OUTSPOKEN WAR BOOK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20641, 13 August 1930, Page 11

OUTSPOKEN WAR BOOK.

SIR *G. MacMUNN'S MEMOIRS. ANZAC A PYRRHIC VICTORY. LONDON, August 5. "Tho Army in general is quite convinced that GalUpoli was the most damnable folly that ever amateurs were enticed , into," writes Lieutenant-General Sir George MacMunn, who served on Gallipoli and in Mesopotamia in the Great' War, in " Behind the Scenes in Many Wars," which is being published by John Murray. "The cardinal fact that tho general. staff jaunted to Franco and left nobody controlling the affairs of an Empire at war will be ever remembered. " I have long felt that harder thinking and a stronger line taken by Sir lan Hamilton would have prevented tlie venture." Tho author describes Anzac as "a glorious and desperate struggle which resulted in a Pyrrhic victory," and he says Sir .William Birdwood demanded to be reembarked, which was refused as impossible. Referring to Major General E. T. Wallack, of the Australian Forces, ho says Lord Kitchener sent him to take charge of Mudros Island, with no headquarters or personnel to help him. Sir George says: "The poor dear was walking about with bis pockets stuffed with pink telegrams, .which ho did not know what to do with." Sir George asserts that he found " indiscipline, dirt and beastliness" in tho British and Anzac lines at Mudros a fortnight before the Suvla landing, while everything in tho French lines was orderly ahd organised. Speaking of post-war conditions iti Irak, he observes that " Colonel Lawrence had been pouving out his hot air after setting up jerry-built principalities on tho Hashirnito family. King Hussein was. the .only card we had to play. but. thoso behind tho scenes knew the' futility of his family—rave Lawrence never so madly."