:£1 1s.J, who writes an account of the fortunes of the Fifth Army in ithe first week of the German offend sive in 1918, adopts a controversial tone of some asperity, and has not, the gift of bringing out the salient {facts. His object is to vindicate the Fifth Army and General Gough i(who writes an introduction), and to wipe out some scores against General Byng and the Third Army, which was on the left of the Fifth, land also against Mr. Lloyd George. His grievance against. the Third lanny is that, though it had more en om a shoner front, the offi-jai despatches let it down much more lightly, and, indeed, lay the blame for its retreat on the Fifth. That is not a profitable line of controversy, but it is fair to agree that the success of the German attacks in the Bullecourt sector of Byng's Army had just as much to ido with his retirement on and beyond Bapaume as the defeats of the Fifth Army. It is clear, too, from the facts eet out by Mr. Sparrow that the resistance offerd by the Fifth Army was more vigorous and! substantial than_was supposed at the time. Mr. Sparrow's best point, perhaps, is that the scratch force under Carey, of whose excellent work Mr. Lloyd George had so much to say, was not organized by Carey, but by Gough. 'Carey, it seems, was away on leave. Even more remarkable was the scratch' force raised by Little, the colonel of the Fifth Borderers. He was travelling home on leave in the Jakes when, on the third day of the offensive, he gathered from a mention of Hargicourt that his own battalion was in action. He immediately returned, and two days afterwards was at Corbie on the Somme, where he gathered together some 600 stragglers and miscellaneous troops and set. out for Harbonnieres, and there relieved a Lancashire battalion at, dusk. Some of the achievements of this scratch force and of another raised by Capiain Kingham were transferred to Carey's force. what valuable books, if any, they} The principal grievance of Gen-possess. and see to it that such books are properly looked after, and not left to get torn or dirty. And finally one word of wordly advice: Remember that ultimately the literary and pecuniary value of any author are bound to be in 'a reasonable mutual relation, so Jet the reader use his critical faculty and sell off his "duds" while their boom lasts! eral Gough, that he was given too few men for the work that he had to do, is substantial. "It may well jhe desirable," said a document from G.H.Q. dated February 5, and quoted by Mr. Shaw Sparrow, into fall back to the rearward defences of Péronne and the Somme While linking up with the Third british Army to the north and preparing for counter-attack." It was
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.