SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice suet Books of the week as have not teen renerred for review in other forms.] With the Turks in Thrace. By Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, in collaboration with Seabury Ashmead - Bartlett. (William Heinemann. 10s. net.)—Readers of the Daily Telegraph will not be surprised to bear of the excellence of Mr. Ashmead- Bartlett's account of the autumn campaign in Thrace. Scarcely a page of the book is without interest ; but undoubtedly its principal feature is the description of the battle of Lulo Burgas. By an extraordinary stroke of good fortune Mr. Ashmead- Bartlett avoided being cooped up at Chorlu with the other war correspondents, and was able to reach the firing lino before the opening of the battle. On the critical day, October 30th, be watched the fight from some rising ground in the centre of the Turkish front, close to the spot occupied by Abdullah Pasha, the Commander-in-Chief, and his staff. He is thus able to give an extremely clear account of the operations as a whole, and not merely details of the particular fighting in his own vicinity. Very striking is what he says of the powerlessness of the com- mander-in-chief to control the movements of his troops, spread as they were over a front of twenty-five miles :— "Abdullah remained throughout the entire day, except for one brief interval, on the mound of which I have already spoken. His sole companions were his staff and his personal escort, and his sole means of obtaining any information as to what was happening elsewhere were his pair of field-glasses. Not a lino of telegraph or telephone had been brought to the front, and not a single wireless installation, although the Turkish army on paper possesses twelve complete outfits for its army corps ; and not an effort had been made even to establish a lino of messengers by relays to connect headquarters with the various army corps.... In the course of the day I only saw one orderly ride up with a message, from which I gather that the corps commanders did not even take the trouble to communicate with the Commander-in- Chief."
The state of disorganization is well illustrated by the fact that even Abdullah himself was absolutely without food all day except for "a toasted mealie cob," and that he and his staff would have had no supper in the evening had it not been for the almost miraculous arrival of Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett's supply wagon. The book, as may bo gathered from this brief notice, is one that will amply repay close reading.—We may mention at the same time A War Photographer in Thrace, by Herbert F. Baldwin (Fisher Unwin, 5s. net), which is a record of personal experiences during the campaign.
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