BOOKS OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3142, 21 July 1917, Page 11

BOOKS OF THE DAY

In Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia and the gross rnisßiaiiaf»ement which, characterised tho conduct ot the Tigris campaign ia its earlier 6ta.gee havei recently been in special prominence. The appearance, therefore, of Mr. Martin Swayno's book, "In Mesopotamia" (Hodder and Stoughton), is opportune and. welcome. The author , , who •is a son. oC Sir William Kobertson Nicol, editor of the "British Weekiy" and "Tho Bookman," and previous to tho war, was well known as a successful young novelist (ho ia the author of thoso two iumisiu? stories "Lord Richard in. tho Pantry" and "Cupid Goes North") was a. member of the staff of n. hospital which went to Basra (Bassorah) at tho beginning of the campaign, and afterwards moved up the rivet- to Amara. His book is by far tho most interesting work yet published on tho campaign. Mr. Swavno does not describe the fighting, but deals with tho transport and medical arrangements, the general conditions of tho 'campaign, the climate, and the natives. Ho makes no direct attack upon tho blundering and bungling: of which wo have recentiy Ijeard so much in the report of tho Committee- of Inquiry, but in places he very broadly hints thai; inconceivable folly and gross incompotencß were- rife. The book is quite unpretentious in style, but it contains rot only a series of vividly picturesque sketches of tho work with, which its author was connected, but many excellent descriptions of tho country and tho people, the latter- for the most part decenc-rute, predatory Arabs, detested ami disliked, so it would seem, aliko by the Turks and tho British. Eed tape seems lo have-run rampant in Mesopotamia. Everything had to l><> referred to India, to Poona, -wheV?, as Mr. Swayne says, "tho supremo headquarters "of tho campaign resided amid the clear breezes of tho hills." When sick were sent to India no fewer tlan twenty copies of the roll had in ho typed. Thoro was grievous delay lioforo indents could materialise. You wished, say. to order a trues for a patient'. Out there, owing to the heat, articles of t.hiß uaturc perished quickly. You reported tho measurements to the quartermaster. Ho made a copy of the order in triplicate, as well as an oflico copy. The. indents went (o.thc Assistant Director of Medical Services for approval. Thoy wore then sent back to tho quartermaster. He then sent, them back to tho BaBU Medical Depot, which acknowledged their receipt, aud eaid they would be sent to India, as soon as possible. In India they passed through other complicated machinery, and tho wceUs wont by. A truss, I suppose, is worth a fow shillings. "A beastly 'ole" is how tho British Tommy generally characterises Mesopotamia. And what with its awful heat— at Basra, it would often go up to 125 in the shade—its mosquitoes, and sandflies, and creeping and flying abominations generally, tho description is no doubt only too accurate. Until Tommy grasped the situation and caino to -understand that figKting' the Turk is lothinj; as compared to fighting the sun, he suffered horribly from heat-stroke. Says tho author: It is a malady dramatic and nainFul to witness. A heat-stroke station wr.s prepared at the water's edge .containing a couplo of baths and an ico-chest. and uationta were put in the chill water a* soon as possible. They were slapped and punched and laved till they began to turn blno and the temperaturo fell. Then they were put in '■ a blanket if any collapse showed, or .iust left naked on a bed in tho ODen. I'ear played a powerful part in the malady. It tended to produce it and to cause relapses, and it iraa good, praotice to use direct counter-eugsestion whenever tho patient, was conscious, as well as brandy and morphia. The worst, of it was that many of the patients who recovered over night died tho next afternoon as they lay in the suffocating wards. What was possible with wet sheets and small pieces of ice was done, but it was a wretched business, and those who were in Basra at that time and Eaw those spectacles will never forget them; nor will they forget the silent, impotent rage that filled the mind at. the thought of tho giant-bodied, small-headed Colossus of ivar, which makes a useless sacrifice of mon in ways such aB theso every day. But it had one useful effeot, perhaps. A really Zoroastrian reverence for the sun came after seeing a- case, and a man learnt to look on his pith helmet and spine pad as his best friends. Scqrvy, of a peculiarly malignant hind, was another source of trouble. Tho men, too, suffered -greatly from tod teeth. The. author says it may hivo been duo to incipient scurvy, or to come septic condition of the mouth jnduced by the heat and dryness, but some young fellows lost every tooth they possessed in a year. Hair suffered in the same way, but to a lesser extent. Some exhaustion of the thyroid gland may, he thinks, have been at the bottom of the trouble, The book contains a number of coloured, illustrations, highly impressionistic in style, by the author. (New Zealand price 6s. 6d.) "With the New Army on the Somme: My Second Year of the War.". i3y Frederick Palmer. (John Murray; per Whitcombe and Tombs, Ltd.). "My First Year of the War" was a capital book. Its successor its equally good; indeed, to New Zealand readers, ft. is even, a still moro interesting production, if only for the one chapter aloito entitled "ii'ntei , tho Anza«," which m> i-Kew Healander or Australian can read without a thrill of genuine pride, i'or praise- from a, writer m> experienced iu war as is Mr. Palmer is worth having. I Mr. Palmer went through thu iiussuJapanese War, aud knows what Its is talking about when, he <libcuseea the elements which make for success or failure in a battle. He tells us that he has "never been in Australia or Now Zn-.i-. land, but this I know, that lvheu this war is over .1 am going there! I want to see tho lands that browl t-uch men." Later on ho says: "They had had an. introductiou to universal service which wan also characteristic of their democracy and helpful in time of war. Tho Anrao had caught the seoso of its idea, (befoto other English-speaking people) not to k[ others do your fighting for you, but all join, in the scrum. Oriental might cravo the broad spaces of a new Jand, in which event, if they over took. Australia and A T ew Zealand, they would nut Iμ ljothered by many survivors of the white population, because most of lifeAnsae? would bo dead—this being particularly the kind of, people the Austrnlrfsiiitis nre as I knew them in France, which was uot a- poor trial-ground of their quality," An equally good opinion be lias of the Canadians, and, like other neutrals, he stood perfectly astounded at tluy splendid courage, I he brilliant dash, of Kitchener's New Army as he saw it during its supremo trial on the first few days of last July—tho beginning of the Suiiiwe 'offensive. "Each officer a-nd man had givon himself up as a. hostage lo death for his cause, his pridp of battalion, ami his manhood when he went over the parapet. The business of officers was to lead thoir men lo certain goals; that of the riipn to go with the officors. All very simple reasoning, this, yet hardly Tessqn; ihn eecond-naturo of training and spirit. How, officers had studied Ihn details of their objectives on tho map in ordor to recognise them when they wcro reached! How like drill it was tho way those human. ■■waves moved forward! But they \tere I not waves for long in e-omn instances, only survivors, still advancing as if they were parts of a. wave, unseen hy (heir commanders in tho shell smoko, buffeted by bursts of high explosives, with every man simply keeping on Inward tlio goal till he arrived or fell. Foolhardy, vim say. Perhaps. It is an easy word lo mutter over a. map after tho event-. You would think of finer words if you had bersn at the front." It was "foolhurdincEs" which entailed a ghaelly toll. But, us Mr. Palmer says: "Would England have wanted her new army to behave otherwise?—the first great army that she had put info the field on trial on tho Continent of Eu-

rope against an army which had, by virtue of its own experience, the right ,to consider tho newcomers as amateurs? 'They became more skilful later; but in war all skill is based ou such courago as these men showed that day. Thoss who sit in offices in times of peace and think otherwise had better bo relieved, II: is the precept that the German army itself laught and practised at Tprcs and Verdun. On July 1 a. question was answered for any ono who had been in tho Marichurian War. Ho learned that those ■bred in sight, of cathedrals in tho civilisation of tho epic poem ean surpass, without any inspiration of Oriental fatalism or religious fanaticism, the courngo of tho land of .Shinloism and Buskido." .Every phase of tho soldier's Ufa at; the (rout is dealt with in these stirring pages of Mr. Palmer's.. To read this book is a liberal education as to how the present position on tho Sommo lias been led up to. Tho book teems -with anecdotes of individual experiences, sometimes tragic, .sometimes humorous; it is a record of duly nobly, heroically done, which makes most fascinating rondiiii. (Price, 7s. (id.)