A BISMARCK STUDY.

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15309, 19 June 1915, Page 7

A BISMARCK STUDY.

Not. on tho whole, a great historical novel, but yet a novel very good in parts—thi s is the final impression left by Richard Dehan's new book, "The Man of Iron." Taking Bismarck as central figure, tho author works up to him , through the adventures cf a young Irishman, Carolan Breagh, who is presently to be concerned in the FrancoPrussian War as a newspaper correspondent. Of these preliminary chapters, much might have been left out. Ricliard Dehan's work always suffers badly for want of power to dismi.ss tbe unrequired episode. But once on the chosen romnnce-ground, the story moves well European politics, Franco- [ German bloodshed, the affairs of nations, and the affairs of tbe really charming heroine, are interwoven with some .art; and the "Man of Iron" himself makes a very lifelike experience. Bismarck on the battlefield, Bismarck in council, and Bismarck at. dinner, are excellent impressionist studies; and the author has conveyed to us very sympathetically the attitude, towards him of the little French heroine. Juliette, who, i\itor resolving greatly to play Charlotte jCorday's part in ridding the world of a monster, actually ends by saving the Iron Chancellor's life. A preface to this book describes it as written before the present war. "Arid this the case, I see no cause to blot- a line that I have written. For the Germany of IS7O wa. not the Germany of 101 5. The Franco-Prussian War" of 1870 was waged sternly aixl mercilessly, but not in defiance of the rules that" govern the great game. Thiiips wereViono —as in the :n?tan<-os of Bazeilles ana - Chateaudun —that made the world shudder, but not with; tho s'eknoss of mortal loathing. Kings j and nobles made war like noblemen and k'n_s." . , . , "Vet." so the preface ends, "that great Minister whose prodigious labours reared up. stone by 6tone, tho German

Empire, vras, unless biographers have lied, haunted aud obsessed in his decliuing days by remorse of conscience r.nd terrors of 'the soul. 'But for mc, he is reported to have said, 'three I great wars would not have been made, ; nor would SCO.GOO of my_ feliow-men I have died by violence. Now, for all I that I have to answer before Almighty { God!' . . . Could the relentless exponent of the fierce gospel of blood and I iron have foreseen the imminent, approaching disintegration of his colossal >. life-work', under the frenzied hands of ; the modern Attila—tniptht he have '. known what dead-sea fruit of ashes and ; bitterness his fatal creed, grafted upon I the oak of Germany, was doomed to ■ bring forth—he would have drunk ere death of the crimson Jec* of the Cup of Judgment—ho would have seen in the . inhuman shape of his terrible pupil, the ; grotesque, distorted image of nimself. ; (London: Heinemann's Coloniaf Library. Christrhurch: Simpson .and Williams and Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd., 3s 6dJ