SOME WAR BOOKS.* Many of the beat class of readers
will sympathize with Mr. Arnold J. Toynbee when they learn that he attributes the inception of hie extremely interesting book on Nationality and the War. to "an ingrained habit of gazing at maps." Authorities as dissimilar as the late Lord Salisbury and Robert Louis Stevenson have equally confessed the fascina- tion which a good atlas had for them. Mr. Toynbee has studied his maps to some purpose, for he reads them in the light of a competent knowledge of history and a careful study of recent diplomacy—a task in which he acknowledges much assistance from his brother-in-law, Professor Gilbert Morray, as well as Messrs. A. D. Lindsay, H. W. C. Davis, and R. W. Chapman, all of whom have read his proofs and contributed valuable suggestions. Perhaps it is still rather premature to adumbrate schemes for the reconstruction of Europe, now cast into the melting-pot of the Great War. But we have all been doing it more or less infer(' conseientiae, and Mr. Toynbee is only bolder than the majority of us in venturing to submit his ideas to the light of common day. He deals with what may happen in the light of the problems presented by that blessed word "Nationality," after peace has been signed by the Allies in Berlin. Even if we sometimes disagree with him, we shall readily admit that his book is extremely interesting to read, and is marked by clearness of thought and solidity of construction. Not the least valuable of its features is to be found in the numerous excellent maps with which it is illustrated.
Dr. Sunday's thoughtful and dignified essay on The Meaning of the Warr is marked by all the high qualities which his deservedly great reputation leads one to expect. In this booklet he states first the British and then the German case, with a lendable, and on the whole successful, attempt at impartiality. These statements of such conflicting aims and ideals are followed by "an attempt at synthesis," in which Dr. Sanday leads up to a forecast of a possible reconciliation between us and Germany. He points out that the war ought not to have happened, but that in the circumstances (not . created by us) it was practically impossible to avoid it; that the present German conception of Great Britain is not the real Britain, though Germany in not wholly without excuse for forming it; and that our conception of Germany should be that of "a noble nation gone wrong." He adds that, after Belgium has been restored to freedom and the other immediate problems of the war bare been settled by the success of the Allies, Germany will still have to settle with her own con- science (1) her treatment of Belgium ; (2) her doctrine of severity and terrorism; (3) her whole doctrine of force as the basis of international relations. "As to the past, to under- stand is to pardon; and Germany too will one day under- stand." We cannot refrain from quoting the fine passage in which the Lady Margaret Professor testifies to the fact that we went into this war without animosity:— " I never was so proud—I never thought to be as proud—of my own nation as I was in the Brat week of the war. Everything about it seemed to me noble. Its statesmen were noble ; its Parliament was noble; its fighting services were noble; its Press was noble; its people were noble. It should not be forgotten that the conditions under which the national decision had to be made were of extreme difficulty. It had to be made in hours rather than days ; and the issues were tremendous. But it decided right; and it decided right temperately and without • (1) Kationalitta.nd the War. By Arnold Toynbee, Loudon: J. Sc. Dant and ons. s. ed. net.]—(5) The Moaning of the War. By W. Sauday. Oxford: at the C ndonF11038.1.1e. Cd.net.J......,(3) The Unmakteg of Europe. By P. W. Wilson. London: Nisbet and Co. 1S.. ed. net.)—(4) The war and Our Financial Fabric. By W. W. Wall. -London: Chapman and Hall. rss. et.]—(5) My Ergote.. as a German Prisoner. By L. J. Anson, London: Andrew Melrose. PS. net.] (6) Fighting with King Albert. By Capital. Gabriel do leibert de Flenallu. Loudon Hodder and Stoughton. 1—F) In the Enemy's Country. By Mai7 Houghton. London Matto. ..r1pjgdue, [4‘gsge.]—(8) The British Soldier. By the Bev. E. Hardy. London: T. Fiiher Unwin. [Ss. 81. nat.]-11)) The Young Our% Guido ts Knowledge. By the Senior Major. Third DLO/a. London: Barnum and Sons. Ds. net] passion. There was one significant incident which marked the temper in which it decided. I do not know how often I saw quoted in the course of that week the great words of Abraham Lincoln With malice toward none ; with charity for all ; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right—let us strive on to finish the work we are in.' It was really the motto which every one had in his mind. The war was a stern necessity—not to be avoided, but to be waged calmly and with- out hate."
Under the sadly appropriate title of The Unmaking of Europe' Mr. P. W. Wilson—a publicist whose initials are very familiar to confirmed readers of the Daily Newe—has narrated the incidents of the first five months of the war, from the end of July to the Christmas of 1914. His chief aim, he tells us, is to suggest a provisional answer to the question: "How does all this sacrifice of blood and treasure affect the life of nations, their finances, their ideals, their religion, their institutions ?" Mr. Wilson is a devotee of the short crisp sentence, and his book ie extremely readable—not the lese so because it avoids superlatives and purple patches with remarkable self-control. We are sure that it will find a large audience, and that most of its readers will look forward to the second volume, in which the author—we fear with too sanguine an optimism—hopes to be able to complete his narrative.
Mr. W. W. Wall, who is a member of the Royal Statistical Society, and has previously written on British railway finance, attempts in his new volume' to collect " some of the lessons to be learnt from the experiences of the greatest of financial crises." He assumes no knowledge of financial problems on the part of his readers, and devotes perhaps too much space to the discussion of the elementary propositions. His conclusion is that free lending on the part of banks is more important than the maintenance of a high gold reserve, and that public confidence is the greatest of financial assets. This confidence he considers to have been restored by the wise action of the people and the Government of Great Britain, and be is therefore a convinced optimist as to the financial future.
Mr. L. 3. Austin, F.R.C.S., was a member of the first Belgian unit of the British Red Cross Society which left for the Continent on August 16th. He was taken prisoner by the Germans three days later, and was kept in close confinement until the middle of January. My Experiences as is German Prisoner• is a plain unvarnished record of his life in the detention camps at Torgau, Magdeburg, and Burg, which will be read with especial interest by those who have friends or relatives in one or other of these camps. On the whole, Mr. Austin was not deliberately ill-treated, though of course his imprisonment, once the German authorities had convinced themselves that he was not a spy, was in direct defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is interesting to note that the com- mandant at Torgau suggested the ingenious scheme by means of which many officers who had been reported as miming first succeeded in conveying the news of their safety to friends at home. This was by contributing a pound or so apiece to the German Red Cross fends ; each officer gave a cheque which the Germane thought it worth while to cash, and the bankers were thus able to notify his relatives that he was alive.
The remaining books on our list must be briefly mentioned. Fighting with King Albert• is a stirring narrative of the heroic deeds of the Belgian Army, written by an ex-officer who was debarred by physical infirmities from taking part in the exploits which he chronicles. In the Enemy's Country? is an amusing account of the adventures of an English couple, resident in Italy, who were on a motor tour in Austria and Germany when the war broke out; it is pleasantly written and full of agreeable human touches, though it contains little but the rumours and alarums of a still distant campaign. The account of the German fairy-tales about civil war in Ireland, risings in Egypt and India, the defeat of the British Navy, the destruction of London by Zeppelins, and so forth, is curios, reading. Mr. Hardy's compilation of anecdotes, in the vein of his famous work How to be Happy though Married, sets forth The British Soldier in his double rile as hero and humorist; it is full of entertainment. The Young Officer's Guide to .11senoledge. is a highly technical jest-book, which will not appeal to the New Army so strongly as, being in its third edition, it seems to have appealed to the Regulars.
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