A Literary Log

Southland Times, Issue 20496, 26 May 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

A Literary Log

IOTA.

AN ORGANIZER OF VICTORY. When Alexander died and Napoleon Buffered his first major defeat in Russia two empires won by the sword split into fragments at once and these two men are regarded as the most brilliant of Europe’s exponents of military science, but they lose some of their lustre when they are compared with the captain who rose out of the Gobi desert and was, when he died, ruler of a vast territory extending from Armenia to Korea, from Tibet to the Volga. Genghis Khan, the “Emperor of All Men.” won his dominion by the sword, but his political skill and his military organization was so sound that his vast empire stood for two generations and his army’s victorious im jietas lasted for one. Not until Harold Lamb completed his “Genghis Khan” was there a full length portrait of this remarkable man in English, and this study of the great Mongol warrior therefore makes good a strange omission. To say it ' fills a long felt want.” is to do a grave injustice to the author who has given us a biography of unusual interest, and a book that is filled with the romance of success in the face of tremendous odds. In the pages of this book it is possible without much difficulty to find the explanation of Genghis Khan’s triumphant career. From the moment he emerged out of the period of his uncertainty, when the rival khans of the Gobi were seeking to make an end of him, and secured an alliance with Toghrul Khan of the Karaits, the most powerful of the Gobi nomads and identified by Marco Polo and others with Prester John. Genghis, or to give him his first name, Temujin, saw the ' alue of organization and mobility. Fighting ruthlessly and ruling firmly he overthrew the Karaits and set himself to the task of extending his dominions to the east where Cathay with its riches offered booty unlimited. Genghis organised the Mongol horde on the decimal system. The largest military unit was the tuman, a self-contained division of 10,000 men organized in ten regiments, each of ten squadrons composed of ten sections of ten men. They were cavalry for the most part and they fought with the swrnrd, lance and two bows, one for use on horseback and the other for shooting on foot. They wore armour of lacquer and leather until in the course of their victories they picked up metal equipment. Genghis Khan, the name means “The Perfect Warrior,” had in his hordes engineers who used gunpowder but they employed it for demolition purposes and threw’ it from projectors to frighten the enemy and to set inflammable defences afire. They did not employ cannon. Their artillery consisted of stone-throwing machines such as Europe knew’ before the bombarda came into being and annoyed the knightly combatants with their nasty ways. Genghis Khan did not employ overwhelming numbers in his campaigns. Lamb declares that the horde at its greatest strength numbered no more than 230,000, and this was in the great campaign against Alaeddin Mohammed, the Shah of Kharesm, one of the mightiest warriors of the time, a general who could summon up a vast array of experienced soldiers. Genghis Khan, having subdued Cathay, and organized his empire under the Yassa, the code of laws he devised, set in motion his army and invaded Kharesm at different points. He completely outgeneralled the Shah, who was finally crushed and hunted through his own and other dominions in the southern part of Russia. The favourite Mongol device was the double encircling movement, which was carried through with extraordinary speed and precision, but in the face of heavy odds an oft-used trick was a retreat, sometimes for several days, to throw the enemy off his guard and make way for success when the horde, mounting fresh horses, swept back to the attack by forced marches at night. Genghis Khan knew the extreme value of mobility. While he was campaigning he ruled his vast empire, maintaining communications by means of a regularly maintained horse-express service on a post-road, whereon at intervals of twenty-five miles were placed Horse Post Houses. At these were kept records of everyone passing, so that the central organization kept in touch with the movements of people and goods within the empire. Some of the achievements in this service were extraordinary, Lamb mentions that some of the riders covered 150 miles in a day when on the Khan’s service. These depots also served to enforce the law. Genghis Khan in his fighting was unscrupulous. His intelligence service was effective and when he moved into foreign lands he was well furnished by the information of his supplies. The Mongols did not play at war. Every weapon they considered effective was used. Foes w’ere enticed out of strong positions by promises of amnesties, trapped at ceremonies under guarantees of safe conduct and slaughtered. Thirty thousand Turks who surrendered on being told their lives would be spared, were enrolled in the horde and massacred two or three days later. The Mongol, who followed the Kha Khans yak-tail standard, neither gave nor expected quarter. Genghis Khan died in China at the age of 65, but he had lived to see his armies victorious from the Dneiper to the China Sea, and after his death the Mongol hordes could still win their victories over European chivalry in Poland and in Hungary. They were still powerful when his grandson, Kublai Khan, hung by Coleridge, ascended the throne and that fact supports Lamb’s confident declaration that the Perfect Warrior was a greater figure in men’s affairs than Alexanader, Attila or Napoleon. This is a fascinating work. The author has a vivid style and he portrays his hero with fine effect. Some of the subsiduary characters are also well done, particularly Ye Liu Chursai, the Cathayan, who was chancellor to Genghis and his son Ogotai. “Genghis Khan” is published by Thornton Butterworth, London, whence comes my copy. A MAN’S STORY. T heard somebody remark not so very long ago that the difference between Stewart Edward White and James Oliver Curwood is that the former can write stories. Having always harboured a notion that both were of the same type of novelist, I had an excellent opportunity to prove White's superiority after reading his latest novel, one of f he finest yarns I have read for many days. The author’s ability lies not only in having a good tale to tell, but in telling it. He has a wonderful store of information about his subject at his disposal, which he makes net only interesting but palatable. When young Maclyn the ne’er-

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do-well was sent out to Africa by his father to see if he could be made a man of, he had as his companion old Brock, a quiet Scotch hunter. After being disillusioned as to his relative position, he discovered many things that had hitherto been unknown to him, not the least of which w’as the art of looking after himself. Later, whilst on a long tramp to the Mountain of God, Africa “got” him, and his whole aspect of life changed. After stalking for hours to get within shooting distance of a “Kudu” he became more interested in watching the antics of the animal than in attempting to shoot, with nearly disastrous results. Old Brock’s scorn when Maclyn stated that the animal was much more amusing alive than dead, especially when the camp was not in need of meat, was tempered by his growing fondness for the boy. His first experience of being charged by a lion, when he stood spellbound until it was within a few yards of him before he raised his rifle to fire, is powerfully told, with a sympathy that more significant writers might well envy. The book grips one all the way, and will have a wide appeal to all lovers of nature and the great outdoors. “Back of Beyond” is certainly one of the author’s finest offerings. Hodder and Stoughton are the publishers, whence my copy. A LIFE IN STORIES. If Richard Wedderspoon were asked if he had spent all his life travelling, collecting stories and telling them, he would probably reply: “Not yet.” But he has used the greater part of the sixty-one years he has devoted to this earth in this pleasant and profitable occupation. Proof of this fact is to be found in the book he has written under the alluring title of “Beds I have Slept in and Others.” Mr Wedderspoon is well known all over New Zealand, and he will be remembered by many people in Southland, so that this racy account of his adventures on sea and land will be sure of a friendly audience of considerable proportions. He is a man who enjoys living, and he is not averse to making the fact plain in these pages. They are full of incident and action, and his stories are exceedingly well told. The book is humorously illustrated and the whole thing can be safely recommended as an entertainment to make one forget the dreariest of hours. It is published by the Hereford Printing Co., of Wellington, my copy coming from the author. TO BOOK BORROWERS. Reference to warnings and appeals to book borrowers reminds me of this one which used to be inscribed inside bookcovers in ye olden days: If thou art borrowed by a friend, Right welcome shall he be * To read, to study, not to lend, But to return to me. Not that imparted knowledge doth Diminish learning’s store; But this I know, that books once lent Return to me no more. PHILIP GUEDALLA’S WORK. Phillip Guedalla is at work on his new Life of the Duke of Wellington. The mass of material to be handled is perhaps still more voluminous than that which confronted him in the case of Lord Palmerston, especially since the present Duke has placed at his disposal the vast body of unpublished correspondence still preserved at Apsley House. He finds as usual, that uninterrupted work on a task of this magnitude is almost impossible, and is seeking recreation in a few biographical studies of some feminine figures of the Nineteenth Century, whose husbands have hitherto received more attention than the ladies themselves. These will include Mary Anne Disraeli, Emily Palmerston, Emily Tennyson, Catherine Gladstone, Jane Carlyle, and Mary Arnold. Mr Guedalla hopes to have this book which he calls “Bonnet and Shawl”: An Album, ready for publication in the course of 1928. THE LARK. One of the strangest times to hear the singing of the lark is in the midst of the deep darkness before the coming of dawn. You go along the road, and Io! from out of the darkness there comes the heavenly voice It sings and sings and dies away. And again it comes forth. You go along, listening, and in the east there comes the faint promise of light. And now the song is taken up by other beautiful voices. The larks around are rising. And lo! here is the light. Along you go, and at last there comes in the sky a faint flush of gold. . . . Golden shafts are mounting up in the east. And the celestial chorus rises and rises and rises. . . . When I listen to it, I feel . . . that the world is destined in the end to come to harmony. I feel that these glorious singers of the air are heralding the coming into the world of a brighter and more splendid day. That their singing has a meaning I fully believe, even though the defining of that meaning is beyond me. But though I follow not the message that they give forth, I feel that there is a significance to the world to come. When I hear this glorious singing I feel that God still reigns.—Bart Kennedy, in “Golden Green.” TOLSTOY’S CENTENARY. Preparations are now well under way in Moscow for the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Tolstoy’s birth, which will take place next year. Tolstoy’s ancestral home on the estate of Yasnaya Polyana, near Tula, has now been turned into a museum, under the direction of his daughter, Alexandra. Eight rooms have been restored in their precise original settings and four more rooms are in process of restoration. Tolstoy’s library of 16,000 volumes has been preserved in this house. Miss Alexandra Tolstoy, who has already organized several schools and children’s institutions for the benefit of the peasant villages in the neighbourhood of Yasnaya Polyana, asked and obtained the approval of the Education Commissariat for a plan of establishing a “model peasant district” in the immediate vicinity of Yasnaya Polyana. Within this zone every effort will be made to eliminate illiteracy and to raise in every way the cultural and material standards of the peasants by the application of modern ideas in education, agriculture and social