TRUTH AND DEMOCRACY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25552, 3 June 1944, Page 5

TRUTH AND DEMOCRACY

Literature

Why Don’t We Learn from History? By B. H. 'Liddell Hart. P.E.N. Books. (Allen and Unwin); 3s 6d.

Captain Liddell Hart has had “the rare good luck ” of being able to earn his living “ by trying to discover the truth of events, instead of to cover it up.” His experience and his research combine to equip him to suggest an answer to the question Pontius Pilate boggled at. He applies himself in this monograph to the search for truth in recent history—or the exposure of falsehood; but from this dejecting study draws certain conclusions that can be given a much more general application. Formal history, as he shows with a few brief, disconcerting examples, is often faked. There is the case from the 1914-18 war of the French general who arrived at an army corps

headquarters to issue an order giving the line on which the troops would stand and counter-attack. “ But that line is behind the German front,” the corps commander said, “you lost it yesterday.'’ The general only smiled. “ C’est puor l’histoire,” he remarked. Many are the gaps to be found in official archives, says Captain Hart; more difficult to discover are the forgeries with which some may have been replaced. On the whole, he says, the British commanders have not been as subtle as the French in this respect. They “do not seem to have been capable of more ingenuity than mere destruction or ante-dating of orders, while a French general might safeguard the lives of his men. as well as his own reputation, by writing orders based on a situation that did not exist for an attack that nobody carried out and while everybody shared in the credit, since the record went on the file! Even truth is often suppressed or distorted in war; so, too, may freedom be. Captain Hart warns. His notes on “The perpetuation of Compulsion” deserve to be studied by all legislators and public-minded men who profess to value democracy. He says emphatically that freedom is endangered by the tendency to perpetuate compulsory service that can be expected to manifest itself after the emergency. u lt was an advance in British civilisation which brought us, first to question, and then to discard, the press-gang as well as the slavetrade .. we ought to think ahead, before taking a decisive step towards totalitarianism.' Or are yve so accustomed to our chains that we are no longer conscious of them? “ This is a straight-spoken, provocative and stimulating essay, which speaks up with ringing conviction for democracy. J. M.