The World Crisis, 1911-1914, By Winston Churchill, C. H, "Lhornton, Butterworth Ltd. 30/- net.
It seemed that we waited a long time for this book. Now that it has at last appeared we apprehend many of the reasons of the apparent delay; and also we understand why, even now. it cannot he the complete explanation we need of the many facts' and ocecurtences which puzzled us at the beginning of the war. The whole truth of the origin and conduct of the war cannot be known to our generation. It is questionable whether it can e' be completely known. Future historious, freed from partisan and even from patriotic bias as they may be, will still have i. task of tremendous difficulty in elucidating the truth from the records of our day. This book will be one of the most important of those records. But it will be viewed then under a searching white light such as cannot shine upon it to-day. In future revaluations, many of our present-day certainties and faiths will appear not only futile, but wrong and untrue: and these wil! be applied equally to the emanations of patriotic fervour and to those of the immediate postwar ennui, The results of these future revaluations we cannot antici The interest of Mr. Churchil book for us was that it is the long-awaited defence of his own part in our government's actions immediately preceding the war and conduct of it during its first year. As such, es has been said, it cannot at this time be complete. If the book had appeared earlier this would have been a cause of profound disappointment. Now, however. it must. be admitted we are not so deeply interested in the author': defence as we were when his actions were so batedly condemned, or praised, as being the ruin, or the saving, of vital posi-) tions or what not. This is not to; say that the book appears too late or is not as valuable now would have boom had it been} written immediately after the close of Mr. Churchill's reign as First Sea Lord. It is an essential contribution to the history of the war. But it is only natural that we should by now be much more interested in the curing of auc material and spiritual wounds than in an analysis of the manner
why a book like C. G. Masterman's which we came by them. This is
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.