who wishes to read and keep for reference a clearly written and
understandable survey of the most urgent problem in modern politics
need go further than this short but highly concentrated study.

* * * * *

_The March to Paris and the Battle of the Marne, 1914_ (ARNOLD), by
Generaloberst ALEXANDER VON KLUCK, is more of a soldiers', indeed a
staff-officers', book than any that has appeared here from the other
side. It deals exclusively with the operations of the German right
wing, VON KLUCK'S own (first) army and his _liaison_ with the second
(VON BUeLOW'S), during the move forward to the Grand Morin, the allied
counter-offensive and the establishment of the line of the Aisne--that
is from the twelfth of August to the twelfth of September. The
principal army orders are given textually. An admirable map
illustrates each day's routes and billets for his first line and
second line troops, his cavalry and the extreme right of the second
army. VON KLUCK'S explanation of his breach of the Supreme Command's
orders and the manoeuvre which exposed him to MANOURY'S stroke was
that, while ignoring the letter, he was acting in the spirit of those
orders on the information available; that a pause to fulfil them
literally would have given the enemy time to recover; that defective
intelligence kept him ignorant of the fact that the German left and
centre had been definitely held by the French (if he had known this
he would not, he says, have crossed the Marne). An examination of the
frontispiece portrait suggests that this fighting General would
easily find excellent reason for disobeying other people's orders and
maintain an obstinate defence of his own decisions once made, however
disastrous in result. Notes by the historical section (military
branch) of the Committee of Imperial Defence point out inaccuracies
and contradictions which the lay reader would be unlikely to discover
for himself. He will however, if I mistake not, appreciate a soldierly
narrative, unspoiled by "political" parentheses or underestimation of
opponents, of what was undoubtedly a great military feat. The German
right wing covered the most ground and met perhaps the toughest of the
fighting.

* * * * *

I have found in _Lighting-up Time_ (COBDEN-SANDERSON) that all too
rare thing, a theatrical novel of which the vitality does not expire
towards the end of the fourth chapter. Obviously Mr. IVOR B