THE THIRTEENTH HUSSARS.*
THE Thirteenth Hussars have been fortunate in their historian. Sir Mortimer Durand's great experience of Indian government and diplomacy has enabled him to produce a book which is of wider and more general interest than any mere regimental record could hope to be, inasmuch as it includes one of the best brief accounts of the later campaign in Mesopotamia which we have yet seen, although it does not exceed the limits properly assigned to the history of a single unit. The admirable summary in Chapter IX. of the Mesopotamian situation after the fall of Kut-el-Amara is one of those masterly historical appreciations which can be written only by a man who has his subject at his fingers' ends, and who knows the secret factors as well as the obvious ones. And the historian is equally fortunate in his subject. The Thirteenth Hussars were lucky enough to have the opportunity of doing real cavalry work in the late war, and on at least one occasion they added a page to the history of British cavalry which is as glorious as that which contains the record of their earlier charge at Balaclava. The regiment was raised in 1714, but did no great things in the first century of its existence. Indeed, when it was known as Gardiner's Dragoons —in which regiment Captain Waverley had a troop—it was involved in the disgraceful rout of Preatonpans. Sir Mortimer Durand gives an interesting sketch of its achievements in the Peninsula and the Crimea, which may be read at length in the pages of Barrett. When the Great War broke out the regiment was in India. It sailed for France as part of the Meerut Division at the end of 1914, but during the eighteen months which it spent there, like other cavalry, it had no opportunity of doing its special work. The Indian Cavalry Division was, indeed, known in soldiers' slang as " the Iron Ration," because it was only to be used in the last extremity. Consequently it was with con- siderable satisfaction that officers and men welcomed the news of their move to Mesopotamia, where they arrived in time to take a distinguished part in General Maude's triumphant advance to Baghdad, and the later fighting which drove the Turks steadily back till the Armistice saved them from annihilation round Mosul. Sir Mortimer Durand had a quantity of valuable material at his disposal, in the shape of letters and diaries written by many officers and a few privates of the regiment, and is thus able to relate most of the incidents of the campaign in the actual words of those who participated in them. The most brilliant episode, perhaps, is that of the fight at Lajj, on March 5th, 1917, when the regiment found itself committed to charging concealed trenches manned by unbroken Turks with machine-guns, and came heroically through this ordeal, though with heavy losses. It is worthy of note that the leading squadron was that of the gallant Captain Eve—who fell sword in hand at its head—which had been specially commended at the Delhi Durbar for its admirable appearance on parade. Sir Mortimer Durand makes some very pertinent remarks on the connexion between the two things—" the regiment which shows up well in the manoeuvres of the parade-ground will rarely fail to show itself efficient in the field." We must not omit to praise the coloured drawings of scenes in the desert fighting, which, with numerous photographs and some useful sketch maps, add to the attractions of a very worthy record.
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