Townshend of Chitral and Kut (Heinemann, 21s.) concerns a man
who was loved by many friends, but who has been severely criticized, alive and dead, as a humbug and self- seeker. Mr. Erroll Sherson has fulfilled a difficult task with much ability, for he lets the late General Townshend speak for himself. His egotism is plain, but so is his common sense and courage—valuable qualities for those who lead our soldiers. It is a libel to say (as is sometimes suggested, but not by this biographer) that Townshend was unpopular with the men who won his brilliant victories in the initial stages of the Mesopotamian campaign : he was admired and trusted by them, and rightly. His enemies feared him. The first battle of Kut would have utterly destroyed an army twice the size of his own, had his pursuing boats not grounded in the mud flats of the Tigris. But luck was against him. lie was a great and a little man, a gentleman, a sportsnuta, a soldier.
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