and these papers were written with the facility of a professor and the lucidity of a mathematician, who, as one of themselves has said, begins by assuming a set of illusions from which fresh illusions are developed. His most comprehensive paper is on the Dardanelles (1, 215). Let the Dardanelles be forced, it begins, 'a by no means difficult operation, if gun and rifle fire are not too great.' The events that,' may' follow then pour out like items from a machine. The paper on the Western Front is equally convincing: To break the German line is not only an operation of war, but a certain operation of war, given sufficient troops and sufficient ammunition' (1, 215). His most elaborate strategy was propounded in a paper written on Oct. 21, 1918, in which he 'showed that if Turkey gave in, and we had free access to the Black Sea, we could presently develop an attack from the Danube of 50-60 divisions, that this would knock out Austria, and then we could move into Germany from south and west and defeat the Boche armies on Boche territory' (II, 140). Sir Douglas Haig's plan seems much simpler, and it succeeded within the next few days. As Foch once said to him, Mais, mon cher Wilson, nous sommes militaires pas avocats.'

There are different ways of arriving at the same end. In the War two opinions developed. The soldiers, like Haig and Robertson, favoured the Western Front. All others believed that a decision could be reached in

other areas. These two opinions were in direct opposi-
tion, since the forces available did not permit the double
experiment being tried. Sir Henry Wilson held both
opinions at the same time. On March 17, 1915, he wrote
as clearly as Haig or Robertson could have written
(1, 215), 'The way to end this War is to kill Germans
and not Turks. The place where we
The place where we can kill most
Germans is here, and therefore every man and every
round of ammunition we have in the world ought to
come here. All history shows that operations in a
secondary and ineffectual theatre have no bearing on
major operations, except to weaken the forces there
engaged.' He soon lost sight of this principle, and
adopted a contrary one, 'The Boche could not get a
decision against us; we could not get one against him
in the West; therefore we ought to try and knock out

the Turk' (11, 52). How the Turk was to be knocked out was equally clear, 'We ought to push about like the devil in the Caucasus, and if possible push on in Palestine.'

His plan was 'to take troops away from France during the mud-months, and land them on the coast of Palestine' (II, 14). These 'five months of mud and snow from the middle of November to the middle of April during which we can do nothing,' he 'rubbed into' Lloyd George on Aug. 23, 1917 (II, 11). In the winter following, the Germans and Gough's Fifth Army discovered that March is not a mud-month when nothing could be done on the Western Front; Vimy Ridge had been carried in the first half of the previous April. This was one of the mad schemes of Lloyd George which terrified Haig and Robertson.' Most of Lloyd George's mad schemes originated in the great brains' (II, 2) of Henry Wilson. In October 1917, Lloyd George is mad to knock the Turk out during the winter on the plan I explained to him on Aug. 23, his difficulty being that Haig was hostile and Robertson was mulish, which he thought maddening. He wanted to know my advice. I repeated all I had said on Aug. 23, and expressed the strong belief that if a really good scheme was thoroughly well worked out, we could clear the Turks out of Palestine and very likely knock them completely out during the mud-months, without in any way interfering with Haig's operations next spring and summer' (II, 16). Had Haig been less hostile and Robertson less mulish, and the British army in Palestine rather than on the Western Front in March 1918, which was Wilson's 'mud-month next spring,' the War would have been lost.

Sir Henry Wilson had not the intellectual equipment of a strategist nor the educated intelligence that enables a real soldier to make war from a contour map and history. There is evidence that in school he was incapable of making much use of the books he had. He failed twice to pass for Woolwich, and three times for Sandhurst. In July 1884 he was entitled to examination for a direct commission, and on Oct. 16 his name appeared fiftyeighth on the list of successful candidates. Ill-luck in examinations dogged him; in March 1895 he failed to pass for interpreter in German. It can well be imagined how he would laugh off these mishaps when he came to

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hold appointments that were largely concerned with military studies' (1, 2, 3, 4). But defeat in war cannot be laughed off. He never was a soldier in the sense of consorting directly with fighting men and being of them, excepting for a few months in Burma on frontier patrol. His service dates from December 1882, when he was gazetted lieutenant in the militia, known in those days as the back-door of the Army. In time he was promoted for India. 'This is a terrible upset,' he writes, 'went and saw Military Secretary, who is afraid nothing can be done.' A medical board gave him four months' respite (1, 15). In the interval 'he played a good deal of polo, and was generally galloping for some general' (1, 16). But he never went to India again. In South Africa he was a brigade-major, and upon his return entered the Intelligence Department of the War Office, but for a short time he did command a provisional battalion in Colchester.

He never looked war in the face, never looked upon a stricken field or felt the thrill of victory at the moment when it comes. There is not in the whole book the faintest fellow-feeling or sign of sympathy with those who are about to die, not a suggestion that the reality of war is in the front line and there alone. In all his fleeting and fugitive visits to France, he never penetrated beyond general headquarters. Even when he commanded a corps he does not confess to having entered a front trench even from motives of curiosity. Of the dark background of war, the regimental aid-post, the dressingstations, he appears to have known nothing. The dead, the dying, the wounded, the sick for him had no existence. He does not appear to have seen a single soldier and not an officer under the rank of major-general. War to him was like a game of chess.

Sir Henry Wilson's single adventure into the field of war is fully described in a chapter of twenty-eight pages, although the strictly military operations demand only six. He took over the IV Corps from Rawlinson on Dec. 22, 1915, south of Bethune, with 70,000 troops of all ranks. 'The enemy was comparatively quiet,' and on the last day of the year he found time to drive to St Omer to a dinner for General Huguet 'who made a charming little speech and kissed me on both cheeks.' Three days later

he went on leave to London, 'where he had interviews with a number of prominent people.' He returned to his command on Jan. 30, after nearly a month's leave, and found that one of his divisions in his absence had been transferred to another corps. The next incident occurs on March 12, when his headquarters were moved to Ranchicourt, a delightful château planted down in a fine park traversed by a trout stream.' At the end of April, he went on leave again, and nothing of especial interest occurred until May 20, when he took over from General Byng 'some line about the western slopes of the Vimy Ridge.' On this first day in that important area, he occupied himself by taking the Archbishop of Canterbury on to the Nôtre Dame de Lorette heights to watch the gun-fire. Those Germans had a curious prescience of these changes of command and even the very name of the new commander who came to oppose them. Next day the blow fell. Sir Henry 'could only get contradictory and unsatisfactory reports as to what had actually been happening in the front line. Only late at night did it transpire that 1200 yards of the trenches had been lost and the whole line thrust back 300 to 600 yards. Owing to the dust and smoke that obscured the view, some doubt has ever since existed as to the hour at which the assault was actually delivered, for no one from the doomed companies in the front line returned to tell the tale' (1, 283). Had Sir Henry Wilson been as disinterested a spectator as he was at Ypres, when the Canadians were assailed by gas, he would doubtless have considered this capture of Vimy Ridge another 'fine performance' on the part of the German staff; but he is not now so expansive. A nasty little knock' is his appraisal of the disaster (1, 283). Vimy Ridge was lost and remained lost until it was retaken by the Canadians in the following year.

For some mysterious reason, the corps commander found his troops drifting away. Early in the year the 16th Division was transferred. After the ineffectual attack' upon him at Vimy, two more divisions went, then two heavy batteries. Finally his corps went into reserve, with headquarters at Domart; but Wilson with his personal staff located themselves at the Château de Vauchelles, some little distance away; the corps for

the moment consisted only of headquarters, having no divisions, and this gave its commander a good deal more leisure than he had been recently enjoying' (1, 295). Fate, sheer bad luck, circumstances, are all invoked to explain this enforced leisure. The explanation is much simpler. Sir Douglas Haig and Sir William Robertson were the immediate powers, and both in time paid heavily for their interference with this favourite son of the gods. He had powerful friends who warned him in time. A Cabinet minister informed Duncannon, who in turn told Wilson, 'how nearly I was dégommé after May 21, and how I was saved by Charlie Monro putting in a tremendous report in my favour' (1, 292). Few soldiers are great enough to make such a confession.

But the period of military reverses, humiliation, and leisure held compensations. When Sir John French left the Field, the French military representative, General Huguet, captured his highly efficient chef and forwarded him to Wilson (1, 276), who installed him first at Labussière, and finally at Ranchicourt in that delightful château in the fine park by the trout stream. Few days there were on which there were no guests at luncheon or dinner, or at both.' A partial list includes Clemenceau, Robertson, Foch, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Haig, Kigg, Reading, Lloyd George, Sir A. Lee, Castelnau. The breakfast for Clemenceau was 'sumptuous: porridge, kippers, bacon, eggs, strawberries, cream.' Fortunately for Sir Henry Wilson at this moment, Lloyd George and Sir Douglas Haig reached the same conclusion, although by different routes. Lloyd George thought it was ridiculous his still commanding a corps, reporting to Haig that he had raided trenches, "and taken two prisoners "' (1, 300). Haig's opinion of his fitness to command a corps was equally clear when he found himself high and dry without troops to command. As a result he was sent on a wild-goose chase to Russia. The mission ended in failure. The Emperor and Empress made it quite clear that they would not tolerate any discussion of Russian internal policies' (1, 315), and General Gourko, 'that vain talkative devil,' interfered on the military side (1, 321).

This was the moment also when the French Government was dissolving, the High Command in confusion,