C URRENT LITERAT URE.
THE DREAM OF PALL MALL.
Modern Warfare; or, How Our Soldiers Fight. By " Dbique." (T. Nelson and Sons. 6s.)—We must apologise to the author for a belated notice of an admirable handbook to the First Army Corps, as Mr. Brodrick sees it. But we were deluded by the cover into considering this to be merely a boy's book, an impression which is intensified by the dedication page, and by the modesty of the author, who has deliberately cast it in this form. But the birth- day of an army corps on the first of this month, and the recent debates in the House of Commons, prompted us to inquire what an army corps means, and a happy inspiration brought Modern Warfare down from our shelves. We find it to be a careful and detailed explanation of the technique of modern warfare, and as such would heartily commend it to all laymen who require a glossary to the Parliamentary account of our Army. It gives an alluring picture of a perfect corps, " ready to the last gaiter button," perfectly equipped and trained and led, fighting, not in some obscure native or Colonial war, but upon the Continent of Europe, against the greatest of Continental Armies. In Part L we are shown the British Army, not, indeed, as it is, but as Pall Mall hopes it will be. We are given a discussion upon the tactics of the three arms on up-to-date lines, and we are introduced to several distinguished regiments, and to the details of their equipment and their weapons. Then, as a peg upon which to hang our further instruction, we follow the First Army Corps from Aldershot into an imaginary campaign. Part II. supposes a war between France and Germany. The main French army has been drawn towards Belfort, where it succeeds in checking the invasion of a large German force. A second German force of six army corps now crosses the frontiers of Belgium, and makes a dash via Namur upon Paris and the rear of the main French force. England, standing by the agreement of 1831, finds herself involved in the defence of Belgium against the German invaders. We follow the mobilisation, under Sir John French, of the First Army Corps at Aldershot, its embarkation for Ostend, and its arrival too late to prevent the fall of the last of the Belgium fortresses at Namur. We have a detailed account of the first encounter between the enemy and our cavalry screen, of the adventures of an officer's patrol, of a cavalry battle, of the march of the army corps from Brussels, and of the selection and occupation of a defensive position by General French a few miles to the south-east of the battlefield of Waterloo. This position is strongly entrenched, and is thrice attacked by the Germans from Nivelles. After four days of the most thrilling and desperate fighting, General French is all but surrounded, when the arrival of Lord Kitchener at Hal with the Second and Third Army Corps sends Prince Lebenfeld's four German corps, " shattered out of all recognition by their gallant assaults on the British," in full retreat towards Namur. But this well-written and dramatic story-book is but the jam in which to carry the powder of in- struction. " The Battle of Dorking" and its imitations are to be judged on their merits as works of imagination, and as accounts of what might be. Modern Warfare, on the other hand, is com- mendable for its account of what is. It is a war game scientifically worked out and carefully expounded in the working,—strong meat so prepared as to be agreeable to the most unprepared of palates. As an introduction to the study of modern tactics it is as instructive as, and far more easily digestible than, the study of any actual campaign. Every stage of the game is plentifully illustrated by the most illuminating of maps and diagrams and photographs. The orders issued by General French are given in full and expounded, the tactical situation before every move is discussed, and the positions of individual battalions and batteries are described in detail. If the troops camp or march or entrench themselves, we are told exactly how it is all done; and special chapters are devoted to the supply of food and ammunition, and to the hospital arrangements in the field. Altogether, it is a capital treatise on modern war, and though primarily intended for civil and juvenile consumption, we venture to think that there are many subalterns even of the Regular Army, and not a few mili- tary experts in the House of Commons, who would derive benefit from a perusal of its pages. But we would warn our legislators in particular on one head. The sub-title of the book is "How Our Soldiers Fight." " Ubique " would have been more accurate if he had called it a description of " how our soldiers should fight." Everything works like oil; the First Army Corps moves out from Aldershot armed cap-a-pied as no British force ever did ; its transports await it, the railways in Belgium work without a hitch, generals and their staffs make no mistakes ; above all, when the bullets begin to fly the whole force is as cool as if upon parade. This is not the history of any campaign, still less of any British campaign. The method of presentation is probably the best for the purpose of instruction; but no soldier of the standing of " 1Jbique " could genuinely believe in such perfection. These things are the soldier's dream, far removed indeed from sober fact. That they may be taken as the ideal of the present heads of the Army is clear from the choice that has been made of the theatre of war. The battlefields of Europe are the chimerical hope of every soldier. As the honest embodiment of this hope Modern Warfare has a peculiar interest to-day. It is for this grand rale upon the Continent of Europe that we are asked to increase our Regular Army beyond its own natural resources, at an outlay vastly greater than that required for an Imperial police, with a corresponding neglect of that armed people to whom every nation must sooner or later have recourse in the real hour of danger. Modern Warfare presupposes everything in our favour —a perfect Army, France at the throat of Germany, the whole armed resources of Belgium on our side—and yet we aro in danger of defeat. We are tempted to ask,—What in any struggle against the millions of European armies would three, or even six.
army corps avail, and to what troops, if we were ever led by the soldier's proud dream to such a venture, should we turn to save them and us from catastrophe? In South Africa more than half the army was irregular.
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