td,' London.
B80. Ernest Benn, As the man who developed the British Machine Gun Corps and subsequently played a large part in rnt|the development and use, of the tank, Brigadier-General Baker-Carr holds a unique position as a pioneer of the modern style of mechanized warfare, His ideas were at no time popular with his colleagues of more "regular" type and he makes no bones of the fact that he had to struggle and scheme constantly to surmount maddening obstacles. to-day the average Military 'Bind still shies' at the substitution of men ty machinery. More and more the army becomes mechanized, in spite of opposition in high places. Nothing stands still in this worl except the Military Mind, which steadfastly refuses to look ahead, until it suddenly finds itself involved in a new conflict, having Tearned nothing, having forgotten nothing. In 1914, it still was thinking in terms of the Boer War; at the beginning of the Boer War, it thought in terms of the Crimea; at the beginning of the Crimea, it thought in terms of Waterco, Over and over again, CGoneral Baker-Carr was confronted with the well-worn path of tradition, and his numerous scrambles away' from it kept him well pricked by, the thorns of official hedges. He admits that at tines he became so despondent that he nearly "threw in his hand, yet in this bock ko manifests an enthusiasm which gives ample explanation of why he kept on, Only the book itself can afford a clear view of the troubles the supporters of machine guns and tanks had in winning their way to Army favour. Clear exposition of ths two weapons is given, with explanation oft! rong points and their weaknesses. General Baker-Carr and his companions were hindered in their initial work into their own prearranged schemes without regard for expert knowledge. A great deal more than half of their struggle appears to have been on behalf of a fair trial for these two different and specialized mechan isms Eventually they-got it, and won their points, General Baker-Carr's scope of vision went much farther than his own personal and immediate prolems, ard his book is full of generalized observations interesting.
the military reader and the layman alike. "He is particularly critical of the G.H.Q. tendency to attribute importance to territorial losses and gains of no real con-Jequence. Of one typ? of advance "Unless some tactical advantage, the acquisition of high was secured by this a pat up, ions wer led and, possibly, a nasty little salient created. The old Somme battlefield, for instance, a shell-pitted,. desolate wilderness f:2m Bapaume to Albert, could bz of no real value to either side. By all means let us inflict on the enemy a_maxiumm of casualties in his efforts to capture it, but do not let
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.