A Curious Fifth Army Story By A. J. Cummings.
"Ing Fura Anwy in Marci, 1918." By Walter Shaw Sparrow. With an introduction by Sir Hubert Gough. Third Edition, Ihe Bodley Head. 7s, 6d, net.
In spite of its frank bias, its overstatements and its pugnacity of expression Mr. Shaw Spar: row's book remains the best account yet written of the great disaster which overtook British arms on the Somme in the early spring of 1918.
1 It is true, as the author points out in his preface to the third edition, that since the publication of the book the Fifth Army has not been attacked -with the old unfairness, and there is now auch better appreciation in this country of the problems which General Gough had two face, and of the skill and courage with which his troops as a whol met their fate. The new preface does not add much to cur knowledge of the facts. It amplifies and emphasizes some facts not clearly understood, and it re turus with rather irritating insistence to the now familiar comparisons between the conduct of the Third and Fifth Armies during the critical period.
There is a personal allusion in the preface of such piquancy as to be worth quoting in full. The author notes that Foch heard so many wrong things "from British rear-leaders" about the Fifth Army and its.commander that as soon as he was raised by the Doullens \Conference to supreme gem-gathering in Ceylon, the command he made haste to treat Gough was ete., and a number of book re- warned that Foch intended to Visit him, and was in his office j attending to the battle's urgent affairs, with his C.G.S., when Foch arrived.
"Why are you in your office and not out with your troops"'
asked Foch in a tone so impericus that the C.G.S. grew hot with anger.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.