EMBARRASSING RICHES

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21808, 13 June 1936, Page 17

EMBARRASSING RICHES

Unending Battle. By H. C. Armstrong. Longman’s. 202 pp. (5/- net.) Cheap edition. There are enough sensations and horrors in “Unending Battle” to supply amply as many volumes as this book has pages. Leo Keresselidze is put forward by Mr Armstrong as a Georgian who for 30 years fought for the independence of his countrymen. Leo is not plainly asserted to be a real man, although it seems that Mr Armstrong would not care to be considered entirely as a writer of romance. Romance or histqry, the book becomes wearisome. The hero’s incessant activity, his heroic daring and endurance, his preternatural determination, and his daily adventures—all these destroy by emphasis the clear picture that Mr Armstrong would draw, a picture, indeed, well worth drawing, for the true Georgian, proud, brave, and resolute, needs to be described for English readers or Bolshevik difficulties in South Russia will not be understood. Even from the bewildering exploits of Leo some hint of Georgian character may be caught. He plots in Paris, plants bombs, heads a gun-running expedition, leads r. revolt, becomes a guerrilla chief, fights beside the Turks in a legion enrolled hy himself, fights Bolsheviks and

White Russians. Meantime he has personal feuds and assassinations to attend to. He is consistent in his purpose of killing Russians, and night and day toils at his purpose. Few patriots have been so diligent. He is influential. “Leo telegraphed urgently to Enver Pasha and to the Military Attache at the German Embassy in Constantinople, asking for help, and it was sent at once.” To risk his life is a commonplace. “Once he was surrounded in a mud-fort and only escaped with the help of an Arab whose life he had saved in Mosul.” Great deeds are dismissed as laconically as small. “At another time the Russian General Staff had decided to concentrate a large force and finish the rebels round Zakatali. She (his temporary adventuress) stole the orders, and Leo, coming to the' help of the rebels with every man he could call up, drove off a regiment of Cossacks and two battalions of tirailleurs, which saved the revolt from being crushed out and revived the spirits of the Georgians for a time.” These things were easy for Leo, and he had a hand in almost everything that happened in the East before and during the war. He even crossed Lawrence’s path. It is a pity Mr Armstrong did not discard nineteen-twentieths of his material, and write up the remainder more carefully and thoroughly The rare episode which is -'gfljfg more than a few lines,, cats of Rowanduz. Armstrong can , write with feet. As the book stamis sp ev«»t ful is it that it would be effective cast in the form o* 1 lines. v - A