Soldiers And More

THIS season brings us the biographies of four great soldiers, two of whom, Lyautey and Leonard Wood, rose to be proconsuls, and one of whom, Grant, climbed or was pushed to the Presidency, whereas only Phil Sheridan remained the warrior throughout. He may have been the happiest man.

THERE is a sharp contrast between the wilds of Morocco and the gentle English background,and in his Lyautey (Appleton, $3.00) André Maurois has exchanged the

pointe d’ironic for a sustained note of praise and admiration. The book is a frank and genuine éloge, with no affectation of critical detachment. M. Maurois has used an artist’s privilege in accenting the picturesque and romantic note of Lyautey’s figure, but his interpretation of character is discriminating and sincere and there is always a sense of measure in his praise. Tonkin, Madagascar, Oran, and the inner mountain ranges of Morocco are strange lands to the average reader, but with a practised hand the author spares him any burdensome detail of time or place and deftly brushes in this remote landscape as a background for a spirited portrait. With equal skill he avoids the shifting intricacies of French politics, so that one’s interest is centred always upon Lyautey and the peculiar character of Lyautey’s achievement —the shortness of the period in which he brought back the pax romana to Mauretania, and the achieving of it through dexterity, shrewdness, and nerve rather than unlimited power and authority. The iron hand consisted of few troops and as little fighting as possible; and the spirit in which it was applied was revealed later on when Lyautey lay stricken with a dangerous illness. ’The Imans, with their banners, ranged themselves under the sick room and recited the Ia-el-Attif, the prayer which is spoken only when a great peril hangs over Islam.'

Best of all, the various contretemps and jealousies Lyautey had to face are dealt with philosophically and with unfailing good humor.

Hermann Hagedorn, having also a great and successful career to portray in his Leonard It nod (Harpers, $10.00), too often allows such shadows to overcast his picture. Impartiality was perhaps out of the question, but the vehemence with which he turns aside to strike back at enmity and criticism stresses the partisan note unduly. Defense and praise rather obscure the day’s work General Wood was accomplishing, and at times the author crowds the latter off the stage.

Leonard Wood is no brilliant sketch, but a detailed and well-documented eulogy; very justly the author recognized that his subject was worthy of devoted labor. He has sought out a host of General Wood’s friends and colleagues, has had opened to him a mass of private letters and memoranda, and above all has had the guidance of Wood’s own very substantial diary. These sources together give a noteworthy body of evidence, call vividly to mind the high place he held in the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations. The letters between Elihu Root and Wood are perhaps the most interesting contribution; it is not common to find, at a critical period and in the most critical posts, two men ‘that do both act and know.’ Thanks to these two, the straightening out of Cuba became one of the most creditable passages in our history. The Fates then changed, but in 1917, despite all, Wood achieved in the Officers Training Camps one of the things that did most to turn the scale between failure and success.

One regrets that Wood’s diary and letters have not been quoted more freely. Always straight to the point, they show a mind thoroughly absorbed by the work in hand, gripping promptly the larger issues, but curiously patient over trifles. They are never querulous or complaining, and the absence of any note of egotism is most striking. At some future time we may see them published in their entirety.

Sheridan (Houghton Mifflin, $4.00), by way of contrast, was a battles soldier pure and simple, and Joseph Hergesheimer’s excursion into military history is evidence of the fascination the Civil War may arouse even in this later generation. His task has its difficulties: Sheridan’s rôle, however brilliant, was usually but one part of campaigns laid out by others, and a general exposition records many things with which Sheridan himself had little to do. The author is keenly interested in the details of battle; but as to style and arrangement they are set forth with a formlessness that is almost disarming. He offers a minimum of comment or appreciation of his own, but occasionally one comes upon a colorful detail characteristic of the not-so-simple Sheridan. After Five Forks, ’General Sheridan lay on the ground with a saddle for pillow, beside a roaring fire, sending orders and receiving reports, and explaining the battle to a reporter from the New York World. The reporter, writing rapidly, sent out an account that in the London Illustrated, News was regarded as a model for war correspondence.’

In The Rise of U. S. Grant, by Colonel A. L. Conger (Century, $5.00), the familiar canvas of the Civil War is examined with a fresh vision, from flic standpoint of a modern Staff Officer, and with no little pleasure we find Grant emerging from the scrutiny with a still clearer and greater right to his laurels. With no jargon of military doctrine or theory, the author proceeds to this task, as a clear-headed pragmatist, applying a case system of criticism to the tasks Grant actually had to face. Few military biographies will prove so acceptable to the general reader: all technical details and all the mechanism of campaign and battle are rigorously subordinated to the idea being followed out; nowhere is the thread of idea lacking, and at every stage there is the least possible restatement of familiar and known facts. An outstanding book, it will take its place as a permanent and essential contribution to one of the most important periods of our history.

It was in the campaigns in the West that Grant served his battle apprenticeship and experienced the tests of successive stages of command. In tracing this development the author makes clear what is so rarely realized: that as the commands increase in size, ‘the task changes not only in complexity but in kind.’ This essential point of appreciation inspires the final survey of the campaigns in the East — four brilliant chapters which to many readers will be the crowning interest of the book.

’But when Lee came to fight Grant, the charm was broken. The reason why, Lee never understood; and he never was able to penetrate Grant’s plans or moves. The reason was that, while Lee was fighting only the Army of the Potomac, Grant was not fighting Lee merely; his vision was a much broader one: he was fighting the Confederacy — Lee was merely one of the many obstacles standing in the way of restoration of the Union.’

THOMAS H. THOMAS