My Days of Adventure. By E. A. Vizetelly. (Chatto and
Windus. 7s. 6d. net.)—The moat stirring episode in Mr. Vizetelly's adventurous career as a war correspondent was the Franco-German War, with which this volume chiefly deals. Mr. Vizetelly was in Paris when the Third Republic was pro- claimed, and stayed there during the first fifty days of the siege. He left Paris with a safe-conduct on November 8th, 1870, and afterwards attached himself to the Army of the Loire, with which he saw much fighting. He describes his experiences in a straightforward and readable fashion, and we answer the modest question with which his preface ends by saying that the story was assuredly worth telling. In this preface Mr. Vizetelly, who has made a special study of French military developments, gives it as his considered judgment that, " if France were to engage, unaided, in a contest with Germany, she would again be worsted, and worsted by her own fault." Heaven is still on the side of the big battalions, and the decline in the French birth-rate makes it impossible for France alone to cope with prolific Germany.
Previous page
