds that the Germans must strike at the centre of their line, and that this was, there- fore, the place to hold in special strength. They almost got to feel that nothing else mattered. In a word, in their deter- mination to make the Verdun terrain invincible, they forgot other essential considerations.
The later chapters of the book deal first with French and then with English home politics. The chapter on M. Caillaux is curious. The writer appears to be anxious to make the best of that strange and enigmatical " Grand Bourgeois," though he is careful to speak impartially. We do not profess to know enough of the facts to give any definite view of M. Caillaux's character or intentions. We can, that is, only give an outsider's impression. It is that if M. Caillaux were really possessed by that political genius which his supporters and friends attribute to him, he would before now have done something bigger than he has done to deserve their enthusiasm. Up till now M. Caillaux has certainly not been a political success.
The chapter ends with the suggestion that if France goes from bad to worse financially she may yet turn to Caillaux. That appears to us a suggestion based upon the idea, which is so often held by Oriental peoples, that a great financier is a kind of magician who, if called in at the right moment, can do miracles by a few waves of his wand. Unfortunately, the facts are otherwise. There is no royal or easy road to good finance. It is a matter of vigilance and sacrifice, and, above all, of patience.
The chapters on " Mr. Lloyd George and Party Politics " and " Lord Northcliffe and his Press " are bright and amusing, and in many ways sound, but they do not show any special originality. We may, however, as an example of the anonymous writer's style, quote his account of Mr. Lloyd George's relations with the Press :- " It is almost a tragedy that the man who of all others is most sensitive to newspaper criticism should have made an
enemy of the man who controls the most powerful and the most unsparingly outspoken newspapers in England. Lloyd George's weakness in this respect has long been a source of amusement to European statesmen. They are unable to understand how anyone who has been in public life for so many years can worry unduly about comments or attacks in the Press. M. Painleve once mentioned to me this characteristic of Mr. Lloyd George, who, he said, particularly disliked the articles of a certain French journalist, whom Painleve cited by the pseudonym under which he writes. I mentioned his real name, whereupon Painlove remarked that the fact that he had never before known who it was indicated the degree of importance which French politicians were wont to attach to such articles. The only practical result of the Prime Minister's hypersensitiveness to newspaper criticism is that he has exposed his weak point as a target for those who are inimical to him, and has alienated others who were not disposed to be unfriendly. The French Press mocks (and not without reason) at the way Lloyd George winces under the comments of Pertinax ' in L'Echo de Paris and of M. Jules Sauerwein in Lo Matin. He has from time to time tried to placate the former, while his aversion to the plain statements of the latter is so well known that at the time of the Conference of London in 1921 one Paris journal reported that he had thought of having Sauerwein deported ; although anyone conversant with English methods must know that whatever might have been Mr. Lloyd George's irritation there could be no solid foundation for that statement. It is not the differences between the British and French Governments which are primarily responsible for the disfavour with which the French Press regards Mr. Lloyd George, but simply his system of sacrificing anything or anybody in order to safeguard his own susceptibilities."
But, though the anonymous writer says such unpleasant things about Mr. Lloyd George, he in another passage uses language which seems to show that, in spite of his distrust of the Prime Minister, he regards him as having done great services during the War.
We shall make no attempt to guess the name of the writer of The Pomp of Power, though we confess that the guessing game in this instance is a very amusing one. We have heard the subject discussed at many dinners and luncheon parties, and in turn have heard a succession of names presented with what at first sight looked like irrefutable proof. But when an appar- ently good case can be made for at least five different gentle- men the problem grows dark indeed, till one is almost inclined to doubt whether the book was written by anybody at all. Byron, it will be remembered, doubted whether anyone wrote Junius. As books are so often obviously written without heads, he saw no reason why they should not be written without hands. To us the fact that the cap seems to fit so many heads is a proof that it is a compilation rather than an original work, and that the writer has pieced together the personal experiences of a large variety of men which have reached him in the form of gossip. The result is a composite photograph—blurred but curious. Though sooner or later we may know the compiler, we do not expect a revelation.
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