BRITAIN’S WAR LIBRARY

Otago Witness, Issue 3869, 8 May 1928, Page 76

BRITAIN’S WAR LIBRARY

London does not parade the more enduring work of its subjects; those who labour for posterity do so in small studios, and in the quiet studies of private houses. So it is with the library of the Imperial War Museum, which is housed in what still has the outward appearance of a select Queen’s Gate mansion. This library, which is the only British national collection of books devoted to the European War, will to unborn ages present a detailed diary of what was, when all ‘is said, the greatest event in the lives of the present generation.

Sir Charles Oman, M.P., first organised the collection in 1917 with a few hundred books. Its increasing value was not overlooked in official circles, and soon it was augmented in several interesting ways. The Foreign Office bequeathed a mass’ of diplomatic- papers and the Peace handbooks; “ dangerous ” literature stopped in the post was handed over by the chief postal censor of the war; the Admiralty marshal dealt similarly with books and . papers seized on the high seas; while many thousands of books and records were passed to the library on tire closing down of the Ministry of Information and other war departments. Thus a . substantial nucleus was formed. This has been greatly increased by later gifts from writers on war subjects, from the Carnegie Endowment, by exchange.with American and Continental libraries, and by purchase of British and foreign works. To-day, with the library still in its infanev, it comprises already some 40,000 volumes and pamphlets. At least 1000 volumes a year are being received, an inflow that shows no sign of diminishing. No catalogue of the works has been prepared owing to the unfinished state of the collection; as soon as a measure of completeness is attained this will be done, hut in the meantime, for interested readers, there is an elaborate card index system which serves the. purpose? The books are classified by subject,'the main divisions being:—Bibliography; military, naval, and air history; political and social history; peace and reconstruction; newspapers; and miscellaneous.

Lnder these general headings, however, there. is hardly a phase of the war which is not touched upon, and the books are written in nearly every language. There are books foretelling the catastrophe as indicated by the Pyramids and the early prophets, and the .Qfficial history of the Tall of Tsingtau in Japanese. Other books with such diverse topics as: The drink question; lood; the conscientious objector; espionage and secret .service; press and journalism of combatant .countries • censorship and propaganda; the part of women in the hostilities; war fiction, poetry, inysic, and art; air raidsar*’ S °’-^tX/' ar; refu S ees ; banking; One of the most interesting sections is t. l devoted to rolls of honour. These books, many being exquisite examples of the printer’s and binder’s arts, vary in size from the eight huge volumes conJj aln , ln , g the 50,000 names of Ireland’s dead to the slim record of a single Dorset., family, all of whose members took active part in the war. This latter has t *°iT Or ? b y Th °ma.s Hardy. Several wealthy families have thus recorded their sacrifice, and other “ personal ” rolls of honour include those of Scottish clam-, public and secondary schools business houses, and banks’. Similar to this is the section records and war memorials. Although the library possesses Pantographs of monuments erected throughout the Empire and on various war fronts, it is estimated that this I representa barely one-fourth of

. ? Idn { in^ ivid J ial volumes have special interest. One has grim associations, a book on navies of the world found in the: possession of Robert Rosenthal, a who was executed in May, 1915. Others have an added value in being autographed by their donors; these include signed gifts from Princess bS?p W l nB^r°- n ChtJrc biH> and the late President Wilson. The war. from „ ® P 01 !. 11 * >. of VlevF of th 9 ; “ Tommy,” Frenchie,” and “ Fritz ” is ’vividly preserywl m a number of diaries and manuscripts given by the soldiers dr their families. Trench and ship magazines lorm another serio-comic contribution. T^ Var J ? U -^°. ur is generously reflected. It is a thrill for the visitor to reacquaint himself with the war cartoons of Wilton Bert Thomas, John Hassall, Bruce Bairnsfather, Raemakers, and others, and realise how vital was their part in bolstering our morale. Also, one can: now laugh at the clever efforts of the German humorists, who were equally merciless in their pictorial attacks on our Crown and Government. War slang dictionaries, of course, have an important place in view of their many permanent legacies to the language of Peace. Britain, France, Germany, and America are all represented. Messrs I'raser and Gibbons’s work on British war slang, compiled from material supplied by the Museum, will soon be rightly regarded as a classic in which the student of the future will be enabled to clear up the mystery of how “something for nothing” grew to be “buckBhee" in the army and “ gashions in the navy. How, too, “ canned up ? became a synonym for “ drunk ” 1

Not the least interesting of the library’s possessions are the musical relics of the war, consisting of gramophone record matrices, records, and sheet music, which preserve in material form those otherwise deathless sagas—- “ Tipperary,” “ Blighty,” and that bloodbaptised epic which relates in versions that vary with the company the story of a certain lady of Armeutieres! — John o’ London’s Weekly.